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Dangerous caches?


jc_hook

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I was talking about geocaching with a friend of mine while we were on a hunt. He asked me what would stop some wacko (not necessarily the cache owner) from putting a bomb in a cache? Or what if some nut decided they wanted to make a victim of the next geocacher by putting a toxic substance in the cache? Then today another potential cacher said something similar. These questions do kind of give me the creeps, but heck, I'm not saying it's gonna stop me from geocaching, but doesn't it make you wonder?

 

Sorry to put such a downer topic up, but, does anyone have a good answer? Has anyone ever heard of such treachery?

It makes me want to keep a damper on my enthusiasm about the game to muggles, and I LOVE talking about how great this game is!

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I was talking about geocaching with a friend of mine while we were on a hunt. He asked me what would stop some wacko (not necessarily the cache owner) from putting a bomb in a cache? Or what if some nut decided they wanted to make a victim of the next geocacher by putting a toxic substance in the cache? Then today another potential cacher said something similar. These questions do kind of give me the creeps, but heck, I'm not saying it's gonna stop me from geocaching, but doesn't it make you wonder?

 

Sorry to put such a downer topic up, but, does anyone have a good answer? Has anyone ever heard of such treachery?

It makes me want to keep a damper on my enthusiasm about the game to muggles, and I LOVE talking about how great this game is!

I think the answer to your questions is nothing. Am I going to worry about it? No.

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I was talking about geocaching with a friend of mine while we were on a hunt. He asked me what would stop some wacko (not necessarily the cache owner) from putting a bomb in a cache? Or what if some nut decided they wanted to make a victim of the next geocacher by putting a toxic substance in the cache? Then today another potential cacher said something similar. These questions do kind of give me the creeps, but heck, I'm not saying it's gonna stop me from geocaching, but doesn't it make you wonder?

 

Sorry to put such a downer topic up, but, does anyone have a good answer? Has anyone ever heard of such treachery?

It makes me want to keep a damper on my enthusiasm about the game to muggles, and I LOVE talking about how great this game is!

 

I don't worry about it at all. Enjoy the game as there are a heck of a lot of nice people in the world. alternatively, stay home and don't eat the tomatoes: your choice.

 

Actually, I do understand your perspective as I had to explain to my father (he's 75) that I was not going to put myself in dager by people hiding things for me to find. The sport is safe. The danger comes in from placing yourself out in the wilderness where you can come into contact with all the beauty and dangers (falling off of boulders, getting swept down streams) of the real world. I also do not recommend typing in your cache logs when you are driving or looking at your GPS when you cross a street. Both of these are much more realistic dangers then those that you describe. Enjoy it and be enthusiastic about the sport. It is OK!

Edited by weathernowcast
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Correct answer? Nothing could stop someone from doing it.

 

But consider this - there have been been about 3/4 million caches placed since this sport began (617513 currently active on this site plus countless archived caches and those listed elsewhere). Figure conservatively 10 finds per cache. That's over 7 million cache finds without a single known instance of a a booby trapped cache. I heard of one where someone sprayed the contents with pepper spray. A few where some moron urinitated or deficated in a cache, but not one where a bomb or other lethal substance was placed in a cache.

 

Is it possible? Anything can happen, but so far I like the odds. You're more likely to get injured or killed driving to or from the cache (that has happened a few times that I'm aware of) than becoming a victim of anything inside a cache.

 

So my advice is to worry more about looking both ways before you pull out of the parking spot, than what you may find inside a cache.

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Sorry to put such a downer topic up, but, does anyone have a good answer? Has anyone ever heard of such treachery?

It makes me want to keep a damper on my enthusiasm about the game to muggles, and I LOVE talking about how great this game is!

I've never heard of a bomb in a cache but I've heard of car bombs, and anthrax in mail boxes. I still drive my car every day and go to my mail box every day.

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I was talking about geocaching with a friend of mine while we were on a hunt. He asked me what would stop some wacko (not necessarily the cache owner) from putting a bomb in a cache? Or what if some nut decided they wanted to make a victim of the next geocacher by putting a toxic substance in the cache? Then today another potential cacher said something similar. These questions do kind of give me the creeps, but heck, I'm not saying it's gonna stop me from geocaching, but doesn't it make you wonder?

 

Sorry to put such a downer topic up, but, does anyone have a good answer? Has anyone ever heard of such treachery?

It makes me want to keep a damper on my enthusiasm about the game to muggles, and I LOVE talking about how great this game is!

 

i have thought about theses things as well.

 

some people are messed up. i know around the toronto area somebody was putting razor blades in the parks. that is very sick, and there are sick people out there.

 

my family worries about me going into the woods alone lol!

 

a friend asked me what if a creep is waiting by the cache and takes you!?! i said that could be a long wait, because there is no way to know when a geocacher will come by.

