[Infowarrior] - How NORAD tracks Santa

[Richard Forno]

December 21, 2009 4:00 AM PST
How NORAD keeps track of Santa
by Daniel Terdiman

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10418101-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Last Christmas Eve, Jeff Martin found himself forced to explain to a  
Canadian general why, when Santa Claus passed through Toronto that  
night, Google Maps had placed the city in the United States.
Martin, then a senior marketing manager in Google's Geo group, was  
part of a huge team of people involved in the joint U.S.-Canada North  
American Aerospace Defense Command's annual NORAD Santa tracker  
program, a long-running effort to provide children the world over a  
live view of Santa's progress as he and his reindeer deliver Christmas  
presents.

In 2007, Google signed onto the project as a technology partner, and  
since then, has been incorporating NORAD's data on Santa's whereabouts  
into special 2D Google Maps and 3D Google Earth representations.

And that's where the trouble began.

Inexplicably, as Santa made his way through Toronto that night last  
year, the mapping software began identifying the city as being in the  
United States. Instantly, NORAD Santa's dedicated Gmail account "just  
lit up" with messages from irate Canadians, Martin said, and quickly,  
the Google team fixed the problem.

But not before Martin's run-in with Canadian Lt. Gen. Marcel Duval.  
"He said, 'I understand that you have a new American city,'" Martin  
recalled. "It was a slightly tense moment for me, standing in front of  
a three-star general explaining to him why one of his cities had been  
designated as a United States city."

Is this Santa Claus
All joking aside, NORAD has been taking its Santa tracking project  
seriously for decades. But it actually began in 1955 with a wrong  
number.

One morning that December, U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the  
director of operations at CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command-- 
NORAD's predecessor--got a phone call at his Colorado Springs, Colo.,  
office (see video below). This was no laughing matter. The call had  
come in on one of the top secret lines inside CONAD that only rang in  
the case of a crisis.

Grabbing the phone, Shoup must have expected the worst. Instead, a  
tiny voice asked, "Is this Santa Claus?"

"Dad's pretty annoyed," said Terri Van Keuren, Shoup's daughter,  
recalling the legend of that day in 1955. "He barks into the phone,"  
demanding to know who's calling.

"The little voice is now crying," Van Keuren continued. "'Is this one  
of Santa's elves, then?'"

The Santa questions were only beginning. That day, the local newspaper  
had run a Sears Roebuck ad with a big picture of St. Nick and text  
that urged, "Hey, Kiddies! Call me direct...Call me on my private  
phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night."

But the phone number in the ad was off by a digit. Instead of  
connecting with Santa, callers were dialing in on the line that would  
ring if the Russians were attacking.

Before long, the phone was ringing off the hook, and softening up,  
Shoup grabbed a nearby airman and told him to answer the calls and,  
Van Keuren said, "'just pretend you're Santa.'"

Indeed, rather than having the newspaper pull the Sears ad, Shoup  
decided to offer the countless kids calling in something useful:  
information about Santa's progress from the North Pole. To quote the  
official NORAD Santa site, "a tradition was born."

 From that point on, first CONAD and then, in 1958, when NORAD was  
formed, Shoup's organization offered annual Santa tracking as a  
service to the global community. A phone number was publicized and  
anyone was invited to call up, especially on December 24, and find out  
where Santa was. Manning those phones over the years have been  
countless numbers of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel  
and their families, and for many people, turning to NORAD to find out  
where Santa is became something to look forward to each year.
Phones and e-mail


These days, of course, a single red phone isn't enough to handle the  
demand for the information. In fact, said Joyce Frankovis, the public  
affairs specialist who runs the Santa tracking program for NORAD these  
days, there were fully 1,275 people involved in the project in 2008,  
and there would have been more had there been more room for them.

Frankovis explained that most of those people are volunteers who come  
in to NORAD's Colorado Springs headquarters on Christmas Eve to answer  
phone calls and emails. And it's a good thing there's so many, she  
said, because "Literally, when a volunteer puts the phone down after  
they get done with a call, it's ringing again."

All told, she said that each volunteer handles about 39 calls per hour  
and that in 2008, the team used 100 phones and 25 computers to handle  
69,845 calls and 6,086 e-mails from more than 200 countries. Most of  
those contacts happened during the 25 hours from 2 a.m. on December 24  
through 3 a.m. on Christmas that the operations center (see video  
below) is up and running.

