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Bomb Squad to your cache?


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So currently I'm working on a new cache placement at a location in mid-town Manhattan. Although I was told it would be approved, I was informed that it may be near many terrorist targets and that if a bomb squad is called to the cache that I would be held responsible for the squad's fees.

 

This got me thinking, have you ever had a cache that someone thought was a bomb and the bomb squad showed up?

 

Even though my container is small, I'm still watching my back and getting permission on this one... ;)

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I found a hand grenade while caching with a friend. You sure get good response when you call 911. We had three cruisers, 2 K9 units and a bomb squad within 5 minutes. As I had suspected, it was a fake but better safe than sorry.

 

Darn, there goes my idea for a Hand Grenade Cache Container ;)

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We found a small black box on a guardrail once. It was all sealed up (no screws, rather epoxy or something similar holding it closed) and it had a mini USB port on one side with a red and green light and a switch.

 

I was with a friend who was looking for the cache. I'd found it before, and it was a key holder at the time. We thought maybe the owner had changed the container, but it still gave me a bad feeling.

 

We looked it over, and tried to figure out how to get into it, but after a few seconds, the red light came on and then started blinking. That's when we kind of got creeped out. We didn't want to flip the switch, so we put it back and continued our search. We eventually found the container, not where I'd found it or where our GPS brought us.

 

We took another look and the red light was still blinking. We decided to leave, but as we got into the car, I changed my mind and called the police.

 

They told us not to touch it (too late) and get far away from it. A cruiser showed up within a minute. The officer took all my info, and then he gave me his card. By the time we were done talking, 3 other town police had shown up, plus 4 state police and the town fire department and all the vehicles that go along with that.

 

We left to grab a few more caches in the area and drove by a few minutes later. By then 3 black SUVs and the state police bomb squad had arrived on the scene. The empty park and ride lot turned into a full operations center.

 

We never heard anything about it on the news or in the paper, but the responding officer called the next day to let me know they didn't know what it was but destroyed it.

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As a fellow NYer, be very careful with cache placement in the City. Even though you have permission think about the rapid change over in security staff at location and the container. A bright colored bison tube maybe the most effective form of cache container as it would look more innocuous than a key holder or altoids tin.

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So currently I'm working on a new cache placement at a location in mid-town Manhattan. Although I was told it would be approved, I was informed that it may be near many terrorist targets and that if a bomb squad is called to the cache that I would be held responsible for the squad's fees.

 

This got me thinking, have you ever had a cache that someone thought was a bomb and the bomb squad showed up?

 

Even though my container is small, I'm still watching my back and getting permission on this one... :anitongue:

 

Nope. They thought it was a drug stash, the person who called it in said the right key words and the information passed on in a way that the office responding was one who worked the drug side of the law.

 

Had they called it in differently or another person made a different decision it could have gotten a bomb squad

 

Heck my own training on calling thing is flat out says "report it and let others make the decision". What that means is that YOU as a citizen minding your own business have zero control over what kind of response you may inadvertently generate. They can rant and rave about the cost but others make the decision on how to respond. Not you, not your placment, not what you placed. Others.

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...We never heard anything about it on the news or in the paper, but the responding officer called the next day to let me know they didn't know what it was but destroyed it.

I'll see if we use any equipment like that. Sounds strange to me.

 

Do you work in law enforcement by chance?

 

And responding to what the container is from my fellow NYC resident, it's like a bison tube but not metallic. It's a small keychain pill container from CVS pharmacy painted a camo color...plastic and non-threatening according to people I've shown it to here at work.

 

Should I really worry?

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This cache got blown up by the bomb squad half a mile from my house.

 

a818f8be-38e6-4ffb-81c9-85ac42a5b449.jpg

 

Afterblast:

a4afb8e7-a034-4ecd-8635-2ebede865a5a.jpg

 

These is no guarantee this will help, but it don't hurt to place a geocaching sticker on the cointainer, and avoid placing pipe-looking containers in urban areas.

Edited by Chuy!
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...We never heard anything about it on the news or in the paper, but the responding officer called the next day to let me know they didn't know what it was but destroyed it.

I'll see if we use any equipment like that. Sounds strange to me.

 

Do you work in law enforcement by chance?...

 

Transportation. The state police are in the same larger division of government but they brach off near the top of the org chart.

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We found a small black box on a guardrail once. It was all sealed up (no screws, rather epoxy or something similar holding it closed) and it had a mini USB port on one side with a red and green light and a switch.

 

I've built some pretty small 802.11 and bluetooth sniffers/scanners. Was it a toggle switch or push button? I used push buttons on mine. They were about the size of a large magnetic key holder.

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...We never heard anything about it on the news or in the paper, but the responding officer called the next day to let me know they didn't know what it was but destroyed it.

I'll see if we use any equipment like that. Sounds strange to me.

 

Do you work in law enforcement by chance?

 

And responding to what the container is from my fellow NYC resident, it's like a bison tube but not metallic. It's a small keychain pill container from CVS pharmacy painted a camo color...plastic and non-threatening according to people I've shown it to here at work.

