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On December 24 of every year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (which is somehow abbreviated to NORAD) uses its resources to keep track of a man who sneaks in and out of countries dropping off suspicious-looking packages in people’s homes around the globe. That man, of course, is none other than Santa Claus.
The admittedly ****ed up tradition of using military technology to locate Father Christmas’s global position began in 1955, when a Sears store located in Colorado Springs ran a newspaper ad with a telephone hotline for local kids to call Santa Claus with their gift wish list. The paper serendipitously published the wrong number, which actually called into the Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD’s predecessor. Colonel Harry Shoup, the commanding officer at the time, thought it was an unfunny prank when the first kid called in, but then realized the mistake and ordered his staff to provide Santa’s location every time the number was dialed.
The Santa Tracker has improved vastly since then. Now, you can find out where Santa is dropping off gifts by visiting their website. NORAD has been using Google Earth since 2007 to provide real time locations of Kris Kringle, and even shows video footage of some of his stops.
CHECK THE LINK: Official NORAD Santa Tracker
The admittedly ****ed up tradition of using military technology to locate Father Christmas’s global position began in 1955, when a Sears store located in Colorado Springs ran a newspaper ad with a telephone hotline for local kids to call Santa Claus with their gift wish list. The paper serendipitously published the wrong number, which actually called into the Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD’s predecessor. Colonel Harry Shoup, the commanding officer at the time, thought it was an unfunny prank when the first kid called in, but then realized the mistake and ordered his staff to provide Santa’s location every time the number was dialed.
The Santa Tracker has improved vastly since then. Now, you can find out where Santa is dropping off gifts by visiting their website. NORAD has been using Google Earth since 2007 to provide real time locations of Kris Kringle, and even shows video footage of some of his stops.
CHECK THE LINK: Official NORAD Santa Tracker