BLACKFIVE: Ask NORAD Where Santa is this Christmas Eve

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Ask NORAD Where Santa is this Christmas Eve

Posted By Blackfive

Brenda Freeman sends the link to the 50th Anniversary of NORAD Tracks Santa! - a Joint military effort (between Canada and America) to track and protect Santa on his flight delivering toys to all of the good little boys and girls.

Here's the details:

In 1955, a Colorado Springs based Sears placed an ad for local kids to "call Santa" on a special hotline that the department store had set up. No one seemed to notice that the hotline's number was misprinted. So instead of calling Sears on Christmas Eve, children all over the Colorado Springs area ended up calling Colonel Harry Shoup, director of operations at NORAD's predecessor CONAD, asking "where's Santa?"

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is responsible for air and space tracking, originally designed as a sophisticated detection system for inbound Soviet ICBMs and nuclear-armed bombers.

Colonel Shoup realized what had happened, and played along. He asked his staff to check their radars to see if there was any indication of Santa moving on a south-ward vector from the North Pole. Thus, a tradition was born.

Every Christmas Eve, NORAD tracks Santa's journey around the world. Volunteers spend Christmas Eve at Cheyenne Mountain answering phone calls from kids all over the globe, while Air Force personnel from Canada and the United states track Santa using four high-tech systems: radar, satellites, Santa Cams and jet fighter aircraft.

According to the Track Santa website, Santa gets a fighter-jet escort upon entering North American airspace:

Canadian NORAD fighter pilots, flying the CF-18, take off out of Newfoundland to intercept and welcome Santa to North America. Then at numerous locations in Canada other CF-18 fighter pilots escort Santa, while in the United States American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15 or F-16 get the thrill of flying with Santa and the famous Reindeer Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. About a dozen NORAD fighters in Canada and the United States are equipped with Santa Cams.

On Saturday, your kids can call Cheyenne at 1-888-HI-NORAD, email NORAD at tracking@noradsanta.org, or email Santa at northpole@officialsantamail.com.

Have your kids join in the fun folks, this is a very cool program.

NORAD TRACKS SANTA

Posted by Blackfive on December 23, 2005 • Permalink

Categories and Tags: Military • Technorati Links • Technorati Tags:

Comments

Comment below written by: Roci

Check out this from Blackfive:

The headline should be: NORAD, Lying to America for (over) 50 Years.

http://rociburden.blogspot.com/2005/12/liar-liar-pants-on-fire.html

Posted by: Roci | Dec 23, 2005 10:35:26 AM

Comment below written by: RedNeck

Man, if I could just be a "little" kid again. I'm still a kid, hell, I might break off a call myself. ;) Merry Christmas Matt.

Posted by: RedNeck | Dec 23, 2005 10:36:53 AM

Comment below written by: MegaTroopX

Everyone knows Santa has a permanent overflight permit!

Could you imagine how long someone would be on the naughty list for popping off a sidewinder at the big C?

Posted by: MegaTroopX | Dec 23, 2005 4:35:02 PM

Comment below written by: One Tin Soldier

Do a good deed this Christmas and help Baby Nora.

http://www.sothumc.net/Lifeover/index.cfm

Posted by: One Tin Soldier | Dec 24, 2005 1:12:58 AM

Comment below written by: Maggie45

I never knew the story behind this. Thank you so much!!

Posted by: Maggie45 | Dec 25, 2005 7:29:00 PM

Comment below written by: M

thanks NORAD & Col STROUP! Gawd bless yall!

Posted by: M | Dec 25, 2005 11:58:40 PM

Comment below written by: Bill T

that was originally posted at The Officer's Club, word for word, I caught it via Michelle.

I had my kids email a few days ago and we got a personal email back. really neat.

Posted by: Bill T | Dec 27, 2005 6:33:45 PM

Comment below written by: night heron

I kind of remember when the AIR FORCE would give him a escort

Posted by: night heron | Dec 27, 2005 8:31:47 PM

Comment below written by: Timmer

One of our fondest memories of Colorado Springs was Christmas Eve 2000 when my family went up the mountain to do this. Answering those phones and telling those kids where Santa was and that they should get

Posted by: Timmer | Dec 28, 2005 9:01:16 PM

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