AMERICAN spies deployed a never-before-used secret tool to find the second airman downed in Iran.
“Ghost Murmur” is reportedly a secret CIA technology that can hear a soldier’s heartbeat from thousands of miles away.
It then uses artificial intelligence software to separate the heartbeat from any background noise on a front line.
The New York Post reported that Ghost Murmur was used for the first time in the dramatic operation to save the second downed airman, after he ejected over southern Iran on Good Friday.
It cited two sources close to the breakthrough, one of whom described the futuristic tech as “like 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.”
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Every heartbeat has an electromagnetic fingerprint – the tech uses long-range quantum magnetometry to track that fingerprint.
Long-range quantum magnetometry uses sub-atomic factors over large distances to detect changes to electromagnetic fields.
Sources told the Post that the new tool was developed by Skunk Works, aerospace giant Lockheed Martin’s top secret advanced development division.
The tech has been tested on Black Hawk helicopters so that it can potentially be used on F-35 fighter jets in the future, another source said.
Both the pilot and the weapons systems officer (WSO), who sits behind and is also known as the backseater, had been forced to eject when their F-15E Strike Eagle was hit by Iranian air defences on Friday.
The pilot was rescued within a few hours but the WSO, a highly experienced aviator with the rank of Colonel, could not be located.
It sparked a desperate life-or-death race between American and Iranian forces to reach him first.
With an injured leg and enemy forces closing in, the WSO pushed himself up a punishing 7,000ft mountain ridge, and eventually wedged himself into a narrow crevice.
Meanwhile, gun-toting local tribesmen were scouring the mountains, spurred on by a £50,000 reward being offered for his capture by the Iranian regime.
Footage showed the group of men waving Iranian flags and scouring the rugged terrain in search of the downed American.
Drawing on his Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training, the Colonel, bleeding profusely, was able to navigate the unknown landscape and kept himself out of sight for just enough time.
A source told the Post that the relatively barren landscape made for “an ideal first operational use” of the new tech.
What is top secret tech ‘Ghost Murmur’ and how does it work?
“Ghost Murmur” is reportedly a top-secret technology that was key to the rescue of a downed American Weapons Systems Officer.
The New York Post cited two sources familiar with the tech, that can sense a heartbeat from an impressive distance.
They said the tool tracks a heartbeat’s electromagnetic fingerprint using long-range quantum magnetometry.
Long-range quantum magnetometry uses sub-atomic factors over large distances to detect changes to electromagnetic fields.
It then pairs that data with artificial intelligence software to separate the heartbeat from any background noise.
One source described the futuristic tech as “like 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.”
They said: “The name is deliberate. ‘Murmur’ is a clinical term for a heart rhythm. ‘Ghost’ refers to finding someone who, for all practical purposes, has disappeared.”
The rugged landscape was “about as clean an environment as you could ask for” due to low electromagnetic interference, “almost no competing human signatures, and at night the thermal contrast between a living body and the desert floor,” that “gave operators a secondary confirmation layer”.
The source added: “Normally this signal is so weak that it can only be measured in a hospital setting with sensors pressed nearly against the chest,” the source said.
As Special Forces units were fine-tuning the details of their Combat Search and Rescue mission ready for when he was found, CIA spies launched a deception campaign.
They spread rumours that the airman had been rescued and was being evacuated out of Iran in a ground convoy.
After more than 24 hours of intense work, the CIA eventually located the airman on Saturday – they passed his co-ordinates to the Pentagon and a rescue mission worthy of a Hollywood thriller swung into action.
Ghost Murmur was “basically why everyone’s been so cagey about how [the airman] was actually found,” the first source said.
“I don’t think people even know this technology is possible from this distance.”
Under the cover of darkness late on Saturday – and with huge numbers of Iranian troops closing in – the Navy Seals landed close to the airman on an HH-60W Jolly Green II chopper.
But in a final, heart stopping twist, two MC-130 military transport planes taking part in the op got stuck in sand at a temporary air base the USAF had built in a remote area.
Three other planes had to be scrambled to rescue the crews and Special Forces soldiers then destroyed the stranded aircraft to prevent sensitive info falling into Iranian hands.
Trump hailed the stunning rescue as an “Easter miracle”, revealing that the Colonel had been seriously wounded but “will be just fine”.
The US President announced the good news that he had been rescued just after 5am BST on Easter Sunday.
Trump revealed last night that 155 aircraft were involved in the rescue, saying: “We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge.
“We wanted to have them think he was in a different location, because they had a vast military force out there – thousands of people were looking.”
He told reporters there were “no casualties” in the “massive operation”.
Trump added: “In a breathtaking show of skill and precision lethality, America’s military descended on the area, the real area, engaged the enemy, rescued the stranded officer and destroyed all threats.”
He said the CIA distraction mission left the Iranians “very confused”, praising the “heroic WSO who had evaded capture for almost 48 hours – that’s a long time when you’re in rough shape and you’re bleeding”.
The US president gave further details on how his forces destroyed several of their own aircraft as they rescued the WSO, saying: “we blew up the old planes, we blew ‘em to smithereens.”
At the same press conference, Trump promised to decimate “every bridge in Iran” and “every power plant” if a deal is not done to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump today announced a two-week ceasefire deal with Iran, on the condition that it reopen the vital shipping lane.