© Mark Ollig
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, better known as NORAD, reports it will track Santa and his reindeer team again as they travel around our planet delivering toys on Christmas Eve.
The story of tracking Santa began in 1955 when NORAD was CONAD (Continental Air Defense Command), composed of Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine forces with its central operations located in Colorado Springs, CO.
The Pentagon or a high-ranking general would call the confidential, air-defense telephone hotline at CONAD during a national emergency, such as in the case of an imminent military attack against the United States.
A December 1955 Colorado Springs Sears department store newspaper advertisement was mistakenly printed with the wrong telephone number for children to call and talk with Santa on Christmas Eve.
The newspaper advertisement’s telephone number was for the hotline to the red phone sitting on the desk in the central operations center at CONAD.
The Sears children’s Christmas newspaper advertisement with a picture of Santa Claus read: “Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night.”
Christmas Eve 1955, the red phone at CONAD began ringing.
Colonel Harry Shoup, the director of operations, immediately picked up the handset.
“The red phone ringing; it’s either the Pentagon calling or the four-star General Partridge. I was all shook up,” Col. Shoup recalled years later.
“So, I picked it up and said, Sir, this is Col. Shoup.”
There was silence from the phone’s receiver.
“Sir, can you read me alright?” asked Col. Shoup, who believed a military general was calling the hotline telephone.
Imagine Col. Shoup’s surprise when he heard a little girl’s voice ask, “Are you really Santa Claus?”
Col. Shoup recalls looking around the room at the faces of his office personnel and sternly saying, “Somebody’s playing a joke on me, and this isn’t funny!”
“Would you repeat that?” demanded Col. Shoup into the phone, now thinking it was some prankster randomly dialing telephone numbers.
“Are you really Santa Claus?” the small voice on the other end of the telephone line sincerely asked.
While Col. Shoup was on the phone, one of his officers told him of the local newspaper’s advertisement mistake.
Col. Shoup’s behavior quickly changed.
Instead of disappointing the little girl calling for Santa, he decided to answer her as Santa would, asking, “Have you been a good little girl?”
The now happy little girl’s voice on the phone said she knew Santa would be coming down the fireplace at her house, and she would be leaving some food there for him and the reindeer.
“Oh, boy! They sure will appreciate that!” Col. Shoup told her.
He listened as the little girl read off the items she hoped Santa would bring her on her Christmas list.
Col. Shoup then asked the little girl if he could talk with her mom or dad; he informed them of their daughter’s Christmas list items.
After saying goodbye to the little girl, Col. Shoup instructed his defense operations center to act as Santa’s helpers whenever a child called the hotline.
Children calling were provided radar updates by CONAD defense operation team members regarding the location of Santa Claus and his globe-circling reindeer sleigh team.
Santa’s sleigh travels faster than starlight, “but this is nothing that our technologies can’t handle,” a commander at CONAD reportedly told one young caller.
By 1958, CONAD became NORAD.
NORAD continues the tradition of reporting on the status of Santa and his reindeer sleigh team each Christmas, monitoring Santa’s trip with the same advanced space satellite technology to follow any airborne object approaching the Northern Hemisphere.
On Christmas Eve, NORAD will again be tracking Santa and his reindeer sleigh team as they make their journey worldwide.
Follow the official NORAD Tracks Santa website at https://www.noradsanta.org. There, you’ll find the Santa Tracker Countdown Clock, videos of Santa’s North Pole headquarters, interactive games, movies, holiday musical tunes, and the history of NORAD’s involvement in Santa’s annual holiday journey.
NORAD Tracks Santa can also be found on Twitter at the user handle @NoradSanta.
Dec. 11, @NoradSanta tweeted, “Did you know Rudolph’s bright red nose gives off a special infrared ray of light that’s invisible to the human eye, but US Space Command satellites can track?” Another tweet read: “Santa flies faster than starlight, but slows down to wave at @NORADCommand fighter escorts that keep North American airspace secure.”
Christmas Eve, Friday, Dec. 24, children and parents can call toll-free to get updates about Santa’s location at the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center at 1-877-446-6723.
Col. Harry Shoup became known as “The Santa Colonel,” a nickname he cherished until his passing March 14, 2009, at age 92.
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| 1955 ad for Sears’ Santa hotline; Undated photo of Colonel Harry Shoup |