Once again, NORAD brought the world to the brink of war. This time, in 1979, the operators at the US Missile Warning Command Centre were given a warning that the USSR had launched missiles. Everyone went into high alert, bomb crews were sent to planes, 10 fighter-interceptors were launched and Air Force One took to the sky. Except, it wasn’t real.

A training tape had been mistakenly inserted into a NORAD mainframe, and the simulation was broadcast to every command centre in North America. None of it was real.