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Distracting/attracting Muggles


gerboa

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hi, in bangkok, as i guess many other places. there are eyes everywhere.

i seek mostly, as i live near pattaya.

in the parks there is more security than at Tel Aviv airport.

the guards are generally of the 3 wise monkeys persuasion, but a farang will always

attract their attention.

one ploy i use in grubbing around in the undergrowth is to have a Sherlock Holmes lens and camera, and endeavour to look like a harmless scientist, they soon go back to sleep.

in emergency a bribe always works for them to vacate their posts, but if word gets out, results in scores of employees converging for their tribute.

 

any other tactics?

Edited by gerboa
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Going to Europe on a school trip in April, and had a brainstorm of how to do this. There are a few micros in very busy sightseeing areas that we wanted to find. There are over 100 students going on the trip, so the plan is to get a group of 10 people or so, and once we've narrowed down the location of the micro, have them pose for your typical touristy group picture. Then I crawl around behind all of them and retrieve the cache! :huh:

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We've got 3 kids, so they are always a good distraction. Most people see 3 of them and turn and run :huh:

 

I'm torn. My son would be great cover for the urban micros. We could be counting ants, collecting sticks, hide&seek in a bush. Kids can do anything without looking suspicious. But without the swag, he wouldn't see the point of an urban micro. Although after walking right past two micros today and deciding the 4-lane road and sidewalk were too busy for stealth, I've considered bringing him along for those, adding my own bribe, and pretending it was in the cache. :huh:

Edited by haber
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While I'm looking under some low bushes for the cache - a elderly muggle suprises me and says, "what'cha looking fer" I say (instinctively) "my sunglasses..."

 

He helps me look! :unsure: ... after I see the cache, before I grab it I say... "maybe they didn't fall in the bushes after all..."

 

:)

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I usually just have the kids pose for "quick picks." Funniest one I ever heard though was a man who carried toilet paper with him whilst caching. If muggles approached, he simply squatted down, and held the toilet paper high in the air for them to see.

 

That's rich :unsure: .......I hide when I do that :)

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The best ploy to become invisible is to have a tape measure and clip board. Start measuing things around the cache site and people will look right through you ...

 

The only thing that worries me about this and similar methods is what to do if the people who are actually supposed to carry the clipboard and measuring tape are the muggles. ;)

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The best ploy to become invisible is to have a tape measure and clip board. Start measuing things around the cache site and people will look right through you ...

 

The only thing that worries me about this and similar methods is what to do if the people who are actually supposed to carry the clipboard and measuring tape are the muggles. ;)

Don't measure the same thing that they are measuring. :tired:

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The best ploy to become invisible is to have a tape measure and clip board. Start measuing things around the cache site and people will look right through you ...

 

The only thing that worries me about this and similar methods is what to do if the people who are actually supposed to carry the clipboard and measuring tape are the muggles. :tired:

Just look up from your measuring and rolling your eyes mutter-"government contracts, gotta love 'em." ;)

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I have found that no matter what I am doing, if I act like I am doing nothing out of the ordinary people don't pay much attention to me. It's when I look around, making sure no one is watching that people become suspicious. And if you aren't behaving in a suspicious manner, any reasonable explanation given to someone who happens to ask what's up always satistfies their curiosity.

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The best ploy to become invisible is to have a tape measure and clip board. Start measuing things around the cache site and people will look right through you ...

 

The only thing that worries me about this and similar methods is what to do if the people who are actually supposed to carry the clipboard and measuring tape are the muggles. :)

Don't measure the same thing that they are measuring. :)

:):) ....The clipboard has been my savior....."looking for survey marker"... if you run into another real "official" , just confess !!!!

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So far I have been quite honest, not that it has come up often. On one very cold and windy day the area security guard dropped by my car as I was getting in after a find. The parking for the park where the cache is is in an industrial park behind one of the warehouses. As this was a deserted Sunday afternoon she was curious as to what I was doing out on such a cold day. After I explained geocaching and showed her the GPS she was very impressed, I even gave her the URL so she could see my posting later that night. She said she had no idea that such a thing was going on in "her" park and seemed genuinely interested.

 

I'm thinking of printing up a "business card" that I could print up to tell people what I am doing and point them to geocaching.com ... has anyone else done that? Any ideas I could steal borrow? :)

 

Bill W

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So far I have been quite honest, not that it has come up often. On one very cold and windy day the area security guard dropped by my car as I was getting in after a find. The parking for the park where the cache is is in an industrial park behind one of the warehouses. As this was a deserted Sunday afternoon she was curious as to what I was doing out on such a cold day. After I explained geocaching and showed her the GPS she was very impressed, I even gave her the URL so she could see my posting later that night. She said she had no idea that such a thing was going on in "her" park and seemed genuinely interested.

 

I'm thinking of printing up a "business card" that I could print up to tell people what I am doing and point them to geocaching.com ... has anyone else done that? Any ideas I could steal borrow? :lol:

 

Bill W

 

Geocacher U has a nice brochure and a folding business card that works great for info for muggles. I always carry a couple of each with me. I gave one of the business cards to a security guard in a parking ramp where I was looking for a micro. He was very interested and planned on buying a GPS. Another convert! :D

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Being in the military has it's advantages and disadvantages. the downside is that the culture is very conformist, and geocaching is a little left field for some folks, so muggles can be rather hostile. there are plenty of us, but we're still the exception rather than the rule. the advantage is that we have access to all kinds of tech gadgets - nvg's, DAGR, BFT, that civilian cachers don't get to play with.

so, having rambled all that out, i usually try to cache at night, using nvg's, and a flashlight only when it becomes necessary. as stated above act like you own the place and most folks won't bother you. I haven't had to use it yet, but my backup excuse (during daylight) is that I am planning a land nav course for my platoon and i am confirming the coordinates. I might have to start using the clipboard gambit, too!

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Botanist and/or photographer always seem to work the best for me. Amazing how I expounded on the differences between a couple of holly trees at one cache location -- there really were major differences in the leaves. However, the one time I was accosted by a police officer -- well, I decided honesty was the best policy. Luckily, he had heard of geocaching, but I had the cache in hand to show him, just in case.

 

I've generally had much fewer problems night caching, except for the time somebody thought we were poachers. Luckily, we had no guns!

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I'm still new at this and I have been spending a lot of time looking for one certain cache. Yesterday I brought a pair of gloves and picked up trash. So I was able to keep looking even while people were standing around. Still didn't find it even though everyone has logged it as an easy find - but the place looks cleaner. Alas, there will be more trash next time I go back there.

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We've got 3 kids, so they are always a good distraction. Most people see 3 of them and turn and run :D

 

I'm torn. My son would be great cover for the urban micros. We could be counting ants, collecting sticks, hide&seek in a bush. Kids can do anything without looking suspicious. But without the swag, he wouldn't see the point of an urban micro. Although after walking right past two micros today and deciding the 4-lane road and sidewalk were too busy for stealth, I've considered bringing him along for those, adding my own bribe, and pretending it was in the cache. :D

 

My kids are sometimes decent cover, but they aren't very good at stealth. My 5 yr old has no volume control "I FOUND IT DADDY!!! THE TREASURE!!!". I guess not being dishonest is a blessing, though.

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