Santa Tracker: The slip-up that started a 70-year-old festive tradition
In the beginning of December 1955, a call came through to an air base in Colorado Springs. The personnel on duty at the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), tasked with safeguarding the airspace over the United States and Canada, tensed at the sound.
The Cold War was at its peak, leading to an atmosphere of heightened tensions.
Colonel Harry Shoup, who was in charge of operations for the command, picked up the phone. On the other line, he heard a young voice asking, "Is this Santa Claus?"
Terri Van Keuren, the daughter of the colonel and now 75 years old, shared that her father first believed it was a joke. He responded by saying, "I’m in charge of the Combat Alert Center. Who am I speaking to?"
In reaction to this, the child began to cry and wondered if he was one of “Santa’s helpers.”
The colonel then chose to go along with the joke, responding that he was actually Santa Claus and adding a believable “ho-ho-ho.”
This unexpected phone call kicked off the almost 70-year tradition of the Santa Tracker. It enables kids all over the globe to follow Santa's journey through a live stream and a hotline that is staffed by volunteers.
It is currently managed by NORAD, the successor to CONAD, which stands for the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
But how did a kid manage to obtain the phone number of a colonel in the US Air Force?
Terri explains that the American department store Sears placed an advertisement in a nearby newspaper, inviting children to give Santa a call.
"They had made a mistake with one digit in the phone number. And it happened to be my dad's most confidential number."
Colonel Shoup contacted the phone provider and requested a new phone number for his office.
In the meantime, the phone at CONAD was ringing nonstop, and Colonel Shoup instructed his team to respond to the calls as if they were Santa Claus.
In Terri's account, on December 24 of that year, her parents came to the base to bring cookies to the personnel on duty, and they discovered that the military facility had a surprisingly joyful atmosphere.
A mapmaker had sketched an image of a sleigh on a sheet of plexiglass, which served to indicate the locations of unidentified flying objects.
Before they knew it, Dad picked up the phone and called the radio station. "This is Colonel Shoup, in charge of the Combat Alert Center in Colorado Springs. We have an unidentified flying object here, and it appears to be a sleigh," Terri recalls.
Terri, a resident of Castle Rock, Colorado, was just six years old when her father took on the role of the "Santa Colonel." She believes that the NORAD Santa Tracker, which connects with millions of kids worldwide each year, is his lasting impact.
NORAD's monitoring of Santa Claus is essentially a military mission that starts on December 1st.
Brigadier General Jocelyn Schermerhorn, a high-ranking US military official in Canada, explains to Sky News what happens throughout Christmas Eve.
"Approximately a thousand individuals gather to establish the operations center responsible for monitoring Santa, which enables anyone to call in and find out where he is."
Volunteers handle phone calls from countless children globally. In the year 2022, they responded to 78,000 calls at the Peterson Space Force Base.
For a decade, Terri dedicated her time as a volunteer. "I always sported a t-shirt featuring my dad's image. It reads: 'My dad's the Santa Colonel'."
What lies ahead for the Santa Tracker? Terri mentions that her father's cheerful tale is so well-known that she has received multiple inquiries about turning it into a film.
Check out Sky News’ YouTube and social media platforms to follow NORAD's Santa Tracker and see Santa's location as he travels around the globe delivering gifts.
