What logs make you suspicious they might not have signed the log

[+Goldenwattle 1674]

This was one log I saw today, "Tftc. Beautiful spot"

This is a terrain five cache. It's on an island in the middle of a lake. If I had found such a cache, I would have given an account of the journey. Getting the boat to the water, inflating it, the paddle to the island, the walk to GZ, etc. Or as a group of us discovered during the drought, the lake (which is a dam) water low and the rare event of being able to walk to the island  . That was a story too. But now, when the dam is full again, instead this person writes, "Tftc. Beautiful spot", which they could have written standing on the shore.

Those are the islands in the photograph; only the dam is full now and the water is higher at present. (Of interest, we were surprised to find a lava outcrop on one of the small islands.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 10 by Goldenwattle

[+ecanderson 604]

Some people just function solely in 'terse mode'.  I've had plenty of that sort of log on caches where one might expect something broader.  Wouldn't think anything of it until I had a chance to visit to do the comparison.

[+Goldenwattle 1674]

8 minutes ago, ecanderson said:

Some people just function solely in 'terse mode'.  I've had plenty of that sort of log on caches where one might expect something broader.  Wouldn't think anything of it until I had a chance to visit to do the comparison.

That can sometimes be true, but mainly it's for easy to get to caches, not hard to get to caches like this one. I have also seen short logs on my easy to get to caches, where they didn't sign the log. Getting more and more of those lately. Such as "Found it 🙂", which I saw recently,  with no signature on one of my caches.

The island example above, I read the logs, and people, as expected,  have been writing longer logs to describe getting there. The suspicious example log I showed is an exception, but that is not my cache, and what happens is up to the CO.

[+barefootjeff 3912]

This log is on The Goat House Cave (GC5KCMB) on Lord Howe Island:

 

 

The cache is a tough T4 climb from sea level to an impressive two-level cave 420 metres up Mt Lidgbird with postcard views of the island far below.

 

 

They don't even have the excuse that they were logging on their phone as there's no phone coverage anywhere on the island. Some people just don't know any better, I suppose.

 

I got a fair few one word or less logs on some of my T2.5+ hides during the PM muggles with apps blitz following last year's lockdown, but they were all app-only cachers who'd never visited the website and probably didn't even know it existed. It's just the way the game is played these days.

[+cerberus1 3366]

3 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

This was one log I saw today, "Tftc. Beautiful spot"

This is a terrain five cache. It's on an island in the middle of a lake. If I had found such a cache, I would have given an account of the journey.

Getting the boat to the water, inflating it, the paddle to the island, the walk to GZ, etc.

Or as a group of us discovered during the drought, the lake (which is a dam) water low and the rare event of being able to walk to the island  . That was a story too. But now, when the dam is full again, instead this person writes, "Tftc. Beautiful spot", which they could have written standing on the shore.

 

We see that often enough it doesn't mean anything anymore.    

I don't feel "Tftc.  Beautiful spot" is much different than any other "minimum the system will take" log.   

One we haven't seen in a while said "twas nice" on every cache found. 

 - It didn't matter if it was a roadside pill bottle, or an over night hike, ammo can, and a grand view.

I write similar to you (the other 2/3rds not so much), and used to be some thought I was too wordy... until word-length became a stat.  

 

But your question was "What logs make you suspicious they might not have signed the log".

 

Our huge rural mailbox up high off a tree branch gets "wow, that's too high for me" or similar sometimes, and "no boat this time" on an all-day paddle-to will get notice..

Mostly newbs, it's a real pain-in-the can to go climb it, or paddle for a few hours just to check those Found Its immediately. 

I saw one hiking once to one of the stages of the paddle-to multi while driving by.

They must have headed home in the dark (and long days in Summer), so we know it can be done...

I'm supposed to be "around 80%", so unless I have a relapse, I'll be checking those logs this Spring as part of  OM.     

[+Ragnemalm 123]

It depends on the cache, but for unusual caches, there are a few typical logs that make me suspicious.

 

I mean custom caches, gadget caches and well as many high T caches, and high D that are not solve-at-home-mysteries, caches that are intended to give a unique experience of some kind. Simple caches, a plain petling in some dull place or a lock-and-lock under a pile of branches, for those anything goes, but if an unusual cache gets:

• TFTC
• Easy find (imagine that on a 4-stage D4T4 multi with field puzzles or similar)
• "We logged 200 caches today and this was one of them"
• LOOONG copy-pastes without a single word about the cache
• or anything else that just treats my special cache as dirt, as just-another-boring-cache

then I get suspicios. I call them "half an NM", if nothing else I should check the log, if it has been signed. I know that many beginners log TFTC on everything, they havn't realized what the log is for yet, but experienced cachers are not expected to log TFTC on a custom cache. (Some do, yes.)

