Every day of the year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command defends North America using an all-domain and globally integrated approach to track everything that flies in and around Canada and the United States.
On Dec. 24 each year, NORAD adds a special mission: tracking Santa.
Like many origin stories, NORAD’s mission to track Santa began by accident. In 1955, a young child trying to reach Santa dialled the misprinted phone number from a department store ad in the local newspaper. Instead of calling Santa, the child called the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the commander on duty that night who answered the child’s phone call, was quick to realise a mistake had been made and assured the child he was Santa. After more incoming calls, Shoup assigned a duty officer to continue answering calls and a tradition was born, that continued when NORAD was formed in 1958. Each year since, NORAD has dutifully reported Santa’s location on Dec. 24 to millions of children and families across the world. Because of the support, services and resources generously provided by volunteers, our government and corporate contributors, NORAD Tracks Santa has persevered for more than 65 years.”
In fact, what started because of a typo has flourished and is recognised as one of the U.S. Defense Department‘s largest community outreach programmes.
Each year, the NORAD Tracks Santa website receives several million unique visitors from more than 200 countries and territories around the world. Volunteers typically answer more than 130,000 calls to the NORAD Tracks Santa hotline from children across the globe.
In addition to the phone line and website, children and the young-at-heart can track Santa through mobile apps and social media platforms:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noradsanta
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoradSanta
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/NORADTracksSanta
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noradtrackssanta_official
NORAD Tracks Santa Website: https://www.noradsanta.org
NORAD Tracks Santa Newsroom: https://noradsantanews.com/newsroom
Used to love tracking Santa when the kids were younger.
Capt Mainwaring has also asked NORAD to track Hunt saboteurs monitoring men on horses dressed in military red coats using dogs to track smelly flunkeys trailing on MoD land. In a major change of defence policy the saboteurs – not the Huntsmen – have now been banned from MoD land under threat of prosecution
Apparently, some of the dogs have been distracted by foxes (surprise, surprise) and have deviated from the trail. The saboteurs have enraged Mainwaring by clogging up his inbox with thousands of video clips of saboteurs being flogged by the Huntsmen as they try and save the foxes. Tally Ho, what?
Disgusting “Sport”
If I was terminally ill I’d happily hunt Foxhunters myself. All power to the sabs.
The GEC Marconi AI 24 Foxhunter radar provided an all-weather, day and night, beyond-visual-range engagement capability.and was – eventually – fitted on the outstanding Tornado F3 ADV. The last aircraft we had that could track and engage Soviet warplanes over the Baltic – before they could fire the sort of standoff missiles the Russians have been using against civilians in UkR. Not to be confused with the ‘Blue Circle’ concrete radar that it replaced
Daniele, heres hugs for Xmas (HUGZ)
The ADV is one of my fav aircraft. I’m old enough to remember the Blue Circle F2s debacle too.
Apparently if you keep an eye open for people breaking the law in towns and villages and report it/provide evidence to the police your called neighbourhood watch, or if your in the countryside and catch some lower class thuggish Bruts badger baiting your a really good egg and the bad law breakers get prosecuted. If on the other hand you gain evidence of and report a crime in the country side or on MOD land that’s link with the smart set who either own most of the land or invite Rupert from the MOD to some smart society events, your clearly a communist infiltrator who needs to be prosecuted.
quit frankly the way the criminal justice system and policy makers have managed fox hunting actually shows an astounding level of contempt for the rule of law and democracy. I know most people think it’s a small thing and animal rights are not that import ( which they are not really). But this actual goes well beyond that and actually weakens the social glue of our nations just a bit, and smelled of social justice issues and influence of the traditional so call ruling classes.
The working class blood sports of cock fighting and badger baiting were made illegal 1835 and if evidence is there that you participated you will be prosecuted with a max sentence of 5 years. At the time the law was passed most normal people could not have give shit about cruelty to badgers and enjoyed the sport…but it was seen as corruption of the working classed by the ruling classes ( who still felt it was fine for them to rip apart animals).
move forward into the 21century and for most of the 20th century the majority of the population in the UK considered fox hunting repulsive and wanted it band. But because it was a sport of the ruling class it was not band until 2004. With only a handful of prosecutions giving out fines, no matter the massive amounts of evidence handed over by hunt sab ground. In fact the only fox hunters to be jailed did so for breaking laws around cruelty to hounds or drug dealing.
