NORAD Accidentally Shoots Down Santa’s Sleigh; Apologizes To World’s Grieving Children

NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, today admitted it had gotten its instructions wrong and instead of tracking Santa as he made his way across the world, scrambled jet fighters and destroyed the fabled toy-giver and all of his reindeer.

“It’s the Challenger explosion of our times,” a chastened NORAD spokesman Chris Bonker told a hastily assembled Colorado Springs news conference. “To think that all of the world’s children, following NORAD in real time on the Internet, witnessed this. All we can say is that we’re incredibly, incredibly sorry.”

NORAD will pay for counseling sessions through social networking sites popular with children including MySpace and Twitter, Bonker said.

“The trauma both inside and outside NORAD is unbearable,” Bonker told reporters. “I mean, you shoot down an Iranian jet, you feel bad for a while. But this one’s going to linger.”

Bonker said that Santa’s sleigh “gave off the same profile as a Russian MIG, and we just didn’t feel we had enough time to evaluate more thoroughly. We aren’t trigger-happy. We’re just trying to protect the Homeland.”

NORAD will also make a donation of $500 to the Toys For Tots program to make up for the approximately $18 billion worth of toys destroyed when the sleigh was shot down.

“We all regret the deplorable loss of human and reindeer life,” Bonker said. “But the children of the world should take comfort in the fact that NORAD is on duty 24 hours a day, even Christmas Eve, to help make the world a safer place.”