EFN

NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) is back this year to help boys and girls – and of course their eager parents – figure out where in the world Santa is during Christmas eve.

Kids and their parents can get online and track Santa the high-tech way by visiting www.noradsanta.org, watching the television for periodic updates, or simply calling NORAD. Tracking him online is enjoyable and live, showing where Santa has already been and where he is heading next.

NORAD (and its predecessor CONAD) has been around for over fifty years. Starting out as a mistakenly misprinted phone number in a Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement, people have called NORAD in an attempt to find out where Santa is at any given moment. They track Santa with four various radars so that no detail is missed. The North Warning System (with 47 different radars) begins the process, in which men and women watch for when Santa leaves the North Pole. Satellites then watch for Rudolph’s bright infra-red nose, followed by the Santa Cam network in which digital cameras take pictures of Santa and his reindeer. Finally, fighter pilots in the United States and Canada welcome Santa and his team into North America.