(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Air Force sky watchers in Colorado will track the flight of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and plot the flight of his reindeer on online at noradsanta.org.
It's a tradition that dates back to 1955 when a child mistakenly dialed the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, instead of a phone number published in a newspaper holiday promotion.
The commander on duty, realizing the call was an honest mistake, “assured the youngster that CONAD would guarantee Santa a safe journey from the North Pole,” according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. NORAD took up the holiday tradition when it was organized in 1958 and it has continued ever since.
The Santa tracker typically receives 15 million unique visitors from around the globe, NORAD said, while volunteers staff a Christmas Eve telephone hot-line at 1 877 HI-NORAD (1 877 446-6723) that receives more than 130,000 calls annually.
To contact the reporter on this story: Vincent Del Giudice in Denver at vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kristy Scheuble at kmckeaney@bloomberg.net, Joshua Robinson
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