Muggle Attack!

[+TyeRay SJGR]

So if you have been geocaching for just a couple weeks or a few years, sooner or later you are going to come in contact with muggles.

 

There are many ways to deal with them, hiding until they pass, or acting like they are the ones out of place.

 

But all and all sometimes your confronted face to face.

 

So what's everyone's excuse to what there doing?

[+Lil Devil]

Usually, honesty. Geocaching has been featured in the news enough that most people have at least heard of it, and a few have friends or family that play. But occasionally, saying I'm doing a "Black Widow Spider Census" is fun to watch their expression and see how quickly they leave.

 

But yeah, usually I just search like I own the place, not caring who is looking, and if asked, tell them the truth.

[+The_Incredibles_]

I haven't had too many run-ins with muggles.

 

1) I was doing cache maintenance on a cache hidden under a staircase 2 muggle ladies were going up the stairs as I was crouching underneath. I made the mistake of moving and one of them saw me and screamed. So then she saw that I was harmless and asked what I was doing under there. So I told them all about it. They said they knew some 'youths' who would be interested and off they went. A short time later, my cache went missing. This is a cache which had been previously problem-free for years. So anyway I vowed never to spill the beans again.

 

2) Older lady saw me searching for a cache and asked me if I was looking for mushrooms. I said 'Yes!' Of course, then she proceeded to ask me whether I'd found such n such mushroom. Well, I haven't a clue about mushrooms. Thankfully she didn't pry too much more and went on her way.

 

3) Looking for a location for a cache. Guy walking his dog asked me if I was looking for mushrooms. I said...wait for it...'yes!'

 

4) Found an urban nano and immediately dropped the lid in a prickly bush. While I was searching for it with failing flashlight batteries, the neighbor, an older lady, pulled up with her car. She parked and came over to help! She didn't pry too much, so I just mumbled about dropping something small. She was very helpful, but we never did find it.

[+vw_k]

It depends on the person and situation. Sometimes I will tell the truth and explain geocaching, if I don't want to tell the person about the cache I make up some sort of excuse.

[+NanCycle]

"Just taking pictures" worked for me once; I was taking pictures of my new cache locations.

 

For anyone in an official capacity--from the local police to mall security--always tell the truth. Fortunately I didn't have to interact with the occupants of those 2 black helicopters that flew overhead as I was replacing a cache one day.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

...hiding until they pass...

One of the WORST things to do. If you are discovered while hiding, you obviously are up to no good and your next visitor just may be somebody bailing you out of jail.

 

Go ahead and explain why you were hiding even though you weren't doing anything wrong. That always seems to work **well**.

It just may earn you a new nickname -- something like, say... pervert.

 

If you are in an area that is 'littered' with muggles and it looks like it will stay that way -- LEAVE. Come back when not so busy.

Otherwise, wait for your opening, get the cache and take it elsewhere to do your logging, etc. Replace it in like fashion. Do not stand at the hide site and do your logging... that only invites a muggle to go take it after you leave.

 

Don't try and be stealthy. Most of the time people that are trying to be stealthy simply look guilty of something.

[+T.D.M.22]

"Just taking pictures" worked for me once; I was taking pictures of my new cache locations.

 

For anyone in an official capacity--from the local police to mall security--always tell the truth. Fortunately I didn't have to interact with the occupants of those 2 black helicopters that flew overhead as I was replacing a cache one day.

 

+10

 

And where I live there is a place that will attract military helicopter. Fortunately there are no cache nearby, but there is a river where people(Not me of course) canoe and get too close to the wrong side.

[+T.D.M.22]

And to answer the OP THIS LOG for GC348K6 (I am not the CO, nor the finder, but I know both)

 

As per a request from the Cache Owner. I wanted to write a note about the adventure we had looking for “Just Another Brick in the Wall!”

 

Seeing that this was one of the last caches that we did not get in Redcliff we decided to give it a shot. Team TahoeGR00 set out to GZ just to find nothing… A few months later I notice that azraelsportal had logged that he had figured out what to do and had ordered a tool to help find the cache. So I decided to meet up with azraelsportal & fotowca to have another try at the cache. When the time was right the three of us started our search at GZ. It was a long hard search that was not getting us anywhere. At one point I had pulled my truck along the GZ so that I could stand on the side of the box just to get height to look for the cache.

