From Editor’s Desk from North Pole Information House
NORAD is a binational U.S. and Canadian command charged with aerospace and maritime warning and aerospace control of North America as well as monitoring aerospace activity globally. However, every year during the holidays, NORAD assumes the supplementary mission of tracking Santa as he travels around the world.
On December 24, 1948, the United States Air Force issued a communique claiming that an “early warning radar net to the north” had detected “one unidentified sleigh, powered by eight reindeers, at 14,000 feet [4,300 meters], heading 180 degrees.” The Associated Press passed this “report” along to the general public. It was the first time that the United States Armed Forces issued a statement about tracking Santa Claus’s sleigh on Christmas Eve, although it was a one-time event, not repeated over the next several years.
Later, North American Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD started their journey to track Santa annually only accidentally through a typo.
The agency’s annual mission began with a typo more than half a century ago. On Christmas Eve in 1955, a local Sears store in Colorado Springs ran a dial Santa advertisement, except the number was a misprint; instead of listing the number for Sears’ Santa hotline, it posted the number for the Continental Air Defense Command center.
It led to Colonel Harry Shoup receiving calls all night from kids asking to speak with Santa Claus.
Instead of telling them that they dialled the wrong number, Shoup said that he wasn’t Santa Claus but he could track him on radar. Shoup and his team spent the rest of the night fielding calls, giving out details about Santa’s location as he and his reindeer flew through the sky to deliver gifts to children.
A tradition was born, and continued when NORAD was formed in 1958. Each year since, NORAD has reported Santa’s location on Dec. 24 to millions of children and families.
Today, the tradition is made possible by a team of volunteers. “His magical journey around the world has begun,” said the organization, which has been following Santa since 60 years.
The group uses infrared sensors to follow the glow of Rudolph’s nose, enabling them to pinpoint the location of his sleigh.
NORAD commander Terrence O’Shaughnessy, in a press release said “We are proud to carry on the tradition of tracking Santa as he travels along his yuletide flight path,” and added that tracking Santa is a “supplementary mission,” and that protecting North American airspace remains NORAD’s “top priority.”
A website called NORADSanta.org was established to allow project access for Internet users. In 2014, NORAD answered more than 100,000 phone calls. In 2015, more than 1,200 U.S. and Canadian military personnel volunteered to staff the phone lines. In 2018, more than 1,500 volunteers staffed the phone lines despite the shutdown of the US government.
