This US-Canada Military Agency Has Been Tracking Santa Claus For 68 Years
The joint US-Canadian military monitoring agency is continuing its long-standing Christmas tradition of tracking Santa's whereabouts.
This festive initiative aims to help children worldwide find out when Santa's reindeer-powered sleigh, laden with presents, will be making its way to their town. The tracking service has become a beloved tradition, offering children an enchanting way to follow Santa's journey on Christmas Eve.
A 3-D, interactive website at www.noradsanta.org showed Santa Claus and his reindeer on their imagined worldwide delivery route, allowing users to click and learn more about the various cities along the way.
When and how did the tradition begin?
The Santa tracker presented by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has a fascinating origin dating back to 1955. It all began with a Colorado newspaper advertisement that printed a phone number intended to connect children with Santa. However, due to an error, the number directed them to the hotline for the military nerve center, leading to a unique tradition that has since captivated generations of children worldwide.
To avoid disappointing the little ones, NORAD's director of operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, ordered his staff to check the radar to see where Old Saint Nick might be and update the children on his location.
Sixty-eight years later NORAD is continuing the tradition of setting up a temporary call center out of its Colorado headquarters to answer children's burning questions.
NORAD spreads festive cheer
A photo posted by the group on Facebook showed rows of people answering phones, some in uniform and others wearing red Santa caps.?Some top-level US dignitaries -- namely President Joe Biden and wife Jill Biden -- joined in on the holiday action.
Earlier Sunday the tracker went down for a short while, leaving children in the Pacific region in the dark about his exact position.
"Hey #SantaTrackers! We may be having a couple of technical difficulties with our tracking map, but #Santa is still flying! He is headed to Fiji next!" the group which runs the tracker said on their Facebook page, before announcing a fix one hour later.
Santa's journey
Father Christmas had begun his journey with an out-of-this-world first stop, according to NORAD: the International Space Station orbiting Earth.The reindeer-pulled sleigh was also seen traversing Israel as well as crossing over southern Gaza, crisscrossing Africa, and venturing southward to Palmer Station, a research facility in Antarctica.
Santa then headed up through South America, bound for the United States, unloading approximately 100,000 gifts every second for about 4.9 billion total presents as of 0130 GMT Monday, according to the tracker.
Beyond its festive duties, NORAD engages in critical aerospace and maritime control and warning operations. These responsibilities involve monitoring potential missile launches, adding a real-world security aspect to Santa's journey. This is especially relevant given the recent ICBM test by North Korea, underscoring the dual nature of NORAD's mission during the holiday season.? ? ??
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