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Hostess: He is a, a writer at Popular Science and he went to Harvard.
Umm, he's written two other books so far before this one.
One's about pirates and is for children and is coming out soon, the
other is about Einstein and this one came about after he saw a book in
a bookstore about the philosophy behind how Santa could exist and
thought, well, let's look at it from a scientific point of view.
So, here we go, without further ado, "The Science of Santa".
Gregory: So, the sad truth and the reason I wrote this book is that
belief in Santa Claus is slipping. Umm, this might come as a shock to some of
you in this room who I assume are all believers, uh, but it's happening
right now all across the country.
We got little kids, juniors, seniors in high school, soming home
crying, you know, during -- right before the holiday break.
They run into the house, run up their room weeping.
Mom or Dad goes up, asks to see what's wrong, makes them some hot
chocolate, and they explain, you know, I was setting in the cafeteria,
I was writing out my usual note to Santa and these bullies came up and
told me that he's not real, that he doesn't exist.
And it's terrible and I think the problem here is that, you know,
Santa -- his mission does seem a little implausible. Umm, he knows if we've been bad or good, all
of us, every one of us; he knows what we want for Christmas; umm,
he knows when we're sleeping, when we're awake, and in all likelihood
who we're sleeping with; umm --
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: This doesn't sound -- you know, this isn't just implausible.
It's a little creepy, too. You could be arrested for things like this.
Umm, then you get into the next part where he's supposedly immortal;
right? Here's someone who's living on a diet of milk
and cookies almost entirely and a little bit of eggnog.
If you look at Christmas Eve alone, say he visits 200 million homes,
three cookies alone, that's 600 million cookies.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: -- and, you know, I've run the numbers and I'm not sure
exactly how it would work out but it's roughly 200 million times the
recommended daily allowance of fat.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: Umm, and this is all in a single night.
Now, normally this sort of eating behavior leads to obesity, heart
disease, and in all likelihood an early death and, you know, according
to what we know about nutrition, Santa wouldn't make it to 60, let
alone 600. Then there's his travel routine; right?
You have this guy who lives up in the North Pole, jumps in his sleigh,
and all of a sudden makes it around the entire world in just a few
hours, umm, squeezes down these chimneys, this big-bellied man
squeezing down a narrow space. He's got an infinite sack of toys where he's
got toys for every kid on the planet in one little bag.
Never makes mistakes; right? I mean, we see -- in the movie "The Santa
Claus" starts off where Santa slips off the roof, falls, Tim Allen
grabs his card, he becomes Santa, that Santa dies.
But that's just fiction, you know, that's just the movies.
That's not really how it works.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: In reality, Santa's never fallen off one of these
rooftops -- the snow-covered rooftops, never made a mistake, he's
never tripped a security alarm, never gotten a smart phone-captured
clip posted up to YouTube -- unless, of course, maybe that has
happened and you guys have an agreement with him to keep it down.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: I don't know. I'm just saying.
Umm, I know that he does have a Gmail account because I got an e-mail
from him the other day -- two days ago, said he approved of the book,
I'm back on the nice list and I looked it up and it was, you know,
Santa@Gmailcom. I have to believe that he does that for the
search capabilities because, you know, he gets a new e-mail from
a kid and he says, I remember this kid from somewhere, and then
he can just go back and looks back and finds the old ones.
Very, very handy for someone like Santa. Umm, so, anyway, given all these questions
and these -- these, umm, apparent impossibilities, you know, it makes
sense that these bullies would be able to convince this little kid
so easily, this poor junior in high school.
The problem with kids today, the reason he -- you know, someone like
that is so quick to give up believing and run home crying is 'cause
they're not really paying attention in science class; right?
That's why I know all of you are believers because you all certainly
have somewhat of a science engineering bed and anyone with a decent
grasp of physics, biology, material science, Santa's -- knows that
Santa's advertised abilities are totally plausible. Umm, the trick is that he has at his disposal
some incredibly advanced technology.
