Depending on your age and continent, you might be aware that each year NORAD tracks Santa, keeping the children of the United States and Canada updated on his movements. The story of how this came to be, which really sounds like it should be a Christmas movie, has its own fame, but remains less well-known. While Hollywood gets its act together, you can make do with our account.
First, for non-Americans, what is NORAD’s Santa Tracker?
As the Cold War began, the US government built a comprehensive observation system to look out for Soviet missiles that might be sneaking up on them. Back when good neighborliness, not threats, characterized the relationship across the world’s longest border, Canada was included too. Various predecessors eventually became the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Presumably because NAADC was too difficult to pronounce, it came to be known as NORAD.
Fortunately, however, the world has avoided nuclear war. Although it has had plenty to do, observing not only hostile movements, but also natural phenomena that might cover an attack, NORAD apparently has a bit of spare time. It has seen the publicity value in alerting children for a month each year that Santa is on his way.
Today, that information is provided on the Santa Tracker website, which plays an appropriate song and links to background information on Santa and NORAD but will spring into action on Christmas Eve, as it has every year since 1997. For 25 hours the site will update with specific locations for Santa’s sleigh, and information on how many presents remain on board.
In the dark ages before the World Wide Web, media releases announced the tracking, so children were dependent on whether local TV stations or newspapers chose to play along each year, often as part of weather reports. Those aware of the event could call a number to find out if Santa had appeared on NORAD’s radar, and be reassured with a location.
NORAD’s account of how they track Santa, given that to get to so many households he must be moving faster than any missile, can vary, and usually lacks detail. Presumably some information must remain confidential, lest forces less friendly than Saint Nicholas discover holes in the observation net.
How it came to pass
In November 1955, a department store ran adverts with a number that could be called to talk to Santa Claus, presumably hoping to stimulate some pester power among children to boost toy sales. However, when the number was printed in a Colorado Springs newspaper someone slipped up, and the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) was called instead.
CONAD’s lines were probably quiet back when even local calls were too expensive to make spam profitable. When a phone at CONAD rang, director of combat operations Colonel Harry Shoup claims to have answered, rather than letting an underling take the call, and was surprised to hear a young girl’s voice asking him if he was Santa.
Shoup has given different and sometimes contradictory accounts of what happened next, some of them impossible. In some versions the ad was printed wrong, and the call he took was the first of many. In others, the caller mistyped a correctly advertised number. Since everyone involved is long dead, aside perhaps from the caller who has never identified herself, we will never know quite which one is true. Still, there’s enough overlap to go on with.
This ad is said to have been published in the Colorado Springs Gazette, but was the number CONAD’s or one digit away?
Image credit: NORAD Public Affairs, Bob Jones (public domain)
Shoup said he initially thought the call was a practical joke, before realizing the girl was serious. Puzzled, he asked to speak to her mother, and learned about the advertisement. Colorado Springs wasn’t a big city back then, so even if the ad contained the CONAD number, not that many may have called. Either way, Shoup encouraged his team to invent a “current location” for Santa to tell subsequent callers, rather than pretending to be the man himself.
The base had a board for tracking unidentified aircraft, and a staff member drew a picture of a sleigh pulled by reindeer on it. Putting the events together, Shoup saw an opportunity, and had public affairs officer Colonel Barney Oldfield tell the press CONAD was tracking Santa’s sleigh. Oldfield added the irresistible hook, “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.”
The following year Oldfield told Shoup newswires were asking if Santa would be tracked once more, and Shoup agreed to play along. It became an annual tradition, until taken over by NORAD, who sometimes upped the stakes – for example, reporting on giving aid to a man in red with an injured flying reindeer. Media opportunities abound.
As The Atlantic has noted, the story that everything sprang from a single phone call is probably too perfect to be true. Predecessors to the idea of tracking Santa can be seen in a WWII media release and a diplomatic cable sent to Kris Kringle (a name sometimes used for Santa) asking for help to bring peace on Earth. Good luck with that.
Still, as the tradition grew, NORAD created a hotline, staffed by volunteers who answer calls from children anxious to know if Santa is on his way. The misprinted ad, or mistyping child, called the line into being. Despite the website, which now gets millions of visitors each year, taking some of the pressure off, many children still want the personal touch a call provides. More than 1,000 people answer the call each year, each personally reassuring an average of 100 children.
Even with off-duty military personnel and famous figures such as Michelle Obama providing their time on the phones for free, there are costs involved in running such an operation. Other nations’ militaries might decide the publicity was worth the cost, but NORAD uses corporate sponsorship to keep the event cost-neutral. Google has cut out the middleman with a Santa tracker site of their own. But what could be more in the spirit of Santa than a gift to the world someone else pays for?
Source Link: How America's Aerospace Defense Came To Track Santa Claus For 70 Years
