For real though, the NORAD Santa tracker actually did start with a wrong number.
Specifically, a wrong number in an ad by Sears.
They set up a Santa hotline where you could call and talk to a bunch of people being paid to pretend to be Santa. Only they printed the number wrong in the ad, and the number they printed, by some sheer cosmic insanity, was the number of the red phone on the desk of the head of NORAD. A phone that only the president and a handful of five star generals were authorized to call.
So this dude gets a call, and there's this kid on the line asking to talk to Santa. He starts interrogating thy kid, the kid naturally starts crying... So the fucking head of NORAD starts going "Ho ho ho, merry Christmas little boy. Have you been good this year?" and all that. Eventually gets the story from the kids mother.
So he gets a bunch of junior NCOs to man the phones, because their lines are absolutely slammed now. Tells them all to fucking pretend to be Santa. This dude has a rep for being super straight laced, and everyone thinks he's lost it. Whole base is in uproar. At some point some joker makes a little paper cutout of a sleigh and sticks it to the tracker display. Commander comes in, demands to know what it is. The person responsible apologizes, but instead of chewing him out the commander picks up the phone and dials a local radio station. Tells them it's the head of NORAD, and they're tracking an unidentified flying object that looks a lot like a sleigh. And a new tradition is born.
The best part? According to his children, after he retired this guy carried around a locked attache case with him everywhere he went. It was full of all the letters he got from kids and parents thanking him. He never went anywhere without them.
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport
