Santa Claus is comin’ — on radar

He made his list, he checked it twice, and now Santa’s flying around the world to deliver gifts to all the children who’ve been nice. Thanks to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), anyone can track him on noradsanta.org.

CONAD (NORAD’s predecessor) started tracking Santa in 1955, when a Colorado Springs newspaper misprinted the number for a Santa hotline. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations at CONAD, started getting a lot of calls for Santa. Shoup, not wanting to let the children down, instructed his staff to give updates on Santa’s location to callers. Instead of having the misprinted ad removed, NORAD offered to keep tracking Santa for the children.

Since then, the tradition has evolved. Two years ago Google started contributing to the project, using NORAD’s data to create 2D Google Map and 3D Google Earth representations of Santa’s whereabouts. The progress and video of Santa’s flight can be tracked at noradsanta.org, via cell phone at m.noradsanta.org, or in 3D on Google Earth. You can also e-mail [email protected] for an update on Santa’s location.