You can keep an eye on Santa
Tracker lets people watch progress of his journey
He sees you when you’re sleeping and he knows when you’re awake, but do you know where Santa Claus is when he makes his holiday trek delivering packages around the world?
You will if you tap into the Santa Tracker provided by the North American Aerospace Defense Command on Dec. 24.
Each year on Christmas Eve, the command, better known as NORAD, trains its radar scopes not just on potential threats but also on the Jolly Ol’ Elf himself, Santa Claus, and his sleigh powered by nine tiny reindeer.
A website provides upto-the-minute information about Santa’s whereabouts, along with a bevy of holiday games, music and activities.
For more than six decades, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command, in Colorado Springs has tracked Santa’s sleigh on its journey, providing children and children at heart a little high-tech Christmas magic.
The tradition began by accident, when a 1955 Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement misprinted the telephone number for children to call and speak to Santa. The misprinted number instead reached the CONAD commander’s operations “hotline.”
Rather than disappoint the children who called expecting Santa, the operations director at the time, Col. Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for signs of Santa and his sleigh making his way from the North Pole and provide updates on his location to children who called.
Today, children can check the radar scope themselves at www.noradsanta.org, the NORAD Tracks Santa website.
“In addition to our dayto-day mission of defending North America, we are proud to carry on the tradition of tracking Santa as he travels along his yuletide flight path,” Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, said. “The same radars, satellites and interceptors employed on Dec. 24 are used year-round to defend Canadian and American airspace from threats.”
Beginning at 11:01 p.m. Dec. 23 locally, visitors to the website can watch Santa as he prepares for his flight. Streaming “Santa Cams” will provide video as he makes his way over various locations.
Starting at 3 a.m. on Dec. 24, trackers can speak to a live phone operator to learn Santa’s location by sending email to noradtrackssanta@ outlook.com or by dialing 877-Hi-NORAD (877-4466723).
Additionally, the tracking may be found on various social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. Find them by searching for “@noradsanta.”
Anytime on Christmas Eve, users with Amazon Alexa can ask for Santa’s location through the NORAD Tracks Santa skill.
Those on the road for the holiday may do the same with the OnStar system on their vehicles.
The website has been active since Dec. 1, featuring Santa’s North Pole Village full of games, activities and a holiday countdown in eight languages.
The Christmas Eve effort includes hundreds of volunteers to man the call center on Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs and the contributions and support of many corporate and other sponsors.