 

And often it hasn't been logged. Sometimes it is just the same old "saw it but couldn't reach it". There could be a throwdown, or the cache may be broken. I have had one cache with a lock where the lock was forced, destroyed. Another was quite weird‚ a T4 at about 7 meters up in a tree where there is a fake cache at the ground with a clear message that this is not the cache. Someone climbed up, brought the log down and put it in the fake! (Straight up sabotage, just not as destrucive as the broken lock.) Of course I got suspicious logs after that.

 

So, my answer to the question is simply, if the log just doesn't match the cache, then I get suspicious.

[+mustakorppi 158]

1 hour ago, Ragnemalm said:

I call them "half an NM"

A great way to put it. I have a cache where logs like that mean I need to go check if the container is where it should be. Not that concerned about fake finds.

[+Wacka 35]

Thrdr are spectacular  spots.    Where i used to live, we used to say "Interesting spot for a cache" to nicely say this place is a dump and the cache should be archived..

[+Ragnemalm 123]

18 hours ago, Wacka said:

Thrdr are spectacular  spots.    Where i used to live, we used to say "Interesting spot for a cache" to nicely say this place is a dump and the cache should be archived..

 

Nice or in other ways spectacular places, like a dump, in both cases I hope visitors will react on it.

 

Some places are nice except for litter. CITO time!

[+Clancy's Crew 45]

As a high T cache owner/co-owner and someone with a bunch of 5T caches on our grid, a couple of comments.

 

1) I know of cachers who have done 10 or 12 stage, 10+ hour caches requiring rappelling, exploring in abandoned coal mines, etc. who loved the cache, but spend almost no time on their logs.  That is just the way they are wired.  As a cache owner, it is a bit disappointing not to have the validity of seeing a well written description with pictures of their cache, but there it is.  So a short entry on a high D/T cache may not necessarily mean an armchair log.

 

2) For us, part of the pleasure of completing a high D/T cache is in describing the experience for the CO and others.  Plus, that log entry is available for us to enjoy the cache again in the future, and it is a thank you to the CO.  In the old days of GC.com, uploading photos was excruciating, and for the memorable caches we did back then, we'd have two dozen pictures, and due to the character limit on logs, a found it log and a follow-on WN log.  The log process would literally take over an hour....

 

In today's smartphone app, numbers oriented hobby, it will take some research on a questionable logger before being sure they are an armchair logger.

Edited January 23 by Clancy's Crew
Spelling correction

[+colleda 880]

I have to verify a couple of finds from a couple of days ago. The first one has a few suspect Found It logs. Possibly noobs not understanding Multis.

GC6DVPF

GC6470N

[+Harry Dolphin 1206]

There was the drive-by cacher who logged two of my caches the same day.  They were about two miles apart, but over an hour's drive!  No one had ever logged them on the same day.  Checked them out.  No signature in either cache.

[+barefootjeff 3912]

1 hour ago, colleda said:

I have to verify a couple of finds from a couple of days ago. The first one has a few suspect Found It logs. Possibly noobs not understanding Multis.

 

I was seeing that on some of my multis around the middle of last year. Premium members who'd never visited the website either logging finds after just visiting the first waypoint or complaining that they couldn't find any cache at the listed coordinates.

[+colleda 880]

2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

I was seeing that on some of my multis around the middle of last year. Premium members who'd never visited the website either logging finds after just visiting the first waypoint or complaining that they couldn't find any cache at the listed coordinates.

Really hot day today (predicted 37C - 39C) so went early to check. Last four Found Its for GC6DPF have no signatures in log book, and the last FI for GC647ON.

[+Goldenwattle 1674]

52 minutes ago, colleda said:

Really hot day today (predicted 37C - 39C) so went early to check. Last four Found Its for GC6DPF have no signatures in log book, and the last FI for GC647ON.

All beginners there I see, although this is not an excuse for not signing. Many, likely most beginners manage to work out that it's an openable container, and there is a paper log with signatures, so maybe they should sign too, and they do. For my first find (no phone or GPS) I found a log and it wasn't rocket science that the signatures on it were for people to record their find. I had yet to meet another geocacher, so no one to assist me either.

