{"id":107489,"date":"2015-12-24T20:29:46","date_gmt":"2015-12-25T03:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/norad-tracking-santas-journey-taking-kids-calls\/"},"modified":"2015-12-24T20:29:46","modified_gmt":"2015-12-25T03:29:46","slug":"norad-tracking-santas-journey-taking-kids-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/norad-tracking-santas-journey-taking-kids-calls\/","title":{"rendered":"NORAD tracking Santa\u2019s journey, taking kids\u2019 calls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"NORAD
NORAD and U.S. Northern inside a phone-in center during the annual NORAD Tracks Santa Operation, at the North American Aerospace Defense Command, at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., in 2014.<\/span>Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. \u2014 Peterson Air Force base continued its annual holiday mission \u2013 tracking Santa\u2019s storybook sleigh ride around the world.<\/p>\n

The North American Aerospace Defense Command has worked for weeks to tackle the one-day mission.<\/p>\n

Miles of wire, dozens of computers and 157 telephone lines greeted greeting greet hundreds of volunteers beginning Thursday, The (Colorado Springs) Gazette reported.<\/p>\n

Volunteers were answering calls from an estimated 125,000 children around the globe looking for Santa\u2019s whereabouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep adding stuff every year,\u201d said Staff Sgt. Kyle Kelly after he and a team of airmen taped down phone wires in the call center Monday.<\/p>\n

The call center in a training building was staffed for 23 hours and Christmas Eve. Volunteers also shared Santa\u2019s location on Facebook and Twitter. Last year, Santa got 1.6 million Facebook likes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe start in November,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cWe have to test every phone before we bring it in here.\u201d<\/p>\n

NORAD\u2019s 60th year of tracking Santa involves more than the military. The program is underwritten by contractors who pay for the phones, the computers and the website.<\/p>\n

First lady Michelle Obama was expected to volunteer, with calls forwarded to her on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n

Volunteers fielded a growing number of calls from curious kids from outside the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a lot of calls from Europe, Australia and New Zealand,\u201d said NORAD\u2019s Stacey Knott, who has organized the Santa tracking for three years.<\/p>\n

Bilingual volunteers handled the foreign-language inquiries.<\/p>\n

On the bilingual front, NORAD, a partnership between the U.S. and Canada, has a distinct advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe great thing about having Canadian forces here is they can speak in French,\u201d Canadian Maj. Jennifer Stadnyk said.<\/p>\n

NORAD is responsible for defending the skies and monitoring the sea approaches for both nations.<\/p>\n

Its control room was originally inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs in a shelter designed to withstand a nuclear attack.<\/p>\n

The control room is now at Peterson Air Force Base, also in Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

\n

Fast facts<\/h4>\n

How does NORAD track Santa?
\n A system of radar stations and satellites monitor all air traffic entering U.S. and Canadian airspace. All aircraft have a code to identify themselves. If an aircraft doesn\u2019t have a code, Gordinier said, NORAD can scramble jets to see who it is and what they\u2019re doing.
\n Luckily, Santa is good at keeping in touch with NORAD, Gordinier said.
\n \u201cWhen he pops up, we call him Big Red One,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s his call sign.\u201d
\n The nose on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a tipoff. It gives off an infrared signature similar to a missile launch, Gordinier said.
\n What is Santa\u2019s route?
\n On his mythical journey, Santa generally departs the North Pole, flies to the international date line over the Pacific Ocean, then begins deliveries in island nations. He then works his way west in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
\n Alaska is usually his last stop before heading home, Gordinier said.
\n How do children participate?
\n Starting at 10 p.m. Alaska time on Dec. 23, and for 23 hours covering most of Christmas Eve, children can call a toll-free number, 877-446-6723 (877-Hi-NORAD) and speak to a live phone operator about Santa\u2019s whereabouts.
\n They can also send an email to noradtracksanta@outlook.com<\/a>.
\n NORAD has 157 telephone lines and hundreds of volunteers ready to answer calls, including first lady Michelle Obama, who takes a break from her Hawaii vacation to take forwarded calls.
\n NORAD also created a website, www.noradsanta.org; a Facebook page, www.facebook.com\/noradsanta; and a Twitter account @NoradSanta for the program.
\n The sites include games, movies and music. \u201cSantacams\u201d stream videos from various locations.
\n How did NORA get involved?
\n A 1955 newspaper advertisement for Sears Roebuck and Co. listed a phone number for \u201ckiddies\u201d to call Santa Claus but got it wrong.
\n The number was for a crisis phone at Air Operations Center at Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD\u2019s predecessor, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
\n Air Force Col. Harry Shoup took a call from a child and thought he was being pranked. When he figured out he was talking to a little boy, he pretended he was Santa.
\n More children called. Shoop eventually instructed airmen answering the phone to offer Santa\u2019s radar location as he crossed the globe.
\n That sparked the tradition that is heading into its 60th year.
\n Associated Press<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Obama was expected to volunteer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[120,1753,598,2678],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado","tag-holiday-or-vacation","tag-public-holiday","tag-religious-festival-or-holiday"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107489"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}