How a child's mistaken phone call to military centre gave birth to NORAD Santa tracker in 1955

In 1955, when a Colorado newspaper advertisement printed a phone number to connect children with Santa -- but mistakenly directed them to the hotline for the joint military nerve center. (Image credit: NORAD)

Norad or the North American Aerospace Defense Command has been tracking Santa Claus's journey from the North Pole, as he goes across the world delivering gifts to kids, since 1955. But to those who wonder how a military centre decided to be associated with what has now become a beloved Christmas feature, it all began with a phone call.

In 1955, when a Colorado newspaper advertisement printed a phone number to connect children with Santa -- but mistakenly directed them to the hotline for the joint military nerve center.

The director of operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, answered the phone and quickly realised the child calling had the wrong number.

"But (he) didn't want to upset him. So he started talking to the young child and passed along information" on Santa's location, Canadian Air Force Major-General William Radiff, NORAD's current director of operations, told AFP on Tuesday.

"And then afterwards, he talked to the rest of the staff there and said, 'please, we're going to get phone calls today... Let's start doing this.'"

Spreading cheer across the world

The interest has gone global. Last year NORAD's modernised Santa tracker website noradsanta.org -- which includes a 3D map displaying Santa's movements in real time and a ticker showing how many presents have been delivered -- had 20.6 million visits, and more than 400,000 calls were made to the toll-free number, according to Radiff.

"We get calls from all across the world and they really want to know where Santa is," he said.

When not spreading holiday cheer, NORAD conducts aerospace and maritime control and warning operations -- including monitoring for missile launches from North Korea, something perhaps on Santa's mind as he guided his reindeer-hauled sleigh over Pyongyang.

Radiff, embracing the Christmas spirit, said NORAD's infrared-capable satellites could monitor Santa's progress in part because "Rudolph's nose gives off the same signature, so we use that to track him around the world."

NORAD "always does a fantastic job helping us keep tabs on Santa's navigational heading and bearing in the skies above," astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second person to ever walk on the Moon, said on social media.

This year, as he did last Christmas, US President Joe Biden joined in the fun at NORAD, taking calls from children.

(With inputs from AFP)