(KMOX) - For 364 days a year, NORAD is watching the skies over the U.S. to protect the country from enemies. But on Christmas Eve, it's keeping a special eye on Santa Claus and his sleigh.
Now, there's a phone app, website and tons of social media posts about Santa's whereabouts. But it all started in 1955 with a "typo" in a newspaper. Fox News Radio's Tonya J. Powers shared the unique origins of NORAD's annual Santa Claus tracking with our partner station 97.1 FM Talk.
"Back in 1955 NORAD was actually CONAD," Power says, and you can hear the whole interview in the audio at the top of this page. "The Continental Air Defense Command operations center was in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Which is where NORAD still is, but it was called something different at the time.
"There was a department store ad in a local newspaper that had been printed, and it said, 'Call Santa, have your child call Santa' and gave a phone number out, there was a typo in the phone number."
Instead of calls going to "Santa," people were actually calling CONAD.
Air Force Col. Harry Shoup answered a child's phone call asking about Santa. He played along.
"He assured the child that, yes, Santa was on the job and he absolutely was going to be doing his thing on Christmas Eve. And ever since, they started doing this on purpose, answering calls," says Powers.
Now, NORAD has a Santa tracking website and app!
Related
© 2021 KMOX (Audacy). All rights reserved
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Follow KMOX
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram