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The Christmas tradition has become nearly global in scope: Children from around the world track Santa Claus as he sweeps across the earth, delivering presents and defying time. Each year, at least 100,000 kids call into the North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about Santa’s location. Millions more follow online in nine languages , from English to Japanese. On any other night, NORAD is scanning the heavens for potential threats , such as last year’s Chinese spy balloon . But on Christmas Eve, volunteers in Colorado Springs are fielding questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and, “Am I on the naughty or nice list?” “There are screams and giggles and laughter,” said Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and NORAD volunteer. Sommers often says on the call that everyone must be asleep before Santa arrives, prompting parents to say, “Do you hear what he said? We got to go to bed early.” NORAD’s annual tracking of Santa has endured since the Cold War , predating ugly sweater parties and Mariah Carey classics . Here’s how it began and why the phones keep ringing. It started with a child’s accidental phone call in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears advertisement that encouraged children to call Santa, listing a phone number. A boy called. But he reached the Continental Air Defense Command, now NORAD, a joint U.S. and Canadian effort to spot potential enemy attacks. Tensions were growing with the Soviet Union, along with anxieties about nuclear war. Air Force Col. Harry W. Shoup picked up an emergency-only “red phone” and was greeted by a tiny voice that began to recite a Christmas wish list. “He went on a little bit, and he takes a breath, then says, ‘Hey, you’re not Santa,’” Shoup told The Associated Press in 1999. Realizing an explanation would be lost on the youngster, Shoup summoned a deep, jolly voice and replied, “Ho, ho, ho! Yes, I am Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy?” Shoup said he learned from the boy’s mother that Sears mistakenly printed the top-secret number. He hung up, but the phone soon rang again with a young girl reciting her Christmas list. Fifty calls a day followed, he said. In the pre-digital age, the agency used a 60-by-80 foot (18-by-24 meter) plexiglass map of North America to track unidentified objects. A staff member jokingly drew Santa and his sleigh over the North Pole. The tradition was born. “Note to the kiddies,” began an AP story from Colorado Springs on Dec. 23, 1955. “Santa Claus Friday was assured safe passage into the United States by the Continental Air Defense Command.” In a likely reference to the Soviets, the article noted that Santa was guarded against possible attack from “those who do not believe in Christmas.” Some grinchy journalists have nitpicked Shoup’s story, questioning whether a misprint or a misdial prompted the boy’s call. In 2014, tech news site Gizmodo cited an International News Service story from Dec. 1, 1955, about a child’s call to Shoup. Published in the Pasadena Independent, the article said the child reversed two digits in the Sears number. “When a childish voice asked COC commander Col. Harry Shoup, if there was a Santa Claus at the North Pole, he answered much more roughly than he should — considering the season: ‘There may be a guy called Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I worry about coming from that direction,’” Shoup said in the brief piece. In 2015, The Atlantic magazine doubted the flood of calls to the secret line, while noting that Shoup had a flair for public relations. Phone calls aside, Shoup was indeed media savvy. In 1986, he told the Scripps Howard News Service that he recognized an opportunity when a staff member drew Santa on the glass map in 1955. A lieutenant colonel promised to have it erased. But Shoup said, “You leave it right there,” and summoned public affairs. Shoup wanted to boost morale for the troops and public alike. “Why, it made the military look good — like we’re not all a bunch of snobs who don’t care about Santa Claus,” he said. Shoup died in 2009. His children told the StoryCorps podcast in 2014 that it was a misprinted Sears ad that prompted the phone calls. “And later in life he got letters from all over the world,” said Terri Van Keuren, a daughter. “People saying ‘Thank you, Colonel, for having, you know, this sense of humor.’” NORAD’s tradition is one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old Santa story that have endured, according to Gerry Bowler, a Canadian historian who spoke to the AP in 2010. Ad campaigns or movies try to “kidnap” Santa for commercial purposes, said Bowler, who wrote “Santa Claus: A Biography.” NORAD, by contrast, takes an essential element of Santa’s story and views it through a technological lens. In a recent interview with the AP, Air Force Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham explained that NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada — known as the northern warning system — are the first to detect Santa. He leaves the North Pole and typically heads for the international dateline in the Pacific Ocean. From there he moves west, following the night. “That’s when the satellite systems we use to track and identify targets of interest every single day start to kick in,” Cunningham said. “A probably little-known fact is that Rudolph’s nose that glows red emanates a lot of heat. And so those satellites track (Santa) through that heat source.” NORAD has an app and website, www.noradsanta.org , that will track Santa on Christmas Eve from 4 a.m. to midnight, Mountain Standard Time. People can call 1-877-HI-NORAD to ask live operators about Santa’s location from 6 a.m. to midnight, mountain time.Luke Kromenhoek throws 3 TD passes as Florida St. ends six-game skid vs. Charleston Southern
