A Weather Rocket Nearly Started a Nuclear War
On this day · 25 January 1995
In 1995 a Norwegian science rocket looked enough like a US missile to put Russia's entire nuclear arsenal on a hair trigger.
On January 25, 1995, scientists launched a Black Brant XII sounding rocket from Andøya, off northern Norway, to study the northern lights. It carried instruments, not warheads — but to Russian eyes it looked like the end of the world.
Radar operators at the Olenegorsk early-warning station tracked the four-stage rocket climbing toward the Arctic. Its speed and trajectory resembled a US Navy Trident missile fired from a submarine in the Barents Sea — a weapon that could reach Russia in roughly 10 minutes. Strategic forces went to high alert as officers raced to interpret the threat.
For the first and only known time, a nuclear power’s launch briefcase was opened and made ready in a real alert.
Within minutes President Boris Yeltsin held the activated nuclear command suitcase, the Cheget. Norway had notified some 30 countries of the launch, but the warning never reached the radar crews. Only after operators saw the rocket veer away from Russian territory did the alert stand down — minutes from catastrophe.
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