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Dec. 24th, 2010 10:37 amOn Christmas Eve, 1955, the red phone on Colonel Harry Shoup's desk did something it hadn't done before. It rang.
For Shoup, this was a frightening development. As Commander in Chief of CONAD, the North American missile early warning system, he knew that only two people had the number for that phone - his commander, a four star general, and the President. Neither of them would be ringing to wish him a Merry Christmas and whatever the reason for the call, it could not possibly be good. The phone was supposed to ring only in an emergency. And by emergency, we mean "First strike by the Russians".
Bracing himself for the worst, he answered the phone. "Colonel Shoup, here."
For a moment there was silence down the phone. Eventually, the person at the other end of the line spoke.
"Hallo?", said the worried voice of a very small child. "Is that Santa Claus?"
In a classic piece of military understatement, Shoup was later to comment: "It was then I realised that something was wrong with the phones."
To his immense credit, he played along. He explained that, no, it wasn't Santa Claus, but with the technology at his command he was tracking a fast-moving object heading south from the North Pole - and then he asked the little boy to pass the phone to his mother.
A bit of investigation revealed what had happened; a local Colorado paper had printed an advert for a 'talk to Santa' phone line and, in one of the more entertaining typographical errors of history, had accidentally put the number for Colonel Shoup's Nuke the Commies hotline rather than Father Christmas' grotto.
As the day went on the red phone kept ringing and off-duty personnel took to taking the calls, telling children that they could see Santa on their radar screen and he was - where did you say you lived? Oh! He's over your house! You'd better go to bed right now!
By the end of the day more than 50 volunteers had been on the phones and a good time had been had by all.
It might have ended there, but NORAD realised that not only had it been tremendous for morale, but it was also pretty good PR for the new system and so the next year they advertised their own phone line.
And so it grew over time. Word got around that missile defense was tracking a stout, jolly chap and some reindeer. Department of Defense scientists issued press releases on how they were tacking the powerful IR Signature of Rudolphs nose, speculating on how Santa could be opening wormholes in spacetime to deliver all the presents in time, and bemoaning the fact that he had declined to share his advanced sleigh technology with the air force.
This year more than 1250 volunteer off duty NORAD personnel will be manning the phones, and they've teamed up with Google Earth to provide a real-time santa tracker.
So it's as well to remember that if you've been nice then Santa is handing out the presents, but if you've been naughty...well, the people tracking him have got nukes. That's all I'm saying.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Yes, I know this is a repost from last year. But's it's Christmas. Gimme a break. I've got presents to wrap.
For Shoup, this was a frightening development. As Commander in Chief of CONAD, the North American missile early warning system, he knew that only two people had the number for that phone - his commander, a four star general, and the President. Neither of them would be ringing to wish him a Merry Christmas and whatever the reason for the call, it could not possibly be good. The phone was supposed to ring only in an emergency. And by emergency, we mean "First strike by the Russians".
Bracing himself for the worst, he answered the phone. "Colonel Shoup, here."
For a moment there was silence down the phone. Eventually, the person at the other end of the line spoke.
"Hallo?", said the worried voice of a very small child. "Is that Santa Claus?"
In a classic piece of military understatement, Shoup was later to comment: "It was then I realised that something was wrong with the phones."
To his immense credit, he played along. He explained that, no, it wasn't Santa Claus, but with the technology at his command he was tracking a fast-moving object heading south from the North Pole - and then he asked the little boy to pass the phone to his mother.
A bit of investigation revealed what had happened; a local Colorado paper had printed an advert for a 'talk to Santa' phone line and, in one of the more entertaining typographical errors of history, had accidentally put the number for Colonel Shoup's Nuke the Commies hotline rather than Father Christmas' grotto.
As the day went on the red phone kept ringing and off-duty personnel took to taking the calls, telling children that they could see Santa on their radar screen and he was - where did you say you lived? Oh! He's over your house! You'd better go to bed right now!
By the end of the day more than 50 volunteers had been on the phones and a good time had been had by all.
It might have ended there, but NORAD realised that not only had it been tremendous for morale, but it was also pretty good PR for the new system and so the next year they advertised their own phone line.
And so it grew over time. Word got around that missile defense was tracking a stout, jolly chap and some reindeer. Department of Defense scientists issued press releases on how they were tacking the powerful IR Signature of Rudolphs nose, speculating on how Santa could be opening wormholes in spacetime to deliver all the presents in time, and bemoaning the fact that he had declined to share his advanced sleigh technology with the air force.
This year more than 1250 volunteer off duty NORAD personnel will be manning the phones, and they've teamed up with Google Earth to provide a real-time santa tracker.
So it's as well to remember that if you've been nice then Santa is handing out the presents, but if you've been naughty...well, the people tracking him have got nukes. That's all I'm saying.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Yes, I know this is a repost from last year. But's it's Christmas. Gimme a break. I've got presents to wrap.
