The 3 a.m. call and the 1979 NORAD Alert

Just a heads up. My father worked for SAC and was called on base many times for false alerts. I was a kid at the time and this was earlier than the 1979 incident. He went to his base and we did not hear from him for more than three days. My point is this. This happened more than the public is aware of. Things then were in a state of flux and as new systems came online, older systems were phased out. This was both a good thing and not. Those old systems were not as prone to give a false attack warning as they had been modified over the years. The new systems were put in place far too quickly in my opinion. We had a system in the 60's that was called "Positive Control" meaning that SAC bombers, missile sites, and Naval assets were prepared to fire on a Presidential order. We can thank John Kennedy for this. This meant for the bombers, that the would fly to their "Fail Safe" points and orbit, until confirmation to attack or return. This made the Russians very, very, nervous. For good reason. They did not know if this was going to be the signs of a first strike or if it was merely an exercise. This is what we had to deal with. As a small child living near a very large, primary target for the Soviet Union, we all knew we had little to no chance of surviving. For decades we had a system called "LOW." This tacitly gave field commanders the authorization to launch on confirmation of massive launch from the USSR. This was ended by Reagan. "LOW" stood for "Launch On Warning." Most knew that the President would be hard pressed to give the "Go" order and while this is no longer the command, we can praise the good Lord it never got that far. My father described the Nov 79 incident as one of the most terrifying times of his life in SAC. The bombers were in the air and missile silo doors were opened. The only other thing he added was that he couldn't even call mom to tell her to move. We had a plan to head toward a cabin my grandfather had built in Canada in the 1950's. We would not have made it. Thanks for allowing me to take this time out and write to you on this.

Reminds me of the tale of Stanislav Petrov. The Soviet officer who likewise saved the world by recognizing a false alarm in their early warning detection system in 1983. Another honest to God hero. It really is amazing that we aren't all incinerated by now.

If I’m not mistaken, this is the story that got the movie War Games made. They had a workable script but thought the story line would be so unbelievable it’d never get made…then this happened. One of my fav 80’s movies.

Eight years before this on 20 FEB 1971, NORAD sent a false alarm to over 5,000 radio and television stations via UPI and AP wire services. I was an announcer on the air, and alone, at KOCA-AM in Texas when the alert came over. I broke the top-secret envelope and the code word matched ("hatefulness"). However, it came over at the exact same time as their weekly test and I knew immediately somebody had screwed up. The wire service continued to send ordinary news, weather and ball scores so I knew there was no need to activate the Emergency Broadcast System and scare the crap out of folks. It proved to be the right call, but later my dad got me to thinking when I told him about it. He said, "The test time would be the perfect time for the Soviets to attack." Oops!

“Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?” “Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.”

'Gentlemen! You can't fight in here - this is the war room!'