 

It was about then when the home owner from across the street, the West side, came over to ask “What are you looking for?” Without missing a beat I said “Brick Bugs!!” He looked a little puzzled but continued to ask more questions. So I said “Do you see the little holes in the brick that we are looking at??? Well they were made by Brick Bugs that come out in the evening. They eat at the bricks and over time the bricks will weaken. We are from the Collage and are trying to catch a Brick Bug so that we would be able to study the life cycle and understand their effect on bricks.” Well this just set the guy off and he said “Do you know that just about every house in Redcliff(The town) is made of BRICKS!! The Brick Bugs could start to destroy the houses around town!!” I responded that “That is the reason that we are trying to get catch one!!” He then called his wife over and told her our Brick Bug story to her and that he hoped that we would be able to catch one to help save the town and stop the Brick Bugs…..

 

At the end of the day we did not find the cache or a Brick Bug but man I love talking to Muggles!

 

So now I have something to say to people

Edited March 3, 2013 by T.D.M.22

[+sparklefingers]

I have once used the I am looking for my cat excuse. I used this with a very old fellow who asked me why I was looking in a bush. He told me he saw a cat the next street over. I thanked him (as I was done) and then left.

 

The other times I have told the truth.

[+BCandMsKitty]

So if you have been geocaching for just a couple weeks or a few years, sooner or later you are going to come in contact with muggles.

 

There are many ways to deal with them, hiding until they pass, or acting like they are the ones out of place.

 

But all and all sometimes your confronted face to face.

 

So what's everyone's excuse to what there doing?

 

That I'm Geocaching.

[+JKMonkey]

The only time this happened to me it resulted in me awkwardly explaining what geocaching was while I was given dirty looks by two muggles.

[+The_Incredibles_]

...hiding until they pass...

One of the WORST things to do. If you are discovered while hiding, you obviously are up to no good and your next visitor just may be somebody bailing you out of jail.

 

Not necessarily and anyway, you can't get arrested for nothing. I've found if you are in the bushes and stay very still, people often don't see you. And if they do see you, they may simply assume you are taking a leak.

Edited March 4, 2013 by The_Incredibles_

[+terrkan78]

...hiding until they pass...

One of the WORST things to do. If you are discovered while hiding, you obviously are up to no good and your next visitor just may be somebody bailing you out of jail.

 

Not necessarily and anyway, you can't get arrested for nothing. I've found if you are in the bushes and stay very still, people often don't see you. And if they do see you, they may simply assume you are taking a leak.

I've been accused of taking a leak in the bushes twice now, the first time by a toddler who asked me "Do you need to go potty, too?" as I emerged from the bushes and the last time by an unhappy mother who snatched her kid away from me muttering something like, "You could've found a better spot to go to the bathroom!"

 

Lately I've been mostly caching out in the boonies, so if I do run into a muggle along the way, they're often curious why I'm out here in the middle of nowhere. I tell them. Usually they've heard of geocaching.

[+6NoisyHikers]

This is where kids come in handy. Kids can look at anything, they can grab stuff, crawl under things that sane adults should not. You can spend eons of time explaining "how something works" to a kid and nobody thinks that is odd. So take the kids (or borrow someone else's kid for the day) - they make great scapegoats.

Edited March 4, 2013 by 6NoisyHikers

[+aka Momster]

...hiding until they pass...

One of the WORST things to do. If you are discovered while hiding, you obviously are up to no good and your next visitor just may be somebody bailing you out of jail.

 

Not necessarily and anyway, you can't get arrested for nothing. I've found if you are in the bushes and stay very still, people often don't see you. And if they do see you, they may simply assume you are taking a leak.

 

No, but some folks will try! I remember when this came out in the OC Register . It was followed up soon after with a funniest blotter article, but I couldn't find the link to that one, unfortunately.

[+MacGyverUK]

I haven't been caching too long but I,ve found my approach to work well for me.

I take my camera with me at all time. Half of my bag is taken up with my camera and the other with my geocaching stuff. People think nothing of you being crouched down beside a statue, fence, bush if you have a camera in your hand. The odd time I've been asked I just I just lift the camera and tell them I'm taking a few photos for an art project.

There are of course a few obvious places that a camera is not appropriate cover, I.e. near schools.( I work in a school and that's usually an instantaneous call to the local police station)

 

On quick assessment of my questioner though i still find the best alternative is just telling the truth.

[+redsox_mark]

It depends on the situation and the "vibe" I get from the muggle.

Sometimes I will say Geocaching.

Sometimes I will follow the lead of the muggle if he/she suggests something. Once a muggle thought I was interested in a water meter, and told me all about how a new one was recently installed.

Sometimes I make something up, or say nothing at all.

 

Once I was up in a tree when muggles came by; I kept still and they passed without noticing me.

[+larryc43230]

...hiding until they pass...

One of the WORST things to do. If you are discovered while hiding, you obviously are up to no good and your next visitor just may be somebody bailing you out of jail.