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Over 10 years, the notorious "bicycle bandit" terrorised innocent bank tellers at gunpoint. His identity remained a mystery for almost two decades until police used an emerging forensic technique to unmask the culprit. Carrying a duffle bag, a man seamlessly pulls a balaclava down over his face, yanks out a rifle and aims it towards the bank teller. He orders staff to stuff bundles of cash into his green canvas bag, and he strides out — before fleeing on a bicycle or a strategically placed getaway vehicle. "Hurry up, or there will be blood on the floor," he threatens during one of the robberies. It's a routine he uses 11 times over a decade, from 2004 to 2014, at banks within an hour or two from Adelaide. Dubbed the "bicycle bandit" for using the simple, yet effective, getaway transport during the first four hold-ups, he steals almost $359,000 during 10 successful heists. In each of the robberies, he uses the same Chinese SKK assault rifle. While he does not kill anyone during the crimes, he leaves a trail of emotional destruction in his wake. Victims of the notorious bank robber recall feeling "sheer terror" during the hold-ups. "I was just going about my regular workday, having done this job for over 30 years and then suddenly didn't know if I would survive and make it home to my family, or be shot with the a gun that was pointed in my face," one victim said in the impact statement she provided to the court. Rose Lindner was among those who endured his reign of terror and can still clearly recount the frightening ordeal 18 years later. She was relieving at Bank SA's branch in Tanunda, in the scenic Barossa Valley region, when he struck in 2006. "I was just leaning on the counter, behind the other teller and looked at her. We were just chatting away, and I went, 'We are about to be held up'," she says. "In walked the bicycle bandit and in one moment, in one motion, he pulled his gun out and pulled down his balaclava and was at the counter, made the customer lie on the floor and then wanted all the money, the reserves." She remembers the man having large hands and being "angry with his gun and very forceful with his words". "He was methodical in his actions, well-rehearsed," she says. Rose nervously follows his orders, emptying draws and retrieving a fresh wad of $100 notes from a locked room before he instructs her to lie on the floor. She fears the worst. "I'm gonna die, he's gonna shoot us," she recalls thinking at the time. The man soon flees, leaving Rose and her colleagues shaken. "It's a really hard thing to describe," she says. "When you go through something so traumatic — and it is, it's like, you could potentially die — everything in your world changes." While Rose and dozens of other victims had to live with the terror of the man's crimes, his identity remained a mystery, despite crucial DNA evidence being left at two crime scenes. In 2005, DNA is left on bicycle handlebars at Mount Pleasant. And in June 2008, a police officer confronts him during a hold-up at ANZ in Balaklava. Still wearing his disguise, the gunman flees via a rear exit, cutting himself on an uncapped fence and leaving a valuable spray of blood behind. His DNA is repeatedly run through criminal databases to no avail. Hundreds of suspects are investigated and eliminated. Police also have other information, including a voice recording captured during the July 2007 hold-up at Mount Pleasant. A staff member was on the phone to Telstra as he burst through the doors. "Take everything out you got in there and put it in this green bag ... everything, everything ... stay where you are, you too young lady, if anyone tries to follow, you will be shot," he says. Emerging science helps crack the case Despite the clues, the mystery of the bicycle bandit's identity continues to baffle detectives until an emerging forensic technique — which South Australian detectives use in a criminal case for the first time — provides a breakthrough. In 2019, Detective Brevet Sergeant Adrian Moulds became the case officer for Operation Coy — a task force created in 2004 to track down the bicycle bandit. At the time, the use of forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG) to catch the Golden State Killer was in the headlines. He says police saw "an opportunity". "We knew we had the DNA of the offender, we just didn't know who he was," he says. He explains FIGG is an "intelligence tool for law enforcement" which combines modern DNA analysis techniques coupled with traditional genealogy to identify cold case suspects, or unidentified human remains. It involves uploading a detailed DNA profile to a private genealogy database like GEDmatch to see if there are any matches to members of the public. "Our top search result was a very distant cousin, in the third cousin range," he says. "Using that top search result, who is a person who has consented to having their profile used for law enforcement searching, we reverse engineered a family tree back to 1800." Using public records, detectives used the match — which originated overseas — to create and work through a family tree to identify their suspect. "As we are building the family trees down in South Australia we came across Kym Allen Parsons for the first time," Brevet Sergeant Moulds says. "There was very little known about him on our systems. "We started looking at him and investigating him as a person