Free Republic

NORAD’s tradition of tracking Santa’s sleigh began with a wrong number. Right before Christmas in 1955, Sears ran an ad offering millions of toy-hungry girls and boys the chance to talk to the big man himself. In Colorado Springs, the retailer published the local phone number to the North Pole as ME 2-6681. Modal TriggerCol. Harry Shoup There was only one problem: The number was one digit off. And that wrong number rang on the desk of a high-ranking officer in a bunker at the Continental Air Defense Command — the predecessor of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which has...

A Newington woman receives as many as 25 phone calls a day from people looking for information on Infinity Hall. However, the woman does not work for the music hall in Norfolk and the number is to her house. According to Linda Fascelle, her phone number is one number different than Infinity Hall. The prefix for Fascelle's number is 860 and Infinity's is 866. Fascelle's number is also incorrectly listed on Google Places as the number for Infinity Hall, which leads to the influx of daily phone calls for reservations, show times and other information.

Dialing the right wrong number may have saved the life of a Cuyahoga Falls woman. Loretta Smith, 70, said a complete stranger many states away came to her rescue Saturday when she fell ill. Around 4 p.m., Smith said, her right arm went dead. Soon the whole right side of her body wouldn't respond. And then she fell to the floor. "I couldn't move," she said. When she tried to stretch out, her left leg hit a table near her bed and knocked the telephone onto the floor.

Two men were arrested in St. Cloud after police say they dialed the wrong number and attempted to buy a pound of marijuana from a police officer. According to St. Cloud Police, a uniformed St. Cloud patrol officer received the call at 11:33 p.m. Sunday. After the officer received multiple phone calls from the suspect, a meeting was arranged on the 1100 block of 15th Avenue South. Police say the men fled when they met with uniformed officers, but were quickly apprehended and taken into custody. The two men have been identified by police as 21-year-old Kewon Donte Johnson of...