A misprinted phone number in a Sears advertisement led to a fateful call to a US Air Force colonel, sparking a nearly 70-year tradition of tracking Santa Claus.
In early December 1955, the phone rang at an air base in Colorado Springs. The officers on the watch floor of the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) - who were defending the skies above the US and Canada - stiffened. The Cold War was in full swing and tensions were running high. The command's director of operations Colonel Harry Shoup answered the call.
On the other end was a child's voice asking: “Is this Santa Claus?” According to the colonel’s daughter Terri Van Keuren, now 75, her father initially thought it was a prank, and replied: “I’m the commander of the Combat Alert Center. Who's this?” In response, the child started crying and asked if he was one of “Santa’s helpers”. The colonel then decided to play along, replying that he was indeed Santa Claus and mustering a convincing “ho-ho-ho”. This surprise call started the nearly 70-year tradition of the Santa Tracker, which allows children around the world to track the whereabouts of Father Christmas via a livestream and a phone line answered by volunteers. It is now run by CONAD's successor, the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). But how did a child seemingly get the phone number of a colonel in the US air force? The American department store Sears had printed an advert in a local newspaper telling children they could call Santa, Terri explains. “They had printed one digit wrong in the phone number. And it was dad's top secret number.” Colonel Shoup called the phone company and asked for a new number for his office. Meanwhile, the phone at CONAD was 'ringing off the hook' and Colonel Shoup told his staff they were to answer the calls as Santa Claus. In the story told by Terri, on 24 December that year her parents arrived at the base to deliver cookies to those on duty, and found the military establishment unusually festive. A picture of a sleigh had been drawn by a map writer on plexiglass - which was used to mark where unidentified flying objects were located
SANTA TRACKER NORAD COLD WAR TRADITION HOLIDAY
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