Norad tracking Santa's travels

Radars, satellites, cameras and jet fighters normally dedicated to detecting any threats against the US and Canada were being used today to “track” Santa Claus in his global Christmas Eve travels.

On the 50th anniversary of a tradition that began with a typographical error in a newspaper advert, soldiers at the North American Aerospace Defence Command, or Norad, in Colorado Springs said that by about 1500 GMT, Santa had been spotted near Fuji, Japan, travelling about 100 times faster than the 185mph Bullet Train.

Last year, the tracking website http://www.noradsanta.org received 912 million hits from 181 countries, and the Santa Tracking Operations Centre answered nearly 55,000 phone calls on Christmas Eve.

According to Norad lore, the tradition began in 1955 when Sears-Roebuck placed an advert in The Gazette in Colorado Springs telling children to dial a number if they wanted to talk to Santa.

But the number was one digit off. When the first call came in to Norad’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defence Command, Colonel Harry Shoup told an eager child he would check the radars for Santa.

The website is available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.

It tells Santa-watchers that Norad uses a powerful radar system with 47 installations, satellites that normally watch for missile launches, a network of special “Santa cams” and pilots of the Canadian Air Force, a partner in Norad, and the US Air Force scramble to escort Santa while he is in their respective countries.