NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...
-themed program in which
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
simulates the tracking of
Santa Claus
Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnigh ...
, who is said to leave the
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Magn ...
to travel around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children every year on
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipatio ...
.
The program starts on December 1, but the actual Santa-tracking simulation starts at midnight annually on December 23. It is a community outreach function of NORAD, and has been held annually since 1955.
Although NORAD claims to use
radar and other technologies to track Santa, the website merely simulates the tracking of Santa and displays predetermined location information to users.
The program follows the tradition of the September 1897 editorial "
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" in the ''
New York Sun''.
History and overview
Origin
On December 24, 1948, the
United States Air Force issued a communique claiming that an "early warning radar net to the north" had detected "one unidentified
sleigh, powered by eight
reindeer, at 14,000 feet , heading 180 degrees." The
Associated Press passed this "report" along to the general public. It was the first time that the
United States Armed Forces issued a statement about tracking
Santa Claus
Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnigh ...
' sleigh on
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipatio ...
, though it was a one-time event, not repeated over the next several years.
The program originated before the actual formation of NORAD, as an annual event on December 24, 1955. According to legend, a
Sears department store placed an advertisement in the
Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since 2 ...
newspaper ''
The Gazette
The Gazette (stylized as the GazettE), formerly known as , is a Japanese visual kei rock band, formed in Kanagawa in early 2002.''Shoxx'' Vol 106 June 2007 pg 40-45 The band is currently signed to Sony Music Records.
Biography 2002: Conception a ...
'', which told children they could place a call to Santa Claus and included the number ''ME 2-6681''.
A call allegedly came through to Colorado Springs'
Continental Air Defense Command
Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) was a Unified Combatant Command of the United States Department of Defense, tasked with air defense for the Continental United States. It comprised Army, Air Force, and Navy components. It included Army Pro ...
(CONAD) Center as one digit was misprinted.
In some versions of the story, the calls were coming in to the "red telephone" hotline that connected CONAD directly to command authorities at the
Strategic Air Command. Colonel Harry Shoup, who was a crew commander on duty, answered the first call and supposedly told his staff to give all children who called in later a made-up "current location" for Santa Claus.
Shoup responded gruffly to one child who called and no additional Santa Claus-related calls came in to CONAD.
A more accurate description of the events of 1955 appears to be that on November 30, a child trying to reach Santa on a hotline number provided in a Sears advertisement misdialed the number and instead reached Shoup at his desk at CONAD.
However, when a member of Shoup's staff placed a picture of Santa on a board used to track unidentified aircraft that December, Shoup saw a public relations opportunity for CONAD and he asked CONAD's public affairs officer Colonel Barney Oldfield to inform the press that CONAD was tracking Santa's sleigh. In his release to the press, Oldfield added that "CONAD,
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
,
Navy, and
Marine
Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean.
Marine or marines may refer to:
Ocean
* Maritime (disambiguation)
* Marine art
* Marine biology
* Marine debris
* Marine habitats
* Marine life
* Marine pollution
Military ...
Air Forces will continue to track and guard Santa and his sleigh on his trip to and from the U.S. against possible attack from those who do not believe in Christmas."
Over the following years, the legend of how the annual event originated began to change. By 1961, Shoup's version of the story was that he had not been gruff with the child but instead had identified himself as Santa Claus when he spoke to the child on the phone. Shoup and his family later modified the story further, adding that the child had dialed the "red telephone"—an impossibility, because the hotline was connected with the
Strategic Air Command by an enclosed cable, and no one could dial into from the outside—rather than the regular phone on Shoup's desk, that it was a misprint in an advertisement that led the child to call him rather than the child misdialing the number, and that a flood of calls had come in from children on Christmas Eve 1955 rather than from just one child on November 30.
Shoup did not intend to repeat the stunt in 1956, but Oldfield informed him that the Associated Press and
United Press International
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20t ...
were awaiting reports that CONAD again was claiming to be tracking Santa Claus. Shoup agreed that Oldfield should announce it again, and the annual tradition was born.
