March 6, 2021 • 40 mins
Today on the pod, we're heading into Cold War territory and discussing how close we came to World War 3 in 1983. We'll tell the story of the time one man held the fate of the world in his hands when he was only fifty percent sure he was right. Follow us on instagram or Twitter for pictures and don't forget to watch the documentary-drama of this story on Amazon Prime Video.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07DVVKFTW/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/18/551792129/stanislav-petrov-the-man-who-saved-the-world-dies-at-77
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17905796/nuclear-war-1983-stanislav-petrov-soviet-union
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
AJ (00:00):
Well, welcome back once again to the stories, we forgot
Pearl (00:04):
history with the Hursts
AJ (00:06):
history, with the Hursts.
That is my lovely wife, PearlHurst.
Pearl (00:10):
That's my charming and debonair husband.
AJ Hurst.
AJ (00:14):
Hey guys, this is episode 10 of the pod.
Can we have a brief moment ofsilence for episode 10?
Pearl (00:22):
I don't, I don't know if you can do a moment of silence
on a podcast.
Feel like that defeats thepurpose of.
AJ (00:28):
Okay.
I kind of wanted to test thebounds and see how long
Pearl (00:31):
of a silent on the podcast
AJ (00:33):
before it gets really awkward.
Pearl (00:34):
It's getting I'm already awkward.
Okay.
(00:55):
What are you drinking?
AJ Hurst.
AJ (00:57):
Well, this morning I went real wild and crazy.
Okay.
Have you got up and you madepancakes.
For the entire family, which Ididn't think you were serious,
but you did it.
So I kind of felt like a bit ofa pancake day.
I was working late, so I had atiny little snack of some milk
(01:18):
and a slice of cheese when I gothome at about 1:00 AM.
And so I felt like I should havesome, some real breakfast this
morning in the morning.
It was, it was delicious too.
Pearl (01:28):
I think eating cheese is supposed to give you bad dreams.
Huh?
It's like an old wives tale.
Don't eat cheese before bed orsomething gives you bad dreams
is a really weird.
No, no.
I mean, it's like a thing.
I mean, I'm a wife, so I wouldknow these things.
You guys slept quite well.
Not being an old one.
AJ (01:44):
I am not an old wife, nor am I a young wife.
Okay.
I don't, I'm trying.
I feel like I, I don't think Ihad any dreams last night, so.
Okay.
Old wives, tale, debunked.
Pearl (01:56):
All right.
You heard it here.
That's a myth.
That's that's gonna be the nextsegment on our podcast.
We're going to be debunking oldwives tales.
Ooh.
So like MythBusters,MythBusters, but no science.
AJ (02:10):
Yeah, basically, basically
Pearl (02:14):
by non historians.
It's fitting.
It's very fitting.
AJ (02:18):
I feel like, I feel like debunking old wives tales could
be actually a bit of a dangerousendeavor.
Cause there's some
Pearl (02:24):
really random ones there really is.
Yeah.
I feel like we'll be like,
AJ (02:28):
I dunno, sticking stuff in our ears or something.
Pearl (02:31):
No, I will never do that.
AJ (02:33):
You got to make the sacrifice in the name.
Pearl (02:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
It's not a YouTube channel.
We don't have to do crazy stuffto make people like us.
AJ (02:42):
I mean it might help.
Pearl (02:44):
No, it wouldn't help my self esteem.
It would help our kids.
They would like us.
It would be very entertained.
Yes.
AJ (02:50):
So with the pancakes this morning,
Pearl (02:53):
yeah.
W what were you drinking?
I had
AJ (02:55):
some great, it was my own blend, custom custom blended
coffee.
Okay.
Have some organic Starbucks,winter blend, fancy mixed with
some organic.
Mayorga dark roast.
Pearl (03:10):
I think it was a dark roast.
Yeah.
AJ (03:11):
It's it's pretty dark.
So I
Pearl (03:13):
kinda like to try to do a little bit, yes.
Costco.
Yes.
AJ (03:17):
All from Costco
Pearl (03:18):
on sale.
Don't judge us.
We're just creatures of habit.
We don't like spending a lot ofmoney on coffee,
AJ (03:24):
some delicious maple syrup and a raw
Pearl (03:28):
milk splash raw milk contact.
AJ (03:30):
Yes.
It's some very delicious coffee,especially after the pancakes.
Yeah.
Pearl (03:35):
So what are you drinking?
Well today I'm drinking fancytea.
I'm drinking actually some teathat was recommended to me by
Jason and Renee, because itsupposedly is I think Jason said
it was similar to coffee, soit's a very, it's a very robust
tea.
Don't.
No comment.
(03:56):
I'm not sure I would go thatfar.
It's a really robust tea.
This tea is called queenCatherine by Harney and sons.
And it's just a really rich,robust without being super
astringent.
I think a lot of teas tend toget a stringent as they get more
robust, kind of like an Irishbreakfast or English breakfast
or something like that.
(04:16):
But this one's just really richand smooth and.
Add a splash of milk, a littlebit of maple syrup.
Okay.
So yeah, enjoying some nice tea.
It's a beautiful day.
All the kids are outside.
AJ (04:28):
Yeah, it is beautiful weather out.
And one of the great thingsabout the weather warming up
getting nicer is I can get backto smoking
Pearl (04:38):
meat, meat, not cigarettes on the
grill
AJ (04:41):
last yesterday, not lately.
Last night yesterday, we did asmoked beef heart pastrami.
Pearl (04:48):
Yeah.
So this, this was kind of, thiswas an unusual one.
When we got our side of beef,like I said, last podcast, I
think there was a giant beefheart, a beef heart is a giant
thing.
So it's so big, so big.
So I kind of wanted to dosomething unusual with it.
And at first I started out justdry carrying it, but then the
(05:10):
more I looked up recipes, Irealized that a lot of people
have been A lot of people giveit a pastrami treatment.
So they it's a wet pastrami as awet brine.
And the purpose of the wet brineis then to bring moisture in
moisture and flavor into themeat lean.
AJ (05:28):
I mean, there's
Pearl (05:29):
just no fat marbling in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Hart typically has a slightlymetallic flavor.
There's high levels of iron init.
Yeah.
So anyways we gave it a goodsoak and a pastrami brine, and
that kind of helped to balanceout the flavors.
We do, some of that metallicOregon flavor, and it just kind
(05:50):
of tasted like a super leanreally lean steak.
AJ (05:54):
Yeah, well, texture's still a tiny bit off, so we thin
sliced it and had it with,
Pearl (06:00):
we smoked it after the brine, then we smoked it, but we
only smoked it to like 145degrees.
So it was not dried out at all.
Yeah.
But it had a nice smoke flavorto it.
Yeah.
Very smoky.
I
AJ (06:11):
didn't, I don't think there was much metallic place.
Pearl (06:14):
No, I don't think so.
I think for me, Oregon meat issuch a mind over matter thing.
Like it tastes delicious.
But you can't have too much.
I have too much.
It's a very in it.
And it's really rich somehow.
It's richer than if you werejust eating steak.
Yeah.
So we did last year.
Loved it though.
Loved it.
Yeah.
So last night we did violet madesome bread and we had, we just
(06:37):
kind of like a, like charcuterieplatter at the table with bread
and cheese and meat.
And.
It was good us and stuff.
Yeah.
That was really good.
I think, I think definitely.
We'll definitely try that againif we get a heart again.
So yeah, we will definitely get
AJ (06:58):
hard again.
Pearl (06:59):
I kind of, so today on the pod, we're going to be
talking about an event thathappened this day on this day in
history.
Yes, we're going to be readinganother excerpt from Tom
Reynold's book, making adifference.
And we're going to be talkingabout the man who saved the
world.
AJ (07:19):
Oh, you're going on that one?
Huh?
Pearl (07:22):
Do you know what I'm talking about?
AJ (07:24):
Well, is it the movie you were watching last night?
Yeah, I went to work.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm very curious.
Obviously I didn't get
Pearl (07:31):
it.
Yeah.
AJ (07:32):
All right, here's a 100 word story from Tom Reynolds.
This is about Oliver Hill ofRichmond, Virginia.
Graduating second in the Howardlaw school class of 1933 behind
the legendary Thurgood Marshallwas Oliver Hill in 1940 Hill won
(07:52):
his first civil rights case.
Davis vs County school, board ofPrince Edward County, Virginia.
As a result, he and his familyhad to live under the constant
threat of violence courageously.
He maintained his practice.
He and his partners filed arecord number of civil rights
cases in Virginia.
In 1999, he was awarded thepresidential medal of freedom, a
(08:15):
sane attributed to him.
His quote when day is done,greet the Dawn and not the
setting sun.
Hmm.
That's a little blip about allof her Hill.
That's cool.
Sounds like a very courageousand a cool guy.
Yeah.
Never heard of him fromRichmond, Virginia.
Okay.
Not too far from us.
Yeah.
All
Pearl (08:34):
right.
Local story for you.
Yeah.
AJ (08:37):
Shall I roll right into this day in history?
Pearl (08:41):
History?
Yes.
Round of applause.
AJ (08:45):
On this day, March 5th, 1770, the Boston massacre.
It actually is
Pearl (08:55):
March 5th.
AJ (08:56):
Yes.
So this is,
Pearl (08:59):
I feel like it was really cold in Boston.