Another excellent historical video presentation, History Guy! It made me think about "anomalous propagation", the ability of certain atmospheric conditions to bend radar waves in strange and unpredictable ways. In the late 1960's I was an Air Force GCI (Ground Control Intercept) controller stationed at North Truro Air Force Station on the tip of Cape Cod. Our unit was known as a back up intercept control unit and was equipped with the latest third generation air space management system (BUIC III). This system received radar information about the northeast corner of the United States from ten different radar sites in addition to our own search radar equipment peering out across the Atlantic. This radar data was computer analysed and presented on rectangular screens on about a dozen computer consoles in the Operations Center. Our mission was to serve as a back-up command and control center for the much older, larger and more powerful SAGE Direction Centers that were the primary command and control centers for air space military air traffic control in the United States and Canada. The theory was that the SAGE centers would be primary nuclear targets and they would be taken out in any first strike activity. When that happened, aircraft command and control would automatically transfer to the BUIC III sites and at that point control of Air Force interceptors flying against Russian bombers would revert to controllers like me. Once every week we practiced actual, life LEVEL III operations. In Level III, the Sage Directon Center was turned off and our unit at North Truro (called: Sleeper Control) would become the primary control facility for defensive aircraft in the northeast corner of the U.S. I remember one bright and sunny morning when we were Level III. I was not yet fully qualified so I was in the Operations Center as a part of my training. It was a quiet late summer afternoon. Suddenly at around noon the system came alive with a warning alerting operations crews to something strange: east of North Truro suddenly there appeared what looked like a mass attack at relatively low altitude. Where there was nothing that radar displayed at one minute, suddenly there were around twenty radar returns at the eastern most edge of our radar coverage. Those radar "tracks" were all heading west toward the continental United States. Suddenly we went on full alert, NO DRILL inside the control center. In those days we had F106, F101 and F102 interceptors on alert 24/7. There were aircraft on standby at Otis Air Force Base, at Atlantic City, Bangor, Maine, in Vermont (Vermont Air National Guard), Westfield Massachusetts, and often at Loring AFB in northern Maine. There were always two aircraft on five minute launch in at least two locations, the first being always at Otis. There were many interceptors on 15 minute standby and others on thirty minute standby. Our senior director's responsibility was to order the launch of the five minute interceptors once the incoming radar tracks reached a certain distance from the coast. Two things held back a true "flush"...order for ALL interceptors to launch...was the fact that the radar tracks were moving quite slowly AND perhaps most importantly, the only radar that actually "saw" the mysterior radar tracks was the radar located at North Truro. None of the other ten radars saw any mysterious radar tracks over the ocean. I seem to remember the speed varying from less than a hundred miles per hour to mach .5, and the flight level of the tracks also varied from a few hundred feet to ten thousand feet or so. It really made no sense. There was an interceptor training area that was located off the coast and ran north and south along the coast of Maine. We used this for intercept training for both aircrews and controllers. As it happened that morning there were two F106 interceptors practicing various kinds of intercepts under our control. The Senior Director ordered those interceptors out further toward where the mysterious radar tracks were and the aircraft were vectored to the area. The weather was clear but a fog bank was moving east from further out, the pilots reported. The interceptor fire control radars showed no aircraft returns. The F106 fire control radar was really effective up to around 30 miles and had good performance looking forward and up and very little ability to look down, so the F106's descended gradually from their initial twenty thousand feet. Still no radar returns. The F106's were not loaded with weapons and the Senior Director had about a minute or so to launch the uploaded five minute interceptors. Now down to 10,000 feet and heading back to base, one pilot sited down on the surface of the ocean, about twenty or so sail boats scattered but obviously sailing in roughly the same direction which was west. As I recall it now, suddenly the mysterious radar tracks that could have been a massed Russian bomber raid, just faded away. There was a scramble in our maintenance department to verify the quality of the radar signal and the final verdict was that the radar signals from our search radar had been bent and the "Russian bomber raid" was actually the sail boat race out off Cape Cod. At that time the sailboats had all turned from the furthest point off the coast and were headed back to the race finish line and the boats were not hundred of miles off the coast, but much closer in. It was anomalous propagation that had bent the radar waves just enough and for just long enough to give us all a "white knuckle" experience. That had happened once before not long before off the coast of Vietnam when a US NAVY destroyer had fired on several boats that seemed to be attacking it. And we all know how that incident turned out.

My first night of shift work was the 5th of November 1979 at BMEWS Site 1 "J" site Thule Greenland I was a civilian 19 year old employee of ITT/FSI the DoD contractor. I was a new utilities person (janitor) and part-time voice comm operator (telephone operator) I placed and monitored personal phone calls, nightly. Everyone was allowed 1 Morale Call per week for 15 minutes. When this happened I was in training on shift and all 3 BMEWS sites world wide and the 56 Dewline stations and NORAD inside Cheyenne Mountain Colorado Springs went on "minimized" voice communications. What a introduction to the Cold War for me. I worked there until May 1982. What a time what a place to be at such a young age. One of the best times of my life.

If history would be taught like this in school there would be many more history buffs. Thank you.

