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What do you tell muggles.


mountainmann

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Wheile caching in Florida, I was wearing od shirt, shorts, and hat, a muggle asked me what I was doing?

 

:o I told them I was with the Federal Department of Electromagnatism, and was working with the Florida Department of Magnatism, to find a missing band of magnetic energy.

 

They asked if it was dangerous? I said no as long as we can find it before it grows. They asked if they could help, I said yes and gave them an 800 number to call if they spotted anything amiss.

 

:lol: The number was to Hooters in Tacoma.

 

I alwas tell the Police and other offical types the truth.

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Um, I tell them the truth? :lol:

 

Actually, the only muggles that I have come across recently are angry business owners or managers who had no idea that a geocache was placed on their property. In situations such as that, it is simply best to tell the truth. What boggles my mind though, is that the business owners and managers are usually okay with having a geocache on their property but they are offended that no one asked permission to place it there.

 

If it's just a random person walking by then I can understand just giving them a quick excuse. However, if there is someone with an inquiring mind then just tell them the truth. This world is so much more open to the idea of geocaching when we actually expand their knowledge about it.

 

Let's hide geocaches, not our intentions.

Edited by heyjonathan101
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My standard MO, although I've only used a few times (5 or 6):

 

Authority (Police, FBI, CIA, My Wife): The truth - Never had to use this one though

Semi-Authority (Store Owner, Shift Manager, etc.) - Scavenger Hunt

Anyone Else - Lie, lie, lie . . . . The wilder the better.

 

Standard Lie - Looking for my fiances (I'm married) engagement ring. She threw at me when we got in a fight standing here.

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I had a 7-year-old kid come up to me and ask if I was doing "That GPS thing" while looking on an adjacent property. He spent about 15 minutes asking questions about geocaching and seemed genuinely interested in what I was doing. He actually helped me when I dropped the cache lid over a fence and he crawled under and grabbed it. He promised to never bother it, but not to give any clues to anyone else that came by.

 

I've seen at least two other people have found the cache since then so I'm confident that he won't bother it. It made me smile when he said he would like to get a GPS when he was older and start "treasure hunting" himself...

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I always tell the truth: I'm geocaching. Lying to law enforcement and authorities is patently stupid. Lying to muggles is also dumb, since it just makes them suspiciuos (and then you are back to dealing with law enforcement).

 

Heck, I've come to drop the whole pretense of stealth. Hate to say, but most of you cachers out there, me included, suck at being "stealthy". Most of us just end up looking sneaky and silly.

 

Most muggles have heard enough about geocaching and GPS navigation to be curious -- they are less clueless than you suppose.

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Birdwatching. I think I saw a rare bird. Most people know nothing about birds and I am an amatuer birdwater so this works fine for me. Authorities I will tell them the truth. I have had some great encounters with cache owners when I thought they were muggles, including police. Just try avoiding a cop when it's his cache you are looking for across the street from the police station!

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I was caching yesterday inside a golf course when I saw a muggle coming to me. I abandoned the search and started going off the track when he intercepted me and asked "looking for geocache" ?

Haha...I said Yeah....how do you know ? Turned out he is fellow geocacher who works at the golf course. Took some pictures, shook hands, nice smiles and time to move on ;-)

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Usually it depends on the situation. Cops, just come clean, most of them have heard of it, several will even recognize the equipment when they see it. Anyone from college age to late middle age, if they look friendly, will find it interesting and help look and if you give them the website, will probably check it out later and maybe even start themselves. Children I basically just ignore. I've had kids shout at us from a distance several times, and a dirty look is usually enough to keep them away. Teens are really the only ones you have to completely keep in the dark about the sport, as they are the only ones that will intentionally steal or vandalize just for the fun of doing so. Just the nature of that age. The elderly, I've found, will get a little anxious when I try to explain, and if I start to approach, will say something about calling the police and then try to get away. The only real problem I've ever had was with a park ranger. We explained the sport, showed him our gpses, let him read some pages we printed, gave him the website, and offered to take him to a cache. All he was worried about was the hand sanitizer we had that smelled a bit like triple sec. He was really ramped up to arrest some people and wouldn't let the alcohol thing go. Held us up for 20 minutes or so and was totally unwilling to listen to reason of any kind, and denied the existence of geocaching, and wouldn't believe that anyone would sully his precious park with an ammo can. In the rare occurrence that you have a run in with a complete knob like this, as long as they aren't in an authority position, I find my standard, "None of your business" or "Don't worry about it" works as well as anything.

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Well the one time we were asked was after me, my husband, my mom and my 4 kids spent 20 minutes doing the drunken bee dance around a parking lot, then went in a straight line for about 50 feet in a mama-duck-with-with-ducklings style formation and then back to the drunken bee thing again near the basketball field, finally to clump around a single sad bush. All we could do was tell the truth!

 

I'm sure they assumed we were lying ANYWAYS.

 

I am NEVER letting the 9 year old man the GPS AGAIN! <_< At least if I want to even PRETEND I'm sneaky.

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In Florida yesterday, we had a fun conversation with 2 muggles:

 

Muggles: "What are you looking for?"

