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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, that's normally something you would expect to hear

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Speaker 1: me say on a Saturday. Today is not Saturday, but

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Speaker 1: it is Christmas Eve, and we thought as a special

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Speaker 1: Christmas Eve treat, we would replay our previous episode on

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Speaker 1: how exactly NORAD got into the habit of tracking Santa Claus. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you or folks you're listening with, are planning to

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Speaker 1: spend this evening eagerly tracking Santa Claus on that tracker,

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Speaker 1: you might leave this episode for later. Everybody else, though,

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Speaker 1: enjoy Welcome to stuff you missed in history class the

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm

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Speaker 1: Holly Fry. Hey, Merry Christmas to listeners who are celebrating indeed,

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Speaker 1: or I mean, if you aren't celebrating, you just want

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Speaker 1: to be wished Merry Christmas. Today's episode is coming out

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Speaker 1: on December twenty, so it seems like a good time

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Speaker 1: to talk about a very Christmas related listener request, which

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Speaker 1: is how the North American Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD

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Speaker 1: started tracking Santa Claus on Christmas Eve every year. This

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Speaker 1: is something that we've gotten several requests for including from

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Speaker 1: Elaine and Tori, And at one point last year or

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Speaker 1: the year before, I asked on our Facebook page for

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Speaker 1: people to suggest holiday ideas and somebody suggested this one,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of people were like, I would like

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Speaker 1: that please. M mmmm. So here we are. So this

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Speaker 1: whole story that circulates about how Norad started tracking Santa

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Speaker 1: is pretty heartwarming, but it doesn't a hold up. So

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Speaker 1: there's a little bit of myth busting here and maybe

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Speaker 1: just the tiniest, tiniest bit of bo humbug, just a

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Speaker 1: little what you're telling me. It didn't start with Jack

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Speaker 1: Skellington and his attempt to take over Christmas. No, but

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Speaker 1: that would be uh, I didn't line, did that make sense?

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Speaker 1: He was a threat. They had to start watching him,

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Speaker 1: and then they were like, let's do it every year.

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Speaker 1: That's my version. I like your version. So a note

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Speaker 1: to parents on this one. If your kids eagerly awaited

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Speaker 1: St Nick's arrival this year, then today's show is probably

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Speaker 1: a little bit more mature and candid than they'll really enjoy,

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Speaker 1: So we would recommend saving it for later or giving

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Speaker 1: it an advanced listen on your own to decide whether

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Speaker 1: your kids would enjoy hearing it before sharing it with them.

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Speaker 1: The story of NORAD's annual Santa Tracking really begins not

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Speaker 1: with Jack Skellington, but with the Cold War. After the

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Speaker 1: end of World War Two, the United States increasingly felt

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Speaker 1: the need to prepare a defense against a potential Soviet attack.

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Speaker 1: Lots of different projects and programs were related to this

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Speaker 1: basic idea, but when it comes to NORAD, the worry

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Speaker 1: was of a direct attack by Soviet bombers reaching US soil.

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Speaker 1: That meant that the nation was looking for a way

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Speaker 1: to detect such an attack when it was still far

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Speaker 1: enough away to intercept before anyone came to harm. At first,

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Speaker 1: this task fell to the Air Defense Command, which divided

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Speaker 1: the responsibility up among different Air Force commands around the country.

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Speaker 1: Each command was responsible for protecting a different part of

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Speaker 1: US territory, but by the nineteen fifties, with fears of

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Speaker 1: a Soviet attack continuing to escalate, the United States created

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Speaker 1: a unified command to oversee protection of the entire nation.

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Speaker 1: This was the Continental Air Defense Command or CONNAD. KANAD

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Speaker 1: was a multi service command combining the Army, Navy, and

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Speaker 1: Air Force, but the Air Force still did a lot

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Speaker 1: of the heavy lifting. Conad's efforts combined long range radar

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Speaker 1: systems which would provide advanced notice of an incoming attack,

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Speaker 1: with aircraft capable of intercepting that attack once it was detected.

