The end of the Cold War seemed to mark the end of the nuclear danger. But in January of 1995, the world would be reminded that it is still there. On January 25th, 1995, a group of Norwegian and American scientists launch a rocket from arctic Norway to study the northern lights. The flight is scheduled to last 20 minutes. About two minutes after launch, a false alert on Russian radars show the science rocket as an incoming nuclear missile attack. Faced with ambiguous facts and extreme time pressure, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian military have just a few minutes to respond. According to "launch-on-warning" policy, the Russians should launch their own retaliatory nuclear attack. While relations between the United States and Russia were among the best they had been in 50 years, this little-known incident in northern Norway had the potential for catastrophe. How did it happen? What happened afterwards? And, most importantly, could it happen again? "Sound the Alarm" investigates the nuclear danger, one that transcended the end of the Cold War with a potential catastrophe in 1995, and has since grown to be more serious today than ever during the Cold War.
—Mattima Films