NORAD Tracks Santa

USNORTHCOM / NORAD — "Tracking Since 1955" · USAF · 2024-present

Worn at USNORTHCOM during the winter watch and the annual Santa tracker, this scope-and-sleigh patch marks a tradition born of a typo: in December 1955 a Sears advertisement in Colorado Springs misprinted the number for Santa, routing children straight to the red phone at the Continental Air Defense Command. Col. Harry Shoup, expecting word of Soviet bombers, instead heard a small voice ask if he was Santa Claus — and told his crew to check the radar for a sleigh inbound from the North Pole. NORAD inherited the duty from CONAD and never gave it up; each Christmas Eve more than a thousand American and Canadian service members, DoD civilians, and volunteers fill Hangar 123 at Peterson Space Force Base to answer hundreds of thousands of calls. The reindeer crossing the radar rings are the only unclassified track the command will confirm all year.