Bah humbug! US Air Force tweets Santa isn't real before backtracking claim

Christmas is just around the corner, but don't expect the US Air Force to leave cookies and milk out for Santa Claus. The air wing tweeted that Saint Nick isn't real while mediating a friendly debate between two bases. It later retracted the claim.

The USAF clearly wasn't in the Christmas spirit when it stepped in to playfully chastise two of its bases for engaging in a Twitter feud over whose air fleet was more powerful on Wednesday.

“We didn't want to have to do this, but if you 2 can't get along we must...Santa will bring you nothing this year...becuase [sic] he isn't real!” the US Air Force tweeted to its Minot and Whiteman bases.

However, the USAF later realized that being Twitter's very own Grinch wasn't necessarily the best thing to do. “Ok, maybe we took that one too far,” it wrote. “Santa is real...”

When the Washington Examiner picked up the story with the headline “Air Force confirms Santa Claus isn't real while chiding quarreling bases on Twitter,” the USAF replied that it had not meant it that way. “Santa is real,” it tweeted to the author of the article. It then claimed it had been “bluffing” in order to get the feuding bases “in line.”

The USAF also stressed that the North American Aerospace Defense Command would be tracking Santa's Christmas Eve progress, as it does every year. It remains unknown whether Santa has put the Air Force on his naughty list, or if the military branch will wake up to anything more than a lump of coal on Christmas morning.