I do remember the year very well with the Korean 747 being shot down, the dangerous rhetoric from Reagan and the dehumanizing, propaganda words of the 'evil empire' and how tense the cold war around that time. I lived back then in Europe with the arms race between SS-20 and the Pershing 2 missiles.
It is very hard today to visualize how dangerously close we were all back then to the end as militant elements on both sides were quite trigger happy thanks to the propaganda machinery of both systems.
This movie is luckily not another brainless action movie. It is a very simple movie which just shows a simple human being with his own worries, his personal sufferings and fates who holds his ground in a world were many are programmed to take the easy path, to dodge responsibility by doing blindly which is expected from a cog in a machinery, to swim with the masses instead of holding in, remain calm and use his mind but also his heart and not let the surrounding crowd wash you away in the panicking mob mentality.
It was later known that the system was not wrong, but it was new, untested like so many things which got rushed into service on both sides. The warnings got triggered by very high altitude clouds which reflected sunlight in a pretty tiny time window at the Western part of the US which were in its early morning hours and the sun was just in the right ankle to confuse the radar system. Today such information is confirmed by geostationary satellites to confirm or unconfirm such data.
But in hindsight we are all smarter and let often arrogance blind us how this or that could possibly happen because we are simply unable to put ourselves into the Zeitgeist of the situation and existing shortcomings because of lack of practical experience colliding with programed fear and panic making us blind for rational thought.
I read but I can't confirm that detail that Mr. Petrov back then in the bunker also rationalized his decision that a first strike with just a few missiles didn't made any sense. The knowledge that a first strike would have been more massive and that brand new systems have their kinks and even computer can be wrong when fed incomplete information helped him to hold his ground despite the immense pressure.
I agree with Stanislav Petrov. He was no hero. No hero in the common definition of our modern society. His 'heroism' was his humanistic personality, one who kept his calm and resisted the peer pressure from his immediate surrounding but also the distant one in media, keeping centered and stayed through his life a human being which didn't stopped to evolve and jump over his own shadow by also finding the strength to make peace with his mother as well, showing indeed great inner strength despite the decades of hate and anger and despite all the prodding he had from the lady as she reflected his own words she learned from him on his tour through the U.S., reminding him that he had nothing else to loose as he was, like we all, his own worst enemy. And he challenged it and overcame himself once more.
A most inspiring person and movie. And like he said, just at the right time at the right spot. I certainly hope that there will be others like him on this world who have the guts to stand up against all outside pressure and focus on trying to do the right thing at the right time before our planet runs eventually out of luck. Thank you very sincerely Mr. Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov and to all past and future unknown heroes which will help(ed) saving our planet.
This movie is luckily not another brainless action movie. It is a very simple movie which just shows a simple human being with his own worries, his personal sufferings and fates who holds his ground in a world were many are programmed to take the easy path, to dodge responsibility by doing blindly which is expected from a cog in a machinery, to swim with the masses instead of holding in, remain calm and use his mind but also his heart and not let the surrounding crowd wash you away in the panicking mob mentality.
It was later known that the system was not wrong, but it was new, untested like so many things which got rushed into service on both sides. The warnings got triggered by very high altitude clouds which reflected sunlight in a pretty tiny time window at the Western part of the US which were in its early morning hours and the sun was just in the right ankle to confuse the radar system. Today such information is confirmed by geostationary satellites to confirm or unconfirm such data.
But in hindsight we are all smarter and let often arrogance blind us how this or that could possibly happen because we are simply unable to put ourselves into the Zeitgeist of the situation and existing shortcomings because of lack of practical experience colliding with programed fear and panic making us blind for rational thought.
I read but I can't confirm that detail that Mr. Petrov back then in the bunker also rationalized his decision that a first strike with just a few missiles didn't made any sense. The knowledge that a first strike would have been more massive and that brand new systems have their kinks and even computer can be wrong when fed incomplete information helped him to hold his ground despite the immense pressure.
I agree with Stanislav Petrov. He was no hero. No hero in the common definition of our modern society. His 'heroism' was his humanistic personality, one who kept his calm and resisted the peer pressure from his immediate surrounding but also the distant one in media, keeping centered and stayed through his life a human being which didn't stopped to evolve and jump over his own shadow by also finding the strength to make peace with his mother as well, showing indeed great inner strength despite the decades of hate and anger and despite all the prodding he had from the lady as she reflected his own words she learned from him on his tour through the U.S., reminding him that he had nothing else to loose as he was, like we all, his own worst enemy. And he challenged it and overcame himself once more.
A most inspiring person and movie. And like he said, just at the right time at the right spot. I certainly hope that there will be others like him on this world who have the guts to stand up against all outside pressure and focus on trying to do the right thing at the right time before our planet runs eventually out of luck. Thank you very sincerely Mr. Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov and to all past and future unknown heroes which will help(ed) saving our planet.