Australia, Japan, Taiwan… Santa’s tour began on Sunday under the close surveillance of the American army, which for decades has been tracking the movements of the man in red every December 24. Departing from his North Pole base, his sleigh flew over Jakarta at 3:38 p.m. GMT, according to the military command responsible for air security in the United States and Canada (Norad).
Even faster than the F-15s of the US Air Force, “he slows down so that we can escort him” assures Norad, Santa Claus had already distributed more than a billion and a half gifts in Oceania and Asia .
The surprising origins of the hunt for Santa Claus
This tracking – made possible according to Norad by sensors in the red nose of Rudolph, one of the nine reindeer pulling the sleigh – is an institution in the United States. It all started with a typo, in 1955, in an advertisement for the Sears department store chain calling in a local Colorado newspaper to call Santa Claus.
Supposed to be the direct line of the famous bearded man, the number indicated was in fact that – in the middle of the Cold War – of the Norad red telephone. First disconcerted when he found himself in line with a young boy asking him if he was really “Santa Claus”, the officer on duty that day, Colonel Harry Shoup, got caught up in the game.
He instructed his men to broadcast information about Santa’s whereabouts and even called a local radio station to announce that he had seen a strange object in the sky.