Tracking Santa with Radar and Satellites
It’s become tradition for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to track Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. NORAD is a joint military organization of the United States and Canada responsible for things like air defense and tracking missiles, so how did they end up tracking Santa?
In 1955, when NORAD was known as Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), a Colorado Springs newspaper mixed up the phone number in an advertisement. The ad was supposed to be a direct line for kids to call Santa; instead the children ended up calling Colonel Harry Shoup’s secret phone line at CONAD. Colonel Shoup must have been very surprised to hear a little child’s voice on a phone line that was only supposed to be known to top-ranking military officials, but he took it in stride and didn’t want to disappoint the children, so he put a couple of airmen on the phone to pretend to be Santa. The airmen had a big glass board that they used to track airplanes, and as a joke, they drew Santa’s sleigh on it. When Colonel Shoup saw it, he took things one step further and called a local radio station to inform them CONAD was seeing an unidentified flying object, and it appears to be a sleigh. After that the radio station called him back every hour to track Santa’s progress, and a tradition was born. Now over 1,250 American and Canadian military personal volunteer their time on December 24 to take calls and answer emails from around the world as NORAD tracks Santa’s trip around the world.
NORAD tracks Santa using every tool at their disposal. First, they use their radar system which uses radio waves to determine distance, direction, and speed of Santa’s sleigh. Next, they use satellites with infrared sensors that can see heat. NORAD claims the nose of Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer is especially easy to see in infrared. More recently, as part of moving Santa tracking to the web, NORAD says they also have Santacams that they use on Christmas Eve only so they can see him, and they even send jets to wave hello to him and take his picture.
- RE
Photo Credit: Still from NORAD’s “2014 Norad Tracks Santa Trailer” https://www.youtube.com/user/NORADTracksSanta
Read More: http://www.norad.mil/http://www.noradsanta.org/http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport
Dear Readers, Most of our posts are not reaching your news feed due to fb’s filtering system. If you wish to enjoy our posts more often, use the following for information on how to go about it: http://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js1VWMUJ0.