Visited Korean landmarks including Gyeongbokgung last year
Tracking possible again from the evening of the 24th this year
As always this year, Santa Claus is set to take to the night skies around the world, riding his sleigh on a nocturnal flight.
On the 20th (local time), foreign media including the AP reported that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), jointly operated by the United States and Canada, will track Santa's flight in real time starting from 6 p.m. Korean time on the 24th, broadcasting it via mobile applications and websites.
Santa is expected to take off from the North Pole riding a sleigh pulled by several Rudolphes, then head south over the Pacific Ocean along the International Date Line as he did last year, moving westward while delivering billions of gifts. Major General Case Cunningham of the U.S. Air Force explained in an interview with AP, "The first place to detect Santa taking off from the North Pole is NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada, but from the Pacific onward, satellites must be used." He added, "It may be little known, but Rudolph’s glowing red nose emits a lot of heat. Satellites track Santa through that heat source."
Last year, Santa traveled over the Korean Peninsula in the order of Jeju, Busan, and Seoul, visiting Korean landmarks such as Gyeongbokgung Palace, then passed through Pyongyang before moving on to China. NORAD also noted that Santa even visited space, circling around the International Space Station (ISS) where astronauts reside.
In 2014, staff at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, USA, receive calls from children around the world waiting for Santa Claus. Photo by AP Yonhap News
Santa’s real-time flight path has been publicly available for 69 years since 1956. It all started in 1955 during the height of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War and the global fear of nuclear war, due to a misdialed phone call. A local department store’s advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper for a "Call Santa" event had the wrong phone number, causing a flood of calls from children to the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), NORAD’s predecessor. Colonel Harry W. Shoup of the Air Force, who answered the emergency-only "red phone," recalled a child quietly reciting a Christmas wish list.
Colonel Shoup said, "The child paused to take a breath and then said, 'You’re not Santa.'" Thinking quickly, he replied, "Ho, ho, ho! That’s right. I am Santa Claus. Are you a good boy or girl?" He revealed this in a later interview. From that day for several days, CONAD received over 50 calls daily from children across the U.S., and one CONAD staff member playfully drew Santa and his reindeer sleigh at the North Pole on a map.
Then, on December 23 of the same year, the AP reported from Colorado Springs that "Santa Claus has been granted safe passage to the United States this Friday by CONAD," assuring that Santa would be protected from potential attacks by "those who don’t believe in Christmas." Since the following year, CONAD and its successor NORAD have continued the annual tradition of tracking and reporting Santa’s movements in real time every Christmas.
The NORAD Santa Tracker website, which supports nine languages including English and Korean, states that the takeoff weight of Santa’s sleigh is equivalent to 75,000 pieces of jelly candy, and Santa’s weight is 260 pounds (about 118 kg). The thrust is 9 RP (reindeer power?the power one reindeer can produce), and the top speed is faster than starlight. NORAD explains that the sleigh can take off carrying 60,000 tons of cargo fueled by hay, oats, and carrots.
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