It's a question that has reverberated through American sporting history.
The distinctively dulcet tones of Al Michaels, imploring his audience on the US ABC network to understand the significance of what they were witnessing, delivered it, a query that was framed more like a statement.
"Do you believe in miracles?" he cried as the seconds ticked down at the Lake Placid Olympic Centre in upstate New York, the crowd briefly ceasing its screaming to count down the final couple of seconds.
He delivered the answer himself, an emphatic "Yes!" as pandemonium ensued and the United States claimed one of the most remarkable Olympic victories by a score of 4-3.
America's malaise at the turn of the 1980s
There are some sporting moments that are seared into a nation's sporting consciousness.
The Miracle on Ice is America's.
It is difficult to truly state just how important this ice hockey match was.
This was the height of the Cold War, while America's sense of global self-assurance was being battered both internationally and domestically.
Bruised from the horror of Vietnam, America's foreign standing appeared to be slipping even further with a newly energised Soviet Union asserting itself in Yemen and invading Afghanistan.
The assertiveness of the Soviet Union led to a firming of policy and rhetoric from the USA.
From a sporting perspective, discussions were being held at the highest level of the US government about whether a planned boycott of that summer's Moscow Olympics would take place.
But there were issues elsewhere for America, too.
It was in the midst of the Iran hostage crisis, which directly led to the presidency of Jimmy Carter hanging by a thread as he dealt with rampant inflation and an energy crisis.
Under enormous pressure, Carter delivered a stunning speech in which he decried America's "crisis of confidence" as a "fundamental threat to American democracy".
"It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation," the president said, while lashing out at the "self-indulgence and consumption" of Americans, as well as their "fragmentation and self-interest".
America had, arguably, never been at such a low ebb.
The looming Winter Olympics in Lake Placid was not exactly comforting, either.
Soviet supremacy on ice
Unlike in the Summer Games, America had no dominance to fall back on in winter sports. It had only ever topped the medal table once in the entire history of the Winter Olympics, in 1932.
In the 18 Summer Games before 1980, the USA had topped the medal table 11 times.
But it was the Soviet Union that was the pre-eminent power across winter sports.
Since World War I, the Soviets had largely kept themselves out of international competition, instead cultivating their own Spartakiad games among communist nations.
Eventually, the USSR decided to end its self-imposed sporting isolation and enter a team for the 1952 Summer Games in Helsinki — following a period of "collection and study of sports abroad" by various agents, according to a CIA report.
That CIA report from December 1954, titled Soviet Sports and Intelligence Activities, noted the USSR did not send a team to the Oslo Winter Games in 1952 because "the position of Soviet winter sports was still relatively weak".
Weakness was not something the Soviet Olympic teams would come to be known for.
From the USSR's first appearance at an Olympic Games (1952's summer Games in Helsinki) through to its final appearance in 1988, the Soviet Union won an absurd 1,204 medals, 473 of them gold. On both counts, that is the second most of any nation in history behind the USA, which, given the USSR only appeared in 18 Games in total, is quite remarkable.
In terms of Winter Olympics, since first appearing in (coincidentally) Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956, the USSR topped the medal table in every Games bar one, winning a total of 78 golds, 57 silvers and 59 bronzes.
The ice hockey competition was a helpful barometer of their dominance.
Aside from Great Britain's surprise victory in 1936 at the Nazi Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Canada had been the dominant force in Olympic ice hockey, winning six of the first seven titles, including the competition held at the Antwerp Summer Games in 1920.
The Soviet Union changed that emphatically.
After winning in Cortina, the Soviets won four of the next five Games, their victories a study in Soviet dominance.
All up, the USSR won 24 of the 26 games they played, winning all four gold medals and outscoring their opponents 210-48.
The main reason for this was the Soviet shamateurism that prevailed in this era.
No professionals were allowed in the Winter Olympics — players from the National Hockey League (NHL) would not be permitted to play at the Olympics until 1998.
But with communist countries craving sporting success, the players were essentially allowed to be fulltime professionals, their jobs off the ice nominal at best.
Their only defeat came in Squaw Valley 1960, when the USA claimed its first ice hockey gold — a result that later become known as the forgotten miracle.
The miracle
Amidst such turmoil and in the face of a sporting juggernaut, the USA was not given much hope of success.
But Herb Brooks, the coach who had been cut as a player from that victorious 1960 team on the eve of the Games? He believed.
Having been frequently beaten by the Soviets in his international hockey career through the 60's, Brooks felt that the only way to beat them was to outplay them, abandoning the overly physical style favoured in North America at the time and transitioning to a skill-based game more suited to the wider rinks in use at the Olympics.
The University of Minnesota coach drove his players — a collection of college players with an average age of 22 years and five months, the youngest in the entire competition — hard, to the brink of what they were capable of.
What they were capable of was miraculous.
The USA went through the first round of matches unbeaten, four wins from five matches and a draw against Sweden. In the other group, the Soviets were 5-0, scoring 51 goals and conceding just 11.
That put them into the final round, another round robin phase with the top two teams from each group playing each other in a final match-up, with the result from the first round carrying through.
The first match in that final phase was the USA vs the USSR.
Tied 2-2 through the first period, the Soviets took the lead for the third time in the match early in the second period but the turning point had come earlier than that, when Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov replaced legendary goaltender Vladislav Tretiak.
Tretiak had made an error to gift the USA their second goal, but it was still a massive call to make — the USA team were terrified of the giant Soviet stopper.
The Americans subsequently tied the game again, on a power play in the third period, before taking the lead for the first time with 10 minutes to go in the contest.
The Soviets launched a furious assault on the American goal, creating a huge number of chances as the US crowd began to scream themselves hoarse — it's actually quite hard to hear the commentary in the closing stages, so loud was the cacophony from the stands.
But you can hear is Al Michael's commentary, periodically barking out the amount of time left, beginning to believe in what he was seeing, perfectly capturing the tension as the clock ticked down.
"Into the American end. 55 seconds. Mikhailov has the puck, Mikhailov sweeping in, out in front, backhander, goes wide, I think Craig might have just got a piece of it. Mikhailov out to Bilyaletdinov. 43 seconds. It comes back to centre ice. 38, 37 seconds left in the game. Petrov with it, the Americans on top 4 to 3. Long shot, Craig able to get a piece of it and keep it away. 28 seconds. The crowd going insane. Bilyaletdinov, putting it into the American end again. Morrow is back there, now Johnson. 19 seconds. Johnson over to Ramsey, Bilyaletdinov is checked by Ramsey, McClanahan is there, the puck is still loose. 11 seconds. You've got 10 seconds, the countdown going on right now. Morrow. Up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game.
"Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"
Outside the arena though, not a single person in the USA knew what was going on.
The ABC was not broadcasting the game live, choosing instead to tape it and play it in prime time for maximum audience exposure.
It was probably the right call.
Sports Illustrated named the game the top sports moment of the 20th century in 1999.
A factor sometimes overlooked is that the USA had not actually won gold by beating the Soviets — they still had to beat Finland two days later to win the title, which they did, 4-2, having trailed 2-1 heading into the final period.
But that wasn't part of the miracle.
The underdog Americans had delivered a brilliant blow to the powerhouse Soviet Union just when it needed it most.
And although the USSR would win the next two gold medals (and a third as the Unified Team in 1992) that would be that for the USSR in Olympic ice hockey.
As for the USA, they have claimed the silver medal twice since their epic gold in Lake Placid — both times losing to northern neighbours Canada.
