Hatrack River Forum: NORAD tracks Santa

This is topic NORAD tracks Santa in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

In case you haven't seen it, I thought I'd link. [Smile]

Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :

Amazing--how can radar track something moving faster than the speed of light?

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Read their FAQs. [Wink]

Posted by St. Yogi (Member # 5974) on :

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081224/ap_on_re_us/tracking_santa;_ylt=AklodVl2xsFD56Q1wEEGmgas0NUE

quote:
NORAD's holiday tradition can by traced to 1955, when a Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears, Roebuck & Co. ad telling children of a phone number to talk to Santa. The number was one digit off, and the first child to get through reached the Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD's predecessor.

Col. Harry W. Shoup answered.

Shoup's daughter, Terri Van Keuren, said her dad, now 91, was surprised to hear that the little voice on the other end thought he was Santa.

"Dad thought, `What the heck? This must be some kind of code,'" said Van Keuren, 59.

Shoup, described by his daughter as "just a nut about Christmas," didn't want to break the boy's heart, so he sounded a booming "Ho, ho, ho!" and pretended to be Santa Claus.

Enough calls followed that Shoup assigned an officer to answer them while the problem was fixed. But Shoup and the staff he was directing to "locate" Santa on radar ended up embracing the idea. NORAD picked up the tradition when it was formed 50 years ago.