The CIA used a previously undisclosed technology known as "Ghost Murmur" to help locate and rescue a U.S. airman shot down in southern Iran, according to sources familiar with the operation.
The system, described as a form of long-range quantum magnetometry, is designed to detect the electromagnetic signature of a human heartbeat and combine that data with artificial intelligence to isolate it from background noise, the New York Post reported, quoting two sources.
The mission marked the first known operational use of the technology in the field.
President Donald Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe indirectly referenced the technology on Monday during a White House briefing on the rescue.
"It's like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert," one source briefed on the program said. "In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you."
Sources said the system was developed by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works division, though the company declined to comment.
The technology has been tested on Black Hawk helicopters and could potentially be integrated into F-35 fighter jets, one source said.
The rescued airman, identified publicly only as "Dude 44 Bravo," was a weapons systems officer who survived for two days in a mountain crevice after his F-15 was shot down late last week.
Iranian forces were reportedly searching for him in the area.
Officials said the relatively sparse terrain provided favorable conditions for the technology's deployment, with low electromagnetic interference and minimal competing human signals.
"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," one source said.
While the airman had activated a Combat Survivor Evader Locator beacon, his exact location remained uncertain. Sources said "Ghost Murmur" helped pinpoint his position, working in conjunction with the beacon signal to narrow the search area and confirm his location.
"He had to come out [of the crevice] to send the beacon," one source said. "It was less important the signal they sent and more important that he had to come out to send it."
Ratcliffe said during the briefing that the CIA "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 — still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA."
Trump said the agency was able to identify the airman's position from "40 miles away."
"It's like finding a needle in a haystack," Trump said. "The CIA was unbelievable."
The rescue operation involved hundreds of U.S. personnel and multiple aircraft. Two planes became stuck during the mission and were later destroyed, though no American casualties were reported.
Sources cautioned that the technology is not universally applicable, noting it works best in remote environments with limited interference and requires significant data processing time. It remains unclear whether the system has additional military applications.
The classified nature of the capability contributed to limited public details about how the airman was located, one source said, adding that the technology's range and precision are not widely known.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.