Seventy years ago, a young child dialed a top-secret emergency line meant for the U.S. president and high-ranking military officials, innocently asking, “Hello, is this Santa?” The incident occurred in December 1955 during the height of the Cold War. The phone that rang was a large, red device reserved for international emergencies.
This accidental call, and subsequent ones due to a newspaper ad typo, sparked a unique mission for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) – to create a system enabling families to track Santa’s global journey. Since then, the Santa Tracker has brought joy to countless children.
Erin Gregory, curator of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, explained that the NORAD hotline was typically reserved for critical situations. In the tense atmosphere of the Cold War era, a call to NORAD could have signaled a potential threat. When the phone rang in 1955, all attention turned to Col. Harry Shoup, the operations commander at the Continental Air Defense Command in Colorado.
Initially thinking it was a prank, Shoup soon realized it was a child on the line and swiftly embraced the role of Santa Claus. The mix-up occurred because of a Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement with a wrong number in a Colorado Springs newspaper, directing kids to call Santa but instead connecting them to NORAD’s secure line.
To lighten the mood, Shoup’s team playfully added a reindeer and sleigh image to their tracking board, kickstarting the tradition that endures today. NORAD’s Santa mission has evolved over the decades, with volunteers handling around 130,000 calls annually and expanding to digital platforms, attracting millions of visitors globally.
NORAD’s Santa tracking initiative, now in its 70th year, has broadened its language support to include Korean, in addition to nine other languages. The NORAD Santa Tracker offers real-time updates on Santa’s whereabouts via phone, website, and social media channels, catering to a diverse global audience eager to follow Santa’s Christmas Eve journey.