Almost went to nuclear war because of a 1967 solar flare

Tanner, Goose, Pantry, myself, all you guys older than 48 almost had your asses fried cause of a solar flare. We thought we were getting nuked.  

http://gizmodo.com/a-solar-flare-almost-caused-nuclear-war-in-1967-1785049998

I'm pretty glad that we didn't accidentally destroy the earth dwags

That was the first year I started following the Lions. Seems about right.

DWags wrote:Tanner, Goose, Pantry, myself, all you guys older than 48 almost had your asses fried cause of a solar flare. We thought we were getting nuked.  

http://gizmodo.com/a-solar-flare-almost-caused-nuclear-war-in-1967-1785049998

Well, it would have spared me some difficulties.

Jake from State Farm wrote:Really wouldn't surprise me if mankind got wiped out due to something really stupid that we brought upon ourselves.

Let me tell you why you wouldn't be surprised...

Cause Youd be dead. You would have no feelings or understanding. Only the cockroaches would be surprised.

Jake from State Farm wrote:

DWags wrote:

Let me tell you why you wouldn't be surprised...

Cause Youd be dead. You would have no feelings or understanding. Only the cockroaches would be surprised.

I'd like to think that with my mad survival skills I'd be eating cockroach stew at the end.

Until your skin fell off.

I heard we almost lost Detroit.

DWags wrote:Tanner, Goose, Pantry, myself, all you guys older than 48 almost had your asses fried cause of a solar flare. We thought we were getting nuked.  

http://gizmodo.com/a-solar-flare-almost-caused-nuclear-war-in-1967-1785049998

We came even closer in 1983. The Soviet early warning systems reported multiple launches from the US, but the Soviet officer monitoring the systems did not trust them and dismissed them as a false alarm, despite the system saying that the reliability was the "highest". In not passing the report on to his superiors, he violated his orders. He is sometimes called the man who saved the world.

At that time, tensions were at their peak, with Soviet Premier Andropov very seriously believing that the US would launch a first strike. 3 weeks before this incident, the Soviets shot down a Korean Air Lines passenger jet (among the Americans on board was a US congressman). So if this one Soviet officer had kicked the warning up the chain of command, with the tensions and belief that the US would launch a first strike, it's terrifying to think what might have happened. The warnings were triggered because of a certain way that the sun hit the clouds in just the right way in just the right area. Crazy to think about it.

No one really knew about this until after the Soviet Union collapsed, but 1983 was a very scary year. Later in 1983 there were NATO exercises that the Soviets thought were a cover for an impending attack. Right around that same time, the TV movie "The Day After" aired. I was about 10 at the time, and it was scary as shit, but I probably still couldn't wrap my head around the possibility like some of you more seasoned folks. I found it online somewhere several years ago and watched it, and it still was pretty scary, though at the same time it is easier to accept knowing that it didn't come to that. But it's still so fucked up to hear about how close it came to happening and on how many different occasions.

Jake from State Farm wrote:Really wouldn't surprise me if mankind got wiped out due to something really stupid that we brought upon ourselves.

Almost happened once before due to the fact that that every imagination of the thoughts of mankind's heart was only evil continually.

Watch Out Pylon! wrote:

tGreenWay wrote:I heard we almost lost Detroit.

I'd never heard that before. Had to look it up.

Edit: I also saw they've renamed themselves Jr. Jr. Wikipedia doesn't say why they changed names, but it doesn't appear to have been anything to do with threat of a lawsuit, because the actual DE, Jr. Is a fan of the band's.