How does NORAD track Santa?
Santa doesn’t tell either Transport Canada or the Federal Aviation Administration where he plans to fly (it varies each Christmas), so NORAD must identify all ‘unknown’ Christmas objects on the radar screen. They do this in two ways. Firstly, about 22,300 miles above the Earth a ring of satellites look out for the kind of infra-red heat given-off by a missile, rocket or jet aircraft. This satellite ‘Defense Support Program’ is backed-up by ground-based sensors that do the rest of the work by accurately tracking any contacts potentially threatening North America. It’s this dual system that NORAD uses to track Santa, explaining on its website that “the glow from Rudolph’s nose is so bright that it can, in fact, be detected by the infra-red satellite system.” To confirm visual identification, two Canadian CF-18 jets — replete with scanners and digital camera technology — are deployed in the far North of Canada to verify that the objects being tracking are, in fact, Santa, Dasher, Dancer
