Ghost Hunt /haunted Urban Legend Caches

[+phoenix-rose]

Hi all,

 

Ok so I was doing some searching on the internet, and found several listed places around my local area that urban legends (and perhaps not so urban legend-ish when they have EVP & pictures) have it are haunted.

 

For the Halloween season (and if it goes well, leave them up longer), I was thinking of setting up a geocaching walking tour around the downtown area close to where I live (there's about 25 within about a 2 mile radius give or take...) where the site/description has the ghost story/history of the "haunted" house, building, town or whatever is creepy about it, and putting micros with logs on signs/planters/etc close by so that those interested could do all or part of the tour, and well.. maybe be a little spooked.

 

With the "fun" type haunted houses charging $20 per person in the local area for a scare, I figured perhaps the real haunted houses and their stories might be fun for geocachers to do a "self guided" type tour. (Plus it saves gas, is cheaper, and helps people learn local history if the "legends" are partly based in fact!)

 

a) Thoughts on this type of caching setup? (positives/negatives)

Would this be something that would work in your town? (I know when I travel, I think it'd be a blast to do a local "geocache ghost" tour - even if they're all just urban legend type things.)

c) Further expansion of the idea would be to put some in ghost towns that are farther out and so on....

 

Note that most of the places/info I've found has been based on searching the internet for local ghosts/ghost stories, haunted houses, and urban legends. Also, I found a few cool ideas (to make up the story myself) in the local paper since we've had some graves moved recently, and the grave of a native american has been found while shoring up a building downtown.

 

Thanks for any ideas/thoughts...

 

~Rose

[+rjb43nh]

You may want to reconsider having it just for Halloween. Many people would probably go for the cache all year round, if it is set up properly. Also, here is a quote from the guidelines on placing a cache.

Cache Permanence

 

When you report a cache on the Geocaching.com web site, geocachers should (and will) expect the cache to be there for a realistic and extended period of time. Therefore, caches that have the goal to move (“traveling caches”), or temporary caches (caches hidden for less than 3 months or for events) most likely will not be listed.

Hope this helps.

[+phoenix-rose]

For Right now, I'm planning on leaving them out beyond Halloween - I think my concern is that they may get stolen, or perhaps that there may be other problems/issues I haven't thought about.

 

These go from urban into residential areas - though I'm staying in the busier parts of town for alot of them... Also, I'm thinking to put some "across the street" from the "haunted" location so you can look at the building, for example, but don't have to actually bother the people whom live there.

[+Jester2112]

I think it's an awesome idea. I'm not much of a micro fan, unless I get to learn/see something I hadn't before. As for a self-guided ghost tour, I love the idea. I just wish I lived in your area so I could check it out. Leave it up. I may make it out there one of these years.

 

(Edited to correct spelling error)

Edited September 13, 2005 by Jester2112

[PyroDave]

sounds awsome try to make it a perminate cache I bet it would get tons of hits year around. If i was in your area I'd do as soon asi saw it. Alot of people I know love multis with some history included.

 

PyroDave

[+phoenix-rose]

Ok so do you think it's best to do it as a series of multi caches OR as singles?

 

There are some close to each other that could be done as multis, but since the walking covers about 2 mile radius from the center point going around, I was thinking that other than the ones that are up the street from each other (a hotel and a theater that are fairly close and could be "combined" into one cache/story) maybe to do it as singles so people could pick them up as they had time and/or wanted to.

 

Thoughts?

 

~Rose

[+Jester2112]

I say individual caches...as long as you can find enough history for each location to make an interesting cache page with plenty of information on it. Also, maybe a hint/clue in each that once all were collected lead to a bonus cache for completing the entire tour. Just my $0.02 worth.

[bogleman]

You could use mind control through the cache description - write a scarry story about a specific place, have you ever read a good scarry book - you get the idea. I does not have to be real just make it sound real. I have always wanted to place a cache based on a Stephen King novel. You could BORROW some ideas from there and run with it, just be creative with your cache page and wording. The next step would require you to find the proper location that would fit in with what you are trying to go for. Then wait for that special day to submitt the cache for approval (well send it through a few days early to make sure there are no problems). You could place SPECIAL (scarry) containers for each part of the multi cache/single cache/puzzle cache.

[PyroDave]

Id do it as a big multi with each stop contain the stroy of the area your at. Doing at singles would have a down fall or 2 if a person came in from out of town they might not reize there was a series to it and miss some and as a multi you could keep building up on the last story to get people more and more scared.

[+Indotguy]

A good cache idea. Here are three hides of mine which would fit into this category:

GCKFZN, GCKP7Y and GCKFZN.

[+phoenix-rose]

Ok so here's what I have so far:

 

a) I'm picking up haunted spots (according to urban legend), for example, we have two haunted mansions that are about 10 blocks from each other. These would be individual caches, each with their own seperate specters haunting them because they're not related to each other. (One has photo evidence from survellance cameras, and the other video)

 

Of the haunted spots, one is a hotel which a lady threw her children off the 12th floor balcony - and the husband subsequently ran across the street to a theater (after realizing that his children were gone) hung himself and started a fire which killed the theater's caretaker. This would be multi cache with two stories (related) and pointing out both buildings, one giving the co-ords for the other as you "follow in the father's footsteps" you find out more of the story.

 

c) The last ones (individual I'm thinking) would be the cemetary hauntings - we have a gravestone here where the lady's headstone says "here lies so & so" and then under it, it says "A victim of the devil's 666". It's got urban legend with it though no one really knows whom is buried there. There's also a mosuleum where you supposedly can run around it 3 times and peek in the window to see the "crypt keeper" himself... I'm not sure how this will be - individual or multi yet - depends on how far they are apart in the cemetary...