Us: "Um.... we're not really sure."

Muggles: "Well, how big is it?"

Us: "We don't know."

Muggles: "Is it big or small?"

Us: "We don't know."

They shook their head and walked away. We overhead them say, "What's wrong with them? They're looking for something and they don't even know what it is!"

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In Florida again: I was searching in a big clump of bushes and trees. An older man saw me. I'm almost sure he thought I was peeing in the bushes. I think I'll use this in the future as a way to cover up geocache searching in foliage! "Excuse me, please. Would you turn around and give me privacy!!"

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In Florida again: I was searching in a big clump of bushes and trees. An older man saw me. I'm almost sure he thought I was peeing in the bushes. I think I'll use this in the future as a way to cover up geocache searching in foliage! "Excuse me, please. Would you turn around and give me privacy!!"

 

You definitely don't want to do this.

You may get locked up for public indecency, and in some states get put on the sex offenders registry. No joke.

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Went caching in heavy muggle area, so I wore my hard hat, safty vest, and carried a clipboard.

Walked over to cach looked like Im inspecting the area grabed cach signed log doodled in clipboard replaced cach. One person walkede over aqnd asked if I was here for the gas line, the cach was close to an electric sign so I said No electrical. They walked away on their cell phone calling thee gas company again.

 

I hide in plain sight now. :anibad::rolleyes:

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Cops the truth.

 

Business Owner's who question me, I say I'm on a scavenger hunt.

 

Muggles, I try and be vague, and just say a friend called me to check if they had lost their (insert item that could be left on a car, and driven off), and since I was in the area told them, I'd swing by and check it out. It's worked so far.

 

Definitely going to get myself a hardhat, vest and clipboard, That's a nice Idea.

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I usually tell them that I'm hunting.

And I'm hunting the most dangerous game of all.

 

HAHA!

 

I usually have my leatherbound cache log with me and my cell/GPSr in my hand, and since I am a biologist who is used to doing field work, often I am searching for ice and wind damaged trees or looking for my stylus.

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A: What are you doing?

B: Geocaching.

A walks away slowly, shaking head, shocked at B's shameless nerdiness. After A exits, B finds cache.

 

A: What are you doing?

B: Geocaching.

A: What's that?

B: Somebody hid something around here, and I'm trying to find it.

A: What did they hide?

B: I don't know yet. Usually just some kind of container with a piece of paper in it.

A: Oh. Is it fun?

B: I think so. When I can find it, anyway.

A walks away, shaking head, appalled at some folks' low standard of "fun". After A exits, B finds cache.

 

A: What are you doing?

B: Geocaching.

A: You're never going to find it there.

B: You found this one already?

A: It's pretty clever.

B: Who are you?

A and B exchange stories and much nerdy fun is had by all.

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I heard about geocaching a few years ago. Sign up an account, but never did it because GPS's were too expensive. Saturday we ran into a Geochacher at my sons BMX track. He started telling us about it, I already knew about it, but I let him explain it to the kids. The kids kept asking about later that night. I relized I have GPS on the phone so Sunday we went out and found 6 caches. Kids loved it they can't wait to go out next weekend. What surprised me is how much my wife loved it.

 

tell the truth, a new geocacher is born every day... :D

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Usually the muggles just give us strange looks. My husband will act like he lost his 'contacts' or something on the ground... talk loudly like we are supposed to be looking there.

 

We ran into our first family of cachers today. We walked by and my husband said 'impossible, isn't it?' That was part of the name of the cache site. They stopped looking in the bushes and all laughed. We knew, they knew so it was our way of letting them know we understood what they were doing.

 

They were still there on our way back from our other cache run down the road and we got to talk to them for a little while. Guess that will be our new way to test if its muggle or cacher.. use part of the name of the site to see if they catch on.

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Just the other day I was caching with a friend and a muggle appeared to be checking us out.

I started talking like I was looking off in the distance and made a few gestures pointing in a direction and then another. All of a sudden the muggle seemed to lose interest.

 

If you look like you are doing something boring, they will usually just walk away.

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I don't tell them anything. If I see someone coming toward me, I put my GPS up to my ear and they think it's a cell. It's amazing what behaviour you can get away with if people think you are on a cellphone. Try it next time your searching in a city park or a crowded eating place. Works a charm.

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Went to one location where the cache was under the roof of a picnic table, complete with two elderly muggles, as we could not wait said, "don't mind me, I have to get something". Once I got the cache and was signing log explained what we were doing, they seemed ok, and maybe a little interested.

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While looking for a cache under some well groomed shrubs on a traffic island I noticed an older woman standing across the street watching me closely. She finally asked what I was looking for and without thinking I replied, "I lost my pet snake"... She stared for a moment then went into her house. I hoped as I drove away that she isnt the person who takes care of the plants here... :P

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I always explain what I'm doing and how the muggles can join in on the fun if they would like to take up the new hobby. I will even show them a spare log sheet, geocaching.com on my phone and show them aprox how many caches can be found in the area right under their noses. I always try to promote geocaching and get other families interested in this fun hobby. :rolleyes:

Edited by ImYoungAtHeart
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