Santa Claus has no need to worry about recent mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey, a U.S. Air Force general said Tuesday, as the annual tradition of “tracking” St. Nick kicks off. .
Gen. Gregory Guillot’s assurances came as the joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command reported that Santa and his reindeer were making stops across Asia, including Japan and North Korea.
Santa’s visit this year comes after weeks of mysterious sightings of alleged drones in New Jersey, sparking curiosity around the world, although many reports of the sightings have been debunked.
“Certainly we’re concerned about drones and anything in the air,” NORAD Commander Guillot told Fox News. “But I don’t think Santa will have any trouble with drones this year.”
NORAD’s Santa Tracker dates back to 1955, when a Colorado newspaper ad featured a phone number to connect children to Santa — but mistakenly directed them to the hotline for the Joint Military Nerve Center.
To avoid disappointing small children, Colonel Harry Shoup, NORAD’s director of operations at the time, ordered his staff to “check” the radar to see where Santa might be and to call his location. Update the children of .
When NORAD isn’t spreading holiday cheer, it runs aerospace and maritime control and warning operations — including monitoring missile launches from North Korea, perhaps something Santa had in mind when he placed his reindeer over Pyongyang. The propelled sled was guided.
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 Gifts have been distributed.
“The North American Aerospace Defense Command always does a great job helping us monitor Santa’s navigation direction and direction in the skies above,” Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, said on social media.
Last year, US President Joe Biden joined in the fun, taking calls from children at NORAD’s call center.
As of Tuesday morning, approximately 1.2 billion gifts had been distributed, according to NORAD.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
