The CIA used a secret tool dubbed ‘Ghost Murmur’ to find the American airman shot down over Southern Iran.
According to sources familiar with the technology, this futuristic device uses ‘long–range quantum magnetometry’ to find even the faintest heartbeats.
The tool reportedly scans for the subtle electromagnetic fingerprint of the human heart.
This data is then filtered through artificial intelligence (AI) software to isolate an individual signature from the background noise.
According to a source, who spoke with the New York Post, Ghost Murmur was developed by Lockheed Martin’s infamous ‘Skunk Works’ division.
This is the aerospace giant’s secretive advanced development division, responsible for creating the U–2 and Blackbird spy planes.
One individual who spoke with the New York Post described Ghost Murmur as ‘hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert’.
They added: ‘In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you.’
The CIA used a secret tool dubbed ‘Ghost Murmur’ to find the American airman shot down over Southern Iran. Pictured: US planes reportedly destroyed during the rescue operation
The technology was reportedly used to find a wounded weapons systems officer, known publicly as ‘Dude 44 Bravo’, who had been shot down over Southern Iran.
The pilot was hiding in a mountain cave after his F–15 fighter jet was shot down last week, surviving for two days in the harsh terrain while Iranian troops scoured the area.
The source said that this barren landscape provided ‘an ideal first operational use’ of Ghost Murmur.
Due to low electromagnetic interference, the desert presented ‘about as clean an environment as you could ask for’ with almost no other human signatures.
While the source says Dude 44 Bravo activated a Boeing–made Combat Survivor Evader Locator beacon, their precise whereabouts remained unknown until he was detected by Ghost Murmur.
The source says: ‘Normally this signal is so weak that it can only be measured in a hospital setting with sensors pressed nearly against the chest.
‘But advances in a field known as quantum magnetometry – specifically sensors built around microscopic defects in synthetic diamonds – have apparently made it possible to detect these signals at dramatically greater distances.
‘The capability is not omniscient. It works best in remote, low–clutter environments and requires significant processing time.’
Ghost Murmur reportedly uses long–range quantum magnetometry, a cutting–edge technology which uses lasers and lab–grown diamonds to measure tiny magnetic fields. Pictured: A quantum magnetometer developed by NASA
However, the source said they did not know how long these processing times were, or whether they were short enough to make Ghost Murmur practical in offensive operations.
Quantum magnetometry is a cutting–edge technique that can detect extremely subtle variations in magnetic fields.
These sensitive instruments work by firing lasers through specially created artificial diamonds.
The light from the laser probes atom–sized imperfections in the diamond’s structure, known as colour centres, which react on the quantum level to magnetic fields.
Typically, quantum magnetometry is used to look at very large objects, like the interior of distant planets, or tiny ones, like individual nerves in the human body.
In theory, that means they could be used to detect the electromagnetic signal from an individual heartbeat.
However, the kind of sensitivity Ghost Murmur supposedly possesses is previously unheard of.
The technology has been successfully tested with Black Hawk helicopters, and there are reportedly plans for future use on F–35 fighter jets, a second source said.
President Donald Trump alluded to the technology during a press conference on Monday, saying that rescuing the airman was like ‘finding a needle in a haystack’
Donald Trump says that several US planes had to be destroyed during the rescue after becoming stuck on the makeshift runway. Pictured: Wreckage believed to be from US military transport aircraft and helicopters
President Donald Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe alluded to the classified technology during a press conference on Monday.
Mr Ratcliffe said that the CIA had ‘achieved our primary objective by finding and providing confirmation that one of America’s best and bravest was alive and concealed in a mountain crevice.’
He added that they were ‘still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA’.
Trump added that Mr Ratcliffe ‘did a phenomenal job that night’, adding ‘he did something that I don’t know if you want to talk about it. If you want, you can. I’m not sure he’s supposed to.’
The President then joked that he might have to ‘put [Mr Ratcliffe] in jail’ if he discussed details of the classified technology.
Trump added that the airman had been detected from ’40 miles away’, although it was unclear whether the President was referring to a detection using Ghost Murmur or whether his statement was accurate.
During the press conference, Trump described an all–hands–on–deck rescue operation that involved 155 aircraft – including 64 fighter jets, 48 refuelling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and three helicopters.
Trump lauded ‘a breathtaking show of skill and precision, lethality and force’ as US forces swooped into mountainous terrain in southern Iran to rescue the weapons systems officer (WSO) whose F–15E fighter jet went down on Good Friday.