The only excuse I can see for many not signing, is stupidity. Otherwise, as they have a phone and phones have cameras, they would have at least have taken a photograph as proof, and then written something like, "Sorry, first cache and I didn't know I needed a pen. I hope his photograph will do."

[+colleda 880]

36 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

All beginners there I see, although this is not an excuse for not signing. Many, likely most beginners manage to work out that it's an openable container, and there is a paper log with signatures, so maybe they should sign too, and they do. For my first find (no phone or GPS) I found a log and it wasn't rocket science that the signatures on it were for people to record their find. I had yet to meet another geocacher, so no one to assist me either.

The only excuse I can see for many not signing, is stupidity. Otherwise, as they have a phone and phones have cameras, they would have at least have taken a photograph as proof, and then written something like, "Sorry, first cache and I didn't know I needed a pen. I hope his photograph will do."

The  container at WP1(with the 4 suss logs) contains a wooden cube puzzle and a stash note with an instruction to complete the puzzle for the final coordinates - simple. Nothing else in it that could be, or has been, be signed. Beginners me thinks.

[+hzoi 1616]

On 1/10/2021 at 11:14 AM, Wacka said:

Thrdr are spectacular  spots.    Where i used to live, we used to say "Interesting spot for a cache" to nicely say this place is a dump and the cache should be archived..

 

"Thank you for bringing me to your special place."

 

I don't think we've hidden any caches that were hard enough to get to, or in such a spectacular location, that I was automatically suspicious.

 

I did get one a few weeks ago that said the cache was soaking wet inside, when no one had mentioned anything wrong with the cache before. Turns out that, whilst logging, they mixed up our nice, dry lock and lock cache with the nasty, abandoned pill bottle hide down the trail.

[+TmdAndGG 349]

The ones that make me most suspicious? The ones where they admit they didn't sign the log

 

[+schmittfamily 50]

On a local forum a few years ago there was a thread about a cacher finding a dead body roughly 5ft from a cache.

The newspaper article said it was an apparent suicide and the person had been missing for 6 weeks.

The previous found it log on the cache was 3 weeks prior to the discovery.   

 

It wasn't our cache but logs not mentioning the dead body 5 feet away would draw my suspicion.    

[+on4bam 1524]

14 minutes ago, schmittfamily said:

It wasn't our cache but logs not mentioning the dead body 5 feet away would draw my suspicion.    

 

It depends. Sometimes people are so concentrated on finding a cache they step in a very obvious large pile of dog poo they didn't notice (happened to us a few times), maybe a dead body is "mentally ignored" when searching for a container too

Maybe dead bodies are so common is certain placed people just ignore them (drug cartel territory) .

 

Suspicious logs?

"saw the cache but couldn't reach"

"was at GZ so logging a find"

or many other ways where loggers just plain admit not finding the cache.

"TFTC" or "quick  find" on a high D gadgetcache

"found xx caches today, this was one of them" on a long multi

 

 

[+barefootjeff 3912]

3 hours ago, on4bam said:

It depends. Sometimes people are so concentrated on finding a cache they step in a very obvious large pile of dog poo they didn't notice (happened to us a few times), maybe a dead body is "mentally ignored" when searching for a container too

 

I once found a cache that was a few metres from a dead wombat. I suppose someone with COVID who'd lost their sense of smell might have been oblivious to it, but otherwise it'd be pretty hard to ignore. I've never encountered a dead muggle but I assume they'd have a similar effect after a few weeks.

[+cerberus1 3366]

6 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

I once found a cache that was a few metres from a dead wombat.

 

I just saw a bit on tv that told of wombats and cubed poo.          You other guys can look that up...    

[+cerberus1 3366]

4 hours ago, schmittfamily said:

It wasn't our cache but logs not mentioning the dead body 5 feet away would draw my suspicion.    

 

Folks out in the woods a lot can tell when a dead animal's nearby, so yeah,  I agree.  Fake log.

Bloated deer or similar tough to clear your sinus' of too.

 A dead human outdoors (I feel) is worse, and someone wasn't in the area, much less five feet.

 - Unless they were in your state's deep freeze (like every winter...).    

[+on4bam 1524]

2 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

 

I just saw a bit on tv that told of wombats and cubed poo.          You other guys can look that up...    

 

 

I hope you also found out why. (You can try to look that up too).