Umm, and as we know Clark's law says any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic. Trick is, you know, Santa -- everyone thinks
it's all magic 'cause they don't understand how it works.
Umm, you know, yes, he has a warp-drive sleigh, that's pretty
obvious --
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: -- umm --
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: He uses all sorts of flying robots to capture video
surveillance data. Umm, ornaments are not just ornaments.
They do have high definition, uh, listening devices inside.
Umm, his suit does have meta materials that allow him to go invisible
with he needs to. Umm, and it also has some energy functions
where if there's a -- if there's a malfunction in the worm hole tunnels
he uses sometimes and he gets stranded out in the middle of nowhere
in some alternate galexy he can pull down the hood and he has a little
reserve oxygen supply and he can last for a little while, you know,
send an emergency signal.
Hopefully he's close enough where the signal has time to get to the
North Pole and someone has time to go get him.
Umm, if he's out, you know, way beyond the Milky Way, usually the
signal doesn't get there until it's too late Santa's just gotta shrug
his shoulders. Umm, because I, uh, I should say Santa is
not, umm, the only one who's going around making these deliveries every
night. Uh, Santa has lieutenants, he has between
two and 300 who help him with his task and I'll get into a little bit
more of that later. Umm, also immortality.
The reality is he isn't immortal, he is a real person, but he has his
organs switched out pretty -- pretty frequently. Umm, he has few -- a few pretty amazing organ
printers up at the North Pole and whenever his liver runs down a little
bit from too much eggnog, just gets a new one.
Umm, obviously you wouldn't want to entrust Mrs. Claus with that kinda
major surgery. That would be pretty *** her, so he has
robotic surgeons that do the -- do the work.
They're a little bit like the ones in, umm, that fixed up Anakin in
"Revenge of the Sith." I don't know if you remember that but, umm,
they have silly Chrismas outfits and they're just a little bit more
friendly.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: Umm, so, technology can explain everything, umm, and this
book that I wrote, "The Truth About Santa", umm, discusses, you know,
a lot of other things, the origins of St. Nick, his true identity,
umm, how Mrs. Claus keeps it hot up there at the North Pole, and why
it wouldn't make sense for him to go the corporate route and outsource
his whole operation. In short it would just be really, really way
too expensive. Umm, and all of this is discussed kinda within
the context of real research, what's going on today.
And so as I wrote the book I talked to a lot of experts, umm, who
I've -- who I've spoken to in the past and written about in the past.
I called them up and I said, hey, remember the time we talked about,
you know, your Google work with 140 RNA interference and obesity?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, sure.
Well, I was wondering if you think, well, it seems to me like Santa
would probably use something like this. And, oh.
What? You know, huh?
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: But eventually quite of few of them did, uh -- did, uh, get
the idea and they were very interested. Umm, and -- anyway, so what I'd like to do
today is dispel a few of the myths and answer some of the big questions
around Santa. Umm, so that this way if some bully tries
to come and tell you that there's no Santa, you can answer back.
Your don't have to run home crying. Umm, anyway.
So, how does he know if we've been bad or good?
With adults it pretty easy; right? You scan e-mail, phone conversations, texts.
It happens to people all the time. Umm, it's all automated.
Just searching for certain patterns, key words, things like that.
Umm, the average company can handle this no problem.
Kids aren't on e-mail as much. Umm, for kids, therefore Santa mostly uses
flying robots, like I said. He's got these predator-like drones that are
way overhead looking down on schoolyards, umm, looking for fights, bully,
things like that. But then obviously a lot of things happen
indoors and a lot of security cameras and school cameras are being
digitized so that Santa can get that data.
But for a while that was all analog tape and he couldn't gather it.
So, that's why he uses these mini unmapped aerial vehicles or
microaerial vehicles, umm, and
he basically has, you know, these flying inside.
They look like little flies or wasps. They might be outside a window, they might
be stuck up on a wall, and they're constantly monitoring kids and making
sure they're staying out of trouble.
