PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – In honor of the 52nd season of NORAD tracking Santa Claus on his annual journey around the world, the bi-national command tasked with providing aerospace security for North America announces that the NORAD Tracks Santa Web site www.noradsanta.org is live effective today, according to NORAD officials.
“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.
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 emails from children around the world.
The Web site features the history of the program, information on how NORAD tracks Santa and interactive games. On December 24, beginning at 2:00 a.m. Mountain Standard Time (4 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, 9 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time), 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.
The NORAD Tracks Santa Web site and program would not be possible without the support and generosity of the following corporate partners:
- Google
- Booz Allen Hamilton
- Analytical Graphics, Inc
- Verizon
- Official Santa Mail
- Globelink Language and Cultural Services, Inc.
- Avaya
- Qwest
- Plantronics
- First Choice Awards and Gifts
- Meshbox
- e-frontier
- The North Pole
For more information, please contact NORAD Public Affairs at (719) 554-3525/4072/6889.