NORAD’s Santa Tracker: one of Christmas’ most modern traditions
With The Big Day nearly upon us, all eyes are set to turn skywards to watch out for Father Christmas as he hurtles around the globe.
The team at NORAD’s Santa Tracker are gearing up to provide updates for his journey to millions of families around the world as he delivers presents to the eager anticipation of children everywhere.
The origins of the Santa tracking system is the stuff of legend. It all started during the darkest chapter of the Cold War. A child dials a wrong number. A tiny oversight following an advert in local media which invited children to ring Santa.
But the advertising team had published the wrong number. Legend continues to tell us that it was out by a single digit. The resulting error arguably made the world a better place for us all.
It was the latter part of 1955 when the phone began to ring in CONAD (the Continental Air Defence Command). The military bunker in Colorado is today known as NORAD.
A senior officer answered the call. Would this be the call that all of the commanding officers dreaded? Perhaps it meant global politics had failed and the balloon had ‘gone up.’
Can I speak with Santa Claus, please?
Very, very few people in the echelons of power had access to this particular number. Was he about to hear the dulcet tones of President Dwight D. Eisenhower? Was ‘Ike’ going to deliver the bad news about impending conflict with the USSR?
Imagine the senior officer’s surprise when he hears the nervous voice of a child who was asking to speak with Santa Claus.
He quickly realises this was (genuinely) a wrong number and the young caller really did want to have a chat with Santa. As a Dad himself, his heart melted and he chatted with the child about Father Christmas.
The caller’s mother comes on the line and the mistake with the number becomes apparent. Would this mean that other families would now be ringing this critical line of communication?
The quick thinking Colonel instructed his staff to prepare themselves for further calls. And so, the early beginnings of the Santa Tracker start to take shape.
Fast forward 69 years and families across the world will soon be logging onto the NORAD Santa Tracker website to see where the famous sleigh is – and how long it’ll take for him to reach your residence.
The team use radar, satellite and AWAC aircraft to log the journey. It’s said that the team will be receiving a quarter of a million calls on Christmas Eve itself (the Santa Tracker has more than two million followers on social media).
And the evidence of Santa’s existence doesn’t stop with the live feeds from the US military. Afterall, the 1968 Christmas Eve message from astronauts onboard the Apollo 8 space mission reportedly saw the famous sleigh as it speeded across the sky.
So, if you’re unsure about Santa’s existence then log onto the Santa Tracker, where you can watch the famous sledge and its progress around the world.