Umm, in the real world there's been some real progress in this.
Umm, you know, Aerial Environment Company out in California just
released this summer a little video of a flying humming bird-like, uh,
aerial vehicle that flaps its wings and stays aloft.
Umm, over in Harvard an engineer has one that's, you know, barely the
size of your thumb and it flies by guide wire but it can't even get
off the ground. Umm, so there have been these enormous advances
in this field in recent years.
You know, people usually say, oh, it's just because it's DARPA money
and there's a lot of military funding. Umm, but when I tried to talk to these engineers
about -- ant this story, they were reluctant to speak to me,
umm, which leads me to think that they might be in league with Santa
somehow. Umm, either that or these advances, uh, have
become as a result -- result of reverse engineering; right?
I mean, Santa's got hundreds and millions of these robots out there so
it may very well be that someone kinda picked one up one day, found
it, looked into it, and tried to -- tried to make it work themselves.
Umm, now, flying robots couldn't get it all so he does also have, uh,
high definition audio recorders and microphones in the ornaments, umm,
and they're very sensitive to the point where, you know, they don't
have to be down on the tree. They can be up in the attic picking up --
picking up kids yelling at each other or telling at each other, things
like that. Umm, and all of this data, you know, the video,
the audio, everything, is -- is wirelessly routed to the Pole.
It's sent through -- you know, if it's heard in a house it'll be sent
through a home network often but they try to do this at night in the
middle of the night so they don't jam people's network and -- and
people don't get suspicious. Umm, but obviously this is a lot of data;
right? You have -- say you have one, uh, MAV per
house, you know, one ornament per house, you have 200 million of
each. Umm, you could estimate about ten gigabytes
an hour of video, five hundred megabytes an hour of audio recording,
that's about ten and a half gigabytes per hour or a hundred and twenty-six
gigabytes per household per day, umm, times 200 million
homes is about 23.4 exabytes of data per day.
Umm, and that's a conservative estimate. So then that's not even factoring the overhead
drones, or the digital security cameras in the schools which, as
I said, have been a big help.
So, how does he review all of this? He can't -- there's no way he could do it
all himself and, umm, it would be pretty hard for the elves to do it as well 'cause you've got
say 300 million kids who need one elf per kid to constantly keep his
eye on the screens. So 300 million elves up at the Pole would
be pretty tricky, , might be a bit of a reading problem and Santa actually
likes to clone them so that would be tricky.
Umm, so instead it's all done through intelligent video management
software. Umm, it happens, again, in, you know, in the
security industry today. You have technologies like, umm, smart catch
where a video -- there's a bag that's been sitting in one spot too
long in an airport, video software will figure that out and point it
out to a security official or they have ones where you could use 'em
in schools and you could look for someone hopping over the fence, an
intruder or something like that.
Umm, some people are even working on being able to detect violent
behavior where -- where you're looking at two figures in a video and
sort of breaking out their arms and different things like that and
breaking down whether their arms are moving sort of in concert in
which case they might be shaking hands or if one arm's moving against
the other one it might be categorized as a punch.
So this is the sorta stuff that Santa has going for him up at the Pole
and everything is automated and just bad behavior -- only the -- only
the really bad behavior gets forwarded to the elves so they don't have
to sit in front of the screen all the time. They're only really hitting the highlights.
Umm, now, obviously this brings the question of, I don't know, what
sort of data center does he have up there? Umm, at the North Pole.
It is a really big one. One of the concerns with these kinda things
is how do you keep them all -- how would you keep all these servers
cool? Umm, that's one of the reasons he's at the
North Pole, obviously --
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: -- is that it's pretty simple. You just kinda open the window, umm, let everything
cool down and -- and that just keeps it at the right temperature.
Umm, but at the same time, you know, there's gotta be some big
electricity demands and for that, umm, Santa has a vast array of
underwater turbines in the Arctic Ocean so everything, his whole
entire operation runs on green technology. Umm, and it has to really because Santa is
really, really affected by global warming.
