NORAD Tracks Santa
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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 North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...
(NORAD)
simulate A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
s the tracking of Santa Claus, 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 rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
to travel around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children every year on Christmas Eve. 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 Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
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 "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" is a line from an editorial by Francis Pharcellus Church titled "Is There a Santa Claus?", which appeared in the New York newspaper '' The Sun'' on September 21, 1897, and became one of the most famous e ...
" in the ''
New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...
''.


History and overview


Origin

On December 24, 1948, the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
issued a communique claiming that an "early warning radar net to the north" had detected "one unidentified
sleigh A sled, skid, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle that slides across a surface, usually of ice or snow. It is built with either a smooth underside or a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners s ...
, powered by eight
reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 sub ...
, at 14,000 feet , heading 180 degrees." The
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
passed this "report" along to the general public. It was the first time that the
United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...
issued a statement about tracking Santa Claus' sleigh on Christmas Eve, 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 Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
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 ...
newspaper '' The Gazette'', 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 P ...
(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 A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...
, and Marine 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 Boroughs of Longueuil, borough in the city of Longueuil, Quebec, Longueuil, located in the Montérégie, Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada. It had been a separate city prior to January 1, 2002, when it along with sev ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, 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 North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...
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 The Master of Studies or Master in Studies (M.St. or MSt; ) is a postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of St Andrews, the Australian National University, University of Dublin and the University of Ne ...
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 Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in November 2005 after acquiring Urchin. As o ...
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 The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. 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 Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
. From the 1950s to 1996, these were the
telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
hotline,
newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
s,
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
, phonograph records, and
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
. 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 The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
presence. As
mobile media The notion of making media mobile can be traced back to the “first time someone thought to write on a tablet that could be lifted and hauled – rather than on a cave wall, a cliff face, a monument that usually was stuck in place, more or less ...
and
social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
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 Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
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 include ...
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, the NORAD Tracks Santa website videos page is generally updated each hour, when it is midnight in a different
time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...
. The "Santa Cam" videos show CGI images of Santa flying over famous landmarks. Each video was accompanied by a
voice-over Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non- diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentation ...
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 London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
"Santa Cam" video, Jonathan Ross did the voice-over for 2005 to 2007 and Ringo Starr 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 th ...
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 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 k ...
, 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 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 Fort Carson is a United States Army post located directly south of Colorado Springs in El Paso, Pueblo, Fremont, and Huerfano counties, Colorado, United States. The developed portion of Fort Carson is located near the City of Colorado Springs ...
,
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, 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 wes ...
, as have the Canadian Armed Forces. Other U.S. federal agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(NOAA), have helped publicize the service. Former First Lady Michelle Obama participated in the program from 2009 to 2016, answering phone calls. According to Gerry Bowler, a history professor at the
University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.


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