[GSpector]

Hello All,

Just so you know, my 1st Duty Station was NORAD (CMC) back in 1985/86 and I actually read the true story of how NORAD actually became the Santa Tracking Hotline. it was printed in a Station newsletter I had back then.

It started many years ago, a phone # was misprinted in the local paper. Someone decided to have a little fun for the kids and printed a Phone# for kids to call to check where Santa was.

All was fine except that the Misprint was actually the real Phone# for CONAD's Commander-in-Chief's operations "hotline." itself. The Colonel at the time took the call, thinking it was a prank call but after realizing it was just a kid on the other end of the phone and was serious about getting Santas whereabouts, the General decided to just play along with it.

After a few of these calls, the Colonel realized what really happened.

This Colonel, instead of correcting the print (or stopping it), He started a tradition by agreeing for the sake of children, that if there was any place even capable of tracking Santa, it was the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), later to be called NORAD.

I found out the original "Hotline" was created by Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. store and missed all these calls, but I can tell you this much, the they could never have competed with NORAD since there is NO better tracking facility in the world, then or now.

Honest, true story.