Umm, today, the World Meteorological Association announced that this
is -- this will with the warmest decade on record and, up, this does
affect Santa. He doesn't live at the actual magnetic North
Pole. He lives, umm, his facilities are buried underground
in the Greenland Ice Sheet, uh, which -- which is two to 3
miles thick in places. Umm, but scientists have been finding in recent
years that this ice sheet is melting and the tops of Santa's facilities
are -- are now starting to melt.
And this is tough 'cause he's a busy guy, the elves are busy, they
don't want tourists coming up there, bothering them, slowing things
down. Right?
So he's considering moving but at this point it -- it still seems okay
and -- but he's really trying to push green technology to kinda -- to
kinda stop this global warming trend. That's one of the reasons he
stopped using coal, umm, you know. He doesn't -- he doesn't drop coal off in
kids' stockings anymore. Umm, so, anyway, the out-of-the-way location
up at the North Pole brings up another question which is how does
he -- how does he do it? How does he get around the world in one night
from the North Pole to all these hundreds of millions of homes?
Umm, you've got one guy in a sleigh and being trailed by flying
reindeer and, you know, the whole flying reindeer thing does seem a
little bit ridiculous and I will say it is a PR front, umm, he keeps
around because he knows the kids love them. He's -- he doesn't need them to fly.
Umm, but let's assume that he did do it the standard way: Reindeer
from rooftop to rooftop, umm, you know, steaming out of the North
Pole, landing on a roof, going down the chimney, looking around,
dropping off the presents, going back up the chimney and going on to
the next house. Umm, say he has to visit 200 million homes.
You can assume about four minutes per home including, you know,
three -- three to three and a half minutes of getting from one home to
the next, umm, and then 30 seconds inside -- to a minute inside, a
little puttering around, eating some cookies, some milk, maybe having
a little bit of a carrot just to get something healthy in him, umm,
and if he does all that it takes about 800 million minutes total, umm,
or 555,555 days, or 1,500 years to deliver all those presents that
he's supposed to in a single night. Umm, and he does this every year.
Umm, so if we assume that he's been in business for 150 years that's
228,310 years in all plus the rest of the normal calendar year when
he's not working brings the total even higher. Umm, the movies have tried to explain all
this to us. You know, in, umm, Miracle on 34th Street with Richard Attenborough,
uh, couple people asked Santa this question, how do you
-- how do you do it in and he says, well, time for me flows at a
different rate so what if I get stretch, you know, a second for you into
an hour for me? Umm, that sound great and a -- and a -- it
-- it does explain it a little bit but the problem is that he'd still
have to live through all that time; right?
His clock still runs through the normal rate so he'd have to live
through those 228,000 plus years. Umm, I don't care how big of a heart he's
got or how great the cookies are, he would get bored.
He would sit down on someone's TV -- sit down on someone's couch,
watch some TV, maybe log into his facebook page on their computer,
he'd fall asleep and get caught. Obviously this has never happened so we know
that this is not the way the system works.
As I said, instead he has assistants. Umm, lieutenant Santas
There are about two and 300 of 'em. Santa himself is the O.C.C., or the Original
Clause.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: Umm, now, are they clones of Santa? No.
There would be some benefits here because he could just sorta give
them his old clothes, they'd all -- you know, that I had probably fit,
he could play poker with them and beat them 'cause he'd know their
poker faces because they're his poker faces. Umm, but again he's a little bit worried about,
you know, one of them potentially makes a move on Mrs. Clause.
So, instead, what he does is he finds, you know, jovial older
gentlemen and recruits them to work for him for a period of two to
three years. Umm, sometimes they're department store Santas,
sometimes they're ex-journalists, uh, there's a whole bunch
of different positions he looks at.
Umm, mostly he just looks for people with a high tolerance for
repetition and a hard -- hard working ethic. Umm, now, why do they do it?
