The Christmas tradition has become almost global: children all over the world follow Santa Claus as he travels the earth, delivering gifts and defying time.
Every year, at least 100,000 children participate in North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about the location of Santa Claus. Millions more follow online in nine languages, from English to Japanese.
Any other night, NORAD scans the sky for potential threats, like last year’s Chinese spy balloon. But on Christmas Eve, Colorado Springs volunteers answer questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and “Am I on the naughty or nice list?”
“There’s screaming and laughing and laughing,” said Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and NORAD volunteer.
Sommers often says on the call that everyone needs to sleep before Santa arrives, prompting parents to say, “Do you hear what he said?” We have to go to bed early.
NORAD’s annual tracking of Santa Claus has endured since the Cold War, predating ugly sweater parties and Mariah Carey classics. The tradition continues despite government shutdowns, like that of 2018 and this year.
Here’s how it all started and why the phones keep ringing.
The origin story is Hollywood
It all started with an accidental phone call from a child in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears ad encouraging children to call Santa by listing a phone number.
A boy called. But it reached Continental Air Defense Command, now NORAD, a joint U.S. and Canadian effort to scout for potential enemy attacks. Tensions were growing with the Soviet Union, alongside concerns about nuclear war.
Air Force Col. Harry W. Shoup picked up an emergency “hot phone” and was greeted by a small voice that began reciting a Christmas wish list.
“He went on for a little bit, and he takes a breath and then says, ‘Hey, you’re not Santa,'” Shoup told the Associated Press in 1999.
Realizing that an explanation would be lost on the youth, Shoup called out in a deep, cheerful voice and replied, “Ho, ho, ho!” Yes, I am Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy?
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Shoup said he learned from the boy’s mother that Sears had mistakenly printed the top secret number. He hung up, but soon the phone rang again and a young girl was reciting her Christmas list. Fifty calls a day followed, he said.
In the pre-digital age, the agency used a 60-by-80-foot Plexiglas map of North America to track unidentified objects. A staff member jokingly pulled Santa and his sleigh over the North Pole.
The tradition was born.
“Note to children,” began an AP article from Colorado Springs on December 23, 1955. “On Friday, Santa Claus was guaranteed safe passage to the United States by the Continental Air Defense Command.”
Probably referring to the Soviets, the article noted that Santa Claus was protected against possible attacks from “those who don’t believe in Christmas.”
Is the origin story a farce?
Some cranky reporters nitpicked Shoup’s story, wondering whether a printing error or a dialing error prompted the boy’s call.
In 2014, the technology news site Gizmodo cited a December 1, 1955 International News Service article about a child’s call to Shoup. Published in the Pasadena Independent, the article stated that the child had reversed two digits of the Sears number.
“When a childish voice asked COC Commander Colonel Harry Shoup if there was a Santa Claus at the North Pole, he responded much more rudely than he should, given the season:
“There may be a guy called Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I’m worried about coming from that direction,” Shoup said in the brief article.
In 2015, The Atlantic magazine doubted the flood of calls to the secret line, while noting that Shoup had a flair for public relations.
Phone calls aside, Shoup was indeed media savvy. In 1986, he told the Scripps Howard News Service that he saw an opportunity when a staff member drew Santa Claus on a glass card in 1955.
A lieutenant colonel promised to have it erased. But Shoup said, “Leave it there” and called for public business. Shoup wanted to boost the morale of the troops and the public.
“Well, it made the Army look good – like we weren’t all a bunch of snobs who didn’t care about Santa,” he said.
Shoup died in 2009. His children told the StoryCorps podcast in 2014 that it was a poorly printed Sears ad that triggered the phone calls.
“And later in his life he received letters from all over the world,” said Terri Van Keuren, a daughter. “People say, ‘Thank you, Colonel, for having, you know, that sense of humor.'”
A rare addition to the Santa story
The NORAD tradition is one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old story of Santa Claus that has endured, according to Gerry Bowler, a Canadian historian who spoke to the AP in 2010.
Advertising campaigns or films attempt to “kidnap” Santa Claus for commercial purposes, said Bowler, who wrote “Santa Claus: A Biography.” NORAD, on the other hand, takes a vital element of the Santa story and views it through a technological lens.
In a recent interview with the AP, Air Force Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham explained that NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada — known as the North Warning System — are the first to detect Santa Claus.
It leaves the North Pole and generally heads towards the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean. From there he heads west, following the night.
“That’s when the satellite systems we use to track and identify targets of interest every day start to come into action,” Cunningham said. “A probably little-known fact is that Rudolph’s nose, which glows red, gives off a lot of heat. And so these satellites follow (Santa) through this heat source.
NORAD has an app and a website, www.noradsanta.orgwhich will follow Santa on Christmas Eve from 4 a.m. to midnight Mountain Standard Time. People can call 1-877-HI-NORAD to ask live operators where Santa is from 6 a.m. to midnight MT.
