NORAD, long focused on Father Christmas, now turns toward national survival

PETERSON SPACE FORCE BASE, COLORADO—It was a tense week for North American Aerospace Defense Command, starting with an American fighter jet shooting down a Chinese surveillance balloon after it floated across wide swathes of North America, and ending with a flurry of additional engagements against mysterious objects from northern Canada to Lake Huron. In the wake, NORAD commander, General Glen D. Vanherck, admitted the nation’s aerospace warning systems are in need of extensive upgrades.

“Obviously, we kinda dropped the ball on this,” Vanherck said during a press conference. “But we’re taking steps to ensure this kind of lapse in performance never happens again. That begins with improving our detection and tracking systems. For decades, NORAD has been optimized for the annual detection, tracking, and safe airspace deconfliction of an imaginary elf. Starting today, we will seriously consider putting resources into finding real, dangerous, objects that might happen to stray into our area of responsibility.”

Vanherck noted NORAD planners are already in discussions about which conference room might be appropriate for the effort, though progress has stalled over a debate about the number of whiteboards required. In a hopeful sign for retired colonels everywhere, multiple defense contractors have signaled their willingness to engage in a multi-decade effort likely to end in a circular finger-pointing exercise by the military-industrial complex and a farcical congressional inquiry.