Brightness Falls from the Air

Thanks to one of those mistakes, Wednesday, October 5, 1960, was almost the last day in history. On that day, a group of business people were visiting the North American Defense Command headquarters deep under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. They watched, fascinated, as a panel that was supposed to show the likelihood of nuclear attack lit up. They had just been told that, of the five lights on the panel, if the first flashed, it meant only routine objects were in the air. If the second flashed, it meant a few unidentified objects, but nothing terribly suspicious. And so on. If the fifth flashed, it was quite likely that hostile objects were on course for America. Then the panel lights lit up: one, two, three. When the number rose to four, Washington and Ottawa were alerted and generals came running from their offices. Then the fifth light lit up. The ballistic missile early warning system in Thule, Greenland, had picked up signals that computers analyzed as missiles inbound from Russia.

The gaping visitors were hustled off to a side office to endure twenty minutes of absolute terror, while their military prepared for the final war. The United States Strategic Air Command went to full ready, and air crews all over the world prepared to scramble.

Still, something didn't make sense. By now the early warning radars in Greenland were showing more missiles in flight than the Soviet Union had in its entire arsenal. A Canadian air marshal finally contacted officers at the Greenland base, who reported that their new warning system was flawed. They had been unable to warn anyone because an iceberg had cut their submarine communications cable. The enormous flight of missiles their radars detected turned out to be the radar reflection of the moon, which was just rising over the horizon.

Twenty years later, on Tuesday, June 3, 1980, Strategic Air Command's displays showed that two sea-launched ballistic missiles had just been fired at America. Eighteen seconds later, the displays showed more launches. A short time later, displays showed that Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles had also been launched toward America. After another interval, the U.S. National Military Command Center confirmed that submarine-launched ballistic missiles were heading toward America.

As many as twenty million Americans were about to die within twenty minutes. All across the world, airplanes and submarines were readied, crews were briefed, and missile safety interlocks were disengaged. The American military prepared, once again, to fight the final war.

Again, something clearly wasn't right. Neither the ground radar nor the satellite warning systems, which were capable of picking up a metal baseball eight thousand kilometers away, showed any missiles en route to America. Unable to confirm that the attack wasn't the fever dream of an overimaginative computer, the military called off the alert. Three days later, it happened again. Six minutes into the alert, computer engineers discovered a faulty chip that was causing the false alarm, and everyone stood down from ready.

Three years later, President Reagan delivered his Star Wars speech and launched the Strategic Defense Initiative. He alleged that the nation's scientists could create a nuclear umbrella for America, an umbrella that would, he said, destroy any future missile attack. Many computer professionals, knowing that any such nuclear umbrella would be unworkable without amazingly error-free computer hardware and software, simply laughed outright. But the money kept coming in buckets---and we all have to eat.

Money, Money, Money