Umm, Santa pays them a lot of money. He -- he has a number of revenue streams from
consulting, umm, he has a hand in almost every Hollywood movie that's
made about him and he also has, umm, robots that crank out scripts,
action scripts, umm, that are non christmas related and usually
sells ten to 15 of those a year so he does have a pretty good revenue
stream. And he rewards them with a lot of money and
then at the end of their term he gives them a glass of eggnog with
memory-erasing compounds in it, uh, knocks out their last three years,
and sends them home with a check.
Umm, now -- [Coughing] -- excuse me. Umm, the lieutenants travel via worm hole.
Umm, these -- these astrophysical oddities are supposed to link one
part of the universe to another normally. Umm, you see them in play in movies like "Contact"
and others. Umm, but Santa's actually goes -- go from
one house to another. Umm, usually they go from chimney to window
so, you know, he -- he will leave through the chimney in one house
and arrive through the window in a another house.
Umm, I'm sure this doesn't surprise any of you 'cause honestly how
many of us have really seen him arriving through the chimney?
Right? Nobody.
Umm, anyway, the -- it also explains a few other things.
The, umm, you know, the finger aside the nose. You know that's how he goes up the chimney
supposedly. What that is is that's actually a classic
case of magician-still misdirection, you know?
He puts his finger on the side of his nose and you automatically -- if
a little kid is there seeing -- looks at that and doesn't see Santa
flicking the little worm hole switch which is hidden next to the
chimney.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: Umm, it also explains a little bit why, umm, chimney repair
people come around your house so often and why it's so often -- so
often so expensive to fix chimneys is because, umm, Santa's elves are
out there maintaining these worm holes so they like to pop in and do
estimates on chimney repair and at the same time check and see if the
exotic matter generators are working and things like that.
Umm, and that's also -- I don't know if you notice but that -- I'm
sure it'll help clear up why so many chimney workers are tiny and have
pointy little ears. Anyway, the advantages are -- you know, the
worm holes, they -- they cut the commute time to nearly nothing and
he actually -- Santa can set it up so that his lieutenants can arrive
in one house before they left the last one.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: Umm ... So what this does is it cuts the time per
home to about 30 seconds 'cause he doesn't have that commute time anymore.
Umm, and what ends up happening is the total, you know, amount of time
needed for Santa to get presents -- Santa and his operatives to get
presents into all these homes works out to 190 years.
When you split this among all the lieutenants and Santa himself, who
does do a little bit of the work, umm, that comes out to about six to
nine months each. And, umm, obviously it's hard to work for
six to nine months straight but they do have a lot of drugs in their system.
Umm, they typically stay awake for 71 hours, get an hour nap, with
that hour nap, umm, acts the equivalent of eight hours' sleep in one
hour, umm, thanks to these drugs. So they can keep going for those six to nine
months. Umm -- [Coughing] -- excuse me.
Now, one of the problems is that you can't have issues with a Santa
running into himself, you know, 'cause he's, you know, he's constantly
going back in time, going toward in time, and as a result the Santas
don't typically go from one house to the next in the neighborhood.
They -- they hop states and counties, and countries and they're
zigzagging all across the world. This makes tracking them pretty complex because
even though they each have a little GPS device on them that tells
the elves where they are, you know, every -- every, you know, fraction
of a second that keeps doubling as the Santa comes back in time and
goes forward in time and comes back.
So, umm, it's a little bit harder to do but the elves do a decent job
of it. Umm, the other problem with worm holes is
that when they malfunction when a Santa is inside the tunnel going from
one mou -- worm hole mouth to the other worm hole mouth, you can
get left in an -- an alternate and considerably less jolly universe.
Umm, and sometimes a Santa can be rescued by the means I described
before but most of the time they're just kinda gone.
And that's one of the reasons he pays these guys so much 'cause there
is a lot of risk involved.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: Umm, the other issue with this time traveling technique is
it -- it runs into a little bit of causality problems where if a
little girl sneaks out at -- at midnight, goes and looks under the
tree, and sees that Santa isn't there, he can't then travel back in
time and -- and be in that house when she had already seen that he
wasn't there. So an event happened and he can't change it.
