Stanislav Petrov died. Not sure how well known he is in the US, but he's the bloke who basically prevented a thermo-nuclear war in '83.

Watched this expecting something like Alexandr Petrov. This is good stuff.

I bet Petrov gave him quite a scare. Would have been a smarter idea to just stay put. These blokes know how to drive, occasionally.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'nuclear, weapons, missile, ballistic, icbm, russia, usa, false alarm, stanislav petrov' to 'nuclear, weapons, missile, ballistic, icbm, russia, usa, false alarm' - edited by calvados

Tags for this video have been changed from 'nuclear, weapons, missile, ballistic, icbm, russia, usa, false alarm' to 'nuclear, weapons, missile, ballistic, icbm, russia, usa, false alarm, stanislav petrov' - edited by calvados

Wikipedia:

1983 incident

Stanislav Petrov, an Air Defence lieutenant colonel, was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow on September 26, 1983.[4] Petrov's responsibilities included observing the satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early-warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union's strategy was an immediate nuclear counter-attack against the United States (launch on warning), specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.[1]

Shortly after midnight, the bunker's computers reported that an intercontinental ballistic missile was heading toward the Soviet Union from the US.[5] Petrov considered the detection a computer error, since a United States first-strike nuclear attack would be likely to involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches, in order to disable any Soviet means for a counterattack. Furthermore, the satellite system's reliability had been questioned in the past.[6] Petrov dismissed the warning as a false alarm, though accounts of the event differ as to whether he notified his superiors[7] or not[5] after he concluded that the computer detections were false and that no missile had been launched. Later, the computers identified four additional missiles in the air, all directed towards the Soviet Union. Petrov again suspected that the computer system was malfunctioning, despite having no other source of information to confirm his suspicions. The Soviet Union's land radar was incapable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon, and waiting for it to positively identify the threat would limit the Soviet Union's response time to minutes.
Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched an assault against the United States, precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United States. Petrov declared the system's indications a false alarm. Later, it was apparent that he was right: no missiles were approaching and the computer detection system was malfunctioning. It was subsequently determined that the false alarms had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites' Molniya orbits, an error later corrected with cross-reference to a geostationary satellite.[8]

Petrov later indicated the influences in this decision included: that he had been told a US strike would be all-out, so that five missiles seemed an illogical start;[1] that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy;[citation needed] and that ground radars were still failing to pick up any corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay.[citation needed]

This animation is absolutely awesome, petrov is a friggin genius!

Ok. I simply must sell this one because there is no way that it should perish in the queue due to its obscurity.

Aleksandr Petrov is a Russian animator who frequently works with the Pascal Blais Studio in Canada. He is one of the most renowned paint-on-glass animators in the world.

Paint-on-Glass is unbelievably difficult to pull off successfully. The technique involves creating a picture on a pane of glass with pastel paints, photographing it, and then "animating" the picture by manipulating the paints with your fingers. Petrov's version of The Old Man and the Sea is even more astonishing than The Cow. I would vote for this one 1000X if I could.