Black Brant Scare

January 25, 1995 - The world dodged a nuclear bullet on this day. It all started when a group of American and Norwegian scientists launched a Black Brant rocket to study the aurora borealis. Unfortunately, its flight path followed the same corridor as a potential US missile attack on Moscow.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had been provided with plenty of advanced warning about the rocket, but somehow the message never made it to the radar technicians, so they assumed the worst and initiated protocols for a nuclear attack. Russian President Boris Yeltsin was notified and he activated his nuclear keys for the first time. Russian subs were ordered to prepare for a retaliatory attack.

Thankfully the rocket veered away from Russia and fell harmlessly back to earth near the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen.

As far as we know, this was the first and only incident in which a superpower activated its nuclear suitcase and started the process for launching its missiles.