 

The more I find out and the more I get into the research, I'm totally thinking to make these permanent - and later in the year, I can add to them some of the west desert ghost towns and stuff. I'm a little concerned over the ghost towns (old mining towns - complete with open mine shafts - so I would put a warning on them and make sure to place the cache in a place that's as safe as possible - building footing remains for example). That way, you can do the urban and the not so urban ghosts of Utah's past.

 

As far as building up a story from cache to cache - that may be a possibility for later on as I'm able to get more creative with the idea. Thanks!

[+TeamAO]

Hi all,

 

Ok so I was doing some searching on the internet, and found several listed places around my local area that urban legends (and perhaps not so urban legend-ish when they have EVP & pictures) have it are haunted.

 

For the Halloween season (and if it goes well, leave them up longer), I was thinking of setting up a geocaching walking tour around the downtown area close to where I live (there's about 25 within about a 2 mile radius give or take...) where the site/description has the ghost story/history of the "haunted" house, building, town or whatever is creepy about it, and putting micros with logs on signs/planters/etc close by so that those interested could do all or part of the tour, and well.. maybe be a little spooked.

 

With the "fun" type haunted houses charging $20 per person in the local area for a scare, I figured perhaps the real haunted houses and their stories might be fun for geocachers to do a "self guided" type tour. (Plus it saves gas, is cheaper, and helps people learn local history if the "legends" are partly based in fact!)

 

a) Thoughts on this type of caching setup? (positives/negatives)

Would this be something that would work in your town? (I know when I travel, I think it'd be a blast to do a local "geocache ghost" tour - even if they're all just urban legend type things.)

c) Further expansion of the idea would be to put some in ghost towns that are farther out and so on....

 

Note that most of the places/info I've found has been based on searching the internet for local ghosts/ghost stories, haunted houses, and urban legends. Also, I found a few cool ideas (to make up the story myself) in the local paper since we've had some graves moved recently, and the grave of a native american has been found while shoring up a building downtown.

 

Thanks for any ideas/thoughts...

 

~Rose

Find a local mystery or legend.

 

Talk to a local and have them give you the story.

 

And piece together something for that information and tie the story slowly in from cache to cache with maybe laminated paper with another part of the story.

 

Suspense works. From what I hear.

[+legends and lore]

That is what I am looking for also!

 

I have several in Houston that I am almost finished researching--haunted bridge, glowing "blue-light" cemetary etc.

 

Send me a message if you get yours going!

 

Legends and Lore

[+Tsmola]

I recently placed a cache that fits in with this perfectly, this little cemetery and church is probably the most haunted place I've EVER visited.

 

The Ghosts of Frost

 

I love caches in locations like this and when I posted this cache on the MIGO forums I had a lot of people who sounded interested and agreed.

 

here's a photo taken by some serious ghost investigators in the cemetery where this cache was located. I haven't gotten any photos close to this yet, but I'm hoping!

 

http://s35.photobucket.com/albums/d190/Ind...nt=100_2772.jpg

[+phoenix-rose]

Hi there!

 

I did a bunch of these caches before I moved to Germany. To see a few that still are around (adopted by those back in Utah) look up "spooky Utah" because they all have that in the title.

 

~Rose

[+BubbleDragon]

Hi there! I love this idea.

 

I've been creating audio CDs of various public domain books to leave in caches, and even have a few "Scary story" disks on reserve to place nearer to halloween. I wondered about the appropriateness of this, since some might not like their kids listening in on that, but I'll label it properly with lots of spooky warnings. )

 

Yay!

[+JFandC]

People like it.

 

Each year I put up an Halloween cache: Halloween 2004: The Lost Cacher Halloween 2005: The Blair Road Witch.

 

As a companion to these caches, I started to place caches based on well known haunting stories: Haunted Ottawa : the Bytown Museum

Haunted Ottawa 2

Haunted Ottawa 3: Chateau Laurier

Haunted Ottawa 4

[+Stephanie2427]

TheShadowlands.net has a regional section that you can find haunted places in your area.

[+spacesea]

Hi all,

 

Ok so I was doing some searching on the internet, and found several listed places around my local area that urban legends (and perhaps not so urban legend-ish when they have EVP & pictures) have it are haunted.

 

For the Halloween season (and if it goes well, leave them up longer), I was thinking of setting up a geocaching walking tour around the downtown area close to where I live (there's about 25 within about a 2 mile radius give or take...) where the site/description has the ghost story/history of the "haunted" house, building, town or whatever is creepy about it, and putting micros with logs on signs/planters/etc close by so that those interested could do all or part of the tour, and well.. maybe be a little spooked.

 

With the "fun" type haunted houses charging $20 per person in the local area for a scare, I figured perhaps the real haunted houses and their stories might be fun for geocachers to do a "self guided" type tour. (Plus it saves gas, is cheaper, and helps people learn local history if the "legends" are partly based in fact!)

 

a) Thoughts on this type of caching setup? (positives/negatives)

Would this be something that would work in your town? (I know when I travel, I think it'd be a blast to do a local "geocache ghost" tour - even if they're all just urban legend type things.)

c) Further expansion of the idea would be to put some in ghost towns that are farther out and so on....

 

Note that most of the places/info I've found has been based on searching the internet for local ghosts/ghost stories, haunted houses, and urban legends. Also, I found a few cool ideas (to make up the story myself) in the local paper since we've had some graves moved recently, and the grave of a native american has been found while shoring up a building downtown.

 

Thanks for any ideas/thoughts...

 

~Rose

[+spacesea]

Hi there! I am new to caching and love it....I use to be the VP of a Paranormal Investigation Team in the Tulsa area....I would LOVE to help with this, if you need me, just email! TOO COOL!