of interest. It didn't take very long for him to become a suspect." Police soon discover Parsons matched the physical description, lived in areas including the Adelaide Hills and had access to a white Mitsubishi Magna, which was one of the vehicles used to escape the crime scenes. He was a former police officer and fire fighter. Although he would not go into detail, Brevet Sergeant Moulds says officers "lawfully obtained a sample of his DNA". It was a match. Police then meticulously planned a strategy to pounce on Parsons. They believed he had weapons in his home and were not going to take any chances. "He had no idea that we were coming," Brevet Sergeant Moulds says. Parsons was arrested in the backyard of his seaside home at O'Sullivan Beach, in Adelaide's south, in October 2023. "He was shocked. He had been looking over his shoulder for a considerable time ... there was a resignation in his face, we could tell that the day had finally come for him," he says. He says Parsons openly engaged with the officers and made admissions during the four-hour interview which followed. Crucially, they found nine firearms in his home — including the assault rifle which matched to cartridges left behind after discharging his firearm during his final heist at Mount Pleasant. Brevet Sergeant Moulds says "it was a really great moment" to finally nab the man who had terrorised so many, while evading authorities for nearly two decades. "It's a culmination of work that ... 200 of our officers have conducted over a 20-year period effectively, and thousands of hours of dedication and teamwork to get to that point," he says. DNA technology 'a game-changing technique' While the case is a first for South Australia, Brevet Sergeant Moulds says the FIGG technique has solved a handful of other cases around Australia, and about 1,000 globally. "It's a game-changing technique for law enforcement and it will be used to solve more cold cases, not only in South Australia but around Australia," he says. Brevet Sergeant Moulds says police are working closely with other states to determine best practice guidelines for using FIGG. Human rights barrister Claire O'Connor SC says the use of FIGG should be discussed publicly to develop rules around its use. "I think there has to be safeguards ... in who collects the data, who retains it and who can release it," she says. "I think there is probably a delight in law enforcement and government in being able to catch criminals, to do their job and to do it any way that they can." The Adelaide lawyer says there are already restrictions on the use of fingerprints and photographs, and similar guidelines should exist for new forms of technology. "We already have an understanding about where lines are drawn, it's just that sometimes technology can jump ahead of our understanding of those things," she says. "We need to be sure that we have these discussions about every time the state obtains, then retains data on us. "We need to have a proper conversation about it. "I think the place to have that conversation is in parliament and I think it should be done with ... expert opinions from people involved in privacy, people involved in human rights and also people that represent victims." Commissioner for Victims' Rights, Sarah Quick, agrees. "I think public debate is always beneficial and it will really be about the public understanding (of) who and what is accessible via those databases so that you can make an informed choice as to whether it's something you engage with," she says. For victims, though, she says the use of the technology is "incredibly helpful" in gaining outcomes and closure. "From a victims' perspective I think they would be incredibly pleased that that was a tool that was used to finally have some resolution over so many years would be very helpful for those victims." She says trauma can endure — particularly when a suspect remains on the run and a crime unsolved for many years. "It makes it difficult for victims to really address their trauma and move past it," she says. "When crimes are unsolved, many victims really feel as though they are suspended in a state of terror and fear, and they can't move past that." Parsons' victims are also navigating a further complexity because the man who terrorised their workplaces accessed voluntary assisted dying (VAD) just two days after being sentenced to 35 years' jail for his crimes. Strict rules apply to accessing VAD in South Australia, including having advanced terminal illness. Court hearings revealed Parsons had stage 4 cancer, likely due to his employment as a firefighter. For Rose, his capture and death provides some relief. "I'm no longer looking for that person with the large hands which is lovely. So, that's taken a load off," she says. One of the most difficult elements of her experience is the invisible injuries. "Nobody knows what you are going through because it's in your head," she says. "It's like, I would have preferred to have been shot, because that's a physical injury. People see physical injuries, I couldn't walk around with a band aid on my head. "The brain is a huge, mysterious organ. I was completely surprised at how my brain reacted. "I wouldn't wish it on anybody." Credits Reporting: and Photography: Che Chorley, Brant Cumming and Carl Saville Graphics: Stephan Hammat Digital production: Editing: Related stories Crime Courts Courts Armed Robbery Related topics Adelaide Armed Robbery Balaklava Crime DNA DNA Testing Euthanasia Lobethal Mount Pleasant O'Sullivan Beach Police Tanunda Willunga YankalillaDennis Gates hoping to lead Tigers past alma mater
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