North American Aerospace Defense Command Description, NORAD News, Videos, Canada and United States joint organization

North American Aerospace Defense Command is a joint organization of Canada and the United States that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and defense for the two countries. It was founded on May 12, 1958 (the effect of the Cold War) as a joint command between the governments of Canada and the United States, as the North American Air Defense Command.

Its main technical facility has been the Cheyenne Mountain Directorate formerly, Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, of the Cheyenne Mtn. Air Force Station, Colorado; and for this reason NORAD is sometimes referred to as Cheyenne Mountain. In addition, in Canada East and Canada West Sector Air Operations Control Centres are located in the underground complex at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) North Bay in Ontario in Canada.

NORAD’s headquarters facilities in Colorado are administered by the U.S. Air Force under the command of the 721st Mission Support Group, part of the 21st Space Wing, headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base. NORAD’s forces consist of the Alaskan NORAD Region/Eleventh Air Force, Canadian NORAD Region, and Continental NORAD Region.

NORAD comes to public attention at Christmas, when it tracks Santa Claus on his journey around the world delivering toys for the world’s children. This tradition started in 1955 when a local Sears store in Colorado misprinted the telephone number and children thought they were calling Santa, but actually were calling Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD’s predecessor) instead.

The growing perception of the threat of long-range Soviet strategic bombers armed with nuclear weapons brought the U.S. and Canada into closer cooperation for air defense. While attacks from the Pacific or Atlantic would have been detected by Airborne Early Warning aircraft, Navy ships, or offshore radar platforms, the Arctic was underprotected. In the early 1950s the U.S. and Canada agreed to construct a series of radar stations across North America to detect a Soviet attack over the Arctic. The first series of radars was the Pinetree Line, completed in 1954 and consisting of 33 stations across southern Canada. However, technical defects in the system led to more radar networks being built. In 1957, the McGill Fence was completed; it consisted of Doppler radar for the detection of low-flying craft. This system was roughly 300 miles (480 km) north of the Pinetree Line along the 55th parallel. The third joint system was the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line), also completed in 1957. This was a network of 58 stations along the 69th parallel. The systems gave around three hours’ warning of a bomber attack before they could reach any major population center.

The command and control of the massive system then became a significant challenge. Discussions and studies of joint systems had been ongoing since the early 1950s and culminated on August 1, 1957, with the announcement by the U.S. and Canada to establish an integrated command, the North American Air Defense Command. On September 12, operations commenced in Colorado. A formal N.O.R.A.D agreement between the two governments was signed on May 12, 1958.

On June 16, 1961, the official groundbreaking ceremony was held at the construction site of the NORAD Combat Operations Center (COC). Gen. Laurence S. Kuter, NORAD Commander, and Lt. Gen. Robert M. Lee, ADC Commander, simultaneously set off symbolic dynamite charges.

North American Aerospace Defense Command Description, NORAD News, Videos, Canada and United States joint organization

Cheyenne Mountain was one of the settings of the 1983 motion picture WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick as a teenager who hacked NORAD?s main computer and almost started a global thermonuclear war.

Cheyenne Mountain is also the main setting of the Stargate Universe serving as the Command Center for all Stargate Operations in the Milky Way Galaxy, as well as the Thunder Mountain home of the protagonists in the post-apocalyptic series Jeremiah.