And this happened like wintery.
Yes.
AJ (09:04):
You're kind of stealing my thunder.
Oh,
Pearl (09:05):
sorry.
Sorry.
AJ (09:06):
Go ahead.
On the cold snowy night of March5th, 1770, a mob of American
colonists gather at the customshouse in Boston and began
taunting the British soldiersguarding the building.
This is considered by
Pearl (09:21):
where's this from.
The history channel.
Oh, the history channel.
Okay.
AJ (09:25):
Which is just history.com.
The protesters who calledthemselves Patriots were
protesting the occupation oftheir city by British troops who
were sent there in 1768 toenforce unpopular taxation
measures passed by a Britishparliament without any American
representation.
Right.
(09:46):
So.
What happens is these Patriotprotesters are taunting.
The British soldiers, theBritish captain orders, his men
to fix their bayonets, whichmeans let's get serious about
this.
Right.
And joined the guard outside thebuilding.
The colonists respond bythrowing snowballs and other
(10:09):
objects at the British regularsand private human Gumtree was
hit.
Leading him to discharge hisrifle at the crowd.
This causes all the othersoldiers to begin firing.
And when the smoke clears fivecolonists were dead or dying,
those include Crispus addicts,Patrick car, Samuel Gray, Samuel
(10:31):
Maverick, and James Caldwell,and three, three more were
injured.
Many historians regard thesefive men as the first fatalities
in the American revolutionarywar.
Wow.
So this was a pretty big turningpoint.
It was, you know, used as a,kind of a call to arms.
Paul Revere made an engraving ofthe incident.
You know, I don't think we knowhow entirely accurate this
(10:55):
engraving one is it shows theBritish soldiers lined up like
an infantry just firing on thiscrowd of Patriots.
But yeah, it was a real call toarms, to real, to kind of help
spur the American revolutionarywar.
Yeah.
Pearl (11:11):
Yeah, the, an interesting little, random little fact about
that story is that it's widelybelieved that Crispus addicts
was the first person killed infoundationary war and he was a
black man.
So it wasn't, it wasn't knownwhether or not he was a free man
or an escaped slave, but yeah.
(11:31):
Trivia for you there.
AJ (11:32):
Oh, follow up on that.
John Adams and Josiah Quincyagreed to defend the soldiers.
These were popular Patriotsleader, Patriots, right?
They were trying to support thecolonial justice system.
So, I mean, they were kind oflike, we may not like these
guys, but we're at least goingto enforce the rule of law.
Two British soldiers were foundguilty of manslaughter and their
(11:54):
punishment was they had theletter M branded on their thumbs
M for murder.
As their punishment was brandedon their thumbs.
That's a colonial justice foryou.
Pearl (12:07):
That doesn't seem like the punch and fits the crime.
Isn't that really weird?
That's so random.
AJ (12:14):
That's just what it has in this history channel article.
So I don't know if there wasmore to it or exactly what,
Pearl (12:21):
but.
An M Brandon on their thumbs.
I mean, it sounds reallypainful.
I'm sure.
There's probably like some oldlore of like, how did thumbs up
get started?
Oh, it was actually started toshow up somewhere whether or not
you were a murderer.
Right?
Probably.
I mean, there's all sorts ofrandom stuff like that, where
you find out why, why do we givesomeone a thumbs up?
That's pretty good for right offthe top of your head.
(12:41):
I'm just guessing.
But you know, yeah.
So next
AJ (12:44):
time you give someone a thumbs up, just be glad it's not
branded with a giant M.
Pearl (12:50):
Yes, that sounds really awkward.
It was like an awkward way tohave an interaction.
AJ (12:56):
Okay.
Onto you for the story about theman who
Pearl (13:00):
saved and the yeah.
You saved the world.
So this one is, I mean, I'venever heard of this story.
But it seems fairly significant.
Yeah.
World history.
Well, if he saved the world, hesaves the world.
So on September 26th, 1983stanislav Petrov was a
(13:23):
Lieutenant Colonel in the Sovietair defense forces.
He was the duty officer tocommand center for their nuclear
early warning system.
I knew it had to do with news itsure did.
And it was his responsibility toverify incoming nuclear attacks
and escalate them up the chainof the command in time for the
Soviet union to react.
AJ (13:44):
That's like the kind of job that you really hope is
Pearl (13:47):
boring, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm
AJ (13:51):
just, I'm just thinking, like, obviously that's a very,
very important job, but you alsobasically sit around and do
Pearl (13:59):
nothing.
Yeah, absolutely.
Basically your entire job issaying everything.
Good.
Cool.
Everything's good.
Yeah.
It's like
AJ (14:06):
those, those scifi movies where they show the guy who's
like sitting in the giantantenna room, waiting for
incoming signals from space.
And then all of a sudden hestarts getting something and he
like has to wake himself up and.
You know, shake the lid out sohe could be like, Hey, there's
actually something happeningafter five years of sitting here
doing
Pearl (14:24):
nothing.
Well, yeah, that's what washappening with Stanislav Petrov.
So this is, this is towards theend of the cold war and it was
an incredibly, incredibly tenseseason between the Soviet union
and the United States.
Yes.
Three weeks earlier.
(14:46):
The Soviet union had shot down aBoeing passenger plane with 269
people on board killing all ofthem.
Whoa,
AJ (14:56):
wait, where was the plane from?
Pearl (14:58):
It was flying from Seoul, South Korea to Anchorage,
Alaska.
Whoa.
So it's a Korean airlinesflight, but.
I've
AJ (15:09):
I feel like I need to know more about
Pearl (15:11):
that story, but yeah.
So at the time of the event, theplane was leaving soul South
Korea and heading for Anchorage,Alaska, and it accidentally
strayed into Soviet airspace.
The pilots made some, somecalculation errors in the route
and they accidentallystraightened a Soviet airspace.
Mistaking it for us spy plane.
And especially since itcoincided with the us
(15:33):
reconnaissance mission, theSoviets decided to take action.
So at that time, Wes waspractically practicing
psychological tactics ofintimidation.
And what they would do is theywould send a squadron of planes
flying right for the Sovietunion.
Part on their border.
And then at the last second,they would veer off just messing
(15:56):
with them.
And it was just like a crazygame of chicken.
That's exactly what I was goingto say.
Crazy game of chicken.
Yeah.
So they're basically just kindof like trying to intimidate the
SU we're basically just tryingto intimidate the Soviet with a
AJ (16:11):
chicken with apocalyptic.
Yep.
Pearl (16:13):
Right.
I know greasy so crazy.
So when a plane, when anunidentified plane enters the
Soviet airspace, they're readyto react.
They fired several warningshots.
But which were likely not seenby the civilian pilots or
misinterpreted, but civilianpilots they shot the plane down.
(16:34):
So yeah, Ronald Reagan is thepresident at the time and he's
just kinda like.
How did
AJ (16:39):
we not have world war three?
I mean, there's just, when youlook back at that time, world
war three, there were so manyinstances where
Pearl (16:46):
we were.
Yeah.
So not being, I'm not a Anexpert on the cold war.
It's not my specialtyspecifically, but basically it
was an incredibly tense seasonbetween
AJ (16:59):
two nuclear
Pearl (17:00):
superpowers, two nuclear superpowers, basically playing a
game of arming up and wheneverthe U S would move move nuclear.
Strike zones or add in newplaces they could strike from
them.
The Soviet union would, and theywere basically just trying to
like stay neck and neck andnobody on either side wanted to
(17:25):
start a nuclear war.
But the whole thing with nuclearpower is you want to be able to
respond.
If someone bombs you first.
Right.
And so they were both just, theykept both upping the ante and it
was kind of born out of thisincredibly tense relationship
they had during world war twowhere the us and Russia actually
(17:48):
worked together.
But then there was a lot ofthat.
It was, it was a really, reallyuneasy.
Alliance and Russia felt likethe United States put them at
the front lines in a lot ofbattles and very, very long
drawn out thing.
Because now we're talking about1983, right.
The cold war was very, very,very long and it covered several
(18:10):
actual Wars, like the Koreanwar.
So thank you for that
AJ (18:14):
little primer on.
Yeah.
Pearl (18:17):
Right.
So the Soviet leaders.
Believed at the time that theUnited States was preparing a
secret nuclear attack.
So not only do they believe thatthe United States is getting
ready to blow them tosmithereens.
But now they've just had a usplane fly into their airspace
that they bombed down.
They shot down accidentally.
(18:38):
Yeah, it wasn't an accident, butyou know, they, they didn't know
what it was.
So now they're just ready forretribution.
And everyone is incrediblytense.
This is the environment thatPetrov is working with on
September 26, 1983.
So he's working the night shiftand so I
AJ (18:55):
guess it's not really that boring of a job.
Pearl (18:58):
No, it's an incredibly tense job.
So he is
AJ (19:02):
like, the fate of your entire country
Pearl (19:03):
is in your hands.
Right?
Right.
So last night I found a movieabout him.
It's, it's actually a docu-dramaavailable on Amazon prime.
It's called the man who savedthe world.
Oh yeah.
And so the docu-drama, has itstars him as an old man?
(19:24):
And he's kind of relaying hisaccount and then it has like
dramatized flashbacks, okay.
To show, you know, what washappening.
So he shows up for work and heis in charge of this entire
secret nuclear detection site.
