In the summer of 1955, a high school graduate from Pennsylvania and a high school dropout from Florida enlisted in the U.S. Navy and were sent to separate boot camps in Maryland and Illinois for basic training. They were given aptitude tests and were selected for electronics schooling with the Naval Security Group (NSG), the U.S. Navy's top-secret military arm of the NSA, in Washington, D.C. Following extensive training at a secret intelligence base on the "Silver Strand" in Imperial Beach, just south of San Diego, the two received top-secret clearance. They were now officially "spooks," working in a highly secretive communications intelligence organization under oftentimes dangerous situations.

Secrets in the Ether reveals the true story of the NSG and a number of its clandestine missions during the Cold War years. Beginning with an electronic reconnaissance war between the U.S. and the USSR in the South Pacific in 1957, it goes on to describe a secret mission conducted by the NSG during the French-Algerian war in 1959 in North Africa, and concludes with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

In highlighting the dedication and devotion to duty of two "brothers" who served their country with the highest distinction and honor during some of the gravest times in the years following World War II, it casts a light on so many others who came before and after them, their contributions virtually unheard of, known only to a few agencies of the U.S. government.

These operatives were primarily young enlisted men just out of high school, with an aptitude for math and electronics in the days when the sciences were not yet in vogue. Spooks operate in the ether and the shadows of the night. Virtually undetectable, they are the silent warriors of the naval service.