Try as they will, we can not cannot accurately predict when or if our world will be thrust into another World War.

However we can tell when something is up, something computers cannot do.  So many mistakes have been linked to computers failing, and some of those failures nearly caused nuclear disaster. Fortunately in each of the cases described below, there was an actual human being there to stop the unthinkable from happening.

So here are Five Technological Mistakes/ Glitches that could have started World War III:

1. The 1979 NORAD Training Simulation Mistake

On Nov. 9th 1979 at 9am Ohio’s NORAD Station picked up a bombardment of nuclear warheads launched from Russia at the US. Panic ensued, NORAD ordered the president onto his doomsday aircraft, and ordered nuclear missiles to be a go for a retaliatory attack, luckily someone found out that tape containing a nuclear war simulation was mistakenly fed into a NORAD computer that controlled missile detection systems.

2. A Faulty Computer Chip

NORAD, again? on June 3rd, 1980 a number algorithm in a computer that is responsible for detecting a missile attack should have read 0000, but instead read 2222 (two thousand two hundred and twenty-two).  Everyone panicked until the missiles didn’t come. It took three days to figure out what happened. A computer chip malfunctioned and read 0s as 2s. A World War III starter that only cost 42 cents, not the most nerve racking thing to have written in a future history textbook.

3. The Soviet Early Warning Error

On Sept. 26th 1983, Soviet alarms went off shortly after midnight indicating that the US had launched ballistic missiles towards Russia.  Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet Lieutenant Colonel already shaken up from shooting down a South Korean airliner,  fought his instincts to fire a nuclear retaliatory attack on the US. Not because he knew it was fake, but because he knew his system was new and didn’t want to threaten Soviet peace on computer data alone. Needless to say Petrov saved civilization because of his good judgment. He said that he thought that there really was an attack on its way, and it was hard for him to not launch interceptor pilots and a retaliatory attack. Kudos to you Mr. Petrov.

4. Able Archer NORAD Training Simulation

Come on NORAD get your stuff together! A complex training simulation, called Able Archer was run without anyone’s notice. American forces had Nuclear Warheads poised at the soviets. The Soviets had been notified that it was only a training simulation, due to a pre-coded notice in the program, and it couldn’t be stopped and just had to be run out. However, they too had Nuclear Warheads pointed at the US. Both ready to fire at the drop of a feather. Eventually the training simulation stopped and things calmed down.

5. An overworked motor

Although NORAD was involved, this one wasn’t their fault. Good job guys.

On November 24th 1961, Strategic Air Command headquarters communications and radar sites between NORAD went dead. Every attempt at communication failed. Even when SAC tried everything, from backup lines, to a civilian phone. They couldn’t even bring up a dial tone. This lead to SAC’s assumption that all radar sites and NORAD had been bombed by the Soviets.  For the next 12 minutes the US Air Force breathlessly waited with nuclear armed B-52 bombers on the runways, ready to commence total global annihilation. Luckily for us a B-52 was in the air at the time and happened to fly over a radar site and noticed a distinct lack of decimation, and convinced everyone to calm down. the problem? All the phones at NORAD and its radar sites were connected to a single relay station in Colorado, where a motor overheated and shut the station down. Just goes to show that anything can cause conflict of unproportional sizes!