No laughing matter
Citing a narration by Shoup's daughter Terri Van Keuren, Snopes.com said calling Shoup's line was no light matter since it was one of the top secret lines in CONAD and would only ring in a crisis.
"Dad's pretty annoyed," she said as she recalled her father "barking" into the phone and asking who was on the line.
When the child on the other line began to cry and asked if Shoup was "one of Santa's elves," Shoup eventually softened and had an airman answer the calls.
"Just pretend you're Santa," Van Keuren recalled her father instructing the airman.
Shoup then decided to offer the kids information about Santa's progress from the North Pole, and as NORAD's Santa site would say, "a tradition was born."
When NORAD was formed in 1958, Shoup's organization offered annual Santa tracking, and a phone number was publicized.
"Manning those phones over the years have been countless numbers of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel and their families, and for many people, turning to NORAD to find out where Santa is became something to look forward to each year," Snopes.com said. — TJD, GMA News
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Topic: How a wrong number sent the US military hunting for Santa (Read 524 times)