NORAD Tracks Santa

NORAD Tracks Santa
The emblem of NORAD Tracks Santa.

NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed entertainment program, which has existed since 1955,[1] produced under the auspices of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Every year on Christmas Eve, "NORAD Tracks Santa" purports to follow Santa Claus as he leaves the North Pole and delivers presents to children around the world.

The program is in the tradition of the September 1897 editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" in the New York Sun.[2]

Contents

History and overview

1955 Sears ad with the misprinted telephone number that led to the NORAD Tracks Santa Program
This publicity picture for NORAD Tracks Santa shows two Northeastern Air Defense Sector members with radar equipment in December 2008.
This publicity picture shows two members of Canadian Forces with radar screens.

The program began on December 24, 1955 when a Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper which told children that they could telephone Santa Claus and included a number for them to call. However, the telephone number printed was incorrect and calls instead came through to Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Shoup, who was on duty that night, told his staff to give all children that called in a "current location" for Santa Claus. A tradition began which continued when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) replaced CONAD in 1958.[3][non-primary source needed]

NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible.[4] Each volunteer handles about forty telephone calls per hour, and the team typically handles more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 70,000 telephone calls from more than two hundred countries and territories. Most of these contacts happen during the twenty-five hours from 2 a.m. on December 24 until 3 a.m. MST on December 25.[3][4] Google Analytics has been in use since December 2007 to analyze traffic at the NORAD Tracks Santa website. As a result of this analysis information, the program can project and scale volunteer staffing, telephone equipment, and computer equipment needs for Christmas Eve.[5]

By December 25, 2009, the NORAD Tracks Santa program had 27,440 Twitter followers and the Facebook page had more than 410,700 fans.[6]

Website and other media

The NORAD Tracks Santa program has always made use of a variety of media. From the 1950s to 1996, these were the telephone hotline, newspapers, radio, phonograph records and television. Many television newscasts in North America feature NORAD Tracks Santa as part of their weather updates on Christmas Eve.

From 1997 to the present, the program has had a highly publicized internet presence. As mobile media and social media have become popular and widespread as methods of direct communication, these newer media have also been embraced by the program.[7][8] The layout of the NORAD Tracks Santa website and its webpages have changed from 1997 to the present due to changes in internet technologies, and changes in partners and sponsors for a particular year.

Between 2004 and 2009, people who visited the NORAD Tracks Santa site were told they could "track" Santa in Google Earth.[9] They were given a link to download Google Earth, and then a KMZ file to download. Since 2009, the tracking in Google Earth has been done from the NORAD Santa site, and there is no KMZ file for Google Earth anymore.[10]

From mid-January until November 30, when one arrives at the NORAD Tracks Santa website, one is greeted with a message to come back on 1 December to "track Santa with NORAD". During December, one finds a NORAD Tracks Santa website with all the features available. On Christmas Eve, the NORAD Tracks Santa website videos page is generally updated each hour, when it is midnight in a different time zone. The "Santa Cam" videos show CGI images of Santa Claus flying over famous landmarks. Each video is accompanied by a voice-over, typically done by NORAD personnel, giving a few facts about the city or country depicted.[11] Celebrity voice-overs have also been used over the years. For the London "Santa Cam" video, English television personality and celebrity Jonathan Ross did the voice-over for 2005 to 2007 and the former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr narrated the same video in 2003 and 2004.[12][13] In 2002, Aaron Carter provided the voice-over for three videos.[14]

The locations and landmarks depicted in some of the "Santa Cam" videos have changed over the years. In 2009, twenty-nine "Santa Cam" videos were posted on the website. In previous years, twenty-four to twenty-six videos had been posted.

Sponsorship and publicity

NORAD Tracks Santa relies on corporate sponsorship, and is not financed by American and Canadian taxpayers.[15][16][17]

U.S. military units that have provided publicity for the program include the Northeast Air Defense Sector of the New York Air National Guard and the U.S. Naval Reserve Navy Information Bureau (NIB) 1118 at Fort Carson, Colorado.[18][19] Other U.S. federal agencies, such as NASA and NOAA, have helped publicize the service,[20][21][22][23][24] as have the Canadian Forces.[25][26]

According to Gerry Bowler, a history professor at the University of Manitoba, the NORAD Tracks Santa program and the various Santa Tracking efforts are "one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old Santa Claus story that have stuck." Bowler stated that the program "takes an essential element of the Santa Claus story — his travels on Christmas Eve — and looks at it through a technological lens," therefore bringing the Santa Claus mythology into the modern era.[27]