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Speaker 1: So it was basically like a trip wire made out

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Speaker 1: of radar, and if anything tripped the wire, the air

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Speaker 1: force could respond quickly and aggressively. Eventually, the United States

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Speaker 1: military came to the conclusion that it was not enough

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Speaker 1: to focus just on the United States in this effort,

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Speaker 1: not when there was a neighbor to the north that

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Speaker 1: would almost certainly be flown over in the event of

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Speaker 1: a Soviet attack. Since Canada shared the United States fears

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Speaker 1: about the possibility of such an attack, it made a

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Speaker 1: lot of sense for the two nations to work together.

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Speaker 1: The US and Canada had been at least to some extent,

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Speaker 1: sharing domestic defense plans since the nineteen forties. In the fifties,

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Speaker 1: they began signing defense agreements related to expanding this long

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Speaker 1: range radar capability into Canadian territory. This cooperation kept growing

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Speaker 1: until the establishment of NORAD or the North American Air

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Speaker 1: Defense Command, which was the successor to CONNAD, on September twelve.

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Speaker 1: NORAD was initially headquartered at an Air Force base in

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Speaker 1: Colorado Springs, which was home to the US Continental Air

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Speaker 1: Defense Command and the US Air Force Air Defense Command.

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Speaker 1: General Earl Partridge of the U s Air Force, previously

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Speaker 1: commander of both KANNAD and the Air Defense Command, became

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Speaker 1: commander of NORAD, and he was joined by Deputy Commander,

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Speaker 1: Air Marshal Royce Lehman from the Royal Canadian Air Force.

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Speaker 1: Although the treaty allows for the NORAD commander to be

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Speaker 1: Canadian or American, and it's a requirement for the commander

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Speaker 1: and deputy commander to be from different countries, traditionally the

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Speaker 1: commander has been American and the deputy commander has been Canadian.

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Speaker 1: After extensive debate and a fair amount of controversy, the

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Speaker 1: formal treaty that came to be known as the Norad

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Speaker 1: Agreement was signed on Mate twelfth. It provided the framework

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Speaker 1: for how the two countries governments and militaries would cooperate

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Speaker 1: in the realm of air defense. NORAD's headquarters had actually

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Speaker 1: moved a couple of times since it was established. First

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, it moved from end To Air

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Speaker 1: Force Base to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. This

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Speaker 1: is the massive underground complex of buildings constructed under a

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Speaker 1: literal mountain, designed to be able to survive virtually an

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Speaker 1: attack or disaster. This facility has actually made its way

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Speaker 1: into popular culture through depictions like the nineteen eighties three

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Speaker 1: movie War Games, the TV series Stargate, and the fictional

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Speaker 1: Crystal Peak, California in Terminator three, which is very clearly

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Speaker 1: patterned after Cheyenne Mountain, is so very clearly patterned after

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Speaker 1: shy In Mountain that I in the years that have

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Speaker 1: intervened since seeing that movie conflated them in my head,

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Speaker 1: and when working on this podcast was like, oh wait,

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Speaker 1: that was a different place. In two thousand six, nora

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Speaker 1: AD's day to day operations were moved to Peterson Air

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Speaker 1: Force Base in El Passo County near Colorado Springs, with

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Speaker 1: the Cheyenne Mountain Facility continuing to work as nora ads

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Speaker 1: alternative command center. The nora AD Agreement itself has also

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Speaker 1: been reviewed and revised several times since it was originally signed.

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Speaker 1: Since nineteen fifty eight, the agreement has been renewed nine times,

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Speaker 1: including four major revisions which took place in nineteen seventy five,

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Speaker 1: nine six, and two thousand and six. The shift from

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Speaker 1: air defense to aerospace defense as it's known today came

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Speaker 1: along in nine as well. The primary missions of NORAD

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Speaker 1: under the two thousand six renewal are aerospace warning, aerospace control,

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Speaker 1: and maritime warning for all of North America, and there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of different potential threats that are looped

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Speaker 1: into these three primary missions, including attacks by aircraft, missiles

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Speaker 1: or space vehicles, drug trafficking, and other illegal activity carried

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Speaker 1: out by air, and nuclear attacks delivered by strategic ballistic missile,

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Speaker 1: cruise missile, or long range aircraft. The maritime warning component

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Speaker 1: also relates to both nations internal waterways and the maritime

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Speaker 1: approaches to both countries. So after getting through all of this,

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Speaker 1: it may seem a little weird for NORAD, the binational

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Speaker 1: Cold War era entity, once headquartered in a sophisticated bunker

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Speaker 1: complex under an impenetrable mountain, which is responsible for detecting

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Speaker 1: long range threats to North America by air, water, an

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Speaker 1: outer space to track Santa Claus, it does sort of

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Speaker 1: seem like an awful lot after all, At least in

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Speaker 1: terms of international military defense. Santa Claus is not a

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Speaker 1: threat and there's no mention of Santa at all in

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Speaker 1: the Norad agreement. So we're going to talk about how

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Speaker 1: this all came to be after a quick sponsor break.

