A Powerful Solar Storm In 1967 Could Have Resulted In A Nuclear War Between US And Soviet Union, Here’s How

A new study has found that there were chances of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union back in May 1967 when the former assumed that its surveillance radars in the Northern Hemisphere were jammed by the later, which was not the case.

At the last minute, when the US Air Force had almost prepared themselves for a war with the Soviet Union, the military space weather scientists conveyed the information that it was an incredibly powerful solar flare that actually disrupted the radars and radio communications and nothing else, according to a new report study in the journal Space Weather. This is for the first time that retired U.S. Air Force officers who were involved in the forecasting and analysis of the solar storm came forward to describe the event and disclose details in public, reported Space.com.

Lead author of the study, Delores Knipp, a space physicist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said the potential impact of the solar storm on society remained unknown until the Air Force officers came together to share their stories. She added that the solar storm is a classic example of how space research and geoscience are very much essential to U.S. national security. "This was a lesson learned in how important it is to be prepared," said Knipp.

The U.S. military began keeping a check on space weather and solar activity in the late 1950s to look for disturbances in upper atmosphere and magnetic field of the earth. In the 1960s, a new Air Weather Service (AWS) monitoring division was formed to routinely monitor the sun for solar flares. Solar flares are high-energy radiation blasts from the Sun's surface which can cause geomagnetic storms that can disrupt radio communications and power line transmissions.

The AWS employed a network of observers at different locations in the U.S. and outside the country to provide regular input to space weather forecasters at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). By 1967, NORAD space weather forecasters received information on a daily basis directly from the observatories. It was on May 18, 1967, that an unusually large group of sunspots with intense magnetic fields clumped in one region of the sun. By May 23, 1967, the weather scientists and observers saw the sun was active and there were high chances of a solar flare. The study team members said the sun fired off a flare which was so powerful that it was even visible to the naked eye and that it began emitting radio waves at a level that had never been seen before. A NORAD bulletin forecasted that a significant worldwide geomagnetic storm would take place within 36 to 48 hours.

On the same day, three radars at the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) locations in the Northern Hemisphere appeared to be jammed at the same time. Air Force officials assumed that the Soviet Union was responsible for the radar jamming. Fortunately, retired Colonel Arnold L. Snyder, a solar forecaster at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was on duty that day. Snyder said that the NORAD Command Post had asked him about any solar activity and he responded that "half the sun has blown away." NORAD was also informed that the three radar sites were in sunlight and could receive radio emissions that come from the sun. He added that these facts suggested that the radars were being 'jammed' by the sun, not the Soviet Union, reported Tech Times.

Knipp will present more details about the study at the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado on August 10, 2016.