米軍のサンタ追跡、今年も実施 技術的問題発生も無事復旧

【ワシントンＡＦＰ＝時事】カナダと米国の共同防衛機関、北米航空宇宙防衛司令部（ＮＯＲＡＤ）は過去６８年間、毎年クリスマスになると、各国を巡り、プレゼントを届けるサンタクロースを追跡してきた。（写真は資料写真）
　ＮＯＲＡＤがサンタの追跡が始まったのは１９５５年。地元紙の百貨店の広告がサンタにつながる電話番号として誤って同司令部の番号を掲載したことがきっかけとなった。
　３Ｄグラフィックを使ったインタラクティブなウェブサイトも提供されているが、ＮＯＲＡＤは今もコロラドの司令部に特別コールセンターを設置し、子どもからの電話を受け付けている。
　追跡イベントには、ジョー・バイデン米大統領と妻のジル氏も参加。ホワイトハウスは「大統領とファーストレディは今夜、全米の子どもや家族から米航空宇宙防衛司令部に寄せられた、サンタ追跡依頼の電話に対応した」と発表した。
　２４日にはサイトが一時的に閲覧できなくなった。サイトの運営担当者は「追跡マップに技術的な問題が発生しているようだが、サンタは今も飛んでいる。次はフィジーだ！」とフェイスブックに投稿。約１時間後には、復旧について報告した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/12/25-16:54）

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, criss-crossing 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.