Like many interesting stories, NORAD’s foray into the Santa-tracking business began with a mistake. NORAD claims it was 59 years ago on December 24, 1955 when the staff working Christmas Eve at the Continental Air Defense Command center in Colorado Springs started getting unusual phone calls. Kids kept calling asking to talk to Santa Claus, who was obviously a little busy at the moment. It turned out the source of the calls was a misprinted Sears ad that ran in a local newspaper, inviting the kiddies to call Santa on his personal hotline. But the phone number was misprinted, and all the calls were being routed to CONAD’s nerve center instead.

With no threat to North American airspace imminent, the commanding officer on duty, Col. Harry Shoup, told his crew to give anyone who called asking about Santa a “current location” as St. Nick made his trip around the world. A tradition was born which followed CONAD into its rebranding as NORAD in 1958, and has stayed fully updated with the times. (An alternate version of this story says CONAD embellished the truth of one kid mixing up the phone number to justify the Santa operation, seen as a way to make people comfortable with the pervasive nature of a military tracking apparatus that never went to sleep during the Cold War. Decide for yourself which is more likely.)

Whatever the reason for NORAD Tracks Santa (as it's officially called), the idea is to use every bit of tracking and communication technology available to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (a combined air defense cooperative of the U.S. and Canadian militaries), and it is quite an operation. A hallmark of NORAD Tracks Santa is a reliance on a variety of technologies. Over the years, NORAD has enlisted telephone, radio, newspaper, and TV outlets to assist in the mission of keeping youngsters updated on Santa’s whereabouts before they go to bed. In the internet age, NORAD has used smartphone apps, Google Earth, and CGI videos tracking Santa…with the help of celebrity narrators. (Ringo Starr lent his voice to the effort when Santa reached London 10 years ago.) Last year, NORAD claims to have logged 19.5 million unique online visitors to its Santa website.

Of course, the whole thing started with the telephone, and that’s still a major component. NORAD claims to have fielded 117,000 phone calls in 2013 which were answered by an army of 1,200 honorary elves (including Michelle Obama, who has participated for the last five years). This kind of reconnaissance mission is expensive, of course, but taxpayers aren’t on the hook. The whole thing is financed through corporate sponsorship, thanks to deals with companies like Google and Bing. So if you look up tonight and happen to spot a red-tinged anomaly in the sky, rest assured the big boys are keeping a close eye on it.

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