Okay.
So everyone is workingunderneath him all the
(19:47):
different.
Infrastructures that they havefor checking to verify if a
nuclear, if an armed warhead iscoming towards is being fired
off by United States.
So he's in charge of.
Basically making the decision,is this real or not, and then
informing the higher ups andthen they make, you know, then
(20:08):
they follow up with anairstrike.
Oh yeah.
AJ (20:10):
That sounds like a really rough position
Pearl (20:13):
to be in.
Bob is basically, he's not theone pushing the red button, but
he's the one telling the one whopushes the red button, whether
or not he should push the redbutton.
Right.
So, I mean, in a lot of ways,the buck stops with him.
Yeah, absolutely stopped withhim a massive, massive amount of
responsibility.
And he he said that one of thethings that really shaped that
(20:34):
really shaped him and hisdecisions on this night where
the fact that he was not aprotocol guy.
So.
What do you mean by that?
Well, protocol in the Sovietunion for his task was when he
sees something and it's verifiedthe way it should be.
He reports it immediately.
(20:56):
There's no second guessing.
There's no gut instinct.
There's no nothing.
And he ignored protocol on thisnight and it saved the lives of
millions of people.
Oh my
AJ (21:07):
goodness.
I mean, Retrospect good for him.
But Holy smokes
Pearl (21:12):
to, if he had been wrong, he would have been dead either
way.
Yeah, that's true.
One way or another, he was goingto be dead.
Yeah.
So he he's, he goes in, startsto shift.
And then the computer.
Screen pops up, you know, he'sin this big command center.
He's up in like the viewingbooth, watching everyone happy,
(21:34):
watching everyone do their job.
Oh yes.
I'm
AJ (21:36):
picturing it with 1983 technology right
Pearl (21:38):
now.
Yeah.
It's pretty awesome.
I'll have to show you the littleclip.
Oh yeah.
Somewhere about, I think it'sabout 30 minutes into the movie
is when the drama dictation ofthe actual event occurs.
Okay.
And it's about, I don't know, 20minutes, half an hour or
something.
The whole movie is about twohours.
I did not watch the whole movie.
Okay.
But because it started to justAF after the event happened,
(22:01):
then he deals with the death ofhis wife.
And I didn't feel like watchingthat.
So so what happened was he'swatching the screen and all of a
sudden the screen lights up andit shows there is an incoming
nuke.
There's an armed warhead comingfrom the United States.
And he asked everyone to verify,and they're all like
(22:23):
everything's verified at thehighest level.
All the computer systems areverifying each other and cross
referencing each other.
This is 100% of fact.
He asks the last level ofverification they have is
visual.
Verification the problem.
Is that the place where the, howdo you visually verify?
(22:44):
Well, when, when a missilelaunches,
AJ (22:47):
this is
Pearl (22:47):
just my ignorance, right?
When a missile launches we'retalking about essentially a
massive rocket shooting off.
Shooting out of it's holding acell in the ground somewhere in
the United States.
Okay.
Yeah.
So huge explosion, huge flarelight heat from the flare.
Okay.
So he's, he has the last levelof D of double checking is
(23:08):
asking for a visual and the guyswho are watching.
For visuals with the satellitesthey don't see anything, but
they're like, but it's nighttimeover there.
So we don't know if we could seeanything or not in a visual
visibility's really bad.
So we can't say yes or no eitherway.
And he's just like on pins andneedles, you know, he's dripping
sweat.
He's got to tell, he's got totell them, because is it a nuker
(23:32):
isn't an, a nuke, are they allgonna die?
And he eventually over thecourse of, you know, like
several.
My numbing moments of secondguessing he decided, right.
AJ (23:42):
It's not like you've got a lot of time
Pearl (23:44):
to dwell on adds that it's a false alarm, because he
thinks that the, he doesn'tfully trust the computer system.
So he thinks maybe there'ssomething wrong with the
computer system.
And he says his, his certaintyis about 50, 50.
Oh, so he calls the higher upsbecause they already know about
it.
(24:04):
And he says it's a false alarm.
And then within two minutes ofthe first nuke appearing on the
screen over the next fiveminutes for me or others show
up, Oh my God.
All headed towards Soviet unioncoming from the United States.
AJ (24:24):
I, I can't imagine being in this guy's position because you
know, if it, if it's real, yes,you need to, you know, in their
mind they need to retaliate andfire off their own.
But if it's a false alarm, nowyou're the one giving the go
(24:45):
ahead to start all out nuclearwar.
Pearl (24:48):
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
So there's a couple of things,things that occur to him, he
thinks to himself, if the UnitedStates was going to attack us,
they would not send fivemissiles.
He's fairly certain.
And all of the training has beenthat if the United States
attacks them, it's going to bean all-out nuclear war.
They're going to send everyone.
Okay.
Well, I was wondering that.
Yeah, so he thinks to himself,like, would it really just be
(25:10):
one?
This doesn't seem like what wehave been trained to expect.
And then he feels like it passedthrough the layers of
verification and the computersystem too quickly.
So he's just got those twothings, a gut feeling that the
United States was not, would nothave started out with five
missiles and the computer systemprocessed at too quickly.
It was like, the process was alittle bit too perfect for him.
(25:33):
Sure.
Everything's working together.
Everything's perfect.
No errors, no anomalies, noinconsistencies.
Okay.
So he's and.
The, the guys on visual have notseen anything yet.
And they should by the time thefifth missile comes through,
they still it's, it's an, anarea with daylight.
It's further over towards theEast coast and they can't see it
(25:54):
either.
I still haven't seen it.
Yeah.
AJ (25:57):
I mean, probably amazing that at this point, I'm assuming
he's probably a bit of a oldschool guy at the time.
So they probably, I don't
Pearl (26:06):
think he was super old.
Well,
AJ (26:09):
Technology would have been so new at that point.
It's my thinking.
Maybe he's just kind of had some
Pearl (26:14):
distrust, right?
Yeah.
AJ (26:17):
Some, some kind
Pearl (26:18):
of innate distrust, lingering distrust for
technology at the time.
Yeah.
So so he is just like sweatingbullets and the only thing he
can think to himself is that ifhe says yes, so many people are
gonna die.
100% because that's a for surething.
He knows.
He knows for a fact that theguys up up from him and the
(26:42):
chain of command will notquestion his decision.
Right?
He is the professional here.
He's the one looking at all thefacts.
And he knows that if he, if hetells them there's five nukes
headed here, they're going tounleash the fury of the Soviet
union on the United States andthey're primed and ready to go.
AJ (27:02):
And it, and it would be
Pearl (27:03):
everything.
It would be everything.
Yeah.
Because the shots have alreadybeen fired.
AJ (27:09):
Let me just think about that.
Like basically probably dozensof the major cities in the us
would just be gone.
Pearl (27:18):
Yeah.
At least.
Yeah.
As soon
AJ (27:19):
as this happens,
Pearl (27:21):
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
So here's a quote from him fromBBC.
It says, he says there was norule about how long we were
allowed to think before wereported a strike, but we knew
that every second ofprocrastination took away
valuable time that the Sovietunion's military and political
leadership needed to be informedwithout delay.
All I had to do is reach for thephone to raise a direct line to
(27:41):
our top commanders, but Icouldn't move.
I felt like I was sitting in ahot frying pan.
So He's he's he just decides towait it out.
He knows that within sevenminutes of the first launch, the
missiles will be close enough tothem to be found on a radar.
And so he makes the call not toescalate this up the chain of
(28:05):
command and tell them, causehe's afraid there might be
trigger happy.
He makes the call to wait untilradar verification.
So of course, no one below him.
Is okay with this, you know,all, everyone else is like this,
the computer, everything says,this is real, what is going on?
And he's just, he's justunwilling to.
Right.
AJ (28:25):
And so that would be even more difficult, I would think,
because it would be one thing ifthere's like 50 missiles coming
your way.
And you're kind of like eitherwe fire our stuff now or not at
all, because we're just going tobe decimated.
But if it's like one.
And you're like maybe they had agoof up on their end and they
(28:46):
only got five off if we can.
Get our stuff out.
Maybe we can have the upper handin, you know, it's like, man,
there's so many thoughts anddecisions and repercussions with
this.
Pearl (29:00):
Yeah.
So they decided to wait forradar verification, which by the
time it's on radar verification,it's way too close to do
anything about it.
AJ (29:08):
I mean, do they have any.
I don't really know at thispoint.
Is there any kind of antisenseway
to
Pearl (29:14):
shoot it down?
I don't think, I don't think Ithink it's just, I think it's
just a matter of being able toreact and fire off the most and,
and maybe stop them fromcontinuing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So They just sit there and watchthe missiles come towards the
United States.
And then finally, radarverification, cyber Raider
verification, and there'snothing on the radars.
(29:36):
Nothing ever showed up.
I can't
AJ (29:38):
even imagine the feeling that everyone, and
Pearl (29:41):
at this point he's literally 50, 50, it's real, or
it isn't real.
Right.
AJ (29:47):
Those
Pearl (29:47):
aren't great pots, not great odds.
Nothing shows up on the radarand it's just like, you know,
the entire room just likedissolves in tears.
Everyone's just, yeah.
So incredibly stressed out bythis decision.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he actually was heavilyreprimanded for his actions that
night.
