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Muggle And A Thief


shadowcacher

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Just need to vent about an encounter I had last week. While in Border's Books looking for the Geocaching for Dummies book, my friend and I were approached by a bearded, mountain-looking man. As I was telling my friend about my new hobby, he jumped right into our conversation.

 

He had recently been hiking in the N.Ga. Mountains with a group of Boy Scouts. They stumbled onto a cache which had been placed by a local radio station. Apparently the cache had been stocked with some t-shirts and other promo items. There must have been a sheet explaining what it was.

 

Then he admitted to me that he gave everything to the boys because they 'wanted it' and then the most horrible sin of all - HE TOOK THE CACHE!

 

I just looked at him and said "You TOOK the CACHE? You're not suppose to take the cache. Others won't be able to find it." He just laughed and said he didn't care. The boys wanted the items, and he wanted the container.

 

I was SOOOO mad! Even my friend thought he was awful. We both thought he was stupid for even admitting taking something that was not intended for him - and he knew it was suppose to stay there. Now what kind of adult example was he for those boys??

 

Sorry, just needed to vent. Would like to hear what some of my fellow cachers would have told him. This might be fun.

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It shouldn't be to hard to track him down through the Boy Scouts.

 

If he happens to be a Scout Master, turn him into the National Headquarters with an explanation and see what happens. The last I knew, the Boy Scouts did not like thieves in the ranks. If he happens to be one of the "adults" along for the hike, turn him into the Scout Master as well as the National Headquarters.

 

logscaler.

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Yep, we hear that Scouts are Honest, but.....they stole my travel bug. I have written to the local boy scout troop in the area they live in - cause they told me they were from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. But, I have never received a response from anyone. I am so bummed about it. I spent quite a bit of mula on the travel bug!

 

Such a bummer!

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It is really surprising that Boy Scouts and their leaders would do such things, but I am sure that these are isolated events and not typical of Boy Scout or Scout Leader behavior.

 

I'm not Boy Scout, never was, but I have been helped by a Scout Leader and his family earlier this fall when my dog was seriously injured in the backcountry. I'm going to keep my faith in the goodness of Scouts regardless of the actions of a few bad apples. . .

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:) The term you are looking for is GEOPIRATE. - A scum sucking, pond water licking, butt sniffing plunderer of caches.

pirate.jpg

 

:) This just brings up the point that caches need to be hidden better. May be caches should be boobie trapped that will spray them with a stinky substance if they try and steal the cache. I've had a number of caches plundered. That just made me hide them better, and since then, none have been plundered.

 

:D Death to all GeoPirates!!

Edited by The_Brownies
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B) The term you are looking for is GEOPIRATE. - A scum sucking, pond water licking, butt sniffing plunderer of caches.

pirate.jpg

 

:lol: This just brings up the point that caches need to be hidden better. May be caches should be boobie trapped that will spray them with a stinky substance if they try and steal the cache. I've had a number of caches plundered. That just made me hide them better, and since then, none have been plundered.

 

B) Death to all GeoPirates!!

I recently had a 'letterbox' ripped off by a couple of drunkards. Apparently someone at the bar realized what it was retrieved the box and its contents and returned it! I went from being upset to overwhelmed by the efforts of one to make things right.

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Hmmm, A Scout is Trustworthy.

 

Morally straight.

 

What is this man teaching his scouts. Certainally not the same thing I teach the boys in my troop.

My first cache placed was muggled recently, right after the cache seekers decided to explain to a group of scouts what they were doing.

 

Scouts in general are good, but individual people can be so bad.

 

That is why I hardly ever explain to folks what I am doing.

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being in law enforcement i am always packing, and NOT being tolerant of this type of thing, i would not want to be the guy i catch doing this kind of thing, especially if he is a scouter. i have been in charge of the law enforcement explorer post and this would be unheard of, as a matter of fact i am having a hard time of it while typing this message. mad, hell yes i am mad. i finally find a hobby that is healthy, intelligent and populated with some of the best examples of humanity to be found, and i hear of this cretinous butthead - what was he doing in a bookstore anyway, looking for a bathroom?

