Project Coldfeet

What became known as Operation Coldfeet began in May 1961, when a naval aircraft flying an aeromagnetic survey over the Arctic Ocean reported sighting an abandoned Soviet drift station.

[2] The prospect of examining an abandoned Soviet ice station attracted the interest of the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR).

ONR assumed that the Soviets would have a similar system to keep track of American submarines as they transited the polar ice pack, but there was no direct evidence to support this.

To Captain John Cadwalader, who would command Operation Coldfeet, it looked like "a wonderful opportunity"[This quote needs a citation] to make use of the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system.

[1] On 28 May 1962, a converted CIA Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress serial 44-85531, registered as N809Z,[3] piloted by Connie Seigrist and Douglas Price dropped both men by parachute on NP 8.

On 1 June, Seigrist and Price returned and a pick-up was made of the Soviet equipment that had been gathered and of both men, using a Fulton Skyhook system installed on the B-17.