one example that is well recorded happened back in 1983, and was the direct result of a software bug in the Soviet early warning system. The Russians’ system told them that the US had launched five ballistic missiles. However, the duty officer for the system, one Lt Col Stanislav Petrov, claims he had a “…funny feeling in my gut”, and reasoned if the US was really attacking they would launch more than five missiles. The trigger for the near apocalyptic disaster was traced to a fault in software that was supposed to filter out false missile detections caused by satellites picking up sunlight reflections off cloud-tops.

I’m glad this guy had a gut feeling that the US would send more than 5 missiles, otherwise I may have never been born. :) This seems to be the only one on the list that could have resulted in a total catastrophe, but the others are still interesting.