{"id":65799,"date":"2013-12-24T16:37:07","date_gmt":"2013-12-24T21:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbachnet.wwwmi3-ss40.a2hosted.com\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2021-08-15T15:47:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T19:47:54","slug":"why-norad-track-santa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/why-norad-track-santa\/","title":{"rendered":"Why NORAD Track Santa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Why<\/a>Why did NORAD start tracking Santa<\/strong><\/a>? Since the tradition started in the Fifties, one might suspect that the big man’s red suit attracted the attention of anti-communist zealot Joe McCarthy<\/a>. Or maybe Ike<\/a> thought Santa was the beginning of an alien<\/a> invasion. Or was it a typo? the good folks over at Mental Floss<\/em><\/a> explain that On December 24, 1955, the red telephone at the Continental Air Defense Command<\/strong> (CONAD<\/a>) Operations Center began to ring.<\/p>\n

\"NORAD\"<\/a>The article says the red phone meant it was either the Pentagon or CONAD commander-in-chief<\/strong> General Earle Partridge on the other end, and their reason for calling would probably not be pleasant. U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, director of operations at the center, rushed over to the phone and grabbed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Sir, this is Colonel Shoup,\u201d he barked.<\/p>\n

Nothing but silence in response.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir? This is Colonel Shoup,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Silence again.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir? Can you read me alright?\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, a soft voice on the other end.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you really Santa Claus?\u201d a little girl asked.<\/p>\n

\"W.O.P.R.\"<\/a>The Colonel told the author he was stunned for a second. He thought this was a joke. He looked around the room, expecting to see his men laughing at their prank, but found stony, serious faces all around.<\/p>\n

He realized that there was \u201csome screw-up on the phones,\u201d and decided to play along.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I am,\u201d he answered. \u201cHave you been a good little girl?”<\/p>\n

The girl explained to Col. Shoup that she would leave some food out for both Santa and his reindeer and then recited her Christmas list to him. The Colonel thanked her for her hospitality, noting that Santa had a lot of traveling to do. How did he get to all those houses in one night, anyway, she asked.<\/p>\n

Apparently, that was classified intelligence in Col. Shoup\u2019s mind. \u201cThat\u2019s the magic of Christmas,\u201d he said. If anyone asks her about that, he said, she should tell them to stop asking so many questions or Santa would put them on the naughty list.<\/p>\n

\"Red<\/a>\u201cThat red phone, boy,<\/em>\u201d Col. Shoup later recalled to Mental Floss<\/em>. \u201cThat\u2019s either the old man\u2014the four-star [General Partridge]\u2014or the Pentagon. I was all shook up.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

The red phone would keep ringing throughout the night. Not because of Soviet nukes or fighter planes heading toward U.S. soil, but because of a typo.<\/p>\n

That day, Colonel Shoup would later learn, a local newspaper ran a Sears Roebuck ad inviting kids to contact Santa.<\/p>\n

\"Sears\u201cHey Kiddies!\u201d the ad read. \u201cCall me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night.<\/em>\u201d The ad listed Santa\u2019s direct line, but the number in the copy was off by a digit. Instead of connecting to the special line Sears set up with a Santa impersonator, kids wound up calling a secret air defense emergency number.<\/p>\n

After a few more Santa-related calls, Colonel Shoup pulled a few airmen aside and gave them a special assignment. They would answer the phone and give callers\u2014barring the Pentagon, we assume\u2014Santa\u2019s current location as they \u201ctracked\u201d him on their radar.<\/p>\n

rb-<\/em><\/strong>
\nAnd that is why NORAD tracks Santa<\/a>. – Merry Christmas!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ralph Bach<\/a>\u00a0has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his\u00a0Bach Seat<\/a> about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn<\/a>,\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>. Email the Bach Seat\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US started tracking Santa Claus with NORAD in the ’50s due to a Sears ad typo not an alien according to a Colonel in charge of space defense<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3125],"tags":[3044,1490,924,1415,2038,2037,1780,884,2036],"class_list":["post-65799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holidays","tag-3044","tag-aliens","tag-christmas","tag-dwight-d-eisenhower","tag-mccarthy","tag-norad","tag-potus","tag-santa-claus","tag-sears"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65799"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122014,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65799\/revisions\/122014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}