Now, if he's en route while this is happening, again, he'll probably
get lost in an alternate universe. So that -- according to -- this is according
to an astrophysicist at Berkeley I spoke to about this issue, this
guy Richard Muere, and he said that that might be the reason why Santa
tells people they shouldn't go and peek out under the tree.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: Umm, now, the O.C. himself doesn't use the worm holes for
this reason because he doesn't wanna get involved in such a risky
situation. He's got a warp-drive sleigh.
Warp drive makes it a little easier for him to travel because, you
know, instead of -- if he's just going from point A to point B,
instead of trying to get there as fast as he can, cover that distance
as fast as he can, warp -- the warp drive in his sleigh allows him to
basically shrink the distance. It pushes point A away from him and brings
point B closer. Umm, I spoke with a few scientists about how
this might work and there's some recent thinking about how it
might relate to fiddling with extra demensions and things like that
but to be honest I can't be sure exactly how it functions.
Now, can reindeer fly? No.
As I said, they're just there for show. This, umm, this astrophysicist Richard Muere
at Berkeley suggested the myth of the flying may actually be as a result
of, you know, the -- the elusion of the reindeer leaping off the
rooftop into a warp bubble and disappearing; right?
It makes it look like they're flying off into some cloud, or into the
sunset, or into the night but in reality they're just really good
leapers. Umm, now, you know, does he really make toys?
Obviously, umm, the classic vision is we've got hordes of elves
hacking away at -- at wood and making rocking horses and things like
that. Umm, but that's not the way it works at all.
Umm, instead at this point, you know, Santa -- Santa and his crew
aren't up there slaving away. They're actually in Hawaii at the Four Seasons,
up, relaxing, getting a little bit of a rosy glow in their cheeks
and getting ready for that hard six to nine months of work and the elves
themselves, they are all monitoring this data I was talking about that's
coming in making sure kids are naughty, or nice, or what have you.
Umm, plus, the question is, you know, how would Santa know what to
make? Even if he could, you know, get all of the
wish list, which is pretty simple, umm, the problem is, parents do leave
kids some presents; right?
We know that. And so Santa would have to figure out what
are the parents going to leave versus what I should leave.
So really he's never going to know what he should leave or give a kid
until he gets to the house, sees what the parents have left, and sorta
cross references that sample with the desired wish list.
Umm, now, if -- if you imagine him bringing a bag of -- of finished
toys, he would then have to basically have -- you know, if a kid has
ten toys on his list and he gets six of 'em, Santa would have to have
all ten toys and then go through -- so it's just two inefficient and
it doesn't make sense. Instead he has, umm, he has a -- he basically
enters the room, he has a high-performance scanner where, you know,
he can look through his terahertz radiation scanner that can look
through wrapped gifts, figure out what they are, then he gets a list
of what a kid has received.
Umm, the North Pole, he sends this information back to the North Pole
and then, umm, the North Pole fires back to him a reference code for
a -- the toy that he should be leaving, umm, he types this into a
little handheld remote, fires it at a little box he brings with him,
and inside, the toy starts self-assembling from sub molecular
components. Umm, now, he also, you know, after he does
that, he has another bite of a cookie and then he leaves.
This isn't a quick process. It takes about two hours but Santa doesn't
need to be there to watch it happen.
Umm, what -- what it is, is, umm, you know, self-assembly is -- again,
it's not magic either. It happens all the time in the real world
and -- galexies self-assemble tree, self-assembled, umm, scientists
are making progress in the area, too.
Umm, uh, a pair of scientists, one at the university -- UMASS Amherst
and also Berkeley recently coaxed these tiny polymer strands to
self-assemble into 10 trillion cylinders with precise patterns that
they think eventually could lead to discs the size of a quarter that
still, uh, store 175 DVDs worth of data. Umm, this is small stuff.
