Tracker spots Santa
Washington – It’s the question every good little girl and boy asks on Christmas Eve: When is Santa coming?
As it has done every year since the 1950s, a Canadian and American defence agency tracked the jolly old man’s path around the globe in his reindeer-powered sleigh.
A 3-D, interactive website at www.noradsanta.org showed Santa on his delivery route, allowing users to click and learn more about the various cities along the way.
The Santa tracker presented by the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) dates to 1955, when a Colorado newspaper advertisement printed a phone number to connect children with St Nick but mistakenly directed them to the hotline for the military nerve centre.
To avoid disappointing the little ones, Norad’s director of operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, ordered his staff to check the radar to see where Santa might be and update the children on his location.
President Donald Trump joined in the Norad tradition on Sunday, answering the phone from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“What would you like more than anything?” the president asked one child.
“Building blocks, that’s what I’ve always liked too. I always loved building blocks,” Trump said after the child responded.
Another asked help for his hospitalised grandmother.
“So you want your grandma to get out of the hospital? That’s what your wish is? That’s great. That’s better than asking for some toy or something,” Trump said.
“Your grandma’s gonna be good, okay, she’s gonna be good.”
First Lady Melania Trump also took calls: “How are you? Merry Christmas. Are you tracking Santa? Do you know where he is right now?” she asked.
“As soon as you go to sleep, Santa will be there.”
When not spreading holiday cheer, Norad conducts aerospace and maritime control and warning operations, including monitoring for missile launches from North Korea, something that may have been on Santa’s mind as he passed over the country’s capital Pyongyang.
“Norad radars have sensed movement near the North Pole. It appears that the elves have finished loading Santa’s sleigh and Santa has lifted off! Santa’s sleigh seems to be moving lightning fast,” the website said in a video clip. –