Is the NORAD Santa tracker safe from a government shutdown?

The military’s tradition of tracking Santa Claus on his gravity-defying sweep across the globe will continue this Christmas Eve, even if the US government shuts downofficials said Friday.

Each year, at least 100,000 children call the North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about Santa’s location. Millions more follow online.

“We fully expect Santa to fly on December 24 and NORAD will track him,” the US-Canadian agency said in a statement.

On any other night, NORAD scans the sky for potential threatssuch as last year Chinese spy balloon. But on Christmas Eve, volunteers in Colorado Springs, Colo., ask questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and “Am I on the naughty or nice list?”

The effort is supported by local and corporate sponsors, who also help protect the tradition from Washington dysfunction.

Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and NORAD volunteer, told The Associated Press that there are “screams and giggles and laughter” when families call in, usually on speakerphone.

Sommers often says during the call that everyone should be asleep before Santa arrives, prompting parents to say, “Did you hear what he said? We’re going to bed early.”

NORAD’s annual tracking of Santa has endured ever since the cold warprior ugly sweater parties and Mariah Carey classics. Here’s how it began and why the phones keep ringing.

The origin story is Hollywood-esque

It started with a child’s accidental phone call in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears ad encouraging children to call Santa with a phone number.

A boy called. But he reached the Continental Air Defense Command, now NORAD, a joint American and Canadian effort to spot potential enemy attacks. Tensions grew with the Soviet Union, along with concerns about nuclear war.

Air Force Col. Harry W. Shoup picked up an emergency-only “red phone” and was greeted by a tiny voice that began reciting a Christmas wish list.

“He went on a little bit and he takes a breath and says, ‘Hey, you’re not Santa Claus,'” Shoup told The Associated Press in 1999.

Realizing that an explanation would be lost on the youngster, Shoup summoned a deep, happy voice and replied, “Ho, ho, ho! Yes, I’m Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy?”

Shoup said he learned from the boy’s mother that Sears mistakenly printed the top secret number. He hung up, but the phone soon rang again with a young girl reciting her Christmas list. Fifty calls a day followed, he said.

In the pre-digital age, the agency used a 60 by 80 foot (18 by 24 meter) Plexiglas map of North America to track unidentified objects. An employee jokingly pulled Santa Claus and his sleigh across the North Pole.

The tradition was born.

“Note to the kiddies,” began an AP story from Colorado Springs on December 23, 1955. “Santa Claus on Friday was granted safe passage into the United States by the Continental Air Defense Command.”

In a likely reference to the Soviets, the article noted that Santa Claus was protected from possible attacks by “those who do not believe in Christmas.”

Is the origin story a hoax?

Some grinchy reporters have poked fun at Shoup’s story, questioning whether a typo or wrong call led to the boy’s call.

In 2014, the tech news site Gizmodo cited an International News Service story from December 1, 1955, about a child’s call to Shoup. Published in the Pasadena Independent, the article said the child reversed two digits in the Sears number.

“When a childish voice asked COC Commander Col. Harry Shoup if there was a Santa Claus at the North Pole, he replied much more gruffly than he should—considering the season:

“There may be a guy called Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I worry about coming from that direction,” Shoup said in the short piece.

In 2015, The Atlantic magazine doubted the flow of calls to the secret line, while noting that Shoup had a flair for public relations.

Phone calls aside, Shoup was actually media savvy. In 1986, he told Scripps Howard News Service that he recognized an opportunity when an employee drew Santa on the glass card in 1955.

A lieutenant colonel promised to have it deleted. But Shoup said, “You leave it right there,” and called public affairs. Shoup wanted to boost the morale of both the troops and the public.

“Why, it made the military look good – like we’re not all a bunch of snobs who don’t care about Santa,” he said.

Shoup died in 2009. His children told the StoryCorps podcast in 2014 that it was a misprinted Sears ad that prompted the phone calls.

“And later in life he got letters from all over the world,” said Terri Van Keuren, a daughter. “People say ‘Thank you, Colonel, for having, you know, this sense of humor.'”

A rare addition to Santa’s history

NORAD’s tradition is one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old Santa story that has endured, according to Gerry Bowler, a Canadian historian who spoke to the AP in 2010.

Ad campaigns or movies try to “kidnap” Santa Claus for commercial purposes, said Bowler, who wrote “Santa Claus: A Biography.” NORAD, on the other hand, takes an essential element of Santa’s history and views it through a technological lens.

In a recent interview with the AP, Air Force Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham explained that NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada — known as the Northern Warning System — are the first to detect Santa Claus.

He leaves the North Pole and typically heads towards the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean. From there he moves west after nightfall.

“That’s when the satellite systems we use to track and identify targets of interest every single day start to kick in,” Cunningham said. “A probably little-known fact is that Rudolph’s nose, which glows red, emits a lot of heat. And so these satellites track (Santa Claus) through that heat source.”

NORAD has an app and website, www.noradsanta.orgwho will track Santa on Christmas Eve from 4 to midnight, mountain standard time. People can call 1-877-HI-NORAD to ask live operators about Santa’s location from 6 a.m. to midnight, mountain time.