Hacker News Reader

Not from this report, but these quotes are crazy:

> "In this country we've had incidents where these UAPs have interfered and actually brought offline our nuclear capabilities" [1]

> "We also have data suggesting that in other countries these things have interfered with their nuclear technology and actually turned them on, put them online." [1]

How is stuff like this possible or is it just hyperbole?

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/25/ufos-us-gove...

View on HN

It's not hyperbole. Computer systems have been used for decades to move weapons into a more ready state. Fortunately they have required a human to confirm before launch (as far as we know).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

Some weapons systems may be configured to automatically power on to a more ready (as opposed sitting in low power sleep mode) mode (not launch) when unknown objects appear on a sensor system. Whether this is a wise way to do things stands to be seen.

Nuclear weapons do not have situational awareness. They’re intended to be used as part of a larger deployment system with a human in the loop. There’s no threat model for them that includes self-arming when mysterious aircraft approach their storage location.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com