How-To Track Santa Clauses Flight with NORAD

Every year since I was a child the morning papers on Christmas day have always carried a little notice from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs, the joint U.S. - Canadian military group charged with scanning the skies over North America for early warning about hostile bombers or missiles headed our way, that NORAD had detected a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer, flying out of the North Pole. Since the sleigh and reindeer posed no hostile threat, no planes were scrambled to intercept the the sleigh and it was allowed to continue through U.S. and Canadian airspace.

This tradition started in 1955 when an ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper mistakenly printed NORAD's phone number in an ad and a child dialed the number asking about the whereabouts of Santa on that Christmas Eve. Despite the fact that it was a wrong number, the people at NORAD dutifully played along and reassured the child that they had indeed detected Santa on their radar as he was en route to deliver toys.

The tradition has continued and, in 1998 NORAD launched the NORAD Tracks Santa website at NORADSanta.org. In addition to the website (which received 912 million hits last year), a NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center has been in operation each year with the help of over 500 volunteers. These volunteers answer emails and telephone calls from children all over the world during the Christmas season giving them updates on Santa's progress in preparing for Christmas.

The phone number for the Ops Center is 1-877-HI-NORAD or 1-719-474-2111. The email address is: tracking@noradsanta.org for NORAD and northpole@officialsantamail.com to contact Santa Claus directly. I haven't tried the number or email but the website is very good.

Check out the link below to see how Santa is doing this year.