In 1958, the North America Air Defense Command (NORAD) took over the reporting responsibility from CONAD, and the reporting became more elaborate as the years passed. On December 24, 1960, for example, NORAD's northern command post at
Saint-Hubert, Quebec
Saint-Hubert ( , , ) is a borough in the city of Longueuil, located in the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada. It had been a separate city prior to January 1, 2002, when it along with several other neighbouring south shore municipalities w ...
,
Canada, provided regular updates of a supposed sleigh operated by "S. Claus" which it identified as "undoubtedly friendly". During the evening, NORAD claimed that the sleigh had made an emergency landing on the ice of
Hudson Bay, where
Royal Canadian Air Force
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...
(RCAF) interceptor aircraft claimed to have been sent to investigate supposedly discovered Santa bandaging
his reindeer Dancer's front foot, after which the RCAF planes were said to have escorted him when he resumed his journey.
Eventually, NORAD, which was renamed the
North American Aerospace Defense Command in 1981, openly published a hotline number for the general public to call to get updates on Santa Claus' supposed progress.
Recent history
Today, NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible.
Each volunteer handles about 40 telephone calls per hour and the team typically handles more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 100,000 telephone calls from more than two hundred countries and territories. Most of these contacts happen during the 20 hours from 4 a.m. on December 24 until midnight
MST on December 25.
A website called NORADSanta.org was established to allow project access for Internet users. Not only does NORAD simulate the tracking of Santa's sleigh, but it also tells the user the exact amount of presents he is "delivering" at any moment on Christmas Eve. NORAD begins "tracking" at 12:00 a.m. MST, and even provides a depiction of Santa's pre-delivery ritual.
Since December 2007,
Google Analytics has been used to analyze website traffic. As a result of this analysis information, the program can project and scale volunteer staffing, telephone equipment, and computer equipment needs for Christmas Eve.
Volunteers include NORAD military and civilian personnel.
In 2014, NORAD answered more than 100,000 phone calls. In 2015, more than 1,200 U.S. and Canadian military personnel volunteered to staff the phone lines.
In 2018, more than 1,500 volunteers staffed the phone lines despite the shutdown of the US government.
In December 2019, the noradsanta.org website received 8.9 million visitors.
In 2020, NORAD announced they would continue the Santa Tracker, despite the
COVID-19 pandemic. They would operate with a limited number of volunteers answering calls and some people who try to reach the Santa-tracking hotline would receive an automated message. The 3D depiction of Santa Claus on the tracker showed him
wearing a mask while in his sleigh until 2022, where the feature was removed.
Website and other media
The NORAD Tracks Santa program has always made use of a variety of
media. From the 1950s to 1996, these were the
telephone hotline,
newspapers,
radio,
phonograph records, and
television. Many television newscasts in North America feature NORAD Tracks Santa as part of their
weather updates on Christmas Eve.
Since 2005, the program uses Meshbox's Toon Santa model.
Since 1997, the program has had a highly publicized
internet presence. As
mobile media and
social media have become popular and widespread as methods of direct communication, these newer media have also been embraced by the program.
The layout of the NORAD Tracks Santa website and its web pages have changed from 1997 to the present due to changes in internet technologies, and changes in partners and
sponsors for a particular year. In September 2008, NORAD started a
Twitter account, @NORADSanta, as part of its social media presence.
Between 2007 and 2008, people who visited the NORAD Tracks Santa site were told they could track Santa in
Google Earth.
They were given a link to download Google Earth, and then a
KMZ file to download. From 2009 to 2011, the tracking in the Google Earth app was moved to the Google Earth Web API on the NORAD Santa website.
In 2011, an
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and
Android application was introduced, which features updates and an interactive game similar to the Christmas levels in ''
Angry Birds Seasons
''Angry Birds Seasons'' (formerly ''Angry Birds Halloween'') is the second puzzle video game in the ''Angry Birds'' series, developed by Rovio Entertainment. Based on ''Angry Birds'', ''Angry Birds Seasons'' was released for devices using Apple's ...
'', called ''Elf Toss''.
