Infamous Computer Failures Is That the Moon or a Missile? The United States established the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) during the Cold War to detect a Soviet missile attack. On October 5, 1960 the BMEWS radar at Thule, Greenland detected something. Its computer control system decided the signal was made by hundreds of missiles coming toward the US. BMEWS station, Thule, Greenland The radar had actually detected the Moon rising over the horizon. Unfortunately, the BMEWS computer had not been programmed to understand what the moon looked like as it rose in the eastern sky, so it interpreted the huge signal as Soviet missiles. Luckily for all of us, the mistake was realized in time.