Colonel Harry Shoup received the call on a telephone meant to be used during an incidence of impending attack by the Soviet Union, but responded in a playful way and let the boy know where Santa was en route from the North Pole.

The colonel's daughter told the New York Post that a child on the other end began crying when the military man demanded to know who was calling.

However, Shoup then said that he was one of Santa's elves, and talked to the boy about whether he had been a good boy.

Norad was set up to monitor possible aerial and space threats from enemies of the US and Canada, but has added a more festive part of its mission. Above, the Norad headquarters in Colorado Springs

He figured out what was going on after talking to the boy's mother and told his men to speak to the children about Santa's journey when more calls came.

NORAD, then called Corad, had a radar system set up in the northern reaches of Canada to detect threats such as Soviet missiles traveling over the North Pole.

Decades later, the NORAD Tracks Santa effort also uses satellites and SantaCams placed around the world that 'broadcast footage' of the Jolly Old Elf in different locales.

The has become tradition, and now involves a host of corporate partners and volunteers who handle calls and emails from children wondering about Santa's whereabouts.

He is said to start near the International Date Line in New Zealand and Australia before going up to east Asia and west to Europe and Africa before hitting up the US.

NORAD claims Canadian and American fighter jets accompany Saint Nick in each country's airspace though the website lacks accounts of the journey from the airmen.