According to the U.S. Star-Spangled Banner reported on the 14th local time, Americans living at and near Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany may think that 2020 will end, but the alarm suddenly sounded and “great voices” shouted, demanding that people avoid the upcoming air strikes.
The alarm sounded on Saturday morning at the base’s speaker system, followed by a warning: “Air strikes, air strikes, cover, cover, cover.”
This plunged some base personnel who heard the alarm into a brief panic, because the warning lacked the usual accompanying words – “This is an exercise, this is a drill”.
The report said that on Saturday, a Russian nuclear submarine test-fired four intercontinental ballistic missiles from the western Pacific Ocean, which may have triggered a brief panic in the Kaiserslautern military community.
According to the Associated Press, the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that Russia’s simulated warheads hit targets more than 5,472 kilometers away from the Arkhangelsk region in northwest Russia.
On Saturday, on social media Facebook, a netizen comment under the official account of Ramstein Air Force Base wrote that the alarm “jumped my heart for a second”.
Another responded: “Me too. I ran into the base military service and began to shout at people to hide.”
The 86th Airborne Wing of the U.S. Army revealed on social media that their command post “received notification of the launch of real missiles in the European theater through the Alert Notification System”.
After the missile launch was “assessed as part of a training exercise rather than a threat against the Kaiserslautern military base area”, the U.S. Air Force declared safe and thanked the members of the command post for their rapid response.
U.S. Air Force officials have not revealed the exact reason why the alarm was triggered.
“The Control Center follows appropriate procedures … provides quick and accurate notice to all those who need it,” the U.S. African Air Command in Europe said Monday.
“We monitor consistently and regularly any threats against our forces and our allies,” the headquarters spokesman Erica Vega said in a statement.
