Santa Claus is coming to town, and for the 60th consecutive year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command will tell youngsters — and the young at heart — the exact location of Kris Kringle during his annual world tour.
At Colorado's Peterson Air Force base, hundreds of volunteers will be answering calls from an estimated 125,000 children around the globe looking for Santa's whereabouts.
And in far-flung locales, remote NORAD identification technicians who monitor computer screens for possible air incursions also spend Christmas Eve serving as official Santa "trackers."
The technicians in Canada and the U.S. report "sightings" of a sleigh full of toys pulled by flying reindeer, said Tech. Sgt. John Gordinier, an Alaska NORAD spokesman.
"It's one of the largest military community relations events we have," Gordinier said.
A system of radar stations and satellites monitor all air traffic entering U.S. and Canadian airspace. All aircraft have a code to identify themselves. If an aircraft doesn't have a code, Gordinier said, NORAD can scramble jets to see who it is and what they're doing. Luckily, Santa is good at keeping in touch with NORAD, Gordinier said.
"When he pops up, we call him 'Big Red One,' " he said. "That's his call sign." Tweets by NoradSanta
The nose on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a tipoff. It gives off an infrared signature similar to a missile launch, Gordinier said.
Santa generally departs the North Pole, flies to the international date line over the Pacific Ocean, then begins deliveries in island nations. He then works his way west in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
