How the CIA infiltrated a sealed off Soviet base

TL;DR

In 1962, two CIA operatives parachuted onto an abandoned Soviet Arctic ice station and extracted via the experimental Skyhook balloon-aircraft retrieval system.

Key Points

• 1.The Fulton Skyhook (STARS) was a terrifying but functional extraction system. A helium balloon lifted a 500-ft nylon line; a modified B-17 bomber with V-shaped nose horns caught it, yanking a person airborne at 125 mph before winching them into the aircraft.
• 2.Pigs were used as test subjects before humans because of biological similarity. Inventor Robert Edison Fulton Jr. argued pig nervous systems closely matched humans for high-impact physics; one test pig survived but charged the crew in a fury upon release.
• 3.Project Cold Feet targeted Soviet ice station NP8, abandoned in a hasty evacuation. On May 28, 1962, Major James Smith and Navy geophysicist Leonard Lashack parachuted from a B-17, finding frozen meals in skillets and unmade beds left behind.
• 4.The mission confirmed advanced Soviet under-ice acoustic surveillance. Generators mounted on rubber tires proved vibration-dampening technology, revealing the Soviets were using hydrophones to track American submarine acoustic signatures beneath Arctic ice.
• 5.The same CIA-owned B-17 used in the mission later appeared in a James Bond film. The 1965 film Thunderball featured the Skyhook extraction system, filmed with the exact aircraft that had retrieved the Cold Feet agents from the Arctic ice.