(30:08):
He didn't accurately fill outthe log book while this was
happening.
And I think the higher ups inthe Soviet union were
embarrassed by the massivecomputer error that happened
that could have caused world warthree.
Yeah.
And so he did not receive a lotof positive reinforcement from,
(30:29):
from this whole event.
But.
You know, previous estimates.
Yeah.
AJ (30:33):
Yeah.
I mean, what do you, what do youdo after that to try and save
face?
To try not
Pearl (30:38):
to?
Well, it was a secret, it was astate secret until after the
fall of the USSR.
Oh, sure.
AJ (30:44):
But even I'm talking about like, within the ranks of that
unit, even like, what do you do?
Do you say great job for notfollowing protocol, you saved
the world, but you didn't dowhat you were supposed to do.
Yeah.
So why do all your computers
Pearl (31:00):
mess up next time?
Yeah, they never came up with areally clear reason why that
happened.
They think that it was someglitch in the system could have
been caused by clouds and sunflare.
And I dunno some weird stufflike that.
Explanations for UFO's.
Yeah, it was UFO's.
Oh my goodness that Justin, thealiens
AJ (31:18):
are like, we're done with this.
Pearl (31:20):
Oh, gosh.
Yeah.
So well
AJ (31:22):
that, that went off the
Pearl (31:24):
rail a little bit.
Yeah.
So after it was discovered,obviously the UN and the United
States are incredibly gratefulto this ban.
When did it come out?
I think it was in the earlynineties, mid nineties,
somewhere in there.
AJ (31:37):
And do you know how it came out?
Was it.
Pearl (31:39):
Well, after the fall of the Soviet union, then it was
published in, you know, Russia,Moscow, which somehow someone
AJ (31:49):
dug into my story and was like, well, not going to get
killed if I released
Pearl (31:53):
this story now.
Yeah.
So yeah, previous estimates Tellus that if Petrov had escalated
that up, the chain of command afull-scale attack by the Soviet
union would have killed 35 to77% of the population of the
United States.
So depending on.
(32:15):
So hit factors
AJ (32:16):
hit the average
Pearl (32:16):
half, half of the States.
Yes.
Yeah.
Our resulting Counter-Strikewould have killed 20 to 40% of
the Soviet population.
The combined death toll wouldhave been anywhere between 130
to 288 million.
Wow.
It would have been more than anyother war or catastrophe in
history.
And
AJ (32:35):
those may just be.
Like immediate results
Pearl (32:39):
is immediate.
These are immediate deaths.
This is not applied to peoplewho died.
It's very probable, the millionsmore would have died afterwards
because of disruptive globaltemperatures and the resulting
famine and starvation.
AJ (32:50):
Oh yeah.
We would have been back to those
Pearl (32:52):
though.
Would have based your ever.
Yeah.
It would have been a massiveworldwide nuclear winter, and
fortunately we've neverexperienced that.
AJ (33:00):
Complete political and governmental upheaval as the
world's two super powers
Pearl (33:05):
are obliterate
AJ (33:06):
each other decimated and yeah.
It's like, who would even riseto take
Pearl (33:12):
control?
Like what will happened?
I don't want to think about it.
Yeah.
So Petrov almost single-handedlyprevented all of those deaths.
And it's really interesting towatch the the docu-drama with
him because he's an old man now.
Is he actually in it?
Yeah, he's in it.
(33:32):
Oh, the real, the real Petroffis in the docu-drama.
He died, the docu-drama was madein 2014 and he died in 2017.
Oh, so he's in it.
I
AJ (33:43):
didn't realize you meant he was actually in it.
I thought you meant like actorsportraying him as an
Pearl (33:47):
old man.
Nope.
There's an actor portraying himas a young man, but as an old
man, he is he's in it and, youknow, just kind of falling in
around.
AJ (33:55):
Okay.
Now I really want to see thisjust cause I want to see the
actual guy.
Pearl (33:58):
Yeah, it's super interesting.
I'm gonna post I'll post somepictures of him on Instagram and
Twitter and Maybe I'll post thelink to the Amazon prime movie.
It's free on prime.
And if you don't have prime,it's like 99 cents to rent.
But who doesn't have prime?
I mean, if you don't have prime,just go get it, go get PRI.
It's cheaper to rent the movie,I guess for now.
Anyways.
(34:18):
Yeah, so he is he's just, it'sit's a little bit of a sad,
well, yeah, I kind of want to.
He's just bitter about the levelof nuclear war capability that
we all have at this point.
And the fact that we couldbasically all obliterate the
(34:40):
world multiple times over
AJ (34:42):
and right.
Well, I mean, he had a front rowseat to how close we are to
just,
Pearl (34:46):
yeah, just as horrifying arms race that the world has
gone through in the last centuryof just kind of upping the ante
with each other.
And now we all have enough armsnuclear warheads to destroy the
earth multiple times over.
And those are just the ones weknow about.
And those are just the ones weknow about.
(35:07):
Hey, North Korea.
So yeah, that's the story ofStanislav Petrov.
AJ (35:13):
I, I, I'm kind of curious to maybe watch that movie, but
also.
Just investigate a little bitmore.
See what happened to him?
Pearl (35:23):
Well, nothing happened to him.
He was kind of,
AJ (35:25):
I mean, did he continue in that job?
Was he
Pearl (35:28):
got cancer and died?
And so he left to care for her?
I think he just kind of lived inthe USSR.
Yeah.
You just kind of lived inrelative and and anonymity
anonymity until the news cameout and even then it was still,
you know, it was like his lifedidn't dramatically change.
She just,
AJ (35:45):
yeah.
I mean, at that point, it's notlike, it's not like anyone's
gonna throw him a ticker-tapeparade.
They're just going to be kind oflike, Oh,
Pearl (35:52):
cool.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a massive, massivething that he did by not being.
Not being so he was, he waswilling to trust his gut in an
incredibly important decisionand to take responsibility for
it.
And I think a lot of times whenwe have a huge decision, it's
easy to kind of punt it off tosomeone else or rely on protocol
(36:16):
to not have to trust our guts.
AJ (36:18):
I mean, we all have him to thank that.
We're still,
Pearl (36:20):
well, absolutely.
I mean,
AJ (36:22):
yeah.
I mean, what I thought wasinteresting about that is how he
was able to separate his job andthe protocols that were set up.
He was able to, to separate thatfrom the value of human life and
be like, if I pass this on, Iknow.
Pearl (36:43):
For sure.
AJ (36:44):
Yes.
That millions are going to die.
If I'm wrong, millions are stillgoing to die, but it's kind of
going to happen either way.
You know what I mean?
Like the only way to prevent thebest case scenario is that this
is a false alarm and I don'tpass this on and nobody dies.
If I, if I'm wrong, people die.
(37:06):
If I pass it on people die.
But.
This is the best way to preventthe loss of millions of people.
Pearl (37:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I just wanted to highlighthis story because I thought it
was it's a crazy story that I'dnever heard of.
That is amazing.
And never heard of that.
This man single-handedly madesure that the United States is
still existing.
In a S a manner somewhat similarto a did in 1983.
I mean, there's minordifferences, cars look
(37:35):
different, but, you know, Imean, this would have changed
the entire fashion, still thesame.
We're still wearing all the samethings.
AJ (37:41):
Boy, we have had some really crazy nuclear stories,
Pearl (37:45):
right.
Right.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
I think I'm realizing just alittle bit how carious
precarious our nuclear situationis.
Oh my goodness.
Try not to think about it.
Yeah.
AJ (38:00):
Okay.
Well, thank you for that story,Pearl.
That was, yeah.
You're welcome, boy.
That was a nail biter,
Pearl (38:05):
right?
Well, you should.
I already knew this story andwatching the watching the
reenactment.
I was like pins and needles inmy seat.
AJ (38:13):
I, I kinda like movies.
I know this isn't a movie, but Ilike movies like that where it's
just like super tense.
Pearl (38:20):
Okay.
So that's yeah, that's, that'sthe story I have.
All right.
AJ (38:24):
We'll have a course more info and links in our show notes
and on our website at thestories we forgot.
Pearl (38:32):
Dot com.com.
You can always check us out onInstagram to see some pictures.
I'm going to post a, a youngpicture of Stanislav Petrov and
an old picture.
So you can, you know, just kindof see, it looks like, put a
face to the name, put a face tothe name, put a face to the hero
of the world, the year of theworld.
Thank you for that.
And there should be a statue
AJ (38:53):
of this guy
Pearl (38:53):
somewhere.
Right?
Right.
All the inane people that havebeen made into statutes.
AJ (38:59):
Right.
The guy who saved a hundreds ofmillions of lives.
Pearl (39:03):
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Okay.
Yeah.
So if you're still listening atthis point, you doing great,
you're doing, you're our heroyour effecting our self-esteem
cause then we go look at the.
The list of numbers and we'relike, Oh, another listener,
people like us.
So if you're still listening,you should probably like
(39:24):
comment, subscribe, share onsocial media, send it to your
mom.
Give us a five star review.
Yes.
Bias a cup of beer on ourwebsite.
I dunno.
Yup.
Yeah.
So also, if you want to, if youwant to try that queen Catherine
T I was talking about, like Isaid, a couple of weeks ago
(39:45):
there's a link on my website forfive bucks off of any tea of
your choice and free shipping.
