Posted on 12/22/2005 8:56:10 PM PST by Racehorse
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., Dec. 22, 2005 - The North American Aerospace Defense Command is observing its 50th anniversary of tracking Santa Claus on his annual rounds, NORAD officials said here.
The tradition of tracking Santa began in 1955, when a local Sears, Roebuck and Co. store ran a newspaper ad urging children to make a phone call on Christmas Eve and talk to Santa Claus. As fate would have it, the phone number was misprinted and, instead of reaching Santa, youngsters found themselves talking with Air Force Col. Harry Shoup of the Continental Air Defense Command at Cheyenne Mountain.
Rather than hanging up, Shoup and his troops answered every child's call that night with a report of Santa's location. CONAD personnel kept up the practice until 1958, when NORAD was formed and took over Santa-tracking duties. NORAD has continued the Santa tracking tradition for several reasons, according to Air Force Master Sgt. John Tomassi, co-director of Santa-tracking operations.
"I think in the initial stages, back in the '50s and '60s, it was just a novelty kind of thing," he said. "A lot of people - children and their families - do this tracking Santa as a tradition in their family. We've recognized now that people have taken this program as a tradition, and what we can do is educate them.
"We do track Santa," he continued. "However, we do provide for the defense of the North American aerospace also. We use the satellites to track Santa, we use the radar, we use jet fighters, but all of those exact same things are what we use to monitor the aerospace of North America."
While youngsters are tracking Santa's flight, they may also learn a thing or two about the world around them, Tomassi said.
"We think of it as a geography lesson," said he explained, "because the different places that Santa visits or sightings that we have, a lot of people haven't heard of. If we can get some children to go and look at a map to find out where Timbuktu is, or where India is, or Pakistan, or wherever, then we feel all the better for that."
Last Christmas Eve, volunteers at Cheyenne Mountain answered nearly 55,000 phone calls and 35,000 e-mails from children around the world. During December 2004, the NORAD Tracks Santa Web site had 912 million hits from 181 countries. This year, about 500 volunteers - most of them U.S. and Canadian military personnel and their families - will report for telephone-answering duty on Christmas Eve. But already, youngsters are sending messages to Santa via the NORAD Tracks Santa Web site.
"E-mails are arriving from India and Ireland and all over the world already from children with their wish lists who want to talk to Santa," Tomassi said. "We receive, on average, 200 e-mails a day."
NORAD Tracks Santa volunteers will answer calls from 2 a.m. MST Dec. 24 to 2 a.m. MST Dec. 25 at (877) HiNORAD -- (877) 446-6723 -- toll-free in the United States; or at (719) 474-2111.
(Army Sgt. 1st Class Gail Braymen is assigned to North American Aerospace Defense Command public affairs.)
Related Sites:
NORAD Tracks Santa [ http://www.noradsanta.org/ ]
North American Aerospace Defense Command [ http://www.norad.mil/ ]
NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa - radar, satellites, Santa Cams and jet fighter aircraft.
It all starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System. This powerful radar system has 47 installations strung across Canada's North and Alaska. NORAD makes a point of checking the radar closely for indications of Santa Claus leaving the North Pole on Christmas Eve.
Everything you need to know to explain it all to all the little ones asking all those big questions: How does NORAD track Santa?
Merry Christmas!
Someone call the ACLU. A Government agency is aknowledging a symbol of Christmas.
This is a Christmas Eve tradition for my daughter and me. She always has to go to bed by the time Santa gets to New York.
Hint hint...
How ironic as I just bookmarked the Norad page today...
my parents and my sister with her family come over every year for Christmas Eve....last year my sister brought all the kids down to my computer every 15 minutes to track Santa on Norad....they loved it!
My daughter was not yet two and was thrilled...at one point they announced that fighter jets were going to escort Santa..."oh no!" my four year old niece said-"their gonna kill Santa!"...it was funny...
My guess is he's gonna get shot down over Washington D.C.'s no-fly zone.
Looks like the graphics have been upgraded this year. I can't wait.
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