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NORAD Tracks Santa
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NORAD Tracks Santa
NORAD Tracks Santa, also called NORAD Santa Tracker, is an annual program in which the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) purports to track Santa Claus as he leaves the North Pole and travels around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children on Christmas Eve. The program starts on December 1, but the actual Santa-tracking starts at midnight annually on December 24. It is a community outreach function of NORAD, and has been held annually since 1955. Although NORAD claims to use radar and other technologies to track Santa, the website merely simulates the tracking of Santa.
The program follows the tradition of the September 1897 editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"[further explanation needed] in the New York Sun and was an inspiration of the Google Santa Tracker, which launched in December 2004.
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 reindeer, 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' sleigh on Christmas Eve, though it was a one-time event, not repeated over the next several years.
In 1955, a Sears department store placed an advertisement in the Colorado Springs newspaper The Gazette, which told children they could place a call to Santa Claus and included the number ME 2-6681. The number printed was only a single digit away from the number for Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center.
According to interviews, in December 1955, a call allegedly came through to CONAD. Colonel Harry Shoup answered the call. The caller, a little girl, asked Shoup if he was Santa Claus. Shoup, a serious man, initially thought the call to be a practical joke and responded gruffly. Upon realizing the child was serious, he softened his tone and asked to speak to the child's mother; it was then that he learned of the advertisement. Some sources assert that he received numerous similar calls that night, in response to which he had his operators give children the "current location" for Santa Claus. Actually, the child had misdialed the number, and only that one child called that night.
On Christmas Eve, when a member of Shoup's staff placed a picture of Santa on a board used to track unidentified aircraft that December, Shoup saw a public relations opportunity for CONAD. He asked CONAD's public affairs officer Colonel Barney Oldfield to inform the press that CONAD was tracking Santa's sleigh. In his release to the press, Oldfield added that "CONAD, Army, Navy, and Marine Air Forces will continue to track and guard Santa and his sleigh on his trip to and from the U.S. against possible attack from those who do not believe in Christmas."
Over the following years, the legend of how the annual event originated began to change. By 1961, Shoup's version of the story was that he had not been gruff with the child but instead had identified himself as Santa Claus when he spoke to the child on the phone. Shoup and his family later modified the story further, adding that the child had dialed the "red telephone"—an impossibility, because the hotline was connected with the Strategic Air Command by an enclosed cable, and no one could dial in from the outside—rather than the regular phone on Shoup's desk, that it was a misprint in an advertisement that led the child to call him rather than the child misdialing the number, and that a flood of calls had come in from children on Christmas Eve 1955 rather than from just one child on November 30.
Shoup did not intend to repeat the stunt in 1956, but Oldfield informed him that the Associated Press and United Press International were awaiting reports that CONAD again was claiming to be tracking Santa Claus. Shoup agreed that Oldfield should announce it again, and the annual tradition was born.
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NORAD Tracks Santa
NORAD Tracks Santa, also called NORAD Santa Tracker, is an annual program in which the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) purports to track Santa Claus as he leaves the North Pole and travels around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children on Christmas Eve. The program starts on December 1, but the actual Santa-tracking starts at midnight annually on December 24. It is a community outreach function of NORAD, and has been held annually since 1955. Although NORAD claims to use radar and other technologies to track Santa, the website merely simulates the tracking of Santa.
The program follows the tradition of the September 1897 editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"[further explanation needed] in the New York Sun and was an inspiration of the Google Santa Tracker, which launched in December 2004.
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 reindeer, 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' sleigh on Christmas Eve, though it was a one-time event, not repeated over the next several years.
In 1955, a Sears department store placed an advertisement in the Colorado Springs newspaper The Gazette, which told children they could place a call to Santa Claus and included the number ME 2-6681. The number printed was only a single digit away from the number for Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center.
According to interviews, in December 1955, a call allegedly came through to CONAD. Colonel Harry Shoup answered the call. The caller, a little girl, asked Shoup if he was Santa Claus. Shoup, a serious man, initially thought the call to be a practical joke and responded gruffly. Upon realizing the child was serious, he softened his tone and asked to speak to the child's mother; it was then that he learned of the advertisement. Some sources assert that he received numerous similar calls that night, in response to which he had his operators give children the "current location" for Santa Claus. Actually, the child had misdialed the number, and only that one child called that night.
On Christmas Eve, when a member of Shoup's staff placed a picture of Santa on a board used to track unidentified aircraft that December, Shoup saw a public relations opportunity for CONAD. He asked CONAD's public affairs officer Colonel Barney Oldfield to inform the press that CONAD was tracking Santa's sleigh. In his release to the press, Oldfield added that "CONAD, Army, Navy, and Marine Air Forces will continue to track and guard Santa and his sleigh on his trip to and from the U.S. against possible attack from those who do not believe in Christmas."
Over the following years, the legend of how the annual event originated began to change. By 1961, Shoup's version of the story was that he had not been gruff with the child but instead had identified himself as Santa Claus when he spoke to the child on the phone. Shoup and his family later modified the story further, adding that the child had dialed the "red telephone"—an impossibility, because the hotline was connected with the Strategic Air Command by an enclosed cable, and no one could dial in from the outside—rather than the regular phone on Shoup's desk, that it was a misprint in an advertisement that led the child to call him rather than the child misdialing the number, and that a flood of calls had come in from children on Christmas Eve 1955 rather than from just one child on November 30.
Shoup did not intend to repeat the stunt in 1956, but Oldfield informed him that the Associated Press and United Press International were awaiting reports that CONAD again was claiming to be tracking Santa Claus. Shoup agreed that Oldfield should announce it again, and the annual tradition was born.
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