From mid-January until November 30, when one arrives at the NORAD Tracks Santa website, one is greeted with a message to come back on December 1 to track Santa with NORAD. During December, one finds a NORAD Tracks Santa website with all the features available. On
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipatio ...
, the NORAD Tracks Santa website videos page is generally updated each hour, when it is midnight in a different
time zone. The "Santa Cam" videos show
CGI images of Santa flying over famous landmarks. Each video was accompanied by a
voice-over until the end of the 2011 season, typically done by NORAD personnel, giving a few facts about the city or country depicted. In 2012, the voice overs were replaced with music done by the US Air Force Band. The voice overs returned in the 2013 season.
Celebrity voice-overs have also been used over the years. For the
London "Santa Cam" video,
Jonathan Ross did the voice-over for 2005 to 2007 and
Ringo Starr
Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the ...
narrated the same video in 2003 and 2004.
In 2002,
Aaron Carter
Aaron Charles Carter (December 7, 1987November 5, 2022) was an American singer and rapper. He came to fame as a teen pop singer in the late 1990s, establishing himself as a star among preteen and teenage audiences during the first years of the ...
provided the voice-over for three videos.
The locations and landmarks depicted in some of the "Santa Cam" videos have changed over the years. In 2009, twenty-nine "Santa Cam" videos were posted on the website. In previous years, twenty-four to twenty-six videos had been posted.
Since 2012, Analytical Graphics, Inc. has used their Cesium platform to build a 3D map for visualizing Santa's location with more accurate global terrain and satellite imagery than before.
NORAD reported that for Christmas 2013, it logged 19.58 million unique visitors to its website on Christmas Eve, and 1,200 volunteers answered 117,371 calls. Through social media, it had 146,307 Twitter followers and 1.45 million "likes" on Facebook. That year, NORAD contracted with
Bing Maps
Bing Maps (previously Live Search Maps, Windows Live Maps, Windows Live Local, and MSN Virtual Earth) is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps Platform framework. Since 2 ...
to provide 2D map tracking, ending a five-year contract with Google.
In 2014, NORAD logged almost 20 million visits to its Santa Tracker.
Sponsorship and publicity
NORAD Tracks Santa relies on
corporate sponsorship
Sponsoring something (or someone) is the act of supporting an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. The individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor, is kn ...
, and is financed by neither American nor Canadian taxpayers.
U.S. military units have provided publicity for the program, including the
Northeast Air Defense Sector
The Eastern Air Defense Sector (EADS) is a United States Air Force unit of Air Combat Command (ACC), permanently assigned to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). A joint, bi-national military organization, EADS is composed of US ...
of the
New York Air National Guard
The New York Air National Guard (NY ANG) is the aerial militia of the State of New York, United States of America. It is, along with the New York Army National Guard, an element of the New York National Guard.
As state militia units, the units i ...
and the
U.S. Naval Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...
Navy Information Bureau (NIB) 1118 at
Fort Carson,
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...
,
as have the
Canadian Armed Forces
}
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF; french: Forces armées canadiennes, ''FAC'') are the unified military forces of Canada, including sea, land, and air elements referred to as the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force. ...
.
Other U.S. federal agencies, such as the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have helped publicize the service.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...
participated in the program from 2009 to 2016, answering phone calls.
According to Gerry Bowler, a history professor at the
University of Manitoba, the NORAD Tracks Santa program is "one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old Santa Claus story that have stuck." Bowler stated that the program "takes an essential element of the Santa Claus story—his travels on Christmas Eve—and looks at it through a technological lens," therefore bringing the Santa Claus legend into the modern era.
See also
*
Google Santa Tracker
*
Operation Christmas Drop
Operation Christmas Drop is a tradition that started in 1952 that serves as a training mission for the U.S. Air Force. It has since become the longest-running U.S. Department of Defense mission in full operation, and the longest-running human ...
, annual U.S. Air Force airdrop over Micronesia
References
External links
*
''NORAD Tracks Santa: Santa News Reports & Holiday Music Selections'' (1964 LP) produced by NORAD Directorate of Public Affairs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norad Tracks Santa
Santa
Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnigh ...
Santa Claus
1955 establishments in the United States
Internet properties established in 1997