During the Christmas season, one of the joys for children all over the world is eagerly anticipating the arrival of Santa Claus. But when will Santa Claus arrive at their location? The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is helping children worldwide track the footsteps of Santa Claus.
NORAD’s usual mission is to “defend North America’s homeland through aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.” However, on Christmas Eve each year, this joint military organization of the United States and Canada tracks Santa Claus’s whereabouts.
NORAD has a website dedicated to Santa Claus, where you can find various information related to him. For example, Santa Claus may have delivered gifts to children worldwide for the first time on December 24, 343 AD, and his weight could be around 260 pounds (approx. 118 kilograms).
The website also features a virtual North Pole village, holiday countdown, games, a movie theater, holiday music, and an online store.
By opening the Santa tracking map, not only can you track Santa’s sleigh driven by reindeer in real-time, but you can also click on locations on the map to learn some basic information about those areas, helping children enrich their geographical knowledge.
The 3D tracking webpage also shows how many Christmas gifts the hardworking Santa Claus has already delivered.
Why is the North American Aerospace Defense Command, originally a defense group, helping track Santa Claus?
This tradition dates back to 1955 during the Cold War when a department store’s advertisement mistakenly listed the phone number children should dial to reach Santa Claus.
A young boy ended up calling the “Continental Air Defense Command” (the predecessor of NORAD), asking to speak to St. Nick (Saint Nicholas, the prototype of Santa Claus) and sharing his wish list.
Colonel Harry Shoup, who was on duty at the time, didn’t want to disappoint the young boy, so he assured him that they would keep an eye on Santa’s whereabouts through the radar system.
The phone number for Santa Claus was indeed reachable, and the news spread quickly. Since then, NORAD receives 50 different calls from children daily, giving rise to this new tradition.
Today, the department, located at a base in Colorado Springs, receives over a hundred thousand calls from children each year. On Christmas Eve, volunteers help answer the phone, addressing children’s questions about Santa Claus. Moreover, besides English, they can also answer questions from children who speak other languages.
So how does the North American Aerospace Defense Command track Santa Claus? The organization indicates that they have “NORAD’s Northern Warning” radar system and satellites in 47 defense facilities.
(Adapted from an article from The Epoch Times)