© Mark Ollig
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) reports it will again be tracking Santa Claus and his reindeer team traveling around the world this Christmas.
In 1955, NORAD was known as CONAD (Continental Air Defense Command), located at the Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, CO.
CONAD was on call and at the ready 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It provided the US Strategic Air Command with an early warning of any surprise attacks on America, most likely from nuclear-armed Soviet Union bomber planes flying over the North Pole and approaching the United States over Canada.
The Soviet Union would not have a powerful enough rocket with an attached nuclear warhead to reach the United States until Aug. 21, 1957, when it successfully tested a multi-stage intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) called the R-7 Semyorka.
In the event of an imminent attack against the United States, a senior Pentagon official or high-ranking general would call the red hotline telephone at CONAD.
This week’s story begins with a December 1955 Colorado Springs Christmas newspaper advertisement for the Sears, Roebuck, and Co. department store.
A picture of Santa Claus appeared in the ad with a telephone number for children to call and talk with the jolly old elf on Christmas Eve.
“Call me on my private phone, and I will talk to you personally,” Santa says in the advertisement.
Unbeknownst to the children, the newspaper mistakenly misprinted Santa’s telephone number.
Santa’s private telephone was published with the top-secret hotline “red phone” number sitting on a desk inside the central defense operations center at CONAD.
In Dec. 24, 1955, the CONAD red phone began ringing.
WWII veteran Colonel Harry W. Shoup, CONAD’s director of operations, immediately picks up the telephone 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 looked around the room at the faces of his office personnel and harshly said, “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.
Meanwhile, a CONAD officer learned of and immediately informed Col. Shoup of the newspaper’s advertisement mistake.
Col. Shoup’s attitude on the telephone call quickly changed.
Instead of disappointing the little girl calling for Santa, he decided it best to answer her as Santa would, asking, “Have you been a good little girl?”
The now cheerful 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 for Christmas.
Col. Shoup then asked the little girl if he could talk with her mom or dad. He then informed them of their daughter’s list of Christmas items.
After saying goodbye to the little girl, Col. Shoup instructed the members of his defense operations center to act as Santa’s helpers whenever a child called the hotline.
The children were provided radar updates by CONAD defense operation team members on 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 told one young caller.
In May 12, 1958, CONAD became NORAD.
In 1968, Col. Harry Shoup retired from the US Air Force.
Throughout the rest of his life, he would be known as “The Santa Colonel.”
NORAD continues the yearly tradition of monitoring the journey of Santa and his reindeer sleigh team using classified ground radar and earth-orbiting satellite technology.
The official NORAD Santa Tracker website is https://www.noradsanta.org.
The website includes the Santa Tracker Countdown Clock, videos, games, movies, music, and a Track Santa mobile app download. Highlight your mouse cursor over each North Pole building to see the features available.
On Dec. 24, children (and young-at-heart adults) can get updates from NORAD on Santa and his reindeer sleigh location by calling 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723).
Harry Wesley Shoup, “The Santa Colonel,” passed away March 14, 2009, at age 91, in Colorado Springs, CO.