 

Should I really worry?

I was speaking to a cop friend last night and showed him a keychain pill container, that had the geocache its a game credo pre printed on it, he said he would think it was drugs, said same for the nano container- he said it looked like it would hold Ketamine, so in terms of placement and retrieval no issues with bombs, though they may think its a drug stash.

Just use the old noggin and use common sense when placing cache.

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So currently I'm working on a new cache placement at a location in mid-town Manhattan. Although I was told it would be approved, I was informed that it may be near many terrorist targets and that if a bomb squad is called to the cache that I would be held responsible for the squad's fees.

 

This got me thinking, have you ever had a cache that someone thought was a bomb and the bomb squad showed up?

 

Even though my container is small, I'm still watching my back and getting permission on this one... :laughing:

 

I was surprised to see 87 entries in this bookmark list which I discovered while creating a similar one.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...ef-b8bee15d1583

 

There are about half a dozen caches that still need to be added.

Edited by 4wheelin_fool
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...We never heard anything about it on the news or in the paper, but the responding officer called the next day to let me know they didn't know what it was but destroyed it.

I'll see if we use any equipment like that. Sounds strange to me.

 

Do you work in law enforcement by chance?

 

And responding to what the container is from my fellow NYC resident, it's like a bison tube but not metallic. It's a small keychain pill container from CVS pharmacy painted a camo color...plastic and non-threatening according to people I've shown it to here at work.

 

Should I really worry?

I was speaking to a cop friend last night and showed him a keychain pill container, that had the geocache its a game credo pre printed on it, he said he would think it was drugs, said same for the nano container- he said it looked like it would hold Ketamine, so in terms of placement and retrieval no issues with bombs, though they may think its a drug stash.

Just use the old noggin and use common sense when placing cache.

 

That sounds about the same thing everyone else is telling me too. I got the number for someone in the Parks Enforcement Patrol office from a park ranger-cacher who I met hunting for a cache once...said to call her and just ask her general consensus on cache placement in mid-town Manhattan.

 

I feel if anyone sees or says anything it'll be either that it's drugs or get caught not being stealth enough leading to it's disposal.

 

It's been labeled "Geocache Container" with "geocaching.com" also written on it. I'll add "Game Piece" as well maybe just in case someone sees something. Asking permission of a random security guard who is on duty at the time doesn't mean it's gonna get passed onto the next guard or whomever. I think all that should cover my bases.

 

Keep the interesting info on blown up caches coming though...this is crazy! :D

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I found an ammo can hidden in the parking lot of a church near Los Angeles. The ammo can was not properly marked on the outside, but the kicker was that some person in the nearby park thought I was placing the container. They heard the metallic banging of me opening/closing the lid and thought I was setting a bomb. Bomb squad was called and they blew it up. The cops found me later in the day and explained what happened. Just people being overly suspicious and me acting the part.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...e9-02484f5d1ae6

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97af7711-d729-4492-8373-49b5520053d8.jpg

 

That is a picture of the "Robot" getting ready to get my cache, luckily I got there on time! I pulled up and they said "You can't come down this road," I replied, "It's okay, that's my Ammo Can you're about to blow up," and explained that it was a geocache...

 

Was there any speak of the squad's costs being billed to you since it was your cache that they were called out to destroy?

 

I was told by a NY admin, "I don't know about Manhattan but in some areas if the cache is placed without proper permission from the land/park managers and the bomb squad is called out the cache owner is billed for the squad's expenses."

 

Any experience with this? Or do they just get rid of the cache and that's that, the fees being covered by the city and our tax dollars.

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We found a small black box on a guardrail once. It was all sealed up (no screws, rather epoxy or something similar holding it closed) and it had a mini USB port on one side with a red and green light and a switch.

 

I was with a friend who was looking for the cache. I'd found it before, and it was a key holder at the time. We thought maybe the owner had changed the container, but it still gave me a bad feeling.

 

We looked it over, and tried to figure out how to get into it, but after a few seconds, the red light came on and then started blinking. That's when we kind of got creeped out. We didn't want to flip the switch, so we put it back and continued our search. We eventually found the container, not where I'd found it or where our GPS brought us.

 

We took another look and the red light was still blinking. We decided to leave, but as we got into the car, I changed my mind and called the police.

 

They told us not to touch it (too late) and get far away from it. A cruiser showed up within a minute. The officer took all my info, and then he gave me his card. By the time we were done talking, 3 other town police had shown up, plus 4 state police and the town fire department and all the vehicles that go along with that.

 

We left to grab a few more caches in the area and drove by a few minutes later. By then 3 black SUVs and the state police bomb squad had arrived on the scene. The empty park and ride lot turned into a full operations center.

 

We never heard anything about it on the news or in the paper, but the responding officer called the next day to let me know they didn't know what it was but destroyed it.

 

I'd be willing to bet that was a (possibly homemade) GPS datalogger.

Someone probably discovered they had been 'bugged' and dropped it off.

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