The Christmas tradition has become almost global in scope: Children from all over the world follow Santa Claus as he traverses the Earth, delivering gifts and defying time.
Each year, at least 100,000 children call the North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about Santa’s whereabouts. Millions more follow online in nine languages, from English to Japanese.
On any other night, NORAD is scanning the skies for potential threats, such as last year’s Chinese spy balloon. But on Christmas Eve, volunteers in Colorado Springs are asking questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and, “Am I on the bad list or the good list?”
“There are screams and giggles and laughter,” said Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and NORAD volunteer.
Sommers often says on the phone that everyone should be asleep before Santa arrives, prompting parents to say, “Did you hear what he said? We have to go to bed early.”
NORAD’s annual pursuit of Santa has been going on since the Cold War, before the ugly sweater party and Mariah Carey classics. The tradition continues despite government shutdowns, such as the one in 2018 and this year.
Here’s how it started and why the phones keep ringing.
The origin story is Hollywood
It started with a child’s accidental phone call in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears ad encouraging children to call Santa by listing a phone number.
A boy called out. But he made it to the Continental Air Defense Command, now NORAD, a joint US-Canada effort to spot potential enemy attacks. Tensions were rising with the Soviet Union, along with fears of nuclear war.
Col. of the Air Force Harry W. Shoup picked up an emergency-only “red phone” and was greeted by a small voice that began reciting a Christmas wish list.
“He goes on a little bit and takes a breath and then he says, ‘Hey, you’re not Santa,'” Shoup told The Associated Press in 1999.
Realizing that an explanation would be lost on the young man, Shoup called out in a deep, jovial voice and replied, “Ho, ho, ho! Yes, I’m Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy?”
Shoup said he learned from the boy’s mother that Sears mistakenly dialed the top-secret number. He hung up, but soon the phone rang again with a young girl reciting her Christmas list. Fifty calls a day followed, he said.
In the pre-digital era, the agency used a 60-by-80-foot (18-by-24-meter) Plexiglas map of North America to track unidentified objects. A staff member jokingly drew Santa and his sleigh over the North Pole.
The tradition was born.
“Note to children,” began an AP story from Colorado Springs in December. 23, 1955. “Santa Claus Friday granted safe passage to United States by Continental Air Defense Command.”
In a possible reference to the Soviets, the article noted that Santa was guarded against possible attacks by “those who do not believe in Christmas.”
Is the origin story simple?
Some cynical reporters have seized on Shoup’s story, questioning whether a misprint or miscount prompted the boy’s call.
In 2014, the tech news site Gizmodo cited an International News Service story from December. 1, 1955, about calling a child to Shoup. Published in the Pasadena Independent, the article stated that the child has returned two digits to the Sears number.
“When a child’s voice asked COC commander Col. Harry Shoup if there would be a Santa Claus at the North Pole, he answered much more roughly than he should have—considering the season:
“There might be a guy named Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not one I worry about coming from that direction,” Shoup said in the short.
In 2015, The Atlantic magazine questioned the flood of calls to the secret line, noting that Shoup had a penchant for public relations.
Phone calls aside, Shoup was truly media savvy. In 1986, he told the Scripps Howard News Service that he recognized an opportunity when a staff member drew Santa on the glass map in 1955.
A lieutenant colonel promised to delete it. But Shoup said, “You leave it at that,” and called public affairs. Shoup wanted to boost morale for the troops and the public alike.
“Why, it made the military look good—like we’re not all a bunch of snobs who don’t care about Santa Claus,” he said.
Shoup died in 2009. His children told the StoryCorps podcast in 2014 that it was a mistyped Sears ad that prompted the calls.
“And later in life he got letters from all over the world,” said Terri Van Keuren, a daughter. “People say, ‘Thank you, Colonel, for having, you know, this sense of humor.’
A rare addition to the Santa story
The NORAD tradition is one of the few modern additions to Santa’s centuries-old history that has endured, according to Gerry Bowler, a Canadian historian who spoke to the AP in 2010.
Advertising campaigns or movies try to “hijack” Santa for commercial purposes, said Bowler, who wrote “Santa Claus: A Biography.” In contrast, NORAD takes a core element of the Santa story and views it through a technological lens.
In a recent interview with AP, Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham explained that NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada — known as the Northern Warning System — are the first to detect Santa.
It leaves the North Pole and usually heads for the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean. From there he moves west, following the night.
“That’s when the satellite systems we use to track and identify targets of interest every day come in,” Cunningham said. “A perhaps little-known fact is that Rudolph’s red-glowing nose gives off a lot of heat. And so those satellites track (Santa) through that heat source.”
NORAD has an app and website, www.noradsanta.org, that will track Santa on Christmas Eve from 4 a.m. to midnight MST.
People can call 1-877-HI-NORAD to ask operators directly about Santa’s whereabouts from 6 a.m. to midnight Mountain Time.
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