As Santa Claus and his reindeer make their epic voyage around the planet tonight, delivering presents to the world’s children, having taken note of which have been naughty and nice, radar and satellite are set to follow his sleigh. This Christmas Eve, millions of boys and girls will be able to “watch” his progress on the internet and their mobile phones.

The North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) in Colorado, the organisation entrusted with defending the US and Canada from incoming nuclear missiles, says it can use its high-tech defence system to garner Father Christmas’s whereabouts. It has been “tracking Santa” for more than 50 years, claiming to have “the technology, the qualifications and the people to do it.”

The “Norad tracks Santa” website has become an internet phenomenon, getting close to a billion hits in past holidays, as excited children log on to see how Father Christmas is getting on delivering their gifts.

This year, they can follow his progress with “Santa Cams” that have been set up to capture the white bearded guy as he whizzes past. Google have also got into the act, using its mapping service to give up-to-the-date analysis on where he is. More than 10 million people from over 200 countries visited the website last year.

“The idea is that people will be able to see Santa’s route on the 24th, as he goes around distributing gifts,” said Amit Sood, a senior executive at Google.

However, Norad took up the duties of following Father Christmas well before the the internet even existed. In 1955, a desperate child called up the organisation asking to speak to Santa. The call was answered by Colonel Harry Shoup, the man in charge of the massive radar system designed give an early warning of an incoming Soviet attack on North America.

It emerged that a local department store had advertised the chance to speak to Santa, but had misprinted the phone number. “Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night,” read the advert.

On hearing that they had not got through to the North Pole, but to continental air defence, the inquisitive child asked whether Colonel Shoup knew where Santa was. Playing along, he checked the radar to work out Saint Nick’s exact location and informed the child. The senior officer then told his staff to do same, if anyone else called asking about Santa Claus.

After being convinced that it was good public relations exercise, Norad have been providing the service ever since.

The organisation’s operations centre, will be staffed by more than 1000 volunteers today. Last Christmas, its staff answered nearly 95,000 phone calls and received 140,000 emails from families around the world.

Norad claims that it can follow Santa though its radar and satellite technology, as well as the infra-red signature left by Rudolph’s red nose. The organisation points out that it has the technology to track airplanes, missiles, space launches, orbiting objects and virtually anything that flies through or in the vicinity of North American airspace.

For those kids who have a mobile phone that can download the Google Maps feature, can search for “norad santa” to follow him. Anyone else with a humble broadband connection can use the noradsanta.org website.

Norad starts tracking around 9am British time, when it is thought he will still be at the North Pole. His journey varies from year to year, but tends to start after sunset somewhere near New Zealand.

There have been many theories how Santa can make such a miraculous journey, visiting an estimated 75 million homes in 24 hours while passing through various time zones.

Sceptics point out that for Santa’s journey theoretically possible, it would require more than 200,000 flying reindeer travelling at 650 miles per second, which physicists believe would cause Santa, Rudolph and company, to burn up in the night sky.

Other scientists say this fate could be avoided through some sort of shield made up of ion-charged particles held together by a magnetic field.

Explore Tech & Web

• Personal Tech

• The Web

• Gadgets & Gaming