Monday, December 25, 2023

US-Canada military continues its decades-long Christmas tradition of tracking Santa's location, bringing joy to children

25 Dec 2023, 
AFP

US President Joe Biden and First Lady join NORAD in tracking Santa's whereabouts, bringing joy to children worldwide
This illustration photo shows the NORAD logo on a cell phone screen while the tracker follows Santa flying over New York City on a computer monitor in Los Angeles on December 24, 2023. (AFP)

A joint US-Canadian military monitoring agency continued this year its decades-long Christmas tradition of tracking Santa's whereabouts, helping children around the globe find out when his reindeer-powered, present-filled sleigh would be coming to town.

A 3-D, interactive website at www.noradsanta.org showed Santa Claus and his reindeer on their imagined worldwide delivery route, allowing users to click and learn more about the various cities along the way.

The Santa tracker presented by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) 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 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 Old Saint Nick might be and update the children 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 that may have been on Santa's mind this year as he passed over, with the most recent ICBM test just days ago.

Sixty-eight years later NORAD was continuing its tradition of setting up a temporary call center out of its Colorado headquarters to answer children's burning questions.

A photo posted by the group on Facebook showed rows of people answering phones, some in uniform and others wearing red Santa caps.

Some top-level US dignitaries -- namely President Joe Biden and wife Jill Biden -- joined in on the holiday action.

"This evening, the President and First Lady participated in the North American Aerospace Defense Command Santa tracking calls with children and families across the country," the White House said in a statement.

Earlier Sunday the tracker went down for a short while, leaving children in the Pacific region in the dark about his exact position.

"Hey #SantaTrackers! We may be having a couple of technical difficulties with our tracking map, but #Santa is still flying! He is headed to Fiji next!" the group which runs the tracker said on its Facebook page, before announcing a fix one hour later.

Father Christmas had begun his journey with an out-of-this-world first stop, according to NORAD: the International Space Station orbiting Earth.

The reindeer-pulled sleigh was also seen traversing Israel as well as flying over southern Gaza, crisscrossing Africa, and venturing southward to Palmer Station, a research facility in Antarctica.

Santa then headed up through South America, bound for the United States as he unloaded approximately 100,000 gifts every second.


Around 10:00 pm local time (0300 GMT), Kris Kringle and his reindeer were spotted entering US airspace near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before continuing their journey across the rest of the country -- with nearly 5.5 billion presents, and counting, delivered worldwide.


This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

NORAD SANTA IS A COVER UP FOR THIS
NO HO, HO, HO

Publicintegrity.org

https://publicintegrity.org/politics/norad-faa-unprepared-for-aerial-attack

Jan 7, 2022 ... “The civilian and military defenders of the nation's airspace — FAA [the Federal Aviation Administration] and NORAD [the North American ...

En.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_government_operations_and_exercises_on_September_11,_2001

On September 11, 2001, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was involved in an ongoing operation which involved deploying fighter aircraft ...

Wads.ang.af.mil

https://www.wads.ang.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Article/2819248/operation-noble-eagle-one

While NORAD's mission has always been to protect the airspace of the U.S. and Canada, prior to 9/11 NORAD was primarily postured to look outward. Over the ...

Youtube.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69uSD1S14RI

Sep 8, 2021 ... In this episode Ward analyzes the NORAD 9/11 response timeline and the conspiracy surrounding the downing of United Flight 93.

Vanityfair.com

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/08/norad200608

Oct 17, 2006 ... "The real story is actually better than the one we told," a norad general admitted to 9/11-commission staffers when confronted with evidence ...

Denverpost.com

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/09/11/september-11-norad-10-minute-warning

Sep 11, 2018 ... The North American Air Defense Command, which monitors the nation's airspace from inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, learned of a ...




No comments:

Post a Comment