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Speaker 1: And if somehow you still have very young listeners with

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Speaker 1: you after having gotten through all of that air defense talk, uh,

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Speaker 1: it really might be a good time to find another

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Speaker 1: activity for them. Nora AD's tracking of Santa is often

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Speaker 1: compared to the September editorial in The New York Sun,

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Speaker 1: that is the same paper that published the Great Moon

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Speaker 1: Hoax in eight thirty five. Was editorial ran under the

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Speaker 1: headline is there a Santa Claus? More commonly known today

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Speaker 1: as Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus thanks to

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Speaker 1: its later the printings in children's book form. It started

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Speaker 1: with a letter by Virginia O'Hanlon, daughter of coroner's assistant Dr.

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Speaker 1: Philip O'Hanlon. She had written to The New York Sun

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Speaker 1: earlier that summer quote, Dear editor, I am eight years old.

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Speaker 1: Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus.

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Speaker 1: Papa says, if you see it in the Sun, it's

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Speaker 1: so Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?

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Speaker 1: Virginia had intended for her letter to go into the

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Speaker 1: Sun's Q and A column notes and queries, but it

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Speaker 1: went unanswered. I just need to take a minute to

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Speaker 1: note the irony. Uh, if you see it in the Sun,

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Speaker 1: it's so when the Sun published the Great Moon Hoax,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of beautiful. I mean, did you not know

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Speaker 1: that that was not a hoax? Those those bat people

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Speaker 1: live on the moon. Definitely lunar beavers, that's for sure. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: So young Virginia Handlon anxiously awaited for her letter to

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Speaker 1: be answered. It was not until weeks later when the

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Speaker 1: paper published an editorial response by Francis parcelist Church, and

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Speaker 1: it began, quote, Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They

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Speaker 1: have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.

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Speaker 1: They do not believe except they see. They think that

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Speaker 1: nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.

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Speaker 1: All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little.

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Speaker 1: In this great universe of ours. Man is a mere insect,

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Speaker 1: an aunt in his intellect as compared with the boundless

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Speaker 1: world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of

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Speaker 1: grasping the whole truth of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia.

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Speaker 1: There is a Santa Claus. We won't read the whole

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Speaker 1: thing it goes on, but it ends no Santa Claus.

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Speaker 1: Thank God, he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand

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Speaker 1: years from now, Virginia it named ten times. Ten thousand

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Speaker 1: years from now. He will continue to make glad the

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Speaker 1: heart of childhood. Although this editorial is often remembered as

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Speaker 1: an immediate, instantly beloved success that became an annual tradition

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Speaker 1: right from the beginning, the Sun didn't actually print it

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Speaker 1: again until nineteen o two, and then again in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o six. Between nineteen o seven and nineteen seventeen, it

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Speaker 1: was printed six more times, and The Sun started reprinting

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Speaker 1: it annually in the nineteen twenties. The story of the

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Speaker 1: Yes Virginia article and that of Norad tracking Santa do

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Speaker 1: have some similarities. Both start with an inquisitive child followed

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Speaker 1: by the somewhat surprising response of an adult, which then

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Speaker 1: grows into something that's a ubiquitous part of Christmas for

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Speaker 1: a lot of people. We have a lot more verifiable

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Speaker 1: detail about Yes Virginia than we do about nora AD's

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Speaker 1: tracking of Santa. We know who Virginia was and who

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Speaker 1: her father was. We know who wrote the column and

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Speaker 1: when it was published, although it didn't original carry a byline.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to archived copies of the newspaper itself, we know

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Speaker 1: when it was reprinted and when it wasn't, and we

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Speaker 1: can see the newspaper's attitude about these reprints shift over time,

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Speaker 1: basically moving from well, since you people are asking again,

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Speaker 1: we will print this thing. I guess two. Here is

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Speaker 1: our beloved holiday classic. Please enjoy it in the spirit

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Speaker 1: of Christmas. And by comparison, the Norad story is a sieve.