I remember seeing the B52s' scrambling fully loaded flying overhead, and I mean at least a dozen. I was outside working with my dad who was ex airforce, I asked him" Is this what I think it is ?" He said "Well we'll know in less than 10 minutes, -get back to work !" That simple come back said it all to me, still working.

I was a Minuteman II ICBM Combat Crew Member during the height of the Cold War and during my 30 year USAF career also worked as a Watch Officer in the Cheyenne Mountain Combat Operations Center. Your piece brings back lots of wonderful memories.

I don't know about this 3 AM stuff, but I remember it very well. It was a Friday and we were having a regularly scheduled exercise. I was with the 26th NORAD Region/Air Division at Luke AFB, Arizona. For the exercise we would be operating on the exercise side of the system, while those not participating in the exercise were on the Live side monitoring real world air traffic. Shortly after the exercise started, at about 0900 Mountain Time, everybody was directed to the Live side and to look for high speed targets. We didn't learn until sometime later that day what had happened.

My dad worked at NORAD at this time. He would tell us he was going up to the “Mountain.” He came home late that day if memory serves me,, shaken and called me to check in. He never gave me the details as he held a high clearance, but was worried for a long time about that instance and some “damn 46 cent part.” Thank you so much for sharing this important piece of history. You share the best content.

History that needs to be remembered, but apropos this story “a hero that needs to be remembered “ Stanislav Petrov , whose bravery saved the world, when all alarms at his Ukrainian satelit observation post indicated a major US Nuclear attack . (From the book and movie , the man that saved the world) About this , i have an Ukrainian wife, daughter of Sovjet naval officer (stationed in kamjatka nuclear submarine base during Sovjet time) On my way home from visiting her, when we first started dating, i was flying with the Russian flight company aeroflot , i was upgraded to first class and was seated next to a Ukrainian General , i was reading “the man who saved the world” during the flight and the general showed interest about my book, due to the cover of the book, i told him the story, he had never heard about, but ny father in law knew about this incident, he knew these days when it happened that Stanislav Petrov was suspended due to the incident, he was never honored these days, first honored from US side in the late 90’th (i think it was ). Excuse me my bad english .

For those too young to remember that time and wonder how this was possible, you have to know a couple more things. First, the US military was still feeling the effects of the post Vietnam draw down. Inflation was high, unemployment was up, and we were in our 2nd energy crisis in 5 years. At that time, we had gone through a period when you could only get fuel every other day, depending on whether your tag ended in an odd or even number. Also, we were 5 days removed from the fall of the US embassy in Iran and our attention was not on the Soviet Union. If they were going to make a move, the timing was sensible.

9 Nov 79 was two years to the day after I enlisted in the USAF. I was a Security Policeman stationed at Malmstrom AFB, MT (SAC) working in the Weapons Storage Area when that alert happened. Yes, I remember it.

I was a lowly sailor in the Royal Navy at that time. On that day we were called to 'action stations' without prior warning (which was normally given for excercises) at (as I recall) about 22:00. We were in the Mediterranean between Italy and Malta at the time. At 06:00 we were 'stood down'. No explanation was ever given (until now) Thank you for clearing that up (it was no great mystery, we were occasionally put 'on alert' from time to time just to keep us sharp)

I still remember the night this happened. I was in the 6th grade. My dad was the company 1st Sgt. When he got a call and had to report to the base. He was stationed at Ft. Carson which sits at the base of Cheyenne mountain. Right in front of NORAD

Someone remembered. The tabletop roleplaying game "The Morrow Project" was released in 1980 by Timeline Games. It was set 150 years after WWIII breaks out in then-near-future 1989. The cause? During an unannounced full simulated alert exercise, someone loads a training tape into the computers at NORAD, triggering an accidental retaliatory strike against the USSR. The fact this was written into the game introduction in late 1979 or early 1980 seems rather coincidental.

My Dad worked at NORAD then. He was the technician that discovered that a “simulation” hard drive had been booted in a failover incident caused by a brief power loss in the complex. We were about 30 sec from retaliating when the discovery was made.