Volunteers at the North American Aerospace Defense Command will once again be tracking Santa during his Christmas Eve journey on Sunday night.
NORAD Captain Chase McFarland says the command started tracking Santa due to an unsuspecting phone call.
“It all started in 1955 when a young boy accidentally dialed one of our unlisted phone numbers to an operations center in Colorado Springs,” McFarland said. “The boy was actually trying to call Santa to tell him what he wanted for Christmas.”
Sixty years later, 1,500 volunteers are now answering phone calls on Christmas Eve from kids from NORAD’s Operations Center. Families can now also interact with Santa’s journey online (NORADSanta.org) and on social media, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
McFarland says each year is different because Santa takes a different route.
“He always travel east to west, but the route he goes is a surprise even to us,” he said.
The entire experience can also be educational. If kids follow Santa’s journey online, they will learn things about some of the countries Santa travels through.
When NORAD is not tracking Santa, it is in charge of ensuring air sovereignty and defense of the airspace of both the United States and Canada.
