The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is usually a pretty serious organization. It is that group that is tasked with watching overall global orbital and sub- orbital movement and determining what is a threat to North American security. Put another way, they are tasked with tracking incoming ICBMs, alerting other gov't agencies and plotting where said ICBMs are targeted. As I said, a pretty serious organization..... mostly.
As the story goes, Sears put an advertisement in a local Colorado newspaper offering children a chance to call and talk to Santa. Someone made a mistake though and the telephone number published was actually for NORAD. So as not to disappoint the children, a Col. Harry Shoup told them where Santa was on his yearly route. Somehow or other this because a yearly tradition for NORAD and from Christmas Eve 1955 to today, each Christmas Eve, NORAD reports the position of Santa publicly all night long. Now it can be found using Goggle Earth and NORAD's own web site but it is still NORAD organizing and providing the tracking information.
So there you have it- one of the US and Canada's premier military organizations, normally busy protecting us from perhaps the most serious of all threats, takes the time to provide us with yet another critical service- tracking Santa Claus.
Merry Christmas everybody.
Brian