And when you do that, I get$5off also.
So it's a little bit of aself-serving benefit.
It is.
Yeah, it really is.
But so far.
I dunno.
I was gonna say, alright, thanksfor listening.
(40:07):
Have a good day.
Bye bye.
Well, welcome back once again to the stories, we forgot
Pearl (00:04):
history with the Hursts
AJ (00:06):
history, with the Hursts.
That is my lovely wife, PearlHurst.
Pearl (00:10):
That's my charming and debonair husband.
AJ Hurst.
AJ (00:14):
Hey guys, this is episode 10 of the pod.
Can we have a brief moment ofsilence for episode 10?
Pearl (00:22):
I don't, I don't know if you can do a moment of silence
on a podcast.
Feel like that defeats thepurpose of.
AJ (00:28):
Okay.
I kind of wanted to test thebounds and see how long
Pearl (00:31):
of a silent on the podcast
AJ (00:33):
before it gets really awkward.
Pearl (00:34):
It's getting I'm already awkward.
Okay.
(00:55):
What are you drinking?
AJ Hurst.
AJ (00:57):
Well, this morning I went real wild and crazy.
Okay.
Have you got up and you madepancakes.
For the entire family, which Ididn't think you were serious,
but you did it.
So I kind of felt like a bit ofa pancake day.
I was working late, so I had atiny little snack of some milk
(01:18):
and a slice of cheese when I gothome at about 1:00 AM.
And so I felt like I should havesome, some real breakfast this
morning in the morning.
It was, it was delicious too.
Pearl (01:28):
I think eating cheese is supposed to give you bad dreams.
Huh?
It's like an old wives tale.
Don't eat cheese before bed orsomething gives you bad dreams
is a really weird.
No, no.
I mean, it's like a thing.
I mean, I'm a wife, so I wouldknow these things.
You guys slept quite well.
Not being an old one.
AJ (01:44):
I am not an old wife, nor am I a young wife.
Okay.
I don't, I'm trying.
I feel like I, I don't think Ihad any dreams last night, so.
Okay.
Old wives, tale, debunked.
Pearl (01:56):
All right.
You heard it here.
That's a myth.
That's that's gonna be the nextsegment on our podcast.
We're going to be debunking oldwives tales.
Ooh.
So like MythBusters,MythBusters, but no science.
AJ (02:10):
Yeah, basically, basically
Pearl (02:14):
by non historians.
It's fitting.
It's very fitting.
AJ (02:18):
I feel like, I feel like debunking old wives tales could
be actually a bit of a dangerousendeavor.
Cause there's some
Pearl (02:24):
really random ones there really is.
Yeah.
I feel like we'll be like,
AJ (02:28):
I dunno, sticking stuff in our ears or something.
Pearl (02:31):
No, I will never do that.
AJ (02:33):
You got to make the sacrifice in the name.
Pearl (02:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
It's not a YouTube channel.
We don't have to do crazy stuffto make people like us.
AJ (02:42):
I mean it might help.
Pearl (02:44):
No, it wouldn't help my self esteem.
It would help our kids.
They would like us.
It would be very entertained.
Yes.
AJ (02:50):
So with the pancakes this morning,
Pearl (02:53):
yeah.
W what were you drinking?
I had
AJ (02:55):
some great, it was my own blend, custom custom blended
coffee.
Okay.
Have some organic Starbucks,winter blend, fancy mixed with
some organic.
Mayorga dark roast.
Pearl (03:10):
I think it was a dark roast.
Yeah.
AJ (03:11):
It's it's pretty dark.
So I
Pearl (03:13):
kinda like to try to do a little bit, yes.
Costco.
Yes.
AJ (03:17):
All from Costco
Pearl (03:18):
on sale.
Don't judge us.
We're just creatures of habit.
We don't like spending a lot ofmoney on coffee,
AJ (03:24):
some delicious maple syrup and a raw
Pearl (03:28):
milk splash raw milk contact.
AJ (03:30):
Yes.
It's some very delicious coffee,especially after the pancakes.
Yeah.
Pearl (03:35):
So what are you drinking?
Well today I'm drinking fancytea.
I'm drinking actually some teathat was recommended to me by
Jason and Renee, because itsupposedly is I think Jason said
it was similar to coffee, soit's a very, it's a very robust
tea.
Don't.
No comment.
(03:56):
I'm not sure I would go thatfar.
It's a really robust tea.
This tea is called queenCatherine by Harney and sons.
And it's just a really rich,robust without being super
astringent.
I think a lot of teas tend toget a stringent as they get more
robust, kind of like an Irishbreakfast or English breakfast
or something like that.
(04:16):
But this one's just really richand smooth and.
Add a splash of milk, a littlebit of maple syrup.
Okay.
So yeah, enjoying some nice tea.
It's a beautiful day.
All the kids are outside.
AJ (04:28):
Yeah, it is beautiful weather out.
And one of the great thingsabout the weather warming up
getting nicer is I can get backto smoking
Pearl (04:38):
meat, meat, not cigarettes on the
grill
AJ (04:41):
last yesterday, not lately.
Last night yesterday, we did asmoked beef heart pastrami.
Pearl (04:48):
Yeah.
So this, this was kind of, thiswas an unusual one.
When we got our side of beef,like I said, last podcast, I
think there was a giant beefheart, a beef heart is a giant
thing.
So it's so big, so big.
So I kind of wanted to dosomething unusual with it.
And at first I started out justdry carrying it, but then the
(05:10):
more I looked up recipes, Irealized that a lot of people
have been A lot of people giveit a pastrami treatment.
So they it's a wet pastrami as awet brine.
And the purpose of the wet brineis then to bring moisture in
moisture and flavor into themeat lean.
AJ (05:28):
I mean, there's
Pearl (05:29):
just no fat marbling in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Hart typically has a slightlymetallic flavor.
There's high levels of iron init.
Yeah.
So anyways we gave it a goodsoak and a pastrami brine, and
that kind of helped to balanceout the flavors.
We do, some of that metallicOregon flavor, and it just kind
(05:50):
of tasted like a super leanreally lean steak.
AJ (05:54):
Yeah, well, texture's still a tiny bit off, so we thin
sliced it and had it with,
Pearl (06:00):
we smoked it after the brine, then we smoked it, but we
only smoked it to like 145degrees.
So it was not dried out at all.
Yeah.
But it had a nice smoke flavorto it.
Yeah.
Very smoky.
I
AJ (06:11):
didn't, I don't think there was much metallic place.
Pearl (06:14):
No, I don't think so.
I think for me, Oregon meat issuch a mind over matter thing.
Like it tastes delicious.
But you can't have too much.
I have too much.
It's a very in it.
And it's really rich somehow.
It's richer than if you werejust eating steak.
Yeah.
So we did last year.
Loved it though.
Loved it.
Yeah.
So last night we did violet madesome bread and we had, we just
(06:37):
kind of like a, like charcuterieplatter at the table with bread
and cheese and meat.
And.
It was good us and stuff.
Yeah.
That was really good.
I think, I think definitely.
We'll definitely try that againif we get a heart again.
So yeah, we will definitely get
AJ (06:58):
hard again.
Pearl (06:59):
I kind of, so today on the pod, we're going to be
talking about an event thathappened this day on this day in
history.
Yes, we're going to be readinganother excerpt from Tom
Reynold's book, making adifference.
And we're going to be talkingabout the man who saved the
world.
AJ (07:19):
Oh, you're going on that one?
Huh?
Pearl (07:22):
Do you know what I'm talking about?
AJ (07:24):
Well, is it the movie you were watching last night?
Yeah, I went to work.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm very curious.
Obviously I didn't get
Pearl (07:31):
it.
Yeah.
AJ (07:32):
All right, here's a 100 word story from Tom Reynolds.
This is about Oliver Hill ofRichmond, Virginia.
Graduating second in the Howardlaw school class of 1933 behind
the legendary Thurgood Marshallwas Oliver Hill in 1940 Hill won
(07:52):
his first civil rights case.
Davis vs County school, board ofPrince Edward County, Virginia.
As a result, he and his familyhad to live under the constant
threat of violence courageously.
He maintained his practice.
He and his partners filed arecord number of civil rights
cases in Virginia.
In 1999, he was awarded thepresidential medal of freedom, a
(08:15):
sane attributed to him.
His quote when day is done,greet the Dawn and not the
setting sun.
Hmm.
That's a little blip about allof her Hill.
That's cool.
Sounds like a very courageousand a cool guy.
Yeah.
Never heard of him fromRichmond, Virginia.
Okay.
Not too far from us.
Yeah.
All
Pearl (08:34):
right.
Local story for you.
Yeah.
AJ (08:37):
Shall I roll right into this day in history?
Pearl (08:41):
History?
Yes.
Round of applause.
AJ (08:45):
On this day, March 5th, 1770, the Boston massacre.
It actually is
Pearl (08:55):
March 5th.
AJ (08:56):
Yes.
So this is,
Pearl (08:59):
I feel like it was really cold in Boston.
And this happened like wintery.
Yes.
AJ (09:04):
You're kind of stealing my thunder.
Oh,
Pearl (09:05):
sorry.
Sorry.
AJ (09:06):
Go ahead.
