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Hi Frank

Thanks for your reply - however, your assessment of Maultsby's account of the event, which hs been classified for 60 years does not fit squarely with the available facts.

I take your point about using AI - I am a learner at tht AI thing and hate it like hell - and am yet to learn how to spot its unwanted contributions to a search - I do not overtly use AI - I loathe it.

Please rerad this article

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba-cuban-missile-crisis/2022-10-27/cuban-missile-crisis-60-most-dangerous-day 

A further expansion on this event ..... read this

https://www.discovermagazine.com/how-the-aurora-borealis-nearly-started-world-war-iii-26085

and this 

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/dobbs/maultsby.htm#:~:text=Neither%20the%20White%20House%20nor,shoot%20the%20U%2D2%20down.

and yes, U2 pilots do carry sextants and actually use them to check precomputed star shots - numerous sources (non AI) corroborated this fact - not withstandings Maultsbys own account that he actually tried to take sextant shots but was not able to.

Internet searches - I found but lost on my mobile - suggests there actually was a major magnetic anomaly on the nights  of  26-27 October 1962 which is suggested to have caused the U2 compass/gyro to spin and prevent Maultsby checking his position and heading, and then to carry out accurately, a 180 about turn and ended up doing a 210 deg plus turn heading him straight into Russian territory.

I would hazard a guess that had he been able to see major stars/constallations a 180 accurate turn should have been possible ....

I will leave the rest to the article links I have included.

Frank, this was a major crisis that appears to be exactly as it has been depicted just when President Kennedy was dealing with the Cuban crisis.

But no, it was never going to cause WWIII - that was a writer's pen getting a bit carried away - however, I recently read a modern book of the Cuban Crisis - it was in that book that Maultsby's event was mentioned by Kennedy and Khrushchev.

Howard H

However, I did do  a search on Northern Lights activity 27 Oct 1962