Rudolph led the way on Santa’s world tour
Print Edition
VOLUNTEERS at the North American Aerospace Defense Command said they used the heat signature from Rudolph’s nose to “track” Santa Claus as he made his Christmas Eve flight around the world.
Technology and social media have become an important part of the US and Canadian military tradition, and NORAD Tracks Santa has already attracted around 1.6 million Facebook “likes.”
On Christmas Eve, the volunteers were answering phone calls and e-mails from children while posting updates on the mythical journey to Facebook, Twitter and www.NORADSanta.org.
The 59-year-old program now has a control center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, and it generates enough statistics, anecdotes and stories to fill a sleigh.
• How it works: Children e-mail noradtrackssanta@outlook.com on Christmas Eve. A volunteer checks a computer monitor and passes along Santa’s location. Updates are posted at noradsanta.org, facebook.com/noradsanta and twitter.com/NoradSanta. The volunteers kept answering questions until 3am yesterday, Christmas Day.
• Last stop: NORAD said Santa made his final stop at the Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean early on Christmas morning before heading home to the North Pole.
• So far this year: NORAD Tracks Santa had around 1.6 million Facebook likes as of yesterday morning. Twitter followers stood around 159,000. Final figures for this year have still to be calculated
• Last year: The website attracted more than 19.5 million unique visitors in December, the Facebook page drew 1.45 million “likes” and the Twitter feed had 146,000 followers. Volunteers took 117,000 phone calls and answered 9,600 e-mails. Another 800 inquiries came in via OnStar.
• New this year: The website has an animated elf named Radar. “Radar” was the favorite in a vote on Facebook, beating out “DARON,” which is NORAD spelled backward, and “Echo L. Foxtrot,” which uses the military phonetic alphabet to spell out “elf.”
• What’s NORAD? The joint US-Canada command is responsible for defending the skies and monitoring the sea approaches for both nations. Its control room was originally inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs in a shelter designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