On the cold snowy night of March5th, 1770, a mob of American
colonists gather at the customshouse in Boston and began
taunting the British soldiersguarding the building.
This is considered by
Pearl (09:21):
where's this from.
The history channel.
Oh, the history channel.
Okay.
AJ (09:25):
Which is just history.com.
The protesters who calledthemselves Patriots were
protesting the occupation oftheir city by British troops who
were sent there in 1768 toenforce unpopular taxation
measures passed by a Britishparliament without any American
representation.
Right.
(09:46):
So.
What happens is these Patriotprotesters are taunting.
The British soldiers, theBritish captain orders, his men
to fix their bayonets, whichmeans let's get serious about
this.
Right.
And joined the guard outside thebuilding.
The colonists respond bythrowing snowballs and other
(10:09):
objects at the British regularsand private human Gumtree was
hit.
Leading him to discharge hisrifle at the crowd.
This causes all the othersoldiers to begin firing.
And when the smoke clears fivecolonists were dead or dying,
those include Crispus addicts,Patrick car, Samuel Gray, Samuel
(10:31):
Maverick, and James Caldwell,and three, three more were
injured.
Many historians regard thesefive men as the first fatalities
in the American revolutionarywar.
Wow.
So this was a pretty big turningpoint.
It was, you know, used as a,kind of a call to arms.
Paul Revere made an engraving ofthe incident.
You know, I don't think we knowhow entirely accurate this
(10:55):
engraving one is it shows theBritish soldiers lined up like
an infantry just firing on thiscrowd of Patriots.
But yeah, it was a real call toarms, to real, to kind of help
spur the American revolutionarywar.
Yeah.
Pearl (11:11):
Yeah, the, an interesting little, random little fact about
that story is that it's widelybelieved that Crispus addicts
was the first person killed infoundationary war and he was a
black man.
So it wasn't, it wasn't knownwhether or not he was a free man
or an escaped slave, but yeah.
(11:31):
Trivia for you there.
AJ (11:32):
Oh, follow up on that.
John Adams and Josiah Quincyagreed to defend the soldiers.
These were popular Patriotsleader, Patriots, right?
They were trying to support thecolonial justice system.
So, I mean, they were kind oflike, we may not like these
guys, but we're at least goingto enforce the rule of law.
Two British soldiers were foundguilty of manslaughter and their
(11:54):
punishment was they had theletter M branded on their thumbs
M for murder.
As their punishment was brandedon their thumbs.
That's a colonial justice foryou.
Pearl (12:07):
That doesn't seem like the punch and fits the crime.
Isn't that really weird?
That's so random.
AJ (12:14):
That's just what it has in this history channel article.
So I don't know if there wasmore to it or exactly what,
Pearl (12:21):
but.
An M Brandon on their thumbs.
I mean, it sounds reallypainful.
I'm sure.
There's probably like some oldlore of like, how did thumbs up
get started?
Oh, it was actually started toshow up somewhere whether or not
you were a murderer.
Right?
Probably.
I mean, there's all sorts ofrandom stuff like that, where
you find out why, why do we givesomeone a thumbs up?
That's pretty good for right offthe top of your head.
(12:41):
I'm just guessing.
But you know, yeah.
So next
AJ (12:44):
time you give someone a thumbs up, just be glad it's not
branded with a giant M.
Pearl (12:50):
Yes, that sounds really awkward.
It was like an awkward way tohave an interaction.
AJ (12:56):
Okay.
Onto you for the story about theman who
Pearl (13:00):
saved and the yeah.
You saved the world.
So this one is, I mean, I'venever heard of this story.
But it seems fairly significant.
Yeah.
World history.
Well, if he saved the world, hesaves the world.
So on September 26th, 1983stanislav Petrov was a
(13:23):
Lieutenant Colonel in the Sovietair defense forces.
He was the duty officer tocommand center for their nuclear
early warning system.
I knew it had to do with news itsure did.
And it was his responsibility toverify incoming nuclear attacks
and escalate them up the chainof the command in time for the
Soviet union to react.
AJ (13:44):
That's like the kind of job that you really hope is
Pearl (13:47):
boring, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm
AJ (13:51):
just, I'm just thinking, like, obviously that's a very,
very important job, but you alsobasically sit around and do
Pearl (13:59):
nothing.
Yeah, absolutely.
Basically your entire job issaying everything.
Good.
Cool.
Everything's good.
Yeah.
It's like
AJ (14:06):
those, those scifi movies where they show the guy who's
like sitting in the giantantenna room, waiting for
incoming signals from space.
And then all of a sudden hestarts getting something and he
like has to wake himself up and.
You know, shake the lid out sohe could be like, Hey, there's
actually something happeningafter five years of sitting here
doing
Pearl (14:24):
nothing.
Well, yeah, that's what washappening with Stanislav Petrov.
So this is, this is towards theend of the cold war and it was
an incredibly, incredibly tenseseason between the Soviet union
and the United States.
Yes.
Three weeks earlier.
(14:46):
The Soviet union had shot down aBoeing passenger plane with 269
people on board killing all ofthem.
Whoa,
AJ (14:56):
wait, where was the plane from?
Pearl (14:58):
It was flying from Seoul, South Korea to Anchorage,
Alaska.
Whoa.
So it's a Korean airlinesflight, but.
I've
AJ (15:09):
I feel like I need to know more about
Pearl (15:11):
that story, but yeah.
So at the time of the event, theplane was leaving soul South
Korea and heading for Anchorage,Alaska, and it accidentally
strayed into Soviet airspace.
The pilots made some, somecalculation errors in the route
and they accidentallystraightened a Soviet airspace.
Mistaking it for us spy plane.
And especially since itcoincided with the us
(15:33):
reconnaissance mission, theSoviets decided to take action.
So at that time, Wes waspractically practicing
psychological tactics ofintimidation.
And what they would do is theywould send a squadron of planes
flying right for the Sovietunion.
Part on their border.
And then at the last second,they would veer off just messing
(15:56):
with them.
And it was just like a crazygame of chicken.
That's exactly what I was goingto say.
Crazy game of chicken.
Yeah.
So they're basically just kindof like trying to intimidate the
SU we're basically just tryingto intimidate the Soviet with a
AJ (16:11):
chicken with apocalyptic.
Yep.
Pearl (16:13):
Right.
I know greasy so crazy.
So when a plane, when anunidentified plane enters the
Soviet airspace, they're readyto react.
They fired several warningshots.
But which were likely not seenby the civilian pilots or
misinterpreted, but civilianpilots they shot the plane down.
(16:34):
So yeah, Ronald Reagan is thepresident at the time and he's
just kinda like.
How did
AJ (16:39):
we not have world war three?
I mean, there's just, when youlook back at that time, world
war three, there were so manyinstances where
Pearl (16:46):
we were.
Yeah.
So not being, I'm not a Anexpert on the cold war.
It's not my specialtyspecifically, but basically it
was an incredibly tense seasonbetween
AJ (16:59):
two nuclear
Pearl (17:00):
superpowers, two nuclear superpowers, basically playing a
game of arming up and wheneverthe U S would move move nuclear.
Strike zones or add in newplaces they could strike from
them.
The Soviet union would, and theywere basically just trying to
like stay neck and neck andnobody on either side wanted to
(17:25):
start a nuclear war.
But the whole thing with nuclearpower is you want to be able to
respond.
If someone bombs you first.
Right.
And so they were both just, theykept both upping the ante and it
was kind of born out of thisincredibly tense relationship
they had during world war twowhere the us and Russia actually
(17:48):
worked together.
But then there was a lot ofthat.
It was, it was a really, reallyuneasy.
Alliance and Russia felt likethe United States put them at
the front lines in a lot ofbattles and very, very long
drawn out thing.
Because now we're talking about1983, right.
The cold war was very, very,very long and it covered several
(18:10):
actual Wars, like the Koreanwar.
So thank you for that
AJ (18:14):
little primer on.
Yeah.
Pearl (18:17):
Right.
So the Soviet leaders.
Believed at the time that theUnited States was preparing a
secret nuclear attack.
So not only do they believe thatthe United States is getting
ready to blow them tosmithereens.
But now they've just had a usplane fly into their airspace
that they bombed down.
They shot down accidentally.
(18:38):
Yeah, it wasn't an accident, butyou know, they, they didn't know
what it was.
So now they're just ready forretribution.
And everyone is incrediblytense.
This is the environment thatPetrov is working with on
September 26, 1983.
So he's working the night shiftand so I
AJ (18:55):
guess it's not really that boring of a job.
Pearl (18:58):
No, it's an incredibly tense job.
So he is
AJ (19:02):
like, the fate of your entire country
Pearl (19:03):
is in your hands.
Right?
Right.
So last night I found a movieabout him.
It's, it's actually a docu-dramaavailable on Amazon prime.
It's called the man who savedthe world.
Oh yeah.
And so the docu-drama, has itstars him as an old man?
(19:24):
And he's kind of relaying hisaccount and then it has like
dramatized flashbacks, okay.
To show, you know, what washappening.
So he shows up for work and heis in charge of this entire
secret nuclear detection site.
Okay.
So everyone is workingunderneath him all the
(19:47):
different.
Infrastructures that they havefor checking to verify if a
nuclear, if an armed warhead iscoming towards is being fired
off by United States.
So he's in charge of.