Most people, Frankovis said, just want to know where Santa is. And so  
the volunteer answering the question will look up at the big screen on  
the wall at the operations center and see where, on the map that is  
integrating geographical information from NORAD with Google's mapping  
service, Santa is at that moment.
"NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa--radar, satellites,  
Santa Cams and fighter jets," reads the NORAD Santa Web site.  
"Tracking Santa starts with the NORAD radar system called the North  
Warning System. This powerful radar system consists of 47  
installations strung across the northern border of North America. On  
Christmas Eve, NORAD monitors the radar systems continuously for  
indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole.

"The moment that radar indicates Santa has lifted off, we use our  
second detection system. Satellites positioned in geo-synchronous  
orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth's surface are equipped with  
infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat. Amazingly,  
Rudolph's bright red nose gives off an infrared signature, which allow  
our satellites to detect Rudolph and Santa.

"The third tracking system is the Santa Cam network. We began using it  
in 1998, which is the year we put our Santa Tracking program on the  
Internet. Santa Cams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital  
cameras that are pre-positioned at many locations around the world.  
NORAD only uses these cameras once a year on Christmas Eve. The  
cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they  
make their journey around the world.

"The fourth system is made up of fighter jets. Canadian NORAD fighter  
pilots flying the CF-18 intercept and welcome Santa to North America.  
In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15  
or the F-16 get the thrill of flying alongside Santa and his famous  
reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner,  
Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph."

Still, despite all that, "Santa is hard to track," said Frankovis. "We  
actually never know which route Santa's going to take. So it's just a  
matter of using that high-tech equipment to track him."

Technology is also playing an increasing role in how NORAD publicizes  
the program. Frankovis said that after taking over the project earlier  
this year when her predecessor retired, she decided to begin using a  
much wider collection of social and online media for promotion. As a  
result, the NORAD Santa tracker now has presences on Facebook,  
Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and TroopTube.

Google's Martin said that his company--which, like all the corporate  
partners in the program, offers its assistance at no cost to  
taxpayers--has dozens of people working on helping to track Santa.  
Those people provide technical consulting and server provisioning for  
the NORAD Santa Web site, as well as helping put together YouTube  
videos, information for Google Maps and Google Earth and, soon, a new  
service that will allow people to use their mobile phones to track  
Santa on Christmas Eve.

All told, Martin said, the Web site had 8 million unique users in  
2008, who visited the site 15 million times, accumulating tens of  
millions of page views and more than 10 million map views. Those  
numbers were up about 45 percent from 2007, he added.

Martin also said Google helps out by providing and monitoring a Gmail  
account for the program. And it was there that one of the best  
messages he can remember came in just a few days ago.

"I have been good," a girl named Stephanie wrote to Santa. "But my  
brother Christopher is mean to me. Take him and leave the presents,  
please!"

Martin said that, clearly, many of the kids who send emails think  
they're reaching out directly to Santa. "We'll write back and say  
we've forwarded their message to Santa at the North Pole, who's  
preparing for Christmas Eve."

Of course, not everyone believes in Santa. Frankovis said that some  
callers--especially towards the later part of Christmas Eve when maybe  
a little bit too much egg nog or a Canadian grog called Moose Milk has  
been drunk--dial in to have a little bit of fun.

But for those who question whether there really is a Santa at all,  
Frankovis said the volunteers answering the phone have a simple  
answer: "'We believe, based on historical data and 51 years of NORAD  
tracking information, that Santa Claus is alive and well in the hearts  
of people throughout the world."

Col. Shoup and the e-mails
Last March, Shoup died, said Van Keuren. But in the years before his  
death, she and her family would take the retired colonel back to  
Colorado Springs each year for the Santa tracker training. "They would  
introduce him and he would say a few words," Van Keuren said. "So that  
was a big thrill for him."

In his later years, Shoup "was not as sharp as he used to be," she  
said. But his days overseeing the Santa tracker program were still  
near and dear to his heart. She said the NORAD folks had printed out a  
sheaf of emails kids had written in and gave them to Shoup as a  
reminder of what he'd started back in 1955.

"For the last weeks of his life, he carried them around in his  
briefcase like they were top secret papers," Van Keuren said. "Those  
were just precious to him. I'd read them to him over and over."


Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net  
culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel.