Why we track Santa (From NORAD)

[nadinbrzezinski]

actually a funny story

Why we track Santa

For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s flight.

The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations "hotline." The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/whytrack.html

Can you imagine that happening TODAY? OFF to Guantamo I tell ya.

[msongs]

1. so they dont blast him with a drone attack now nt

[Skip Intro]

2. I think it's cool that they do that.

It just is...

[truedelphi]

3. Reading through some old newspaper clippings,

I found this one Italian immigrant's account of how after WWII he wanted to come here to the USA. He felt our nation didn't have the type of pervasive and stifling bureaucracy that his homeland had.

And that inside the bureaucracies we did have, people still had a sense of humor.

This tradition of tracking Santa, shows that.

I wish it was something that we were able to hold onto.

[Sherman A1]

4. This is a very good thing and

I hope that it continues forever.

[rucky]

5. It's a Christmas tradition at the rucky house.

Even though I'm way more into it than my daughter is.

[rug]

6. That's just their cover story.

In 1955 the government had other reasons to track men in red suits.

[hootinholler]

7. I remember KDKA putting up the radar screen on Christmas Eve

On our B&W TV confirming the Fat Man's Commin!

-Hoot

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

8. That is one huge scoop of serendipity

good story

[obxhead]

9. K&R