Basically making the decision,is this real or not, and then
informing the higher ups andthen they make, you know, then
(20:08):
they follow up with anairstrike.
Oh yeah.
AJ (20:10):
That sounds like a really rough position
Pearl (20:13):
to be in.
Bob is basically, he's not theone pushing the red button, but
he's the one telling the one whopushes the red button, whether
or not he should push the redbutton.
Right.
So, I mean, in a lot of ways,the buck stops with him.
Yeah, absolutely stopped withhim a massive, massive amount of
responsibility.
And he he said that one of thethings that really shaped that
(20:34):
really shaped him and hisdecisions on this night where
the fact that he was not aprotocol guy.
So.
What do you mean by that?
Well, protocol in the Sovietunion for his task was when he
sees something and it's verifiedthe way it should be.
He reports it immediately.
(20:56):
There's no second guessing.
There's no gut instinct.
There's no nothing.
And he ignored protocol on thisnight and it saved the lives of
millions of people.
Oh my
AJ (21:07):
goodness.
I mean, Retrospect good for him.
But Holy smokes
Pearl (21:12):
to, if he had been wrong, he would have been dead either
way.
Yeah, that's true.
One way or another, he was goingto be dead.
Yeah.
So he he's, he goes in, startsto shift.
And then the computer.
Screen pops up, you know, he'sin this big command center.
He's up in like the viewingbooth, watching everyone happy,
(21:34):
watching everyone do their job.
Oh yes.
I'm
AJ (21:36):
picturing it with 1983 technology right
Pearl (21:38):
now.
Yeah.
It's pretty awesome.
I'll have to show you the littleclip.
Oh yeah.
Somewhere about, I think it'sabout 30 minutes into the movie
is when the drama dictation ofthe actual event occurs.
Okay.
And it's about, I don't know, 20minutes, half an hour or
something.
The whole movie is about twohours.
I did not watch the whole movie.
Okay.
But because it started to justAF after the event happened,
(22:01):
then he deals with the death ofhis wife.
And I didn't feel like watchingthat.
So so what happened was he'swatching the screen and all of a
sudden the screen lights up andit shows there is an incoming
nuke.
There's an armed warhead comingfrom the United States.
And he asked everyone to verify,and they're all like
(22:23):
everything's verified at thehighest level.
All the computer systems areverifying each other and cross
referencing each other.
This is 100% of fact.
He asks the last level ofverification they have is
visual.
Verification the problem.
Is that the place where the, howdo you visually verify?
(22:44):
Well, when, when a missilelaunches,
AJ (22:47):
this is
Pearl (22:47):
just my ignorance, right?
When a missile launches we'retalking about essentially a
massive rocket shooting off.
Shooting out of it's holding acell in the ground somewhere in
the United States.
Okay.
Yeah.
So huge explosion, huge flarelight heat from the flare.
Okay.
So he's, he has the last levelof D of double checking is
(23:08):
asking for a visual and the guyswho are watching.
For visuals with the satellitesthey don't see anything, but
they're like, but it's nighttimeover there.
So we don't know if we could seeanything or not in a visual
visibility's really bad.
So we can't say yes or no eitherway.
And he's just like on pins andneedles, you know, he's dripping
sweat.
He's got to tell, he's got totell them, because is it a nuker
(23:32):
isn't an, a nuke, are they allgonna die?
And he eventually over thecourse of, you know, like
several.
My numbing moments of secondguessing he decided, right.
AJ (23:42):
It's not like you've got a lot of time
Pearl (23:44):
to dwell on adds that it's a false alarm, because he
thinks that the, he doesn'tfully trust the computer system.
So he thinks maybe there'ssomething wrong with the
computer system.
And he says his, his certaintyis about 50, 50.
Oh, so he calls the higher upsbecause they already know about
it.
(24:04):
And he says it's a false alarm.
And then within two minutes ofthe first nuke appearing on the
screen over the next fiveminutes for me or others show
up, Oh my God.
All headed towards Soviet unioncoming from the United States.
AJ (24:24):
I, I can't imagine being in this guy's position because you
know, if it, if it's real, yes,you need to, you know, in their
mind they need to retaliate andfire off their own.
But if it's a false alarm, nowyou're the one giving the go
(24:45):
ahead to start all out nuclearwar.
Pearl (24:48):
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
So there's a couple of things,things that occur to him, he
thinks to himself, if the UnitedStates was going to attack us,
they would not send fivemissiles.
He's fairly certain.
And all of the training has beenthat if the United States
attacks them, it's going to bean all-out nuclear war.
They're going to send everyone.
Okay.
Well, I was wondering that.
Yeah, so he thinks to himself,like, would it really just be
(25:10):
one?
This doesn't seem like what wehave been trained to expect.
And then he feels like it passedthrough the layers of
verification and the computersystem too quickly.
So he's just got those twothings, a gut feeling that the
United States was not, would nothave started out with five
missiles and the computer systemprocessed at too quickly.
It was like, the process was alittle bit too perfect for him.
(25:33):
Sure.
Everything's working together.
Everything's perfect.
No errors, no anomalies, noinconsistencies.
Okay.
So he's and.
The, the guys on visual have notseen anything yet.
And they should by the time thefifth missile comes through,
they still it's, it's an, anarea with daylight.
It's further over towards theEast coast and they can't see it
(25:54):
either.
I still haven't seen it.
Yeah.
AJ (25:57):
I mean, probably amazing that at this point, I'm assuming
he's probably a bit of a oldschool guy at the time.
So they probably, I don't
Pearl (26:06):
think he was super old.
Well,
AJ (26:09):
Technology would have been so new at that point.
It's my thinking.
Maybe he's just kind of had some
Pearl (26:14):
distrust, right?
Yeah.
AJ (26:17):
Some, some kind
Pearl (26:18):
of innate distrust, lingering distrust for
technology at the time.
Yeah.
So so he is just like sweatingbullets and the only thing he
can think to himself is that ifhe says yes, so many people are
gonna die.
100% because that's a for surething.
He knows.
He knows for a fact that theguys up up from him and the
(26:42):
chain of command will notquestion his decision.
Right?
He is the professional here.
He's the one looking at all thefacts.
And he knows that if he, if hetells them there's five nukes
headed here, they're going tounleash the fury of the Soviet
union on the United States andthey're primed and ready to go.
AJ (27:02):
And it, and it would be
Pearl (27:03):
everything.
It would be everything.
Yeah.
Because the shots have alreadybeen fired.
AJ (27:09):
Let me just think about that.
Like basically probably dozensof the major cities in the us
would just be gone.
Pearl (27:18):
Yeah.
At least.
Yeah.
As soon
AJ (27:19):
as this happens,
Pearl (27:21):
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
So here's a quote from him fromBBC.
It says, he says there was norule about how long we were
allowed to think before wereported a strike, but we knew
that every second ofprocrastination took away
valuable time that the Sovietunion's military and political
leadership needed to be informedwithout delay.
All I had to do is reach for thephone to raise a direct line to
(27:41):
our top commanders, but Icouldn't move.
I felt like I was sitting in ahot frying pan.
So He's he's he just decides towait it out.
He knows that within sevenminutes of the first launch, the
missiles will be close enough tothem to be found on a radar.
And so he makes the call not toescalate this up the chain of
(28:05):
command and tell them, causehe's afraid there might be
trigger happy.
He makes the call to wait untilradar verification.
So of course, no one below him.
Is okay with this, you know,all, everyone else is like this,
the computer, everything says,this is real, what is going on?
And he's just, he's justunwilling to.
Right.
AJ (28:25):
And so that would be even more difficult, I would think,
because it would be one thing ifthere's like 50 missiles coming
your way.
And you're kind of like eitherwe fire our stuff now or not at
all, because we're just going tobe decimated.
But if it's like one.
And you're like maybe they had agoof up on their end and they
(28:46):
only got five off if we can.
Get our stuff out.
Maybe we can have the upper handin, you know, it's like, man,
there's so many thoughts anddecisions and repercussions with
this.
Pearl (29:00):
Yeah.
So they decided to wait forradar verification, which by the
time it's on radar verification,it's way too close to do
anything about it.
AJ (29:08):
I mean, do they have any.
I don't really know at thispoint.
Is there any kind of antisenseway
to
Pearl (29:14):
shoot it down?
I don't think, I don't think Ithink it's just, I think it's
just a matter of being able toreact and fire off the most and,
and maybe stop them fromcontinuing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So They just sit there and watchthe missiles come towards the
United States.
And then finally, radarverification, cyber Raider
verification, and there'snothing on the radars.
(29:36):
Nothing ever showed up.
I can't
AJ (29:38):
even imagine the feeling that everyone, and
Pearl (29:41):
at this point he's literally 50, 50, it's real, or
it isn't real.
Right.
AJ (29:47):
Those
Pearl (29:47):
aren't great pots, not great odds.
Nothing shows up on the radarand it's just like, you know,
the entire room just likedissolves in tears.
Everyone's just, yeah.
So incredibly stressed out bythis decision.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he actually was heavilyreprimanded for his actions that
night.
(30:08):
He didn't accurately fill outthe log book while this was
happening.
And I think the higher ups inthe Soviet union were
embarrassed by the massivecomputer error that happened
that could have caused world warthree.
Yeah.
And so he did not receive a lotof positive reinforcement from,
(30:29):
from this whole event.