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Speaker 1: The most popular version goes like this In Sears. Roebuck

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Speaker 1: and Company ran an ad in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph,

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Speaker 1: and that ad read quote, Hey, kitties, call me direct

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Speaker 1: on my Merry x miss telephone. Just dial M E

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Speaker 1: two DASH one. Kitties, be sure and dial the correct number.

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Speaker 1: Call me on my private phone and I will talk

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Speaker 1: to you personally anytime day or night, or come in

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Speaker 1: and visit me at Sears Toyland. And that was signed

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Speaker 1: by Santa Claus. The number actually appears into places. Mary

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Speaker 1: Xmas morphs into M E T one as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Emmy and Mary turn into the first two parts

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Speaker 1: of the first two letters of the exchange for the

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Speaker 1: phone number. So the most popular version of this story

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Speaker 1: is that Emmy to one was a typo connecting callers

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Speaker 1: not to a special Santa Claus call center at SEARS,

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Speaker 1: but to the top secret red phone at CONAD headquarters,

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Speaker 1: the one that was a direct line to the Pentagon,

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Speaker 1: known only to top generals and the President. In this story,

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Speaker 1: when the red phone started ringing off the hook, Conrad

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Speaker 1: staff played along. A number of stories uh and versions

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Speaker 1: of this telling also cite a specific person having answered

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Speaker 1: that phone, Colonel Harry Schaup. Schaup told the story himself

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Speaker 1: in multiple interviews over the years. In an interview that

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Speaker 1: was recorded towards the end of his life, he says

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Speaker 1: that he answered the red phone thinking that it was

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Speaker 1: the Pentagon or Colonel Partridge. When he realized that the

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Speaker 1: collar was not the Pentagon or Colonel Partridge, shout thought

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Speaker 1: that it was someone on his staff playing some kind

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Speaker 1: of prank on him, and he did not appreciate it

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Speaker 1: at all. But then he realized that it was a child,

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Speaker 1: a little girl, trying to reach Santa so he played along.

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Speaker 1: Hearing the child's entire wish list, and the fact their

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Speaker 1: house had a chimney, and her assurances that she would

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Speaker 1: leave food out for Santa and the reindeer. At least

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Speaker 1: in the portion of the interview that's publicly available, he

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Speaker 1: doesn't mention a misprint, and an ad shouts. Adult children

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Speaker 1: told the story a little bit differently in a story

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Speaker 1: Core segment that appeared on Morning edition in Pamela Farrell,

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Speaker 1: Terry Van Curen, and Rick Shout, who would have been

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Speaker 1: about ten six and newly born when this all happened,

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Speaker 1: are in line with their father's version when it comes

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Speaker 1: to his being at first annoyed at this call, but

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Speaker 1: the way they tell it, the call was from a

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Speaker 1: boy whose mother eventually came the line to tell Shoup

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Speaker 1: about the misprinted ad. In the Story Corps version, the

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Speaker 1: misprint meant that the boy's call was one of many,

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Speaker 1: so many that Shoop tasked two airmen with answering the phone.

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Speaker 1: Their Story Corps account goes on to include a moment

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Speaker 1: later that same Christmas season when one of the men

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Speaker 1: at CONAD headquarters had drawn Santa's sleigh on the glass

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Speaker 1: board that was used to track aircraft. Shoup saw it

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Speaker 1: and from that had the idea to tell a radio

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Speaker 1: station that KNAD was tracking Santa on Christmas Eve. The

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Speaker 1: communication with the radio station probably came from Colonel Barney Oldfield,

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Speaker 1: the public relations officer, and not from Shoup directly. There

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Speaker 1: was indeed an Associated Press article on Christmas Eve in

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Speaker 1: which KNAD assured Santa safe passage. The article also someone

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Speaker 1: alarmingly explains that US and Canadian forces would be guarding

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Speaker 1: Santa's flight from potential attack by Christmas haters. It uses

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Speaker 1: almost those words. I don't remember the exact wording that

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Speaker 1: it uses, but it's basically like, we're protecting Santa from