The fact that a minister of state ( a member of the ruling class) has now effectively criminalised reporting the crime of fox hunting on MOD land, while still giving out hunting licenses to organisations we all know endemically and purposefully break the law is pretty awful and really just increases a perception of social injustice and erosion of the rule of law. personally I don’t really give to hoots if people want to cock fight or fox hunt ( it’s not something I would do myself) But the law is the law is the law and to support those who endemically break it over those who are trying to help ensure it’s enforced stinks.
Hi Jon – that’s an excellent post. I do accept that fox numbers should be ‘controlled’ in the agricultural environment, but not by chasing them with baying dogs until they are exhausted – and then tearing them limb from limb until they are dead.
As Oscar Wilde wrote it’s “the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”
I deed. You actually need to be quite careful of ensuring adequate fox numbers, as fox’s and badgers are our apex predators they are really important in the manage of small species that really are damaging if left without the appropriate number of predators. One of the reason Australia suffers from mice and rabbit plague that really hit Agro industry is a lack of predators due to the Aussie predilection for shooting every fox they can get their hands on.
You could use the argument that you need to control our fox and badger populations because we killed all the previous apex predators off ( wolves and bears). Which would be valid if we did not have roads. Fox and badger numbers are effectively managed by roads ( the higher the population the higher the road kill rates).
dairy farmers have an issue with badgers and TB but are generally not considering what happens when your remove a predator like badgers. As for foxes the evidence base is that they have a negligible economic effect on livestock and farms ( most lamb deaths are likely poor parenting and miss-hap, with a fox having a bit on the corpse later, sheep are incredibly stupid with an ability to harm themselves which is quite frankly staggering ). Infact the damage from smaller vermin when you over control fox populations is large and evidence based, with Aussie making the same mistakes over and over. (Yes Aussies all those mice and rabbits, it’s your own silly fault for ignoring the environment scientists/ecologists who actually do know what they are taking about).
But in the end species management and culling should be evidence based using good environment science, information from environmental impact assessments and species diversity indexing, not because Ruperts love to set their dogs on furries.
Many years ago I was attached to an Army training establishment, one day we had a fresh intake from Sandhurst. One of the chaps called me over and advised that we were going to have a problem with one fresh officer, he was going to be ‘difficult’
So I went over to see if I could be of any help. The young officer was the sort I’m sure many would be familiar with – came from an ancient military family, probably ferociously brave, sadly obviously inbred (Passing out report:- “I would not breed from this officer”) and who was standing there with his luggage at his feet.
“Good morning Sir, can I be of any assistance?”
The officer eyed me up and down with a suspicious look and complained:-
“I’ve been here ten minutes and my bloody batman has yet to report to me”
I replied “Sorry Sir, the Army abolished batting in 1972”
“Good grief man” he replied “you can’t possibly expect me to pull my own pants up after I’ve visited the ablutions…….”
😂😂😂 brilliant Thankyou for that Picture. We always had a few junior Drs a bit like that.
In ED and all other areas there is a very strict rule that you clean up your own sharps and clinical waste ( it’s very practical as it helps stop people gettting blood born diseases from needle sticks) also the nurses are busy doing their own jobs. But these entitled idiots would still push it and try and get nurses to tidy up for them.
now your average modern ED nurse is not someone who takes shit from anyone, and I remember the time I had to rescue this entitled public school boy from a 5 foot nothing 20 something nurse who was in the process of telling them to shove their procedure trolly up their arse…they were one step away from doing something they both would have regretted.
Every 6 months I had to do the same the staff nurses are not here as your dogs bodies speech…they have jobs to do, so I expect you to clean up after yourselves, take your own blood etc if you have a job that needs ding you come to the charge nurse and they will tell you to either do it yourself, show you how to do it or get someone to do it for you and the charge nurses, sisters I tell you what patients you will see….
