Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Jaheem Brown, 10, poses with Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, elf Meghan Sellers and Santa Claus during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony at the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas Tuesday, December 6, 2011.
By Conor Shine (contact) 
Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011 | 1:46 p.m.
Santa Claus and his reindeer are airborne and on their way to Las Vegas, the U.S. military has confirmed.
Santa was spotted in Romania around 1:30 p.m. and is continuing to work his way west across Europe on his way to the United States, according to NORAD's Santa tracker.
According to NORAD's website, the organization, which usually tracks activities in the sky for military purposes, has deployed an array of high-tech equipment to follow Santa as he circumnavigates the globe.
Radar detects Santa’s departure from the North Pole and then geo-synchronous satellites with high-tech sensors are able to pick up the infrared signature from Rudolph’s bright red nose to continue tracking the sleigh.
The Santa cam network is capturing images and video from his stops all around the world.
Upon reaching North America, Santa will be greeted with a contingent of fighter jets from Canada and the United States that will accompany him for part of his journey.
NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command, have been tracking Santa’s flight since 1955 after a Sears Roebuck & Co. ad for children to call Santa accidentally included the number to the command’s operations hotline.
As children called in, the commander checked the radar to provide updates on Santa’s location and the tradition was born.
Volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado were fielding 4,000 calls an hour Saturday morning, on pace to break a record. Also, Santa's NORAD Facebook page exceeded 840,000 "likes" by midmorning. Last year, Santa had 716,000 "likes."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
They are escorting Santa in the hopes of discovering the secret of his time-warp and data management technology. Alas, this is an endeavor doomed to failure.
Santa is pure, wonderful magic!
How many of my tax dollars are being wasted to follow an imaginary object?
let's hope he comes back next year!
Whoa up there boftx.
For the first time in the last few centuries that I can recall, we had a very serious mishap involving one of my favorite reindeer, and I am not at liberty to divulge any detailes. Except it was an icy roof with a short landing run. And as fate would have it, the small home of a big family. So I show up with a couple a bags a presents. And the reindeer couldn't come to a stop and kept sliding kerplunkety-kerplunkety-kerplunkety off the roof each faller a-pullin on the remaining few along with me an a couple a bags a presents our elves and Mrs. Claus had been a'workin to get just perfect - all going off the icy roof.
As I say, I'll spare ya the detailes of how the angels slipped out of the clouds an suddenly we were airborne again, the family out front, all 12 of 'em, a'wavin us off into the moonlit sky.
And I hope and pray we get what we deserve this year and that we can find the grace to accept our foibles and failures with the same open arms that embrace our friends, family and lovers.
Cheers.