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Speaker 1: the enemies of Christmas using our armaments. I'm gonna go

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Speaker 1: with another Jack Skellington moment here. So it seems pretty

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Speaker 1: likely that there was a child who accidentally called KANNAT

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five, likely trying to dial a number

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Speaker 1: that was in an AD. There was a December one,

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty article in the Pasadena Independent with the date

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Speaker 1: line of Colorado Springs, which reports that a youngster reversed

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Speaker 1: two digits of a number set up to answer queries

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Speaker 1: about Santa and instead reached KANNAD. Colonel Harry Shau is

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Speaker 1: quoted in this piece as having replied to this child quote,

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Speaker 1: there may be a guy called Santa Claus at the

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Speaker 1: north pole, but he's not the one I worry about

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Speaker 1: coming from that direction. I also tried to find evidence

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Speaker 1: that this ad really did run in the Colorado Springs

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Speaker 1: Gazette in nineteen fifty five, but the archive that I

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Speaker 1: had access to only goes back to nineteen sixty, by

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Speaker 1: which point m E two one was the phone number

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Speaker 1: for a Colorado Springs real estate agent. Very listings everyone.

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Speaker 1: But even though there is that likely grain of truth

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Speaker 1: in the starting point, this story has clearly blossomed and

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00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:22,880
Speaker 1: morphed a bit over the years. In the earliest recorded accounts,

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Speaker 1: the child reached an unlisted number, not the Red phone.

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Speaker 1: And since the entire point of the Red Phone was

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Speaker 1: to have a direct, uninterruptible line between Kannad and the Pentagon,

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Speaker 1: it would not have even been connected to a public

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Speaker 1: exchange where someone could dial it by accident. It's also

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Speaker 1: not all that likely that an AD having a phone

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Speaker 1: number in it would contain the same typo in two

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Speaker 1: different places. I mean, I could see some scenarios where

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Speaker 1: that would happen. But it's more conceivable for a child

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Speaker 1: who have fumble fingered the phone number one time than

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Speaker 1: for the number to have been wrong in the ad

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Speaker 1: twice and sparked an avalanche of calls to KNAT. And

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Speaker 1: the they say is of the naysayers suggests that this

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Speaker 1: ad was created and printed by KNAD sometime after ninety

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Speaker 1: to add support to this whole story, or to kind

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Speaker 1: of nod to the whole story that it was not

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Speaker 1: the like the ad. There's a picture of the ad

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Speaker 1: that circulates around. People are like, that's a mocked up ad. Yeah,

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00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:24,679
Speaker 1: it's like a retroactive folkloric proof um. And though we

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Speaker 1: do have the account of Colonel Shop and his grown

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Speaker 1: children based on their childhood memories, so far, there is

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Speaker 1: no record of any person, or certainly any hundreds of

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Speaker 1: people coming forward to say that they accidentally called Kana

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Speaker 1: in attempting to speak with Santa. I want to make

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Speaker 1: it super clear here that I don't think the Shout

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Speaker 1: family was like intentionally making anything up. But when you

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Speaker 1: tell the same story over and over again for forty

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Speaker 1: something years or however long, it gets bigger over time,

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Speaker 1: especially when you're like having to do it in front

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Speaker 1: of an audience. Well, and there's also the telephone factor,

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Speaker 1: by which I mean the game of telephone were like.

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Speaker 1: Because they were children when this all went down, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure that story was also told to them by adults

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Speaker 1: as part of, like you know, the family folklore, and

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Speaker 1: those details probably got slippy along the way. Many things

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Speaker 1: contribute to that. I think we've all had those family

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Speaker 1: stories that are like that seems a little different from

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Speaker 1: the way I heard it twenty years ago, but okay,

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Speaker 1: no harm in there. So, according to NORAD's own account,

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Speaker 1: by the time Norad replaced con Ad, the Santa the

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Speaker 1: Santa tracking was an annual tradition, and we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk more about how that developed and grew after another

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Speaker 1: quick sponsor break. Military efforts to do a little Christmas

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Speaker 1: pr by way of Santa Claus actually go back to

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Speaker 1: before Colonel Shop and the sears Ad. For example, the

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Speaker 1: United States State Department Telegraph Branch distributed a copy of

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Speaker 1: a radio grand that had been purportedly dispatched to Chris

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Speaker 1: Kringle at the North Pole on Christmas Eve of nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty eight. It said, in part quote, your coming mission

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Speaker 1: in connection with Operation Noel awaited with considerable interest by

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Speaker 1: Department reaction, your visit expected to be one of joy

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Speaker 1: and goodwill to wide eyed children. The Communica then went

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Speaker 1: on to authorize Santa to communicate to all men a

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Speaker 1: quote united desire for peace on earth, and it authorized

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Speaker 1: him to proceed down all chimneys, though quote you are

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Speaker 1: not repeat not to omit consideration of even the smallest stalking.

