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News Story

“U.Elf.O” Spotted at Leeds Bradford Airport
21 December 2006

Air Traffic Controllers at Leeds Bradford International Airport had a festive surprise last night.

Whilst working the night shift in the air traffic control tower, a strange sight was seen on the radar. An Unidentified Flying Object was seen travelling from the North and through the Leeds airspace.

The duty Air Traffic Controller commented “We first had sight of the object as it came over Newcastle, before travelling south. It seemed to spend large amounts of time over residential areas such as York, Bradford and eventually Leeds. All in all it was in our airspace for approximately 45 minutes, before continuing south.”

In normal circumstances, an aircraft must be instructed to key in an individual 4-digit address, known as a “Squawk” so it can be identified by Air Traffic. In this instance however, the UFO was identified on the radar screen by a 5 digit call sign; “SANTA”.

Airport officials now believe they have an explanation for the strange encounter.
With large amounts of redevelopment in the region and new housing springing up, it is believed that the radar contact was Father Christmas making a reconnaissance mission before his busy night on Christmas Eve. It is thought that he was maybe checking out new rooftops and chimneys to ensure he could make a smooth and quick delivery of presents.
Air Traffic Controllers tried on 5 separate occasions to make contact with “SANTA” but each time the only response in their headsets was the faint ringing of Sleigh Bells.

It is not thought that Christmas Eve will yield the same results; Santa is not often seen on civilian radar, it is thought that he uses a sophisticated radar jammer that emits a high power Elfomagnetic pulse rendering him invisible to radar. Such pulses are hard to generate without using a years supply of fairy dust, which is why it is believed he wasn’t able to use this technique last night.

Air Traffic Control at Leeds Bradford Airport will, of course, be keeping a good lookout on Christmas Eve for Santa, and assure us that he is an extremely competent pilot and causes no hazard to Civil Aviation.

🙂