US says it used 'Ghost Murmur' tech to rescue pilot shot down by Iran is actually possible? Experts weigh in

This disclosure sparked interest and disbelief worldwide, because if the claims are true, tracking down objects would be made easier in the distance range they alleged.

On Monday, The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Ratcliffe hinted at a top-secret technology, used by the government under President Donald Trump's orders, deployed to rescue the airman who was gunned down in Iran, amid the ongoing West Asia conflict.

A day after the announcement, on Tuesday, the New York Post reported the CIA using a technique called 'Ghost Murmur' to locate the pilot, quoting sources with knowledge of the matter.

Sources from the United States' government agency shared with the Post that long-range quantum magnetometry was used to find the electromagnetic signal of a human heartbeat, with the noise being isolated to pinpoint the location using artificial intelligence.

"It’s like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert,” a source shared. "In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you."

This disclosure sparked interest and disbelief worldwide, because if the claims are true, tracking down subjects and objects would be made easier in the distance range they alleged.

But, experts and scientists with knowledge of the subject deemed it impossible and an implausible measure. Though quantum magnetometers are high-precision equipments, the scope the sources mentioned of are well outside limits of the current technology, many scientists asserted.

One of the primary reasons is to do with the weak magnetic field of the heart. Though quantum magnetometers are used to monitor electrical activity of the heart, and detect heart dieseases, the scope to do so from a distance is not possible.

In an interview with Scientific American, John Wikswo, the first person to measure the magnetic field of an isolated nerve, said, "At the surface of the chest, where you’re about 10 centimeters away from the source, the magnetic field is just barely detectable."

"Now, [if] instead of going 10 centimeters away—which is a tenth of a meter—you go a meter away, the amplitude of the signal has dropped to a thousandth of what it was," he said, confirming that detecting the heartbeat gets weaker with growing distance.

An expert with a reputed Mumbai-based institute, who works in the field of geomagnetism and is well-versed in the subject, spoke to DH, saying that taking into consideration Earth's distributed yet weak magnetic field is significantly lesser than that of a magnet, the feat the sources have claimed could be possible only when we are very close (few tens of metres) to the subject.

"Unless you are in close proximity to the subject, you would be able to detect the heart's magnetic field using magnetometer. But, from the air or across a vast distance, it is not possible," an expert shared.

"It is possible to find or detect the heartbeat using just the radio waves, but only within a few tens of metres. The distance cannot even be in kilometres," he added.

In a research published on PubMed Central, titled 'Harnessing the Heart’s Magnetic Field for Advanced Diagnostic Techniques', it states that the heart generates peak amplitudes of about 10 to 100 pT (Picotesla) when measured at a distance of about 3 cm above the chest.

The Post's sources mentioned that the circumstances of the rescue operation made it possible for this technology's "ideal first operational use".

They said this was "about as clean an environment as you could ask for" in the barren landscape, due to low electromagnetic interference, and "almost no competing human signatures, and at night the thermal contrast between a living body and the desert floor," the Post reported.

"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," revealed the Post's source.