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Speaker 1: Apparently the State Department gets the Boss Santa around. How

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Speaker 1: does that chain of command even work? So an Air

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Speaker 1: Force seasonal Communica that same year read quote our early

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Speaker 1: warning radar net to the north gives following spot position

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Speaker 1: report of object detect detected heading southerly direction, one unidentified

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Speaker 1: sleigh powered by eight reindeer at fourteen thousand feet heading

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Speaker 1: one degrees. Interceptors alerted and vectored, but unable contact. Estimated

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00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:20,280
Speaker 1: time of arrival over target two December. So the combination

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Speaker 1: of the military and Santa predates Colonel Schaup and that

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Speaker 1: whole story. And according to a two thousand write up

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Speaker 1: in Airmend magazine, after that errant call or calls to

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Speaker 1: conn AD in NINETI conads tracking of Santa became an

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Speaker 1: annual tradition pretty much immediately. According to this article, in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, public relations officer Colonel Barney Oldfield asked

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Speaker 1: Colonel Harry Schaup if they might set up a special

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Speaker 1: phone line for Santa inquiries after the wild success of

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Speaker 1: the previous year. Shoup actually didn't want to, but the

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Speaker 1: media had already gotten wind of this idea, including visiting

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Speaker 1: his home and getting kids all excited about it, so

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00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 1: he begrudgingly agreed, and by the time Norad replaced Khad

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00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:10,280
Speaker 1: a year later, this was an established Tradition's right up, though,

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00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:13,960
Speaker 1: is one of those things that was written many, many

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Speaker 1: decades after this originally happened, and there is some doubt

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00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:21,359
Speaker 1: about exactly how big a deal this was in nineteen

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Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty six. In August second nineteen fifty six

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Speaker 1: article on Colonel shop in the Pittsburgh Press is all

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Speaker 1: about his public and media relations work on behalf of

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Speaker 1: the military and Kannad. It's really focused on an award

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00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:39,600
Speaker 1: that he was receiving for handling a jet noise problem

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00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:42,879
Speaker 1: in Madison, Wisconsin, but it also mentions that he was

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Speaker 1: on See It Now with Edward R. Murrow and he

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Speaker 1: had consulted on a short film called twenty four Hour

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00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:52,399
Speaker 1: Alert starring Jack Webb, which was basically a propaganda short

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Speaker 1: for the Air Force. The Pittsburgh Press article ends with

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Speaker 1: Shoup saying how important it is for urban dwellers to

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Speaker 1: quote feel themselves in league with and contributory to air defense.

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Speaker 1: But it makes no mention of Shaw having had anything

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00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 1: to do with Santa Claus or any Conrad program to

378
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 1: track Santa. If that Christmas had been such a success,

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00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 1: with the nineteen fifty six Santa hotline already in the works,

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00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:20,159
Speaker 1: it likely would have been mentioned. Given the subject of

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Speaker 1: the article. He was being covered in the Pittsburgh Press.

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00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: We should mention because he actually grew up in nearby Bessemer, Pennsylvania. Yeah, so,

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00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 1: not only had Shao done a bunch of media slash

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Speaker 1: pr work for the military leading up to this point,

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Speaker 1: it seems really weird if the Conad Santa tradition was

386
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Speaker 1: already such a big deal that it would not have

387
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 1: come up in the context of what they were talking

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Speaker 1: about here, unless I wonder if they would have omitted

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Speaker 1: it in order to um protect the younger crowd. Like

390
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 1: you can't tell the story of how it came to

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00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: be without divulging some information. Sure that could make sense.

