PANAMA CITY — Every year kids get a chance to catch Santa Claus in action without having to sleepily sneak up on him coming down the chimney.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) Santa Tracker counts down the days, hours and minutes up until Santa’s departure from the North Pole on Christmas Eve. From there, children can track his activity as he flies around the Earth delivering presents to boys and girls in places such as Australia, Canada, Western Europe, Japan and the United States — in what only seems like 24 hours, NORAD officials said.
“His trip seems to take 24 hours to us, but to Santa it might last days, weeks or even months,” NORAD explains on its website. “Santa would not want to rush the importanat job of delivering presents to children and spreading joy to everyone, so the only logical conclusion is that Santa somehow functions within his own time-space continuum.”
NORAD officials say they can track Santa’s path but cannot predict where he will go or when he will be at the homes of anxious boys and girls around the world. In the U.S., NORAD has noticed a trend over the years that Santa usually arrives between 9 p.m. and midnight.
The first glimpse NORAD usually catches of Santa’s sleigh is near the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean at 5 a.m. CST and travels west from there. He can be followed throughout the day through NORAD’s radar system called the Northern Warning System.
NORAD said the radar system has 47 installations strung across Canada’s North and Alaska. NORAD makes a point of checking the radar closely for indications of Santa Claus leaving the North Pole every holiday season. The moment the radar indicates Santa has lifted off, NORAD begins to use the same satellite system to detect possible missile launches aimed at North America.
NORAD’s Santa Tracker website also has games, videos, music and a library.
Scrolling through each, a brief animation of jet fighters fly across the screen to act as a sort of segue to another area of the website.
NORAD caught flak earlier this year for using the jet fighters as a branding tool for Santa Tracker. Critics — mainly Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood — said NORAD was injecting a militaristic message into Christmas.
U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a NORAD spokesman, defended the promotional tool to reporters earlier in December. "We really do feel strongly that it's something that is safe and non-threatening, and not something that would negatively impact children," he said. "In fact, we think that it's a lot of fun."
For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), have tracked Santa’s flight.
The tradition began as a typo in 1955.
A Colorado-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement misprinted the telephone number for children to call Santa. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the NORAD commander-in-chief’s operations “hotline.” The director of opertaions at the time, Col. Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole.
Children who called were updated on his location.
Though Shoup died in 2009, NORAD’s Santa Tracker legacy lives on.
Since then, NORAD volunteers have responded to phone calls or emails from children all over the world. NORAD now tracks Santa’s path using the internet to provide second-by-second updates for millions on Santa’s whereabouts.
Santa can be tacked at Noradsanta.org. Google recently also adopted its own Santa tracker.
NORAD Sleigh Technical Data:
Sleigh Technical Data
Designer & Builder K. Kringle & Elves, Inc.
Probable First Flight Dec. 24, 343 A.D.
Home Base North Pole
Length 75 cc (candy canes) / 150 lp (lollipops)
Width 40 cc / 80 lp
Height 55 cc / 110 lp
Note: Length, width and height are without reindeer
Weight at takeoff 75,000 gd (gumdrops)
Passenger weight at takeoff Santa Claus 260 pounds
Weight of gifts at takeoff 60,000 tons
Weight at landing 80,000 gd (ice & snow accumulation)
Passenger weight at landing 1,260 pounds
Propulsion Nine (9) rp (reindeer power)
Armament Antlers (purely defensive)
Fuel Hay, oats and carrots (for reindeer)
Emissions Classified
Climbing speed One "T" (Twinkle of an eye)
Max speed Faster than starlight