United States military why track Santa? This is a beautiful mistake

60 years ago, Colorado Springs Sears published a call to Santa Claus ad. An error has occurred in the commercial, they became Sears department store Santa hotline printed United States continental air defense command on the phone.

On Christmas Eve 1955, Hali·suopu (Harry Shoup) Colonel received the children's phone, they are asked to talk with Santa. Thorpe was served in air defense command's operations, has now changed its name to the Joint North American Aerospace Defense command (NORAD), so the phone is bound to surprise him.

However, he did not directly tell the children they dialed the wrong number. Instead, he told them that he was not Santa Claus, but you can still track Santa on radar. So, Thorpe and his team is on the phone all night, to children to report the whereabouts of Santa Claus and his reindeer.

A tradition was born. North American air defence NORAD Santa tracking hot lines every year thereafter. Last year, there were hundreds of volunteers to answer from 234 countries or regions, 135,000 calls, which also included many of the headquarters staff, as well as United States first lady Michelle Obama (Michelle Obama). Each volunteer to answer 40 calls per hour on average.

Initial call center was built by AT&T, the company was already the Joint North American Aerospace Defense command's telecommunications provider. AT&T was later spun off Lucent, Lucent spun off Avaya--the company helps the command handling of massive telephone on Christmas Eve.

"Santa Tracker uses the same technology as the Government mission-critical system. "Avaya Government solutions Director sushan·kaisi (Susan Keys) said," of course, today's much more advanced technology than it was 60 years ago. ”

Currently the Joint North American Aerospace Defense command also operates a Web site and social media traffic, reporting to children Santa's whereabouts. This year they also partner with Microsoft for Edge browsers have developed special Christmas coloring book.

The command to tell the kids, they will use advanced technology to track Santa Claus from around the world. "We are a series of defence satellite accurate positioning using infrared tracking to Rudolph's nose gives off heat signal. "In promotional materials, the Joint North American Aerospace Defense command," said ground radar tracking stations can send the latest global positioning data of the top fighter pilots, they often will escort Santa's sleigh in the bad weather. ”