Larger stuff like toys is farther out but, you know, a few of the
experts I've spoke with say it's not totally inconceivable.
Umm, so with Santa, he leaves this thing on the floor and he's gone
and as he's gone this sort of fluid-filled central chamber starts
these -- these, umm, sub molecular components start gradually linking
together to form complex structures, the toy comes together first,
then the packaging, and then the fluid drains out through a tiny hole
in the bottom and it dissolves and there's no trace left except on
these newer IKEA hardwood floors where there's a little bit of a stain
left over but apparently Santa is working to resolve that.
Umm, now -- [Coughing] -- excuse me. What happens when he is spotted?
'Cause on occasion, Santa does like to be seen by certain kids to sort
of keep the belief in them about -- alive. And when this happens, he's totally happy
to interact to the child, wish them a merry Christmas, tap 'em on the
head, have a cookie, et cetera, and go.
But occasionally, umm, a child doesn't come out but a parent, you
know, an overprotective dad potentially with a shotgun.
Umm, and Santa usually gets very little warning for this.
He has a lot of surveillance devices in the -- in the room, umm, you
know, and the elves will warn him hey, there's someone coming but he's
such a trusting guy and a jolly guy that he doesn't think it's gonna
be anything threatening so he just hangs out and waits and what
happens when it is, you know, a dad with a shotgun or something to
that effect, umm, he basically just goes invisible. He has these, uh,
meta material enhanced so that can bend light around him and re-rout
it so you don't even know he's there, sort of like the invisibility
cloak in "Harry Potter" or something like that.
Umm, now, when this happens, the dad usually just yawns, realizes he
had too much champagne or eggnog the night before, goes back to bed,
and Santa takes off and he's safe. Umm, now, finally, umm, probably the most
pressing question is, uh, will I get good presents this year for writing
this book? Umm, now, as I said, I received an e-mail
from Santa the other night. He says I'm on the nice list which is good
to know, umm, but I really guess I won't know that answer until Christmas
morning. Umm, but that's not the main reason I wrote
to, you know, to get good presents.
Umm, part of my concern is for my country, too.
It's about patriotism. You know, there are far too few scientists
and engineers coming up through the ranks.
There's this -- that Laura Morganston report, "The Gathering Storm",
you know, about the future of our economy and how we don't have enough
scientists and engineers and I think, you know, getting kids to think
differently about Santa, stop thinking about magic and start thinking
about it in a science sense, umm, could really make them look at this
holiday in a whole new exciting way. Umm, and so I think, umm, that's it.
You know? I, uh, I hope you all spread the truth about
Santa and I hope that no bullies intimidate you and thanks for having
me and happy holidays, and merry Christmas and, uh, I'd love to answer
questions if anyone feels like asking 'em.
>> [Applause]
Gregory: Sure. Oh, right.
>> Umm, so, uh, my -- my big issue here with belief in Santa Claus is
I have trouble believing in the public. Here we are giving them free services and
they keep claiming that we're collecting too much information on them.
What you just described --
Gregory: [Laughing]
>> -- as far as information collection is not something new.
I mean, if every child is known to be naughty or nice, clearly there's
massive amount of underage data collection without permission going on
and -- and how do you -- how do you reconcile that?
Does the public exist?
Gregory: I'm -- I'm a little bit -- that is the one thing I'm a
little bit concerned about with this book coming out where, I don't
know, I don't think Santa's gonna be upset about the, uh, talking
about his travel techniques and things like that but if he -- if he
does start to get into privacy trouble I'm really worried.
I am. I hope I don't ruin the whole thing.
So yeah. 'Cause it is a little scary.
Abslutly. I agree with you.
I -- I try to swat any flies now that I see. Moths, I keep 'em right out of the house.
Absolutely. Yes.
Absolutely.
>> Hi. Umm, if he has all this technology and perfect
information and stuff, how come I didn't get the present I asked
for last year?
Gregory: Uh, you were naughty.