References

  1. ^ http://www.noradsanta.org/en/whytrack.html
  2. ^ "Is There a Santa Claus?, Dec 1999 by NORAD Tracks Santa". NORAD. http://tobey.com/santa/english/istheresanta.html. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  3. ^ a b "North American Aerospace Defense Command - NORAD Tracks Santa". NORAD. http://www.norad.mil/about/Santa.html. Retrieved 2009-12-26. 
  4. ^ a b "Behind the scenes: NORAD's Santa tracker for Thur, Dec 24, 2009 By Daniel Terdiman, CNET". CNN. December 24, 2009. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/24/cnet.norad.santa.tracker/. Retrieved 2009-12-26. 
  5. ^ "Santa Tracking with NORAD and Google Analytics, December 9, 2008". Google. http://analytics.blogspot.com/2008/12/norads-santa-tracking-website.html. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  6. ^ "NORAD Tracks Santa, Dec 29, 2009 by NORAD Public Affairs". NORAD. http://www.norad.mil/News/2009/122909.html. Retrieved 2009-12-29. 
  7. ^ "NORAD Deploys Network For Watching Santa, December 24, 2009 by Curt Franklin". Network Computing. http://www.networkcomputing.com/security/norad-deploys-network-for-watching-santa.php. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  8. ^ "5 Levels of Effective Communication in the Social Media Age, February 8, 2010 by Soren Gordhamer". Mashable. http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/communication-social-media/. Retrieved 2010-02-10. 
  9. ^ http://www.noradsanta.org/en/track3d.html
  10. ^ http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2009/12/this-year-santa-is-totally-plugged-in.html
  11. ^ "From NORAD Santa Tracker To Twitter: Santa Tracking For Christmas Eve 2009, Dec 23, 2009, Danny Sullivan". Search Engine Land. http://searchengineland.com/santa-tracking-for-christmas-eve-2009-32427. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  12. ^ "'Starr' helps NORAD track Santa, Dec 2, 2003 by Michael Phillips, US Air Force Press Releases". US Air Force. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_prfr/is_200312/ai_2198668072/. Retrieved 2009-12-31. [dead link]
  13. ^ "NORAD Missile Agency Tracks Santa By Satellite, December 24, 2007". Sky News. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20080641298341. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  14. ^ "Aaron Carter Named NORAD's Honorary Santa Tracker, November 25, 2002 by Yahoo Music". Yahoo News. http://new.music.yahoo.com/aaron-carter/news/aaron-carter-named-norads-honorary-santa-tracker--12059763. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  15. ^ "Santa Trackers.Org, Dec 2000 by John B. Dendy, Airman Magazine - US Air Force". US Air Force. 2000. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBP/is_12_44/ai_68507673/. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  16. ^ "Behind the scenes: NORAD's Santa tracker for Thur, Dec 21, 2009 By Daniel Terdiman, CNET". CNET. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10418101-52.html. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  17. ^ "NORAD will track Santa's trip, Dec 24, 2007, by Tom Roeder, The Gazette (Colorado Springs)". The Gazette (Colorado Springs). http://www.gazette.com/news/santa-31212-command-tracking.html. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  18. ^ "New York Guardsmen Lend Help to Track Santa's Flight Path: Air Guard's Northeast Air Defense Sector provide support for NORAD's annual Christmas Eve mission, Dec 22, 2007, by Brooke Davis - NEADS Public Affairs". NEADS Public Affairs. http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/news/news.php?id=1207921850. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  19. ^ "Naval Reservists Support NORAD’s Annual Tracks Santa Project, Dec 24, 2002, by Ensign Eric Brian and Journalist 2nd Class Darin Arnold, Naval Reserve Navy Information Bureau 1118, Fort Carson". US Navy. http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=5201. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  20. ^ "NOAA to Aid NORAD in Tracking Santa Claus, December 18, 2000". NOAA. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=3379. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  21. ^ "NASA to Track Santa, December 20, 2002, Release 02-254". NASA. http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=4004. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  22. ^ "NASA's KSC Providing Assistance to Santa on Christmas Eve, December 21, 2006, Release 74-06". NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/news/releases/2006/release-20061221b_prt.htm. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  23. ^ "NORAD Tracks Santa Update, December 19, 2008". NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/norad_santa.html. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  24. ^ "NORAD and NASA Help Santa Claus Deliver Toys to Children, December 23, 2006, by William Atkins". iTWire. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/8268/1066/. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  25. ^ "NORAD getting ready to track Santa, December 12, 2007 by A/SLt David Lavallee". The Maple Leaf. http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/Commun/ml-fe/article-eng.asp?id=3985. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  26. ^ "Land force ready to help too, December 12, 2007 by Lt Alexandre Munoz". The Maple Leaf. http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/Commun/ml-fe/article-eng.asp?id=3987. Retrieved 2009-12-31. 
  27. ^ Elliott, Dan (December 24, 2010). "Secret Santa helper: First lady pitches in with NORAD". Associated Press via MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40803123/ns/us_news-life/. Retrieved May 30, 2011. 

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