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Speaker 1: Deep in the back of your mind. You've always had

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Speaker 1: the feeling that there's something strange about reality. There is

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Speaker 1: sugar like death, must nanopartic mechanical messiahis punch evolution. On

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Speaker 1: our award winning science podcast Stuff About Your Mind, we

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Speaker 1: examine neurological quandaries, cosmic mysteries, evolutionary marvels, and our trans

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Speaker 1: human future. New episodes come out Tuesdays and Thursdays on iTunes,

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Speaker 1: Google Play, Spotify, and anywhere you get your podcast. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, they're brain Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Christian Seger. Have you ever had one of those

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Speaker 1: days where you think to yourself, that is it. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna go and build a doomsday machine to destroy the world,

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Speaker 1: just like all those supervillains in the movies. If so,

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Speaker 1: it turns out you're not alone. See sometime during the

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Speaker 1: Cold War, the USSR had the same idea. They've built

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Speaker 1: a real life doomsday device, something that could destroy most

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Speaker 1: of civilization, and the creepiest thing of all is that

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Speaker 1: it might still be around today. Let's move on, since

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Speaker 1: we don't know how long we have until the world ends.

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Speaker 1: This all started back during the Cold War, which took

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Speaker 1: place roughly from the late nineteen forties to nine. Tensions

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Speaker 1: between the US and the Soviet Union, the world's greatest

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Speaker 1: superpowers were high, and each country continually provoked the other.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties, the US elected Ronald Reagan as president,

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Speaker 1: believing that a show of strength would increase Western leverage

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Speaker 1: with the Soviet Union. The Reagan administration expanded the US

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Speaker 1: nuclear arsenal and built a space based missile shield called

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Speaker 1: the Strategic Defense Initiative, or as its critics like to

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Speaker 1: call it, star Wars. This was meant to show that

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Speaker 1: the US was not afraid of entering a catastrophic nuclear

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Speaker 1: war with Russia, but it worked a little too well.

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Speaker 1: Because the USSR assumed the US was actually planning to

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Speaker 1: begin a nuclear war with mobile nukes and submarines in

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Speaker 1: an orbiting system to deflect Soviet missiles. These these are

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Speaker 1: i C B m s or intercontinental ballistic missiles, the

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Speaker 1: US would be less likely to take the full brunt

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Speaker 1: of a Soviet retaliation. This meant that in a matter

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Speaker 1: of as little as ten to fifteen minutes, the Soviet

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Speaker 1: Union could be reduced to ashes, radiation, and corpses. Moscow's

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Speaker 1: brightest minds flew into overtime. The details are sketchy, but

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Speaker 1: historians currently believe they brought their answer online around nine.

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Speaker 1: It's called Mertva Ruka, or the dead Hand, at least informally.

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Speaker 1: Dead Hand is the pet name for a monstrous thing

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Speaker 1: known as perimeter. Perimeter when it was first built, was

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Speaker 1: a network linking all of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons

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Speaker 1: to one machine, and it ensured that the country could

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Speaker 1: always respond to any new clear strike, even if the

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Speaker 1: Soviet government had just been bombed out of existence. This

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Speaker 1: is scary stuff, right. What we know about it today

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Speaker 1: is largely based on interviews with former Soviet officials, investigations

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Speaker 1: by nuclear experts such as the Brookings Institutions, Bruce G. Blair,

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Speaker 1: and cryptic open secret esque statements by Russian officials. Now

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Speaker 1: the good news. First, it's not one big red button

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Speaker 1: in some bunker somewhere. The local security guard can't have

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Speaker 1: a bad day playing angry birds and then just destroy

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Speaker 1: the world. Here's here's how we think it works. Perimeter

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Speaker 1: spends most of its time in a dormant phase, and

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Speaker 1: it's only switched on by officials in a state of emergency.

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Speaker 1: Once activated, It stays active for fifteen minutes before automatically

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Speaker 1: shutting down. During this time, the system monitors the country

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Speaker 1: through various arrays of radiation, seismic, and air pressure sensors.

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Speaker 1: According to David Hoffman, author of The Dead Hand, the

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Speaker 1: untold story of the Cold War arms race in its

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Speaker 1: Dangerous Legacy, three officers sit in the remote heart of Perimeter,

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Speaker 1: a sphere shaped fortified bunker deep underground. The system had

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Speaker 1: several stages. Perimeter would monitor the sensors for signs of

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Speaker 1: a nuclear attack on Russian soil, and also attempt to

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Speaker 1: confirm communication with the national command authority. If there's no

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Speaker 1: communication with military command and the sensors indicate there has

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Speaker 1: been an attack, then the system grants the ability to

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Speaker 1: launch to anyone who happens to be in the room.

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Speaker 1: If the people or person in the room do decide

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Speaker 1: to proceed, the Perimeter launches four small command missiles that

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Speaker 1: fly across the country, activating all available nuclear weapons, including

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Speaker 1: those on submarines. There are no public indications that the

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Speaker 1: Dead Hand has ever been activated, though it has been

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Speaker 1: used extensively in war games. However, there's one bag question left.

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Speaker 1: Is it still around today? People argue back and forth

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Speaker 1: on this one. Many signs seem to indicate yes, or

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Speaker 1: at least part of it exists, and if so, it

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Speaker 1: may be more dangerous than before due to Russia's loss

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Speaker 1: of key early warning satellites. When Blair brought this to

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Speaker 1: the attention of the U S public in many government

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Speaker 1: officials were highly skeptical. Sure, they said, it's possible, but

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Speaker 1: who would do it. Russian officials never confirmed the existence

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Speaker 1: of the perimeter system. What we know comes from interviews

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Speaker 1: with former officials and advisers, and in the then commander

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Speaker 1: of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces confirmed at least part

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Speaker 1: of its existence, that being the communication system to a

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Speaker 1: Russian newspaper. Check out the brain Stuff channel on YouTube,

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Speaker 1: and for more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: visit how stuff work dot com.