Washington:

Santa Claus has no need to worry about recent mystery drone sightings over New Jersey, a US Air Force general said Tuesday, as an annual tradition of “tracking” Saint Nick swung into action.

General Gregory Guillot’s reassurances came as the joint US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command reported that Santa and his reindeer were making stops across Asia, including Japan and North Korea.

Santa’s journey this year comes after weeks of mysterious sightings of alleged drones in New Jersey, sparking worldwide curiosity even as many of the reported sightings were debunked.

“Of course we are concerned about drones and anything else in the air,” NORAD commander Guillot told Fox News. “But I don’t foresee any difficulty at all with drones for Santa this year.”

NORAD’s Santa tracker 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 joint 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 Santa might be and update the children calling in 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 perhaps on Santa’s mind as he guided his reindeer-hauled sleigh over Pyongyang.

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 presents have been delivered.

“North American Aerospace Defense Command always does a fantastic job helping us keep tabs on Santa’s navigational heading and bearing in the skies above,” astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second person to ever walk on the Moon, said on social media.

Last year, US President Joe Biden joined in the fun at NORAD’s call center, taking calls from children.

As of Tuesday morning, some 1.2 billion presents had been delivered, according to NORAD.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Write a headline for this: With Christmas only a few days away, teachers at a primary school in Hampshire, UK thought it would be a great opportunity to invite the local vicar to impart knowledge about the festival, the birth of Jesus and related customs. The decision, however, soon turned out to be a mistake as the vicar ended up spoiling Christmas for the little kids who were robbed of their precious belief in Santa Claus. Rev Dr Paul Chamberlain, addressing a group of 10 and 11-year-olds at the Lee-on-the-Solent Junior School, said Father Christmas was not real, adding that their parents bought their presents and ate the biscuits left out for Santa.

“You’re all year six, now let’s be real, Santa isn’t real,” Rev Chamberlain told the children during the lesson. The pupils, who believed in the mythical being that imparted gifts to the good and obedient children through the chimney at night, instantly burst into tears.

“So he said, ‘You’re all Year 6, now let’s be real, Santa isn’t real’. Then he also was saying what Santa likes. Someone said he likes cookies. Then he said that, ‘Do your parents like cookies?’ And a lot of them said, ‘Yeah’. And then he said how the parents were the ones that were eating it,” one of the children told The Times.

“I heard a lot of gasps because they were shocked about it, so I don’t think everyone knew. We had this note that came in was saying about how he was sorry, and then we had these stickers and a customised bauble.”

Complaint lodged

A formal complaint has since been lodged by the parents against Rev Chamberlain with the school launching an effort to restore the festive spirit by giving out “believe” badges. 

“We understand that the vicar of St Faith’s, Lee-on-the-Solent, the Rev Paul Chamberlain, was leading an RE lesson for 10- and 11-year-olds at Lee-on-Solent junior school,” a spokesperson for the Diocese of Portsmouth said.

“After talking about the nativity story from the Bible, he made some comments about the existence of Father Christmas. Paul has accepted that this was an error of judgment, and he should not have done so. He apologised unreservedly to the school, to the parents and to the children, and the headteacher immediately wrote to all parents to explain this.”

The school and diocese were collaborating on the matter to minimise the damage with the headteacher writing a note to parents for a sending time, apologising profusely for Rev Chamberlain’s act.

Scientists have revealed the face of Saint Nicholas of Myra, the real-life bishop who inspired the concept of modern-day Santa Claus. According to the New York Post, the groundbreaking reconstruction comes 1,700 years after the saint’s death and was possible by analysing data from his skull. Using advanced techniques, researchers managed to “forensically recreate” the face of Saint Nicholas of Myra, whose penchant for gift-giving prompted the legend of Father Christmas.

In the images, shared on Instagram by the study’s lead author, Cicero Moraes, the saint is depicted with a broad forehead, thin lips and a round nose. The 3D images reveal his face to be both “strong” and “gentle,” Mr Moraes said, per the outlet. 

Take a look at the images below: 

Saint Nicholas of Myra died in 343 AD – long before anyone could snap a photo. He was known for only rewarding well-behaved kids with gifts and inspiring the Dutch folk figure of Sinterklaas. Over time, the character merged with English Father Christmas to become the Santa Claus we know today. 

Despite the saint’s popularity, there was no accurate depiction of his until now. Mr Moraes said the 3D images match the early descriptions of Santa Claus in literature, such as the 1823 poem “Twas The Night Before Christmas,” which describes his “rosy cheeks,” a “broad face” and a “nose like a cherry.”

“The skull has a very robust appearance, generating a strong face, as its dimensions on the horizontal axis are larger than average,” he said. “This characteristic, combined with a thick beard, is very reminiscent of the figure we have in mind when we think of Santa Claus,” he added. 

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According to the Post, scientists used the data collected by Luigi Martino in 1950 to reconstruct the saint’s face. Studying his remains revealed that the saint suffered from chronic arthritis in his spine and pelvis and a thick skull that likely caused frequent headaches. The scientists said the saint also likely survived off a mostly plant-based diet. 

“We initially reconstructed the skull in 3D using this data,” Mr Moraes said. “We supplemented this with the anatomical deformation technique, in which the tomography of a living person’s head is adjusted so that the virtual donor’s skull matches that of the saint,” he explained. 

“The final face is an interpolation of all this information, seeking anatomical and statistical coherence,” Mr Moraes added. 

Notably, while Saint Nicholas was initially buried in Myra, or modern-day Turkey, his bones were later moved to Bari, Italy, where they remain today.