{"id":188813,"date":"2026-04-07T21:23:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T21:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188813\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T21:23:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T21:23:28","slug":"ghost-murmur-a-never-used-secret-tool-deployed-to-find-lost-airman-in-iran-in-daring-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188813\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ghost Murmur,’ a never-used secret tool, deployed to find lost airman in Iran in daring mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 The CIA used a futuristic new tool called \u201cGhost Murmur\u201d to find and rescue the second American airman<\/a> who was shot down in southern Iran, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

The secret technology uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic fingerprint of a human heartbeat and pairs the data with artificial intelligence software to isolate the signature from background noise, two sources close to the breakthrough said.<\/p>\n

It was the tool\u2019s first use in the field by the spy agency \u2014 and was alluded to Monday afternoon by President Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe <\/a>at a White House briefing.<\/p>\n

CIA Director John Ratcliffe speaks at a White House briefing Monday on the rescue of a US airman in Iran. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert,\u201d a source briefed on the program told The Post. \u201cIn the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you.\u201d<\/p>\n

This source and another with knowledge of Lockheed Martin intelligence collection tools told The Post that \u201cGhost Murmur\u201d was developed by Skunk Works, the aerospace giant\u2019s secretive advanced development division. The company declined to comment.<\/p>\n

The technology has been successfully tested on Black Hawk helicopters for future potential use on F-35 fighter jets, the second source said.<\/p>\n

The missing and wounded weapons systems officer \u2014 known publicly only as \u201cDude 44 Bravo\u201d \u2014 was hiding in a mountain crevice after his F-15 jet was shot down late last week, surviving two days in desolate terrain <\/a>as Iranian troops scoured the area for the American with a bounty on his head.<\/p>\n

The wreckage of plane reportedly stuck and then destroyed by US forces in the rescue mission. Handout via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Iranian authorities failed to find the US airman before the CIA. Handout via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The relatively barren landscape made for \u201can ideal first operational use\u201d of Ghost Murmur, the first source said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name is deliberate. \u2018Murmur\u2019 is a clinical term for a heart rhythm. \u2018Ghost\u2019 refers to finding someone who, for all practical purposes, has disappeared,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

What to know about the daring rescue of the US airman in Iran:<\/p>\n

It was \u201cabout as clean an environment as you could ask for\u201d because of low electromagnetic interference, \u201calmost no competing human signatures, and at night the thermal contrast between a living body and the desert floor,\u201d which \u201cgave operators a secondary confirmation layer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally this signal is so weak that it can only be measured in a hospital setting with sensors pressed nearly against the chest,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

Trump and Ratcliffe hinted at secret capabilities aiding the secret and succsessful rescue mission. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBut advances in a field known as quantum magnetometry \u2014 specifically sensors built around microscopic defects in synthetic diamonds \u2014 have apparently made it possible to detect these signals at dramatically greater distances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe capability is not omniscient. It works best in remote, low-clutter environments and requires significant processing time,\u201d this person said.<\/p>\n

It was unclear to The Post\u2019s sources how long the processing time was in this use. It\u2019s also unclear if the technology may have additional wartime offensive uses.<\/p>\n

The Iranian state media said to show fragments of a downed U.S. jet in this picture said to be taken in central Iran and released on April 3, 2026. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

Although the missing airman had activated a Boeing-made Combat Survivor Evader Locator beacon<\/a>, his precise whereabouts remained uncertain to search and rescue teams.<\/p>\n

The pivotal moment in the frantic two-day search and rescue mission came when \u201cGhost Murmur\u201d pinpointed the aviator\u2019s location \u2014 with the first source describing the two technologies as both being useful in ball-parking and then confirming the location.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had to come out [of the crevice] to send the beacon,\u201d the first source said. \u201cIt was less important the signal they sent and more important that he had to come out to send [it].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201940 miles away\u2019<\/p>\n

Trump and Ratcliffe hinted at the new technology while briefing the press on the successive yet dramatic mission, which included hundreds of US troops and two rescue planes getting stuck in a field, requiring more planes and the destruction of the stranded jets \u2014 with no American casualties. <\/p>\n

It was the tool\u2019s first use in the field by the CIA.<\/p>\n

Ratcliffe, who took no reporter questions at the briefing, said that on Saturday morning the spy agency \u201cachieved our primary objective by finding and providing confirmation that one of America\u2019s best and bravest was alive and concealed in a mountain crevice \u2014 still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat confirmation was relayed by Secretary [of War Pete] Hegseth to the president, and the operation quickly moved to the execution phase,\u201d the CIA director said.<\/p>\n

Trump told the press that the CIA spotted the missing American from \u201c40 miles away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ghost Murmur technology has never been used in the field, sources said. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like finding a needle in a haystack, finding this pilot, and the CIA was unbelievable,\u201d Trump said Monday. \u201cThe CIA was very responsible for finding this little speck.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president said that Ratcliffe \u201cdid a phenomenal job that night \u2014 he did something that I don\u2019t know if you want to talk about it. If you want, you can. I\u2019m not sure he\u2019s supposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president joked that the technology \u201cmight be classified, in which case I\u2019d have to put him in jail if he talks about it and I don\u2019t want to put him in jail. He doesn\u2019t deserve that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle conducts combat patrols over the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility Oct. 19, 2024. Shutterstock \/ Faizinraz<\/p>\n

Trump himself has revealed the contours of secret new technologies \u2014 including telling The Post in January that he deployed a weapon called \u201cThe Discombobulator\u201d<\/a> to disable Venezuelan defenses during the Jan. 3 raid that captured the country\u2019s dictator Nicolas Maduro to face US drug and weapons charges.<\/p>\n

The secret nature of Ghost Murmur was \u201cbasically why everyone\u2019s been so cagey about how [the airman] was actually found,\u201d the first source said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think people even know this technology is possible from this distance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The CIA used a futuristic new tool called \u201cGhost Murmur\u201d to find and rescue the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13880,153,14670,75728,9,11,10,62206,87,58,1076],"class_list":{"0":"post-188813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-cia","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-lockheed-martin","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-operation-epic-fury","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-us-news","18":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}