CIA located a downed airman from 40 miles away by detecting his heartbeat
by Ellsworth Toohey · Boing BoingA weapons systems officer from a downed F-15E Strike Eagle spent nearly 48 hours hiding in a mountain crevice in southern Iran. He was found 40 miles away by his heartbeat.
The CIA deployed a classified technology called Ghost Murmur, developed by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works division. According to unnamed sources cited by Newsweek — details the outlet could not independently verify — it uses quantum magnetometry to detect the electromagnetic signature of a human heartbeat, then applies AI to filter that signal from environmental noise. An unnamed source described it as "like hearing a voice in a stadium. In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you."
The airman, identified in reporting only as "Dude 44 Bravo," was recovered after the CIA also ran a deception campaign to misdirect Iranian search efforts. CIA Director John Ratcliffe compared the detection challenge to "hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert." The mountainous terrain, per sources, was actually ideal for the technology. President Trump announced the rescue on April 8, the same day he declared a two-week pause in hostilities with Iran.
Newsweek says Ghost Murmur's name combines a clinical cardiology term (heart murmur) with the idea of locating someone who has vanished. This was reportedly its first operational use.
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