Quantum’s Quietest Branch: A Case for Magnetometry

After an F-15E went down in Operation Epic Fury, the weapons systems officer landed injured, behind enemy lines, and with a bounty on his head. CIA Director John Ratcliffe analogized locating him to finding a “grain of sand in the middle of a desert.” When commandos pulled him out 36 hours later, one detail in news reports of the rescue captured public imagination: “Ghost Murmur,” an alleged CIA quantum magnetometer, was said to have detected the officer’s heartbeat at long range. As one source ominously remarked, “If your heart is beating, we will find you.