Well, sure he is – in the form of Norad Santa!

Every year NORAD – the North American Aerospace Defense Command  – tracks Santa Claus’ journey around the world and transmits to the children his location and progress. And they have been doing this for over 50 years!

NORAD and NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s Christmas Eve flight since 1955 when a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. inadvertently misprinted the telephone number on an ad for kids to call Santa Clause.  But instead of a direct phone call to the jolly bearded soul, the number was rerouted to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline” where the Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup thought it was the Pentagon with a mission. Much to his surprise, it was a young child asking if he was Santa!

Colonel Shoup then had his staff check radar for Santa’s progress from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born. You can even listen to Colonel Shoup as he talks about how it began.

Later on in 1958, the governments of the United States and Canada created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, known as NORAD. NORAD has since inherited the famous tradition of tracking Santa Claus all around the world and through the years the technology for trackng Santa has changed dramitically.

It shold be noted that all NORAD employees, friends and family volunteer their personla time to respond to emails and phone calls on Christmas Eve from kids all over. With the advent of the Internet, NORAD can also track him on through cyberspace, where millions of curious Santa fans clicked on to the “NORAD Tracks Santa” website.

Now every newspaper, television station and news source all use NORAD’s updates to provide Christmas Eve updates on where Kris Kringle is on his once a year sleigh ride.

How do they track Santa? Well according to their website, “NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa – radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets.” Fighter jets?

You can also “Track Santa in 3D” with Google Earth and check out the rest of the fun things for the kids on the website.

And if you are still having a hard time believing Santa really exists, then you need to follow him on Twitter and check out last year’s video!

Merry Christmas everyone!