>> [Laughing]
>> All right. So, uh, you seem like a good source to answer
this question I've had for a while, which is, going in the bookstore,
there seems to be a lot of Santa expose books out at this time and
like I bought "Santa Responds" the other day where he where I say
back to kids' Christmas lists and stuff.
I mean, clearly he e-mailed you so you're legit, but how do I tell
with the other books? Like, which ones are valid?
Gregory: Well, we're looking into sort of a certification process.
Uh, yeah. And I don't know -- I don't know where he
stands on that at this point but I think, you know, I think it's an absolutely
valid question 'cause there is a lot of -- like I said, there's
a lot of myth out there, there's a lot of crazy stories and
I think it's important to, you know, really settle on the truth and
-- and really explain, you know, to kids what Santa is all ant but I'm
glad you brought that up because that's something that does need to
be resolved. I agree.
All these -- all these other books. I moan, there only really needs to be one
book about Santa Claus; right?
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: You know? You've got all this other junk out there.
Yeah.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: It's a good point.
>> [Quiet]
>> Uh, what's your opinion on the controversial claims in Erich Von
Daniken's book "santa Claus Was An Extraterrestrial"?
Gregory: I -- you know, it's funny. I think, umm, that would be a
sort of a half truth because, umm, while Santa Claus himself is not an
extraterrestrial, all of his technology is of alien origin.
Umm, you can't imagine, you know, it'd be impossible for someone from
the future to go back in -- or maybe not impossible but very
implausible to go back and give Santa this technology because, as you
know, you can't -- even if we could invent a time machine, you
couldn't go back any further than the invention of the first time
machine; right? So, umm, there's no way Santa could have started
all this in 1850 'cause nobody had a time machine back then.
If someone were to invent one today, the best we could do is go back
to today. Umm, and Santa himself couldn't have developed
all this stuff because, I don't know, there's never been anyone I
don't think in the history of humanity who's had that sort of skill as
a scientist and an engineer, he'd have to have knowledge of all
these different fields and the ability to apply all this knowledge
going up in, you know, several centuries past what we know now.
So all of his technology does come from aliens. We don't know why they gave it to us, why
they gave it to him but, umm, absolutely.
You know, it's alien origin. Santa himself is not an alien, but they do
help him.
>> This has come up in a couple of different ways.
Obviously Santa would like to avoid very public, umm, exposure, uh, of
any -- of any of his methods and how this happens.
Umm, and the obvious way to do this is by having people present false
descriptions of how things actually work and -- and playing the role
of journalist here, I have to question whether you are an agent of
Santa in doing this and -- the -- the -- the -- the K.I.S.S.
philosophy, Keep It Simple, Stupid, the simplest, uh, uh, uh -- the --
I'm sorry. Nthe simplest explanation is probably the
real one. Umm, it seems to me by -- by, uh, splitting
up the tasks that he's got across many people, uh, many elves, planted,
distributed in every household, not the shortest actually actually
but the tallest members of those households who know whether the children
are naughty or nice by being present and watching them, uh --
uh directly, umm, who -- who know what -- what gifts are arriving and
-- and are able to coordinate like that would be the obvious thing.
The problem is that would be parents. They aren't -- they aren't elves.
So the way to turn those people into elves would be some kind of mind
controling reading device. That's all he needs.
A mind controlling reading device for all the parents and suddenly the
problem's solved. I think that's what happened.
>> [Laughing]
>> Very good.
>> [Laughing]
Gregory: Umm, no. It's a -- it's a -- it's a very good point
and, you know, I am -- I've been accused of -- of imagining some of this
'cause I'm a novelist as well made up -- I am prone to making things
up on occasion, uh, writing pirate stories and other things like
that, uh, but I'm just a simple reporter in this case, just an investigative
journalist who's trying to help someone, uh, so, umm, yeah?
>> [Quiet]
Thanks.
Hostess: Yeah. If there are no other questions.
Gregory: Sure. Great.
>> [Applause]
Gregory: Thanks everyone!