But.
You know, previous estimates.
Yeah.
AJ (30:33):
Yeah.
I mean, what do you, what do youdo after that to try and save
face?
To try not
Pearl (30:38):
to?
Well, it was a secret, it was astate secret until after the
fall of the USSR.
Oh, sure.
AJ (30:44):
But even I'm talking about like, within the ranks of that
unit, even like, what do you do?
Do you say great job for notfollowing protocol, you saved
the world, but you didn't dowhat you were supposed to do.
Yeah.
So why do all your computers
Pearl (31:00):
mess up next time?
Yeah, they never came up with areally clear reason why that
happened.
They think that it was someglitch in the system could have
been caused by clouds and sunflare.
And I dunno some weird stufflike that.
Explanations for UFO's.
Yeah, it was UFO's.
Oh my goodness that Justin, thealiens
AJ (31:18):
are like, we're done with this.
Pearl (31:20):
Oh, gosh.
Yeah.
So well
AJ (31:22):
that, that went off the
Pearl (31:24):
rail a little bit.
Yeah.
So after it was discovered,obviously the UN and the United
States are incredibly gratefulto this ban.
When did it come out?
I think it was in the earlynineties, mid nineties,
somewhere in there.
AJ (31:37):
And do you know how it came out?
Was it.
Pearl (31:39):
Well, after the fall of the Soviet union, then it was
published in, you know, Russia,Moscow, which somehow someone
AJ (31:49):
dug into my story and was like, well, not going to get
killed if I released
Pearl (31:53):
this story now.
Yeah.
So yeah, previous estimates Tellus that if Petrov had escalated
that up, the chain of command afull-scale attack by the Soviet
union would have killed 35 to77% of the population of the
United States.
So depending on.
(32:15):
So hit factors
AJ (32:16):
hit the average
Pearl (32:16):
half, half of the States.
Yes.
Yeah.
Our resulting Counter-Strikewould have killed 20 to 40% of
the Soviet population.
The combined death toll wouldhave been anywhere between 130
to 288 million.
Wow.
It would have been more than anyother war or catastrophe in
history.
And
AJ (32:35):
those may just be.
Like immediate results
Pearl (32:39):
is immediate.
These are immediate deaths.
This is not applied to peoplewho died.
It's very probable, the millionsmore would have died afterwards
because of disruptive globaltemperatures and the resulting
famine and starvation.
AJ (32:50):
Oh yeah.
We would have been back to those
Pearl (32:52):
though.
Would have based your ever.
Yeah.
It would have been a massiveworldwide nuclear winter, and
fortunately we've neverexperienced that.
AJ (33:00):
Complete political and governmental upheaval as the
world's two super powers
Pearl (33:05):
are obliterate
AJ (33:06):
each other decimated and yeah.
It's like, who would even riseto take
Pearl (33:12):
control?
Like what will happened?
I don't want to think about it.
Yeah.
So Petrov almost single-handedlyprevented all of those deaths.
And it's really interesting towatch the the docu-drama with
him because he's an old man now.
Is he actually in it?
Yeah, he's in it.
(33:32):
Oh, the real, the real Petroffis in the docu-drama.
He died, the docu-drama was madein 2014 and he died in 2017.
Oh, so he's in it.
I
AJ (33:43):
didn't realize you meant he was actually in it.
I thought you meant like actorsportraying him as an
Pearl (33:47):
old man.
Nope.
There's an actor portraying himas a young man, but as an old
man, he is he's in it and, youknow, just kind of falling in
around.
AJ (33:55):
Okay.
Now I really want to see thisjust cause I want to see the
actual guy.
Pearl (33:58):
Yeah, it's super interesting.
I'm gonna post I'll post somepictures of him on Instagram and
Twitter and Maybe I'll post thelink to the Amazon prime movie.
It's free on prime.
And if you don't have prime,it's like 99 cents to rent.
But who doesn't have prime?
I mean, if you don't have prime,just go get it, go get PRI.
It's cheaper to rent the movie,I guess for now.
Anyways.
(34:18):
Yeah, so he is he's just, it'sit's a little bit of a sad,
well, yeah, I kind of want to.
He's just bitter about the levelof nuclear war capability that
we all have at this point.
And the fact that we couldbasically all obliterate the
(34:40):
world multiple times over
AJ (34:42):
and right.
Well, I mean, he had a front rowseat to how close we are to
just,
Pearl (34:46):
yeah, just as horrifying arms race that the world has
gone through in the last centuryof just kind of upping the ante
with each other.
And now we all have enough armsnuclear warheads to destroy the
earth multiple times over.
And those are just the ones weknow about.
And those are just the ones weknow about.
(35:07):
Hey, North Korea.
So yeah, that's the story ofStanislav Petrov.
AJ (35:13):
I, I, I'm kind of curious to maybe watch that movie, but
also.
Just investigate a little bitmore.
See what happened to him?
Pearl (35:23):
Well, nothing happened to him.
He was kind of,
AJ (35:25):
I mean, did he continue in that job?
Was he
Pearl (35:28):
got cancer and died?
And so he left to care for her?
I think he just kind of lived inthe USSR.
Yeah.
You just kind of lived inrelative and and anonymity
anonymity until the news cameout and even then it was still,
you know, it was like his lifedidn't dramatically change.
She just,
AJ (35:45):
yeah.
I mean, at that point, it's notlike, it's not like anyone's
gonna throw him a ticker-tapeparade.
They're just going to be kind oflike, Oh,
Pearl (35:52):
cool.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a massive, massivething that he did by not being.
Not being so he was, he waswilling to trust his gut in an
incredibly important decisionand to take responsibility for
it.
And I think a lot of times whenwe have a huge decision, it's
easy to kind of punt it off tosomeone else or rely on protocol
(36:16):
to not have to trust our guts.
AJ (36:18):
I mean, we all have him to thank that.
We're still,
Pearl (36:20):
well, absolutely.
I mean,
AJ (36:22):
yeah.
I mean, what I thought wasinteresting about that is how he
was able to separate his job andthe protocols that were set up.
He was able to, to separate thatfrom the value of human life and
be like, if I pass this on, Iknow.
Pearl (36:43):
For sure.
AJ (36:44):
Yes.
That millions are going to die.
If I'm wrong, millions are stillgoing to die, but it's kind of
going to happen either way.
You know what I mean?
Like the only way to prevent thebest case scenario is that this
is a false alarm and I don'tpass this on and nobody dies.
If I, if I'm wrong, people die.
(37:06):
If I pass it on people die.
But.
This is the best way to preventthe loss of millions of people.
Pearl (37:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I just wanted to highlighthis story because I thought it
was it's a crazy story that I'dnever heard of.
That is amazing.
And never heard of that.
This man single-handedly madesure that the United States is
still existing.
In a S a manner somewhat similarto a did in 1983.
I mean, there's minordifferences, cars look
(37:35):
different, but, you know, Imean, this would have changed
the entire fashion, still thesame.
We're still wearing all the samethings.
AJ (37:41):
Boy, we have had some really crazy nuclear stories,
Pearl (37:45):
right.
Right.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
I think I'm realizing just alittle bit how carious
precarious our nuclear situationis.
Oh my goodness.
Try not to think about it.
Yeah.
AJ (38:00):
Okay.
Well, thank you for that story,Pearl.
That was, yeah.
You're welcome, boy.
That was a nail biter,
Pearl (38:05):
right?
Well, you should.
I already knew this story andwatching the watching the
reenactment.
I was like pins and needles inmy seat.
AJ (38:13):
I, I kinda like movies.
I know this isn't a movie, but Ilike movies like that where it's
just like super tense.
Pearl (38:20):
Okay.
So that's yeah, that's, that'sthe story I have.
All right.
AJ (38:24):
We'll have a course more info and links in our show notes
and on our website at thestories we forgot.
Pearl (38:32):
Dot com.com.
You can always check us out onInstagram to see some pictures.
I'm going to post a, a youngpicture of Stanislav Petrov and
an old picture.
So you can, you know, just kindof see, it looks like, put a
face to the name, put a face tothe name, put a face to the hero
of the world, the year of theworld.
Thank you for that.
And there should be a statue
AJ (38:53):
of this guy
Pearl (38:53):
somewhere.
Right?
Right.
All the inane people that havebeen made into statutes.
AJ (38:59):
Right.
The guy who saved a hundreds ofmillions of lives.
Pearl (39:03):
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Okay.
Yeah.
So if you're still listening atthis point, you doing great,
you're doing, you're our heroyour effecting our self-esteem
cause then we go look at the.
The list of numbers and we'relike, Oh, another listener,
people like us.
So if you're still listening,you should probably like
(39:24):
comment, subscribe, share onsocial media, send it to your
mom.
Give us a five star review.
Yes.
Bias a cup of beer on ourwebsite.
I dunno.
Yup.
Yeah.
So also, if you want to, if youwant to try that queen Catherine
T I was talking about, like Isaid, a couple of weeks ago
(39:45):
there's a link on my website forfive bucks off of any tea of
your choice and free shipping.
And when you do that, I get$5off also.
So it's a little bit of aself-serving benefit.
It is.
Yeah, it really is.
But so far.
I dunno.
I was gonna say, alright, thanksfor listening.
(40:07):
Have a good day.
Bye bye.
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