 

but you cant think like that, life is to short.

 

just be safe, dont go on a hunt for a cache where you dont feel safe. enjoy the sights you see along the way, and just have fun.

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Thanks so much for the feedback! Just so you folks know, I agree with the "...same chance of being hit by lightning..." reasoning. I'm still going out there and seeking them out with fervor and drive.

 

I'll just have a fleeting thought once in a while of one day turning on my TV to see a newscaster relaying a story about some gruesome tragedy..."and it all started with, what appears to be an old military style ammunition container with the words, 'geocaching.com' written on it...", and with the way the media tends to educate the opinions of the masses, I could hear someone say, "oh, you’re into geocaching?!? Isn't that dangerous? Did you hear what happened in East Jabib?"

 

I take comfort in this; Geocaching is HUGE and WORLDWIDE and it's more that hiding and seeking a box in the woods (or on a guardrail). So if someday some wacko's antics cast a bad light on the sport, Geocaching will stand up the scrutiny.

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Nothing will stop nutjobs from doing their thing, but I would expect a public locker in a bus terminal or a public toilet in a rest room to be better booby trap sites for idiots to get their thrills. An exploding key hide on a guard rail would get far less press than blowing up a couple dozen folks waiting for a bus in a city station. I'll keep risking death by flaming film canister and not worry a bit.

hairball

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I had someone ask what if someone sets up a cache and waits by it to rob you? I just won't be FTF! LOL it doesn't matter that much to me. Someone else brought up a good point the set up person could be waiting a long time for a cacher to come upon the cache.

 

I've heard that one come up too. There really are more efficient ways to find someone to rob or assault than lying in wait by a geocache for a few days or weeks until a geocacher comes along.

Edited by briansnat
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Nothing will stop nutjobs from doing their thing, but I would expect a public locker in a bus terminal or a public toilet in a rest room to be better booby trap sites for idiots to get their thrills. An exploding key hide on a guard rail would get far less press than blowing up a couple dozen folks waiting for a bus in a city station. I'll keep risking death by flaming film canister and not worry a bit.

hairball

 

That was exactly what I was thinking on this one. These kinds of things are generally intended to be acts of terrorism, and also generally speaking the objective would be to have a good chance of harming a sizable group so as to make their point, and strike panic and fear into the hearts of the general public, neither of which would be accomplished by rigging a cache with something dangerous that may only affect a relative small number, or only one. That, and the general public does not even know about the sport, so even if they heard about a geocache exploding or something, they would not be particularly fearful since they had never been caching before, and likely from that point on, would make a mental note not to take it up!

 

Of course, there are those nut jobs and sociopaths that might get it in their head to do something as horrible as these things, but thankfully, it seems, most of them are muggles!

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I am far more worried about opening a cache and finding a very upset and mad hamster looking back at me.

 

Lol, what inspired that bit of wisdom I wonder? :unsure:

 

But anyway, I've thought about this possibility (the wackos, not the hamsters), but I just figured I was paranoid. I figure I'm more likely to have my car broken into, or be randomly attacked by a renegade bird (has happened, well almost), or fall off of something than get blown up by a cache. But that's why I don't leave anything valuable in my car, or go caching alone.

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I think it much more likely that someone might set off a bomb in a shopping mall, but that possibility hasn't curtailed any of my shopping trips. If a cache blew up in the middle of the woods, would anyone notice (other than the cacher)? Anyway, as others have said, driving to the cache is far more riskier.

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If someone really wanted to terrorize others...there are more efficient then to use geocaches. It’s the mass public and terror that is wanted by such acts…a lone ammo box in the woods is not going to have anywhere near the effect of an urban/densely populated and highly publicized location.

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Related, I have been yelled at many times by squirrels and local wildlife while at a cache…a buddy of mine even had a small tree fall on him while caching (I tell you it is a conspiracy!!!)…

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If someone really wanted to terrorize others...there are more efficient then to use geocaches. It’s the mass public and terror that is wanted by such acts…a lone ammo box in the woods is not going to have anywhere near the effect of an urban/densely populated and highly publicized location.

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Related, I have been yelled at many times by squirrels and local wildlife while at a cache…a buddy of mine even had a small tree fall on him while caching (I tell you it is a conspiracy!!!)…

 

LOL! But there’s the thing. We are using somewhat rational arguments. We are talking about irrational people.

I'll use the Snickers case: Years ago (in the early 80's) some wackjob injected cyanide into a couple of snickers bars. I think it only killed 1 person, but it made the news. I don't think they ever got the person and they were unable to determine if the 2nd one was the same person or a copy cat. Now, am I going to stop eating snickers bars? Heck no!

I guess I'm just wondering if there is a spokesperson for Geocaching that would answer any bad press if something ever did happen. Hey, it's a relatively young game at least in its organized stage. Would the game be able to detoxify bad press so that ignorant, scared people in power couldn't crack down legally against us putting our caches in parks etc.?

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True enough, but the media are rational people, just not generally very smart (no offense!). Anyway, if something did happen regarding a geocache, it would probably only make the local news for the area, and only if someone was killed. If someone was just injured, no one would probably care (and the media would probably not even know about it, really).

 

So on the off chance that someone is killed by a geocache, I think it would probably only make local news (unless it's an incredibly slow news day). Much stranger hings have happened that haven't made the news. I had a jeep come through my living room, but the media didn't seem to care about that.

 

Besides all that, those of us already doing it aren't likely to stop, and there are plenty of people out there who don't listen to the news (either they don't watch it at all, or just don't take any of it as fact), and plenty who would do it in spite of that sort of danger.

 

I think it's entirely possible that the negative news coverage could help the sport :unsure: but please don't go sticking cyanide gas bombs in caches or anything...

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I had someone ask what if someone sets up a cache and waits by it to rob you? I just won't be FTF! LOL it doesn't matter that much to me. Someone else brought up a good point the set up person could be waiting a long time for a cacher to come upon the cache.

 

I've heard that one come up too. There really are more efficient ways to find someone to rob or assault than lying in wait by a geocache for a few days or weeks until a geocacher comes along.

 

This old squirrel might be crippled and blind but they might find out that I have a pretty bad bite! :unsure:

 

Besides, I seen somebody's tag line here that says something like Don't mess with geocachers...they know the best places to hide bodies...sorry if I didn't quote it just right. :laughing:

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If someone really wanted to terrorize others...there are more efficient then to use geocaches. It’s the mass public and terror that is wanted by such acts…a lone ammo box in the woods is not going to have anywhere near the effect of an urban/densely populated and highly publicized location.

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Related, I have been yelled at many times by squirrels and local wildlife while at a cache…a buddy of mine even had a small tree fall on him while caching (I tell you it is a conspiracy!!!)…

 

It wasn't me that yelled at you....I wasn't even caching that day...yeah, that's right, I wasn't even caching that day.... :unsure:

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True enough, but the media are rational people, just not generally very smart (no offense!). Anyway, if something did happen regarding a geocache, it would probably only make the local news for the area, and only if someone was killed. If someone was just injured, no one would probably care (and the media would probably not even know about it, really).

 

So on the off chance that someone is killed by a geocache, I think it would probably only make local news (unless it's an incredibly slow news day). Much stranger hings have happened that haven't made the news. I had a jeep come through my living room, but the media didn't seem to care about that.

 

Besides all that, those of us already doing it aren't likely to stop, and there are plenty of people out there who don't listen to the news (either they don't watch it at all, or just don't take any of it as fact), and plenty who would do it in spite of that sort of danger.

 

I think it's entirely possible that the negative news coverage could help the sport :laughing: but please don't go sticking cyanide gas bombs in caches or anything...

Difficulty 5!!!

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Great...now I got to worry about caches that try to find me :laughing::unsure::laughing:

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No worries now that I've vented my very minor concerns to a portion of the great geocaching community! I do beleive one of the things that makes a great impression on people is the CITO practices and events. The more that people that see that geocachers are actually a benefit to the area around a cache and other areas in need of cleanup the better. In addition, there is a sence of accountability here and do I dare say it? Perhaps a code of honor?

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I see you are from Pompton Lakes, I am from Wayne. Look in the NortheastMid Atlantic Forum for some of the hike events, and come out and meet some of the local folks, they are such a fine group, I even let some of them know my real name. :unsure:

Edited by Packanack
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In addition, there is a sence of accountability here and do I dare say it? Perhaps a code of honor?

 

I agree for th4e most part. For one reason its a sport that depends on the honesty and good will of the partcipants.

 

Still, we're no different than society in general. There are all kinds of people who geocache and not all of them are nice and not all of them are responsible.

 

As far as a code of honor, we have this.

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:laughing::unsure::laughing::laughing::laughing::unsure:

 

Please, please tell me you all are joking about that. I was literally about to start crying for a minute :anibad:

Please don't cry. Hamsters breed so fast, they make a warren of rabbits look like a monastery.

 

My high find count is largely explained by the need to reduce my inventory of signature items.

 

If some of the signature items should expire, do not fear. The factory will produce more.

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I see you are from Pompton Lakes, I am from Wayne. Look in the NortheastMid Atlantic Forum for some of the hike events, and come out and meet some of the local folks, they are such a fine group, I even let some of them know my real name. :lol:

Thanks for the invite. I will. I'm just now getting into the forums. Getting time is always a challenge,

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