The fact a comprehensive educated Charge Nurse effectively managed their work load use to blow their minds public school boy minds.
one even told me he though the junior Drs should be in-charge as they were trained to lead, I just looked him up and down and asked him if he’d had any understanding of the patients flows into the 35 wards and departments, the skills of each of the 20+ team of healthcare works on shift , how to manage and prioritises the 60 patients in the waiting room, how the refferal system from primary care worked…and if he did not mind moving to cubicle 2 to see the lady that had been laying in the ground in her own excrement for 2 days ( it was her turn to be seen honest).
Good Morning Jonathan. An interesting subject close to my heart. The main reason that the Aussies suffer plagues with Rabbits,feral hogs,mice, flies etc is that they have completely stuffed their natural environment by introducing alien animals and indeed vegetation.There is no way that foxes and dingos could ever cope with the population surges of mammals such as hogs and rabbits for example.When you have such a vast land mass with an ample food source then prey animals will expand uncontrollably. The Aussies are also plagued inter alia by African Acacias such as Acacia karoo(they have new names that I hate)-this in unintentional and partial revenge for their cursing us in SA with Wattle and gum that has damaged our environment significantly. The predator-prey relationship along with habitat changes is so complex that even now we only have a very limited understanding of the interactions. What to do when elephants destroy centuries old Baobabs or even here in Durban, how to keep grasslands intact without the grazing and browsing pressure of herbivores not to mention the ‘mechanical’ effect of missing large mammals such as Buffalo and Elephant. Sorry-I am babbling on courtesy of George!
Kind Regards
Geoff
Yes it’s such an interesting subject, like you I love it, environmental sc was my first career and it’s still close to my heart so I try to keep up. Australia is a really interesting case and you’re right there is a lot in the mix. One of their big problems is over abundance of food( a natural consequence of intensive farming). But if they would accept loss of some food types they could lever predators much more instead they keep shooting the things which is really counter productive. The only way they are going to sort themselves out is trying to get some form of ecological balance, reduction in food production, less managing predators etc.
Bravo David.
The word ‘what’ is a direct descendent of the Old English word ‘hwæt’ and in the case you have used, I believe it means ‘do you understand.’ The word has 136 pages in my Dictionary of Old English. Happy Christmas from a foxhunting man, what, what?
My ancestors fought the Saxons in the hills and the valleys in N Wales and I do not speak Old English. However, I do speak French and German.
Capt Mainwaring is on record as supporting the repeal of the Hunting Act 2005. In 2021, whilst on his watch, the MOD spent £121,000 revamping the Royal Artillery Hunt kennels on the Bulford Camp in Wiltshire
This was criticised by many high ranking ex-military officers, while there is such widespread disrepair in service homes that families are forced to live in squalor, thanks to yet more incompetence by the MoD
At this time of a squeeze on public finances and heightened threats to national security, it is scandalous that the MoD is choosing to squander taxpayers money facilitating illegal hunting, a pastime for the privileged outlawed nearly 18 years ago.
If you go out hunting foxes on Boxing Day, I hope you don’t fall off your horse, what?
I have to say I love the international space station I consider it worth every penny just for the look on my kids faces on those clear Christmas even nights when we all went out in the garden and pointed to it and said look it’s Santa….in fact myself and my wife managed to keep our kids believing in Santa until the ages of 12….we worked it hard for the magical creatures ( in fact one year when my eldest daughter wanted the tooth fairy to deliver her a fairy necklace my wife actual made micro sized jewellery ( a 5mm sized necklace)….
Damn I remember standing outside the pub as the BBC reported the station would be flying over head under using Santa as a disguise.
All families watched the space station track overhead at 7pm until my son piped up and said “Why is Santa not stopping for us and he was over Turkey 15 minutes ago on Track Santa”
Kids parents gave me and my son the death stare as I then quickly blurted out it was reported that he had forgotten something and needed to quickly head back.”
Christmas was saved and so was me still being able to drink the pub!
Brilliant, very quick thinking there..parenting is all about the ability to think up lies really quickly 😂😂😂😂
I used to love setting this up for my kids when they were younger. My son and daughter would have the laptop on all day seeing where he was. Brilliant fun and a cherished memory
this is tin foil hat territory 😂
conspiracy nuts love this kinda stuff 😆😆🆙
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The most advanced radars in the world will be tracking Santa.The Russians may use this occasion to test Norad capabilities. :wpds_wink: