Make the season bright with Reindeer Knoll - a joyful guide to Christmas traditions, history, activities, and songs. Discover the origins of beloved Christmas customs like decorating trees, Santa Claus, and gift-giving. Learn fun holiday activities like baking cookies, building snowmen, and Christmas crafts. Sing along to classic Christmas carols and songs the whole family will love.
On December 24, 1948, the United States Air Force issued a communique claiming that an "early warning radar net to the north" had detected "one unidentified sleigh, powered by eight reindeer, at 14,000 feet, heading 180 degrees." The Associated Press passed this "report" along to the general public. It was the first time that the United States Armed Forces issued a statement about tracking Santa Claus' sleigh on Christmas Eve, though it was a one-time event, not repeated over the next several years.
The program originated before the actual formation of NORAD, as an annual event on December 24, 1955. According to legend, a Sears department store placed an advertisement in the Colorado Springs newspaper The Gazette, which told children they could place a call to Santa Claus and included the number ME 2-6681. A call allegedly came through to Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center as one digit was misprinted.
In some versions of the story, the calls were coming in to the "red telephone" hotline that connected CONAD directly to command authorities at the Strategic Air Command. Colonel Harry Shoup, who was a crew commander on duty, answered the first call and supposedly told his staff to give all children who called in later a made-up "current location" for Santa Claus.