392
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 1: I still have doubts though anyway. I mean, that's once

393
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:07,480
Speaker 1: again similar to how people remember in air quotes the

394
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Speaker 1: New York Suns Yes Virginia column as this instant classic,

395
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 1: even though it didn't become an annual feature for decades,

396
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 1: and the Sun was actually kind of grudgingly doing it

397
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,639
Speaker 1: at first. But it seems likely that Conrad Santa tracking

398
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:24,239
Speaker 1: programs had kind of a lower and smaller start than

399
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:28,200
Speaker 1: the whole hundreds of people called in nineteen fifty five,

400
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,959
Speaker 1: and we've been doing it ever since progression, which is

401
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 1: how it has entered the popular understanding of all this.

402
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: Nora D Santa Tracker was definitely spreading by the nineteen sixties, though,

403
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: with Nora D producing and sending vinyl records to radio

404
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 1: stations to play as scheduled Santa updates. On the b

405
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 1: sides were Christmas songs performed by the NORAD Commander's band

406
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: that to me is perhaps the most charming thing in

407
00:24:55,880 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: this entire episode. In the nineteen seventies and eighties, the

408
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: focus turned to TV, with similarly prerecorded Santa Status updates

409
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,479
Speaker 1: that were replayed year after year. This is definitely what

410
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:12,439
Speaker 1: I remember from my my childhood. I specifically remember the

411
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:16,680
Speaker 1: warning that that ended with all children go to bed immediately,

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00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,199
Speaker 1: in a very stern voice. Uh. And there was one

413
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: year that like I needed to brush my teeth or something,

414
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: and I wasn't quite old enough to do that on

415
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 1: my own, and my mom was tidying in the kitchen,

416
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:32,640
Speaker 1: and I was very distressed that Norad was telling me

417
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: I needed to go to bed immediately, but like my

418
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:38,880
Speaker 1: mom was not available to brush my teeth. I had

419
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: a similar distress confusion concern because um, my mother and

420
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,880
Speaker 1: I would go to midnight Mass usually, and I was like,

421
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 1: how can this be right? That this is a thing

422
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:51,120
Speaker 1: we're supposed to do, but this is the thing that

423
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: the government is telling us to do. It was conflicting

424
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,920
Speaker 1: directives that led to a little bit. We were very

425
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:03,399
Speaker 1: stressy children. I I think we were. I was. I was.

426
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: I'm still an anxious person. I was definitely an anxious child,

427
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: and I was very worried that if I was not

428
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: in bed on time that Santa would come to our house,

429
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 1: I would not be in bed, we would not get

430
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: any presents. Also in this same era, in nineteen seventy one,

431
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 1: Norad spent about three thousand dollars on a Norad Tracks

432
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: Santa publicity film. With the evolution of the Internet, Santa

433
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: tracking has of course become ever more complex. Starting with

434
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 1: a partnership with a o L in the Worldwide Web's

435
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 1: early years, a Santa cam network was also launched in nine,

436
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: which was the Santa trackers first online here at this point,

437
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: I mean really since the early years, this is unquestionably

438
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,359
Speaker 1: at least as much about PR for nora Ad and

439
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: others as it is about seasonal goodwill. There is merchandise

440
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,719
Speaker 1: you can buy. There are corporate sponsorships, which are reportedly

441
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 1: what pays for this today, though I have some questions, Uh,

442
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 1: Like it's as a person who works at a job,

443
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: it makes sense that maybe the budget for the online

444
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:14,479
Speaker 1: Santa track or website is coming through corporate partnerships, But like,

445
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 1: are the corporate partnerships paying for the jet takeoff that

446
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about in a minute, How does

447
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: that work? Uh? But it's definitely regardless of who is

448
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: actually paying for all the things. It's a PR effort.

449
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 1: There's a flashy website and nora Ad and Santa a

450
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: winning combination was awarded the Silver Anvil Award of Excellence

451
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: for Reputation Management and Brand Management by the Public Relations

452
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 1: Society of America. Is Santa getting a cut of any

453
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: of this? That's what I want to know. I have

454
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: questions to um. According to the p r S, a

455
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 1: site inven nora Ad saw six hundred sixty percent increase

456
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 1: in website traffic because of Santa Tracker publicity, along with

457
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: a thirty increase in social media traffic over just a month.

