NORAD’s Santa tracker tradition continues 70-year military mission

Deep inside the command center that controls everything from Russian bombers to North Korean missile launches, a handful of military personnel are preparing for an entirely different type of flight, one of them led by a cheerful man in a red suit.

Every December North American Aerospace Defense Command — or NORAD — is turning part of its high-tech operations complex into a holiday command post dedicated to tracking Santa Claus. The same radar systems that protect North American airspace will soon be configured to track sleds traveling at high speed from the North Pole.

Santa's mission, now in its 70th year, began by accident. In 1955, a Colorado Springs newspaper printed the phone number from a Sears ad telling children to “call Santa.”

The number, which had a one-digit typo, called the hotline of what was then the Continental Air Defense Command. When Colonel Harry Shoup, the man on duty that night, realized the children were calling to talk to St. Nick, he played along, and a military tradition was born.

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Today, Santa Tracker is a global phenomenon that attracts millions of online visitors and calls from children in more than 200 countries. But behind the holiday lights and holiday cheer, NORAD's real mission continues uninterrupted—scanning the skies and seas for potential threats to the United States and Canada 24 hours a day.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command doesn't need special equipment to find Santa. It uses the same technology that guards the continent every day.

Tracking begins with the Northern Warning System, a network of radar stations stretching across Alaska and northern Canada. These sensors detect everything that hits the northern approaches to the United States and Canada. including high-speed sleighs departing from the Arctic once a year.

From there, NORAD's space-based infrared satellites pick up the heat signature, derisively called Rudolph's nose each year, and transmit that data to the operations center at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs.

The same systems that track ballistic missile launches and foreign aircraft provide the Santa card that millions of families follow every Christmas Eve. Website and application, NORADSanta.orgdrive millions of visits worldwide, supported by partnerships with private sector technology companies to handle data loads.

For military personnel and civilians working at the NORAD operations center, the holiday season looks different than usual. The command never disconnects; officers, radar technicians and support staff work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day just as they do at any other time of the year.

While most of the attention is focused on tracking Santa, the real work goes on in the background – scanning radar signals, monitoring satellite data and being ready to respond to any threat that may arise. Most of the roughly 1,500 people assigned to NORAD and U.S. Northern Command at Peterson Space Force Base and nearby Cheyenne Mountain are taking at least part of the holiday shifts, changing hours so others can spend time with family.

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However, Operation Santa brings a change of pace. Hundreds of volunteers—many of them military spouses, retirees and local community members—come to the command center each year to answer calls and messages from children around the world. Phone lines open on Christmas Eve and volunteers work in shifts to answer thousands of questions about Santa's whereabouts.

That night the room looks a little different: maps of the sleigh route are glowing on the screens, phones are constantly ringing, cookies and coffee are placed between the work stations. For a few hours, the team created to warn and respond to important issues turns into a small piece holiday normalityeven when the mission is ongoing.

The same command routine was recently dramatized in the new Netflix movie House of Dynamite.“ In the film, one unidentified missile sets off a cascade of decisions in the command center, highlighting how fragile a system can be when seconds count.

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However, the Missile Defense Agency refused to depict the failed interceptor test in the film. The internal memo notes a scene that claims there is a 50% chance of interception and claims that, in fact, US missile defense systems “have been 100% accurate in testing for over a decade.”

So yes, NORAD is tracking the holiday spirit and making sure the fundamentals of American preparedness remain intact. On the floor where phone calls are answered and consoles are lit, the message is simpler: someone is always on duty.