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NORAD's Amazing 60-Year Santa Tracking History (networkworld.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the checking-it-twice dept.

coondoggie writes: The National Archive blog takes a look at the background of the nation's premier defense unit's 60 years of tracking of Santa as he travels around the globe delivering his Christmas goodies. Colonel Harry Shoup began the tradition in 1955, after receiving a phone call from a child expecting to reach Santa Claus. The misdirected call was the result of the child reversing two numbers of a Santa Line phone number printed in a Sears advertisement, according to the National Archives.

5 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Santa tracks YOU! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    In this world of smart phones, supercookies, browser fingerprinting, unwarranted wiretap, NSL, mass surveillance, and encryption backdoors, I can only say this:

    In post-soviet World, Santa tracks YOU!

    Obey, good citizen!

  2. Re:I don't think I'm worse for believing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    elf slave

    Arctican-American, please.

  3. Have they caught him already? by houghi · · Score: 3, Funny

    He is going in and out of the country without any papers. They are able to track him.
    To me it is clear that they are just a waste of money. If they can not stop a single person on a sledge, how do they think they can stop bombs coming in from the Soviet Union.

    And to people telling he is no danger: he is clearly devastating for the US toy industry as the majority he brings in is made by underpaid elves in (as indicate don the toys) in China.
    The reason nothing is done is because he favors the rich more than the poor and those are the people in charge.

    Wake up sheeple!

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  4. Shoot it down. by eltwo · · Score: 3, Funny

    60 Years and NORAD still hasn't been able to direct a missile to shoot down this object!!

    1. Re:Shoot it down. by plover · · Score: 4, Funny

      They did. They shot him down back in '58, and as part of a massive cover-up, Eisenhower wrote out a secret directive ordering parents to 'play Santa' and wrap gifts for their kids.

      Gotta go, it sounds like someone's whispering outside and making helicopter noises, so I ought to check on it.

      --
      John