Newspaper typo brought out the human touch at U.S. radar center
Published 4:00 pm Sunday, December 23, 2007
The North American Aerospace Defense Command – NORAD – will track the annual journey of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve as it continues a tradition born more than 50 years ago.
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Kids of all ages can see Santa’s progress around the world by visiting the NORAD Track’s Santa Web site at (www.noradsanta.org)
“The NTS program began in 1955 when an errant phone call was made to NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo,” said Michael Perini, NORAD director of public affairs. “The call was from a local child who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement,” Perini said.
Although the wrong number, the commander who answered the phone that night gave the youngster the information he requested … thus the tradition of NORAD tracking Santa began.
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The program has grown immensely since it was first presented on the Internet in 1998. “In 2006, the Web site received a whopping 941 million hits from 210 countries and territories,” Perini said. In addition, the NTS Operations Center, occupied by 756 volunteers on Christmas Eve, answered nearly 65,000 phone calls and 96,000 e-mails from children around the world.
The Web site features the history of the program, information on how NORAD tracks Santa and interactive games. Today, the Web site will feature a minute-by-minute update on Santa’s travels around the world. All of this information is available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish.