NORAD’s Santa tracker began in the Cold War. Here’s why it’s still going – National

The Christmas tradition has become almost global in scope: Children from all over the world track Santa Claus while he hovers over the earth, delivering gifts and preparing time.

Every year at least 100,000 children call in the North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about Santa’s location. Millions more follow online in nine languages, from English to Japanese.

On every other night, NORAD scans the sky for potential threats, like last year’s Chinese spy balloon. But on Christmas Eve, volunteers in Colorado Springs ask questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and, “Am I on the naughty or nice list?”

“There are screams and giggles and laughter,” said Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and NORAD volunteer.

Sommers often says on the call that everyone should sleep before Sinterklaas comes, causing parents to say: “Did you hear what he said? We have to go to bed early.”

NORAD’s annual tracking of Santa has been around since the Cold War, predating ugly sweater parties and Mariah Carey classics. The tradition continues, despite government shutdowns, like the one in 2018, and this year.

Here’s how it started and why the phones keep ringing.

It started with a child’s accidental phone call in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed an ad from Sears that encouraged children to call Santa, listing a phone number.

A boy called. But he reached out to the Continental Air Defense Command, now NORAD, a joint American and Canadian effort to spot potential enemy attacks. Tensions grew with the Soviet Union, along with fears of nuclear war.

Air Force Col. Harry W. Shoup picked up a “red phone” just for emergencies and was greeted by a small voice that began reciting a Christmas wish list.

“He went on for a little bit, and he takes a breath and then says, ‘Hey, you’re not Santa,'” Shoup told The Associated Press in 1999.

Realizing an explanation would be lost on the youth, Shoup called out in a deep, cheerful voice and replied, “Ho, ho, ho! Yes, I’m Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy?”

Shoup said he learned from the boy’s mother that Sears misprinted the top secret number. He hung up, but the phone soon rang again with a young girl reading her Christmas list. There were fifty calls a day, he said.

In the pre-digital age, the agency used a 60-by-80 foot (18-by-24 meter) Plexiglas map of North America to track unidentified objects. A staff member jokingly pulled the Saint and his sleigh across the North Pole.

The tradition was born.

“Note to the kiddies,” began an AP story from Colorado Springs on December 23, 1955. “Santa Claus Friday was assured safe passage into the United States by the Continental Air Defense Command.”

In a likely reference to the Soviets, the article noted that Santa was protected from possible attack by “those who do not believe in Christmas.”

Some grinchy journalists have nitpicked Shoup’s story, questioning whether a misprint or a misdial prompted the boy’s call.

In 2014, tech news site Gizmodo cited an International News Service story from December 1, 1955, about a call from a child to Shoup. Published in the Pasadena Independent, the article said the child reversed two digits in the Sears number.

“When a childish voice asked COC commander Col. Harry Shoup, if there was a Santa Claus at the North Pole, he answered much harsher than he should have – given the season:

“There might be a guy named Santa at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I’m worried about coming from that direction,” Shoup said in the short piece.

In 2015, The Atlantic magazine questioned the flood of calls to the secret line, while noting that Shoup had a flair for public relations.

Trending now

• The Bank of Canada’s big rate cut was a ‘close call’, minutes show

• Matt Gaetz paid ‘regularly’ for sex, including with minors, US report claims

Phone calls aside, Shoup was indeed media savvy. In 1986, he told the Scripps Howard News Service that he recognized an opportunity when a staff member drew Santa on the glass card in 1955.

A lieutenant colonel promised to erase it. But Shoup said, “You leave it there,” and called public affairs. Shoup wanted to boost morale for the troops and the public.

“Why, it made the army look good – like we’re not all a bunch of snobs who don’t care about Santa Claus,” he said.

Shoup died in 2009. His children told the StoryCorps podcast in 2014 that it was a misprinted Sears ad that prompted the phone calls.

“And later in life he got letters from all over the world,” said Terri Van Keuren, a daughter. “People who say ‘Thank you, Colonel, for having, you know, this sense of humor’.”

NORAD’s tradition is one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old Santa story perpetuated by Gerry Bowler, a Canadian historian who spoke to the AP in 2010.

Advertising campaigns and movies try to “hijack” Santa for commercial purposes, said Bowler, who wrote “Santa Claus: A Biography.” NORAD, in contrast, takes an essential element of the Santa story and views it through a technological lens.

In a recent interview with the AP, Air Force Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham explained that NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada — known as the northern warning system — are the first to detect Santa.

He leaves the North Pole and typically goes to the international date line in the Pacific Ocean. From there he moves to the west, to the night.

“That’s when the satellite systems we use to track and identify targets of interest every day start to kick in,” Cunningham said. “A probably little-known fact is that Rudolph’s red-glowing nose emits a lot of heat. And so those satellites follow (Santa) through that heat source.

NORAD has an app and website, www.noradsanta.orgthat will follow Santa on Christmas Eve from 4 am to midnight, mountain standard time. People can call 1-877-HI-NORAD to ask live operators about Santa’s location from 6 a.m. to midnight, Mountain Time.