While NORAD’s mission is usually aerospace warning and control, on Dec. 24 its mission shifts gears to track Santa.
Leaders say the unique tradition started by accident, after a misprint in a newspaper.
“Someone called in, it was actually a mistaken wrong number, thinking that they were calling Santa Claus. So that kinda started things off where they thought, ‘well we are in the air defense business we might as well track Santa as well,’” Col. Sid Connor, deputy commander, Tyndall Air Force Base.
That was 64 years ago, and the tradition has been going strong ever since.
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