458
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: This note ends with quote Because of the Norad Track

459
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: Santa program, nora Ad is a household name now more

460
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: than ever, Norad is universally recognized as their premier authority

461
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 1: monitoring the North American skies. This is why a couple

462
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: of years ago, when people got really upset that there

463
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: was a nora Ad Track Santa video in which there

464
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: was a fighter jet escorting Santa and his sleigh. People

465
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:32,959
Speaker 1: got like really mad about the militarization of Christmas, and

466
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: other people were like, where have you been? This has

467
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: been going on for decades. All of this radio and

468
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: TV and online work has also been accompanied by pictures

469
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: and videos and articles peppered through with references to all

470
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: the high tech military gear that NORAD says it's using

471
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: to track Santa. So the descriptions of the Santa tracker

472
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: are also a chance to sort of clue the public

473
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: in on what kind of technology NORAD has at its

474
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: disposal for seventeen. That includes nora AD's North Warning System,

475
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: which is a collection of forty seven radar installations in

476
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: Canada and Alaska, along with infrared satellites to detect Rudolph's news,

477
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: and a worldwide Santa Cam network that turns on the

478
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: cameras about an hour before Santa enters a country and

479
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 1: then turns them off again when he leaves, and Canadian

480
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: NORAD pilots fly CF eighteen fighter jets out of Newfoundland

481
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 1: to welcome Santa to North America. And this is where

482
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: I'm like, does the corporate sponsorship pay for that? And

483
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: isn't a takeoff that's actually happening for real? That's the

484
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: part that I'm more inclined to question, did that really happen?

485
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: And this is one of the ways that the nora

486
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: adst story really diverges from Yes Virginia. Yes Virginia is

487
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: all about how Santa is real, emphasizing imagination and faith

488
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: and the intangible, but not suggesting that he isn't in

489
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: the flesh human person that the writer himself personally met

490
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: at some point. Nora Add, on the other hand, straight

491
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: up says that the fighter jet pilots of Intersect have

492
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: intercepted Santa a bunch of times, and that Santa always

493
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: waves because he likes to see the pilots. Today, the

494
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:22,719
Speaker 1: nora Ad Track Santa website is in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese,

495
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: Portuguese and Chinese. There are apps available to track him

496
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,959
Speaker 1: for Apple and Google Play, as well as a presence

497
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. On Star contracts Santa,

498
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: and then there's a nora Ad Track Santa Alexa skill.

499
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: For a while, Google Maps had an official partnership with

500
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: Norad for the Santa tracker, but that partnership ended in

501
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: and Google put that work into its own Santa tracker.

502
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: And I read an article that was like, I tried

503
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: to get into the bottom. I tried to get to

504
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: the bottom of what happened between Norad and Google. Was

505
00:30:56,200 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 1: there a fight? Was their drama? Somehow? No one really knows. Today,

506
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: the nora ad Tracts Santa call center has more than

507
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 1: a thousand volunteers who answer calls every Christmas Eve. They

508
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: about the volunteers average roughly forty calls an hour. It's

509
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: usually a two hour shift. They also answer questions via email.

510
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: A lot of kids calling and asking where Santa is uh,

511
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 1: questions pertaining Santa and presents and Christmas and things like that.

512
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: And it's clear that, regardless of the shakiness of the

513
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: origin story, Colonel Schaup ended up loving the Norad Santa Tracker.

514
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: His children described it as the thing he was proudest

515
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: of in his career, and after his retirement he would

516
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: still help with Christmas Eve Santa tracking. Colonel Schaup died

517
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: on March fourteenth, two thousand nine, at the age of

518
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: ninety one. And that is the history of why nora

519
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: Ad tracts Santa every year. I still have some questions

520
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: that some of which will never be answered. Yeah, I

521
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: don't think any of our questions will be answered. Thank

522
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today for this classic.

523
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: If you have heard any kind of email address or

524
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: maybe a Facebook you are l during the course of

525
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: the episode, that might be obsolete. It might be doubly

526
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: obsolete because we have changed our email address again. You

527
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: can now reach us at history Podcasts at i heart

528
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: radio dot com, and we're all over social media at

529
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: missed in History and you can subscribe to our show

530
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I heart Radio app,

531
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed

532
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of I heart Radio's

533
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts, for my heart Radio,

534
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: visit the i heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

535
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.