 

Not necessarily and anyway, you can't get arrested for nothing. I've found if you are in the bushes and stay very still, people often don't see you. And if they do see you, they may simply assume you are taking a leak.

I've wound up hiding in bushes just once while looking for a cache. I was on the campus of Capital University in Bexley, Ohio (a suburb of Columbus). It was a cold winter day, a Saturday, and the campus seemed to be pretty much deserted. The bushes were between the front of the building and a sidewalk that bordered a large quad.

 

I enjoyed the peace and quiet for maybe five minutes, then classes let out. Who knew all these people were taking classes on a Saturday?? Hordes of young students came pouring out of the building I was near and just about every building on the quad. Hundreds of them. And here I was, a 60-year-old male, crouching in the bushes and wondering how long I would have to stay crammed into that corner of the building. I had a vision of getting a cramp and popping up suddenly from the bushes, followed by multiple screams, finger-pointing, and cell phones calling campus police.

 

Under other circumstances, I would have gladly explained what I was doing to an LEO (the cache owner claimed he had permission for the hide), but I still had five caches to find in the series. I stayed hidden for the ten minutes it took for everybody to get to their next class, whereupon peace and quiet returned and I finally found the cache.

 

That experience, even though it came out well, reinforced my dislike of stealth in general. I won't try to hide when looking for a cache. When I look for a cache in a busy area, I just act like I know what I'm doing (not a stretch, I do know what I'm doing). If it looks as if hiding is likely to be required, I'll just scratch the cache off my list and move on.

 

--Larry

[+ras_oscar]

if I do run into a muggle along the way, they're often curious why I'm out here in the middle of nowhere.

 

Tell them " the same thing you're doing!!!!!"

 

Just because someone asks a question doesn't mean they're entitled to an answer. Of course, I have a face that tends to scare small children and middle aged busy bodies, so that helps too .

Edited March 4, 2013 by ras_oscar

[+hzoi]

I was hunting a cache at a ball park a few months back, no one else was there except for me and a groundskeeper. Cache was away from the ball fields, maybe 50 feet from the maintenance building. He was packing his truck up and getting ready to roll out, so I approached slowly and basically ignored him. He saw me as he was driving away, stopped, and rolled down his window.

 

Groundskeeper: "Can I help you with something?"

 

Me: "No, thanks!"

 

Clearly not the response he was looking for. He blinked, I smiled. He stared at me a couple seconds, then drove off.

 

From time to time I'm asked what I'm doing, and I generall tell the truth. I had an evil thought once and almost replied, "Minding my own business," but that didn't seem to be a very polite response.

[+Planet]

Caught in the act with an open ammo can in my lap, sitting a bit off trail, I looked in the ammo can and asked my fellow cacher if they wanted ham and cheese, or peanut butter and jelly, while the muggles kept on walking.

If asked by law enforcement , tell the truth.

[+pa79]

And to answer the OP THIS LOG for GC348K6 (I am not the CO, nor the finder, but I know both)

At the end of the day we did not find the cache or a Brick Bug but man I love talking to Muggles!

So now I have something to say to people

 

I suppose he meant the common stone louse.

[+313JTG]

I've got 231 finds and I've had to talk to muggles about five times already. My strangest experience ever was when I went into a small wooded area behind a McDonalds. The area was going to be under construction in a couple of days and there was a regular there so I wanted to grab it. Went to the back and found several critter traps, empty cat food cans, and other stuff. I'm about 20 feet from the cache when an older lady comes back there to ask what I was doing. She asked if I was part of the geo-container game and I told her straight up what it was. She said, oh okay, just don't disturb any of the cat traps please.

 

She was trying to trap these stray cats for her mother before the construction came. I just signed the log and got the heck out of there. But anyways, nobody has ever curious enough about what I was doing to carry on a lengthy conversation. Most people are aware of the "treasure hunt".

[Suscrofa]

Personally, it is when I am engaged in an illegal activity that if questionned about, I answer "I am geocaching" and explain the game !

Edited March 8, 2013 by Suscrofa

[+Zyxistal]

I carry a clip board with me and say that I am doing land title work, surveying, verifying property lines, etc.

[+NanCycle]

I had an evil thought once and almost replied, "Minding my own business," but that didn't seem to be a very polite response.

 

I LOVE this one! (Just have to make sure they don't think I said "Doing my business.") lol

[medoug]

Depending on the vibe that I get from the muggle, I may or may not tell them about geocaching. One line I've used is "I'm looking for a contact lens." I usually get a head shake, but never has anyone offered to help me look (yet).