The Curious Origin of NORAD’s Santa Tracking

Pentagon : Young Girl Asks US Military Official If He Is Ready To ‘Track Santa Over Christmas’

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December 14, 2014: A young girl asks Pentagon spokesman John Kirby if they will be tracking Santa over Christmas.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby was conducting a routine press briefing in Arlington, Virginia when the young girl, Natalie, asked the hard-hitting question to giggles from the gathered journalists on Friday.

He tried to keep a straight face as he responded, assuring her of the Pentagon’s Santa tracker reliability.

Natalie went on to tell Mr Kirby that she hoped to get a “Max Big Hero 6” toy to for Christmas.

According to Wikipedia, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) started to track Santa on December 24, 1955, when a Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper which told children that they could telephone Santa Claus and included a number for them to call. However, the telephone number printed was misprinted and calls instead came through to Colorado Springs’ Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Harry Shoup, who was on duty that night, told his staff to give all children who called in a “current location” for Santa Claus. A tradition began which continued when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) replaced CONAD in 1958.

Today, NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible. Each volunteer handles about forty telephone calls per hour, and the team typically handles more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 70,000 telephone calls from more than two hundred countries and territories. Most of these contacts happen during the twenty-five hours from 2 a.m. on December 24 until 3 a.m. MST on December 25.

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa