The Royal Air Force will be on high alert from now until the 25th of December to track an unregistered cargo flight from the Arctic region.

The aircraft is understood to have behavioural intelligence-gathering capabilities of the type that can sort British citizens into a ‘list’, determining their behaviour over the last year.

The move has been prompted by an incident around a year ago in which Typhoon aircraft escorted a Lapland-registered aircraft over the UK’s major cities early on the morning of the 25th. The pilot of the craft was said to be under the influence of alcohol and very “festive”; this is especially dangerous due to the sheer volume of cargo the aircraft was carrying.

Ministry of Defence spokesman C. Cringle had this to say:

“Interception is part of what the QRA force do. We have to identify and confirm who or what is flying through our airspace or approaching our airspace and since the craft appears at the same time each year, we have a fairly good idea who will be flying but we don’t take any chances.”

This is expected to happen again towards the end of next month from the 24th through to the 25th.

The Ministry of Defence previously used satellites with infrared sensors to track the aircraft last time this happened, it is understood that the heat from an animal’s red nose was clearly visible and it was at this point RAF aircraft began escorting the jet over every British city, town and village.

More on this as it develops. We expect more updates on the 25th of December.

Everyone could use a bit of festive cheer, we hope this article has given you some of that.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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48 COMMENTS

      • Good Morning George. Does the Man in the Red Coat have a deputy who could spread some much needed cheer to we in the Southern Hemisphere?😎

        • With Father Christmas’s Sleigh having an estimated of 650 Miles per second? I reckon he’s got your good boys & girls covered. Surprising to find the Typhoon has the grunt to fly at Mach 3000! 🤣🤣🤣

      • Thank you for all your hard work George. Merry Christmas to you and the UKDJ Team!

        Regards, Chris Coomer – Auckland NZ.

      • Of course this is not new news rather a standard operating procedure but we have a commitment to open and transparent intelligence because the truth matters.

        Poro valamis, Poro aiya as we say in Rovaniemi, Suomi Finland.

        • Please note that for operational security the list of who’s been naughty or nice has not been disclosed.

          This isn’t Mar-A-Lago!

      • Good Morning Daniele.Hope you are well. Christmas is still the most magical time of the year. I hope you and your family have a good one.

        • Morning geoff.

          It is. Thank you. The descant in Oh come, all ye faithful, from the Choir at Kings Cambridge still moves me every time. We look out for it every year.
          Though we ourselves won’t be having a Christmas this year, sadly. My mum passed 2 weeks ago, and she WAS Christmas. That adjustment will take some getting used to, and as it is just me and the wife, so no wider family to consider, we don’t see the point for us this time. Far too much to do.

          However, we hope to rejoin the human race next year and hope you and yours have a great time my friend.

          • Daniele-so sorry to hear about your mum. The death of our mother is a sad event for most of us, especially at this time of the year

          • Also have the same feelings about the music of Christmas. I get many lumps in throat on hearing lots of old favourites-Harry Secombe singing Good King Wenceslas is but one. I sung in an Anglican choir(have the photos in cassock and surplice to prove it) and at school in Ealing we sang from Bach’s Magnificat amongst others! My Dad and Aunts and Uncles introduced us at an early age to Handel, Elgar, Rachmaninov and Greig. I can still chant in Latin!! It’s good to mix it up-also did all the music of the 1960’s though.
            Looking forward to updates from George from the Arctic 🙂
            Cheers Daniele

          • Hi Daniele. I’m so sorry for your loss. I hope your mum passed peacefully at an old age. I know how this feels. l lost my Mum in this year too. We celebrated her 90th birthday in March. She was a young 90 and really healthy and happy. She was gone a week later, 1 April .

            Our family is very close and this will be our first Christmas without her. My sister in law (in Surrey) has terminal cancer now as well now. It’s been a sh**ty year.

            God bless.

          • Chris. Thanks for this.
            Mum died 2 days before her 80th. She was in hospital for 2 weeks and was living life in ignorance of the T Cell Lymphoma that beat her before then, though with hindsight now the signs were bloody obvious, but we did not see it, or thought it something else.
            Yes, our family is not large, just me, my wife, and Mum ( Dad and mum long divorced ) and I’m an only child. So it has hit me badly. I’ve mentioned this enough times on here already over the weeks so no doubt a stuck record for many!
            Life goes on.
            If you are in the UK look me up mate.

          • All the best Daniele. I can promise you it gets easier with time. My wife and Son(also our only child) are making a trip to Surrey to see my mum in law in June- also 90 and getting frail. Due to work pressures, I’m unable to make the trip.

            I’ll be in Cape Town in April to place my mum’s ashes into our family plot at or local church.

            Take comfort my friend, Chris

          • Hi Daniele, sorry to hear of your loss and all the best with the recovery. We will miss your contribution here…

    • There are people who come new to the site every year who haven’t read about this traditional annual exercise before. They have a right to know!

      Happy holidays.

  6. For my kids, the Christmas season starts when the elf on a shelf makes an appearance for the first time (for any out there yet to be parents, i would seriously recommend avoiding making that rod for your own back!). For me the Christmas season starts with this UKDJ article 🙂

  7. Automatic post on an annual basis!
    The RNAF and possibly now the RSAF,as well as the Finnish AF get first dibs as he is in their FIR anyway!
    The RAF are extremely busy elsewhere too.

  9. Is the Voyager carrying fuel for Typhoons out one hose and some hay for Rudolph in the other. Santa has mince pie’s at every house so he will be OK

  12. Recall a good cartoon, must have been last year. Lad just placing missive to Santa in letter box. Passer-by, “You don’t still believe in the Post Office, do you?” 😉

  13. NORAD will also be tracking an an ” unregistered flight ” originating from the North Pole on the evening of the 24th. They show those guys on the news,and they are always so dead serious ! Great fun

  14. It was the “Lapland-registered” that began to give the game away (Lapland being now fully integrated into NATO’s High North command)

  19. As if the Santa Tracker put out by NORAD here in North America wasn’t enough to normalize war throughout the year, this one was over the top. This was the first time for me seeing an article like this from overseas and, let me tell you, I read through the first few lines before I picked up on the strange names of people in charge…but not before I read that it was a joint NATO-RUSSIAN exercise. I had a brief glimmer of hope, a one second fantasy/delusion that my boys are not going to grow up with Nuclear Winter as the only season. So, that being said, I don’t know if this is a thank you for the brief, yet very welcome ease to constant upset and dismay or, a sarcastic thank you for getting a guys’ hopes of global peace and unity up, then ripping them away in one foul swoop.

    Cheers and Merry Christmas to You and Yours

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