The Norwegian Rocket Incident of 1995

Interesting scientific share, thank you.

Yep this was one of two or three really close calls during the Cold War. The Russians detected this ionospheric research launch and thought it might be the beginning of an attack on Russia. Another one, in which I was a minor player, was an exercise in Europe called Able Archer in 1983. The Russians had been compiling a "scoreboard" of indicators that they believed would give them accurate warning of an impending NATO attack. Unbeknownst to us, some of the things they perceived in Able Archer '83 apparently filled in some key elements in their indications and warning scoreboard. So while we were playing an exercise that involved a NATO vs Warsaw Pact contingency, the Russians thought they were witnessing preparations for a real attack. We only learned how close we had come to real issues much later. Scary stuff...