All the time there is a risk that humanity will cease to exist, for example, a meteorite will fall to Earth or an atomic bomb will explode. Such risky situations have already been fixed more than once.
About the end of the world reported almost every year, but few people know that there have been several really dangerous situations, when everything could end very badly. Let's take a closer look at the apocalyptic cases when humanity survived, despite bad predictions.
1. The Third World War
The misunderstanding that occurred in 1962 could lead to irreversible consequences. This situation was called the Cuban missile crisis. At the airbase in Duluth, the guards saw a strange figure trying to climb over the fence. To frighten her away, several warning shots were fired into the air, which activated the intrusion alarm, and she caused a chain reaction at the nearby bases. An alarm at the Volk Field airbase caused nuclear bombers to be launched into the sky, which were supposed to strike the territory of Russia. It's good that they were notified in time about a false alarm. As it turned out, the Third World War was almost provoked by a bear.
2. Preventing the clash of giants
In 1983, an early warning system for a missile attack received a signal that five intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at the Soviet Union had been launched from the territory of America. At this time on the base duty officer Stanislav Petrov, who took responsibility and said that it was a false alarm. He argued that if there was a real attack, the devices showed that America had fired hundreds of missiles instead of five. Thanks to this Petrov prevented the outbreak of war. By the way, it was concluded that the false alarm was caused by the combination of sunlight with clouds at high altitude.
3. The fall of the Tunguska meteorite
In 1908, an event occurred that could lead to the death of a huge number of people, but, thank God, everything turned out. Scientists believe that an asteroid or a comet collapsed near the surface of the Earth, and this led to the explosion by a huge force that knocked down about 2 thousand m2 of forest in Russia. It is worth noting that the force of the explosion was about 1,000 times greater than the atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima and killed more than 160,000 people.
4. The threat from the Earth satellite
In 1960, signals began to arrive at the radar base in Greenland that a nuclear attack had been committed against America. As a result, NORAD servicemen switched to combat readiness. Doubts about the reality of the attack of the USSR was caused by the fact that at that moment in America, the head of state was on a working visit. After checking, it turned out that the signal was false, and the rising moon caused it. So the satellite of the Earth almost became the cause of nuclear war.
5. Dangerous comets
In 1883 an astronomer from Mexico Jose Bonilla conducted observations and discovered about 400 dark and diffuse objects that crossed the Sun. They were fragments of a comet, and the mass of each of them was more than 1 billion tons. There was a high probability that these fragments could collide with the Earth and act like a powerful atomic bomb. Scientists suggest that this could lead to the destruction of all life on the planet. By the way, a comet of this size caused the disappearance of dinosaurs. According to available data, the most dangerous fragments of the comet passed on a negligible distance from the Earth.
6. The menacing Asclepius
In 1989, at a critical distance to the Earth approached an asteroid, which was named - (4581) Asklepiy. Just imagine, the heavenly body flew in a place where our planet was only 6 hours ago. If the collision did occur, then it would be equated with the explosion of a thermonuclear bomb with a capacity of 600 Mt. Another interesting fact: the height of the mushroom cloud created by this explosion would be seven times greater than Everest.
7. A terrible plane crash
The tragedy occurred in 1961, when the B-52 bomber, which was equipped with two nuclear bombs, fell right in the air. The bomb load was 8 Mt, and the destructive power of each bomb was 250 times greater than in the case of Hiroshima. In addition, if the wind blew, then the radiation could cover the main metropolis - New York. The plane fell on the territory of North Carolina. When this happened, the American government denied that there was a risk of a nuclear explosion, but in 2013 the information was declassified that one bomb could still explode. The tragedy was stopped thanks to a simple low-voltage switch.
8. The 2012 Threat
According to the Mayan predictions, in 2012 the end of the world was coming, and this information was believed by many people. Interestingly, the threat was really present. In July, an unusually large plasma ejection was recorded on the Sun, which flew across the Earth's orbit in the place where the planet was nine days ago. Scientists believe that if the plasma hit the Earth, it would damage electronic equipment, the restoration of which would take a lot of time and money. The damage from this would be huge.
9. The high risk of nuclear war
During the Cuban missile crisis, which was already mentioned, the ships of the US Navy were found a lone submarine, the team of which did not come into contact. To attract attention, the US ships began to drop deep-seated bombs, thereby provoking the submarine B-59 to rise to the surface. The Americans did not know that there was a nuclear torpedo on the submarine, whose explosive power was equated with the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Submarine officers thought they were being attacked, so they made a decision about launching the torpedo. Three persons participated in the voting, one was against and he convinced the captain that this was not an attack, and it was necessary to emerge.
10. Incorrectly accepted curriculum
In NORAD in 1979, programmers conducted tests - a planned computer simulation of the Soviet attack. Nobody thought that computer systems had a connection with the NORAD network. As a result, a false report of the attack was transferred to all defense systems in America. The fighters for the attack were already raised, but the Third World War was warned on time.