NORAD tracking Santa’s journey, taking kids’ calls

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NORAD tracking Santa’s journey, taking kids’ calls

Michelle Obama was expected to volunteer

Thursday, Dec. 24, 2015 8:29 PM

Updated: Thursday, Dec. 24, 2015 8:48 PM

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — Peterson Air Force base continued its annual holiday mission – tracking Santa’s storybook sleigh ride around the world.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command has worked for weeks to tackle the one-day mission.

Miles of wire, dozens of computers and 157 telephone lines greeted greeting greet hundreds of volunteers beginning Thursday, The (Colorado Springs) Gazette reported.

Volunteers were answering calls from an estimated 125,000 children around the globe looking for Santa’s whereabouts.

“We keep adding stuff every year,” said Staff Sgt. Kyle Kelly after he and a team of airmen taped down phone wires in the call center Monday.

The call center in a training building was staffed for 23 hours and Christmas Eve. Volunteers also shared Santa’s location on Facebook and Twitter. Last year, Santa got 1.6 million Facebook likes.

“We start in November,” Kelly said. “We have to test every phone before we bring it in here.”

NORAD’s 60th year of tracking Santa involves more than the military. The program is underwritten by contractors who pay for the phones, the computers and the website.

First lady Michelle Obama was expected to volunteer, with calls forwarded to her on Christmas Eve.

Volunteers fielded a growing number of calls from curious kids from outside the United States.

“We get a lot of calls from Europe, Australia and New Zealand,” said NORAD’s Stacey Knott, who has organized the Santa tracking for three years.

Bilingual volunteers handled the foreign-language inquiries.

On the bilingual front, NORAD, a partnership between the U.S. and Canada, has a distinct advantage.

“The great thing about having Canadian forces here is they can speak in French,” Canadian Maj. Jennifer Stadnyk said.

NORAD is responsible for defending the skies and monitoring the sea approaches for both nations.

Its control room was originally inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs in a shelter designed to withstand a nuclear attack.

The control room is now at Peterson Air Force Base, also in Colorado Springs.

Fast facts

How does NORAD track Santa?
A system of radar stations and satellites monitor all air traffic entering U.S. and Canadian airspace. All aircraft have a code to identify themselves. If an aircraft doesn’t have a code, Gordinier said, NORAD can scramble jets to see who it is and what they’re doing.
Luckily, Santa is good at keeping in touch with NORAD, Gordinier said.
“When he pops up, we call him Big Red One,” he said. “That’s his call sign.”
The nose on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a tipoff. It gives off an infrared signature similar to a missile launch, Gordinier said.
What is Santa’s route?
On his mythical journey, Santa generally departs the North Pole, flies to the international date line over the Pacific Ocean, then begins deliveries in island nations. He then works his way west in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Alaska is usually his last stop before heading home, Gordinier said.
How do children participate?
Starting at 10 p.m. Alaska time on Dec. 23, and for 23 hours covering most of Christmas Eve, children can call a toll-free number, 877-446-6723 (877-Hi-NORAD) and speak to a live phone operator about Santa’s whereabouts.
They can also send an email to noradtracksanta@outlook.com.
NORAD has 157 telephone lines and hundreds of volunteers ready to answer calls, including first lady Michelle Obama, who takes a break from her Hawaii vacation to take forwarded calls.
NORAD also created a website, www.noradsanta.org; a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/noradsanta; and a Twitter account @NoradSanta for the program.
The sites include games, movies and music. “Santacams” stream videos from various locations.
How did NORA get involved?
A 1955 newspaper advertisement for Sears Roebuck and Co. listed a phone number for “kiddies” to call Santa Claus but got it wrong.
The number was for a crisis phone at Air Operations Center at Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD’s predecessor, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Air Force Col. Harry Shoup took a call from a child and thought he was being pranked. When he figured out he was talking to a little boy, he pretended he was Santa.
More children called. Shoop eventually instructed airmen answering the phone to offer Santa’s radar location as he crossed the globe.
That sparked the tradition that is heading into its 60th year.
Associated Press