NORAD set to track Santa on Christmas Eve as he delivers presents to good Canadian boys and girls

Santa isn't the only one who's busy this week getting ready for a big job on Christmas Eve.

Members of the Canadian NORAD Region team are getting ready for their part which is making sure Santa stays safe while he's flying over Canada.

To do that, they'll use their high tech equipment to track Santa's sleigh as it's pulled by his nine reindeer Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph.

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Maj. Kathleen Leaton is the mission crew commander this year and appeared on the Calgary Eyeopener to explain what's involved in such an important annual mission.

Below is an abridged version of that conversation.

Q: How do you track Santa while he's flying?

A: We use a lot of our NORAD technology, plus some extra technology just for this particular mission. We're using radar, satellites, our fighter jets and we have some Santa cams as well, just on the 24th of December.

Q: I understand you actually escort Santa as well. Are there pilots from Alberta flying the escort jets this year?

A: Absolutely, we have a couple pilots coming from Cold Lake, Alberta,who will be escorting Santa [Lt.-Col.Forrest Rock and Capt.Kevin Mittelholtz]as he flies through the western part of Canada. Because Santa doesn't file a flight plan, we use our fighter jets to intercept him and visually identify him.

Q: What is your role on December24?

A: I work at the Canadian Air Defence Sector in North Bay, Ontario, and we are monitoring constantly, 365 days a year, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the skies over Canada. So my crew is working on December24 and we'll be monitoring Santa on our radar screens, making sure the jets get out on time to intercept him.

Q: How long has NORAD been involved with tracking Santa and how did it happen?

A: NORAD's predecessor, which was the Continental Air Defence Command, began tracking Santa in 1955. NORAD replaced CONAD in 1958, so we've taken over the mission and now we're tracking Santa's flight across the world, every year.

Q: And how did NORAD get involved in this?

A: Back in 1955, there was actually a misprinted phone number in a newspaper, which instead of leading to the specific call centre it was going to, it actually went to the Continental Air Defence Command. A colonel by the name of Harry Shoup picked up the phone, immediately realized what had happened and that was the inception of the military providing details on Santa tracking.

Q: Who was calling?

A: He got a few calls from children, and because of this misprint in a department store advertisement, he assured children NORAD would guarantee Santa a safe journey from the North Pole.

Q: So, a lot of people wonder this, how is it Santa manages to travel all over the world to deliver presents in just 24 hours?

A: That's a great question. NORAD intelligence reports indicate Santa doesn't experience time the way we do. His trip seems to take 24 hours to us but to Santa, it might last days, weeks or even months, because he operates in a slightly different space-time continuum when he does pause to deliver the presents. He wouldn't want to rush the important job of spreading joy everywhere, so he's moving at the pace of starlight.

Q: What time do you think people should expect Santa to arrive?

A: We don't have specifics on when he's visiting each house, we know approximately where he'll be moving across the country, but what we can say, and our intelligence team reportshe only visits houses where the children are fast asleep.

Q: If we want to check in on Santa's progress [on Christmas Eve], how do we do that?

A: There are two ways you can track along with us. The first, and probably easiest, is to log onto the website,or you can call 1-877-446-6723 to talk directly to a NORAD staff member.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener