NORAD’s Santa Tracking team – by SM Sgt. Thomas Doscher

By Brad Aronson, author of the book HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time

The official Santa Tracker that has been delighting families worldwide for seven decades got its unlikely start when a child accidentally called the telephone number of a top-secret Pentagon hotline responsible for alerting the military of any attack on North America.

In December 1955, one year after President Eisenhower established the hotline, the red phone rang at the Continental Air Defense Command, now known as NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command). The country was in the middle of the Cold War, tensions were high, and the number was for emergency use only.

When Commanding Officer Colonel Harry Shoup answered, he heard a squeaky voice asking, “Is this Santa Claus?”

Shoup thought it was a prank and responded accordingly, until the boy started crying.

Realizing it wasn’t a joke, Shoup, a father of four, played Santa and then spoke to the mom, who told him the number was in a holiday ad for the Sears department store. The number printed in the advertisement was one digit off from what Sears intended to print.

Who knows if Shoup saw the humor at the time, but the ad said: “Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time, day or night…Kiddies be sure to dial the correct number.”

The kids kept calling and Shoup put two airmen on phone duty to answer the phone as Santa.

“It got to be a big joke at the command center,” Shoup’s daughter Terri Van Keuren said. “You know, ‘The old man’s really flipped his lid this time. We’re answering Santa calls’.”

There was a giant board used to track airplanes and on Christmas Eve some of the staff added a sleigh with reindeer on it. When Shoup saw it, they apologized and offered to remove it, but he thought the sleigh was great.

“And next thing you know, Dad had called a radio station and said, ‘This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh’.

The radio stations started calling him every hour asking, ‘Where’s Santa now?’

That’s how NORAD’s Santa tracking tradition began, and it’s grown annually for 69 years. They started issuing a press release on Christmas Eve that appeared in media around the country announcing that they were tracking a red sleigh that was inbound from the North Pole. In the 1960s, NORAD mailed vinyl records to radio stations with prerecorded updates on Santa’s progress. In the 1970s, they broadcasted updates on TV.

XMAS TRADITIONS CONFIRMED:
• Face of Real St. Nicholas Reconstructed with 3D Tech Shows He Did Look Like Santa Claus
• The Original Secret Santa Started it All by Paying Back Kindness Shown While He was Homeless

Every year, more than 1,250 volunteers—both military and civilian—answered the flood of calls and emails to the Santa Tracker from around the world. Volunteering has become a family tradition, and, in some cases, three generations have been participating. Shoup’s daughter Terri is among them.

The Santa Tracking website is available in nine languages, and on Christmas Eve (December 24), you can telephone NORAD for updates directly at +1 (877) HI-NORAD.

Truly in the 21st century now, they even have a free app and families can use Amazon’s Alexa service to ask for updates.

Colonel Shoup, who died in 2009, served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War; he received a Soldier’s Medal for saving the life of another airman.

He also kept letters that kids had sent to him about Santa inside his locked briefcase—and his daughter believes it may have been the thing he was proudest of.

SPREAD THE WHIMSY In Time For Christmas Eve By Sharing This On Social Media… 

For more positivity check out Brad Aronson’s book HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time.

Source link