How NORAD’s Santa tracker was ACCIDENTALLY launched by a child’s call to a top secret phone line

Nearly seven decades ago, at the height of the Cold War, a five-year-old child accidentally called a top-secret emergency line reserved only for the President of the United States and one four-star general.

An innocent request? A conversation with none other than Santa Claus.

“Hi, is this Santa?” he asked Colonel Harry Shoup, who was stationed at the Continental Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado, when he answered a confidential line in early December 1955 – fully expecting the worst.

A call to the emergency line meant only one thing – the beginning of World War III. Only one other person – a four-star Pentagon general – had access to the hotline number.

This mischievous mistake led to North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) most unique mission: the Santa Tracker.

This year marks NORAD’s 68th Christmas by tracking down Santa.

Shoop’s family said their stern father was far from amused when he initially answered the call, and was reportedly “irritated” and “upset,” thinking it was a prank, according to a 2014 NPR interview.

But when the baby started crying, Shoup realized it was a mistake and switched gears.

The boy’s mother revealed the source of the confusion – a Sears ad containing a phone number to call Santa.

Walking into the command center on Christmas Eve, Shoup found a drawing of Santa’s sleigh on the board. His pilots whimsically depicted Santa and his reindeer flying across the North Pole.

Shoup then playfully called the radio station and stated, “This is the commander of the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object.” Why, it looks like a sleigh.

Soon radio stations began calling him every hour and asking, “Where is Santa now?”

Over the decades, NORAD’s Santa Claus mission has grown, with volunteers now fielding approximately 130,000 calls annually.

Its digital reach has grown from a tracker website to social media, attracting millions of visitors from more than 200 countries, and is now available in Korean, among a growing list of languages.

Today, NORAD Tracks Santa is a multimedia program that airs every December and offers a website, games, videos, books and more. Last year, Amazon’s Alexa service even delivered NORAD Tracks Santa updates via Echo.

Shoop’s children unanimously agreed that launching the Santa tracker was their father’s proudest accomplishment in his career.

In his final years, Shoup received letters from people all over the world thanking him for his sense of humor about the matter, and he kept them in a locked briefcase “as if it were top-secret information.”

NORAD is a joint US-Canadian organization that protects the continent from potential airborne threats 365 days a year.

Its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), began tracking Santa in 1955.

NORAD replaced CONAD in 1958 and took over the mission of tracking Santa’s flights around the world, and has done so every year since.

Every day, NORAD tracks planes, rockets, space launches and everything else that flies on or around the North American continent.

On Christmas Eve, they take on the important work of following St. Nicholas on behalf of all who sleep in bed and wait.

Their website states: “Although the tradition of tracking Santa began entirely by accident, NORAD continues to track Santa.

“We are the only organization that has the technology, skills and people to do this. And we love it! NORAD is honored to be Santa’s official tracker.”

It also shows that: “Based on flight profile data collected from NORAD radar and satellite tracking, NORAD concludes that Santa is likely about 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs about 260 pounds (excluding cookies).

“We know from fighter photographs that he has a large girth (belly), rosy cheeks from sledding in cold weather and a flowing white beard.”

Each year, more than 1,250 NORAD employees participate in Santa Tracker by answering phone calls and emails about Santa’s progress.

The entire operation is carried out using simulation software created by AGI/Ansys.

Ansys simulation software is used to allow NORAD to safely track Santa as he travels around the world,” Adam Gorski, an aerospace engineer with Ansys Government Initiatives, told Space.com.

“Ansys’ modeling ensures that NORAD satellites will be able to detect the heat coming from Rudolph’s nose and that radars will be able to track Santa’s sleigh high in the sky.

“Our simulations are also used to help Santa’s elves perform aerodynamic analyzes of his sleigh designs throughout the year.”