In early December 1955, the cellphone rang at an air base in Colorado Springs. The officers on the watch flooring of the Continental Air Protection Command (CONAD) – who had been defending the skies above the US and Canada – stiffened.
The Chilly Conflict was in full swing and tensions had been operating excessive.
The command’s director of operations Colonel Harry Shoup answered the decision. On the opposite finish was a toddler’s voice asking: “Is this Santa Claus?”
In accordance with the colonel’s daughter Terri Van Keuren, now 75, her father initially thought it was a prank, and replied: “I’m the commander of the Combat Alert Center. Who’s this?”
In response, the kid began crying and requested if he was one in every of “Santa’s helpers”.
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Colonel Harry Shoup. Pic: David Bedard
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Terri van Keuren was six years previous when her father started the Santa Tracker custom
The colonel then determined to play alongside, replying that he was certainly Santa Claus and mustering a convincing “ho-ho-ho”.
This shock name began the almost 70-year custom of the Santa Tracker, which permits youngsters world wide to trace the whereabouts of Father Christmas by way of a livestream and a cellphone line answered by volunteers.
It’s now run by CONAD’s successor, the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).
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The NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Middle on Peterson House Drive Base, Colorado, on Christmas Eve 2022. Pic: Division of Protection/Chuck Marsh
However how did a toddler seemingly get the cellphone variety of a colonel within the US air power?
“They had printed one digit wrong in the phone number. And it was dad’s top secret number.”
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Youngsters can use a livestream to trace Father Christmas as he delivers his presents. Pic: NORAD DVIDS
Colonel Shoup referred to as the cellphone firm and requested for a brand new quantity for his workplace.
In the meantime, the cellphone at CONAD was “ringing off the hook” and Colonel Shoup informed his workers they had been to reply the calls as Santa Claus.
Within the story informed by Terri, on 24 December that yr her dad and mom arrived on the base to ship cookies to these on obligation, and located the army institution unusually festive.
An image of a sleigh had been drawn by a map author on plexiglass – which was used to mark the place unidentified flying objects had been situated.
“Next thing they knew, dad was calling the radio station. ‘This is Colonel Shoup, the commander of the Combat Alert Center in Colorado Springs. And we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh’,” says Terri.
Terri, who lives in Fort Rock, Colorado, was six years previous when her father turned the “Santa Colonel”. She says the NORAD Santa Tracker, which reaches tens of millions of youngsters world wide yearly, is his “legacy”.
NORAD’s monitoring of Santa is a army operation in itself starting on 1 December.
“We have about a thousand people come together to set up the operations centre that is used to track Santa and that allows anyone to call in to check on his whereabouts”.
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Pic: Charles Marsh
Volunteers are answerable for answering calls from tens of hundreds of youngsters world wide. In 2022, 78,000 calls had been answered at Peterson House Drive Base.
For 10 years Terri was one in every of these volunteers. “I always wore a t-shirt that had a picture of my dad. It says: ‘My dad’s the Santa Colonel’.”
What’s subsequent for the Santa Tracker? Terri says her father’s festive story is so well-known she’s “had several requests to make a movie out of it”.
