NORAD and Google help children track Santa

The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been tracking Santa for Christmas for more than 50 years. The tradition began in 1955, when an advertisement (below) for children to call Santa accidentally printed the phone number for the commander in chief of NORAD's predecessor, CONAD.  Normally this would have been a significant security breach -- thousands of kids calling into the aerospace tracking center could cripple the effectiveness of the agency.

According to Wikipedia:

In 1956, a Colorado Springs-based Sears store ran an advertisement encouraging people to call Santa Claus on a special kind of telephone  hotline. Due to a printing error, the phone number that was printed was the hotline was actually for Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD). Then-Colonel Harry Shoup received the first call on Christmas Eve of 1955, from a six-year old boy who began reciting his Christmas list. Shoup then didn't find the call funny, but after asking the mother of the second caller what was happening, then realizing the mistake that had occurred, he told his staff to give Santa's position to any child who called in. Three years on, the government of the United States and Canada combined their respective national domestic air defenses into the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), but the tradition continued.

In 2004, NORAD received more than 35,000 e-mails, 55,000 calls and 912 million hits on the Santa-tracking website from 181 countries. In 2005, more than 500 volunteers answered questions.  In 2006 half a million calls and over 12,500 e-mails were handled from 210 territories.  The site now gets well over 1 billion hits.

In 2007, NORAD Tracks Santa changed sponsorship using Google Earth to track Santa Claus techniques in 3-D. Analytical Graphics Incorporated allowed continued use of many of its software elements and the privately owned website. They displayed Santa's location at 5 minute updates.

That's where you can find Santa's path this year.

Shoup the original NORAD tracker and a retired U.S. Air Force veteran, passed away this year at the age of 91 but the tradition he started obviously carries on.

You can follow Santa here in 3D in Google Earth or past visits in Youtubes. Twitter users can also get tweets from @noradsanta.