'Dad's top secret!' 70-year Cold War slip-up started Santa Tracker tradition

Instead of a military emergency, he heard a young voice asking: "Is this Santa Claus?"

"I'm the commander of the Combat Alert Center. Who's this?" replied the colonel, initially believing it to be a prank, according to his daughter Terri Van Keuren.

When the child began crying and asked if he was one of "Santa's helpers", the colonel's stern demeanour softened.

He decided to play along, answering with a hearty "ho-ho-ho" and confirming he was indeed Santa Claus.

This unexpected exchange would launch a festive tradition that has now lasted nearly 70 years.

The mystery of how children reached this top-secret military line was explained by a misprint in a Sears department store advertisement.

"They had printed one digit wrong in the phone number. And it was dad's top secret number," explains Terri Van Keuren.

The error led to an overwhelming number of calls to Conad's secure line.

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Colonel Shoup responded by requesting a new number for his office from the phone company.

However, with the original line "ringing off the hook", he made a remarkable decision.

Rather than turning the children away, he instructed his staff to embrace the festive mishap.

Every officer on duty was given clear orders: they were to answer the calls as Santa Claus.

On Christmas Eve that year, Colonel Shoup and his wife visited the base to deliver cookies to the duty staff, only to find an unexpectedly festive atmosphere.

A creative map writer had drawn a sleigh on the plexiglass typically used to track unidentified flying objects.

"Next thing they knew, dad was calling the radio station. 'This is Colonel Shoup, the commander of the Combat Alert Center in Colorado Springs. And we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh'," recalls Terri.

For Terri Van Keuren, who was six-years-old when her father became known as the "Santa Colonel", this tradition represents his enduring legacy.

The Norad Santa Tracker now reaches millions of children worldwide each year.

Today, Norad's tracking of Santa has evolved into a full military operation that begins on December 1 each year.

The tradition continues at Peterson Space Force Base, where Conad's successor, the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad), now manages the operation.

Volunteers staff a dedicated phone line to help children locate Father Christmas.

A livestream allows children worldwide to follow Santa's journey in real-time.

The operation has grown from a single misdialed call to a global phenomenon.

The scale of Norad's Santa tracking operation has grown immensely since that first misdialled call.

In 2022 alone, volunteers at Peterson Space Force Base answered 78,000 calls from children around the world.

For a decade, Terri Van Keuren herself was among these dedicated volunteers.

"I always wore a t-shirt that had a picture of my dad. It says: 'My dad's the Santa Colonel'," she recalls.

The story of Colonel Shoup's festive legacy continues to captivate audiences.

"I've had several requests to make a movie out of it," says Terri.

From a wrong number in a newspaper advertisement to a global Christmas tradition, the Santa Colonel's impromptu decision to spread joy continues to touch millions of lives each holiday season.