Santa Claus has no need to worry about recent mystery drone sightings over New Jersey, a US Air Force general said Tuesday, as an annual tradition of “tracking” Saint Nick swung into action.
General Gregory Guillot’s reassurances came as the joint US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command reported that Santa and his reindeer were making stops across Asia, including Japan and North Korea.
Santa’s journey this year comes after weeks of mysterious sightings of alleged drones in New Jersey, sparking worldwide curiosity even as many of the reported sightings were debunked.
“Of course we are concerned about drones and anything else in the air,” NORAD commander Guillot told Fox News. “But I don’t foresee any difficulty at all with drones for Santa this year.”
NORAD’s Santa tracker dates to 1955, when a Colorado newspaper advertisement printed a phone number to connect children with Santa — but mistakenly directed them to the hotline for the joint military nerve center.
To avoid disappointing the little ones, NORAD’s director of operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, ordered his staff to “check” the radar to see where Santa might be and update the children calling in on his location.
When not spreading holiday cheer, NORAD conducts aerospace and maritime control and warning operations — including monitoring for missile launches from North Korea, something perhaps on Santa’s mind as he guided his reindeer-hauled sleigh over Pyongyang.
The tracker, which has been modernized and moved online to noradsanta.org, includes a 3D map showing Santa’s movements in real time, as well as a ticker — constantly shooting upward — showing approximately how many presents have been delivered.
“North American Aerospace Defense Command always does a fantastic job helping us keep tabs on Santa’s navigational heading and bearing in the skies above,” astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second person to ever walk on the Moon, said on social media.
Last year, US President Joe Biden joined in the fun at NORAD’s call center, taking calls from children.
As of Tuesday morning, some 1.2 billion presents had been delivered, according to NORAD.
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