By Ben Forrest | December 23, 2016 Estimated reading time 7 minutes, 14 seconds.
A little more than a year ago, Lt Marco Chouinard started fielding calls at the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command office in Colorado Springs, Colo., from a repentant youngster looking for Santa.
It was only September, likely months before the jolly elf finalized his naughty and nice lists, but the child called repeatedly, eager to plead his case.
“I did something bad,” the youngster said on one call according to Chouinard, a member of the Royal Canadian Navy and a public affairs officer with NORAD.
“I said something bad to my aunt and I’m really worried and I want Santa to know I’m sorry about it.”
Chouinard promised to make sure Santa got the message and encouraged the child to call back in December, when a team of NORAD officials and volunteers would be taking calls on Santa’s behalf and tracking his round-the-world journey on Christmas Eve.
“We’ll tell you where Santa is,” Chouinard recalls saying. Later, after recounting similar memories from his time as Santa’s secretary, Chouinard admitted: “It’s priceless.”
This is what it’s like to staff NORAD Tracks Santa, a holiday tradition that connects families around the globe with essential details about Mr. Claus and his reindeer-propelled sleigh on the night before Christmas.
The program dates to Dec. 24, 1955, when the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) operations centre in Colorado Springs received a call from a young child following directions from a department store ad printed in the local newspaper.
The ad offered the chance to connect with Santa via phone but the number was printed incorrectly and rang into the CONAD operations centre.
Rather than hanging up, the colonel on duty–the late Harry Shoup, who became known as the Santa Colonel–had his operators find the location of Santa Claus and report it to every child who called in that night.
NORAD adopted the tradition when it formed in 1958 and has carried it on ever since.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for us to spread holiday cheer and to put goodwill out there to the world,” said Stacey Knott, a former director of the NORAD Tracks Santa program.
“And it’s a great opportunity for us to talk about what we do at NORAD, and those same resources that we use to track Santa is also how we do our mission every day.”
While the original Santa-tracking crew relied on radar scopes to track his progress, modern technology has added to the operation’s complexity and sophistication.
Along with radar, NORAD says it uses satellites and several “Santa Cams” to gather location information and relay it to children who call in, as well as visitors to the NORAD Tracks Santa website, on Skype, on social media and via email.
Last year the program received over 140,000 phone calls and answered over 2,800 emails in 23 hours on Christmas Eve, said Chouinard. The program has about 1.6 million Facebook fans, plus 169,000 Twitter followers and 22,000 followers on Google+.
Website visitors can watch Santa make preparations for his flight starting at 2:01 a.m. Eastern time on Dec. 24, and phone operators start taking calls at 6 a.m. Windows Phone users can also ask the Cortana virtual assistant for Santa’s location any time that day, and OnStar subscribers can locate Santa using the OnStar button in their vehicles.
“When he first leaves the North Pole we have detection, because Rudolph’s nose emits an extremely large amount of heat,” said Chouinard. “So we’re able to detect a heat signature from the takeoff.”
“But people come in and the energy–you can feel it in the air,” he added later. “It’s so fun, and to listen to the kids at the other end, and their parents are with them and it’s really exciting.”
Santa takes a similar route every year, escorted for part of his journey by Royal Canadian Air Force CF-188s and United States Air Force F-15, F-16 and F-22 fighter jets, according to Chouinard.
“Canada selects pilots and crews every year,” he said. “It’s an honour to be selected for that.”
NORAD Tracks Santa continues to grow every year, weaving itself into the histories of families who have followed the program for more than a generation.
“We meet people: ‘Oh, I used to track Santa when I was young and I passed that tradition to my kids and we go on the site every year. We call in to see where he’s at,’ ” said Chouinard.
“And I think it keeps the magic alive and the whole family can get involved.”
Anyone wishing to locate Santa on Dec. 24 can call 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) starting at 6 a.m. Eastern time, email noradtrackssanta@outlook.com, visit www.noradsanta.org, or find the program on social media.