 

ah well, enough. :blink:

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...i am always packing...NOT being tolerant...the guy i catch...mad, hell yes i am mad

 

What's a good gun for Geocaching? Is a Glock suitable or should one opt for the Winchester Defender with the pistol grip? Perhaps the Mac10 is easier to carry?

I'm sure glad I live in Canada where no Geocachers are packing heat. Gawd forbid I should accidentially drop my cache printout in the woods in view of another cacher! :blink:

 

All teasing aside, I've lost 3 caches due to plundering. There's not much you can do other than choose your hiding places carefully and when hunting, be as discreet as possible when retrieving. There's always gonna be a certain percentage of idiots out there who are going to try and ruin our day.

 

Happy Holiday Caching!

Coupar-Angus

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I am a active scouter life in rank and yes I can belive someone would do that but there are a lot of good scouters out there. I am one of them. I think alot of the bad apples a forced into scouting by their parents who think bsa stands for baby sitters of America :angry:

Edited by The Hotdog
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Just my 2 cents on the gun issue... I believe in this day and age it is necessay to be 'packing' in both urban and non urban enviroments. With all the crazies on the streets these days you never know. Also (atleast here) in nature, I have the chances no matter where I go to be attacked by a mt. lion or a bear.. or even both in some places..

 

A little protection never hurt no(innocent)body.

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Just need to vent about an encounter I had last week. While in Border's Books looking for the Geocaching for Dummies book, my friend and I were approached by a bearded, mountain-looking man.  As I was telling my friend about my new hobby, he jumped right into our conversation.

 

 

Perhaps this grumpy old man had nothing to do with the scouts. He heard the enthusiasm and decided he'd brag about something he'd know would irritate anyone by using the Scouts as part of his supposed adventure?

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I have a judge,ent question... I recently went on a multicache and found the first one. It was one of those puzzle ones about 50 feet off the road so I figure just bring it to my car, write the puzzle down on paper and take the box back to its original spot...

 

I get in my truck and uyp comes another car with a guy just sitting there. I dont know what he is doing, but I did not want him to see me take the box back because the spot would still be in view from the road, so I wait a little while.

 

And he goes around the loop and comes around again to park. Now I am thinking what if he is another geocacher, and is waiting for me to leave. So I walk to him and ask him if he is into Geocaching, and he said nope.

 

I figure best thing to do is babysit it for an hour or two, while I go eat something then bring it back, so I went and had lunch, then went back to the site and he was gone, then Iwent back and replaced it where it was...

 

I feel protective about this certain cache too, becasue it took me 3 weeks to do these puzzles, it is a 5 star, and I was working on being the 2nd finder so there is a pride to this one I was working on

 

Did I do the right thing by babysitting ig for an hour or two until it was clear, or should I have just placed it back while he was there... What would you have done??

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Did I do the right thing by babysitting ig for an hour or two until it was clear, or should I have just placed it back while he was there... What would you have done??

I have checked on caches I've found, especially in winter when the snow makes tracking obvious, when I've passed people who didn't look like geocachers that I encountered soon after leaving the cache. I'd sit and wait in my truck until they left, then gone back to make sure the cache was still there.

 

I think you did the right thing.

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One cache I found was completely soaked. I took it home and dried the log book with a hair dryer. It was gone about an hour but I did post a note about what I was doing in case another person went to post a DNF. I also emailed the owner and let him know and to email me back if he didn't want me doing it in the future.

 

I did have one micro that I just couldn't find. The clue said it was near a certain sign. I went looking about 6 seperate occasions. I have to admit I thought about taking it when I finally found it about 100 feet away from the sign. Stupid thing about drove me crazy.

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I have a judgement question... I recently went on a multicache and found the first one.  It was one of those puzzle ones about 50 feet off the road so I figure just bring it to my car, write the puzzle down on paper and take the box back to its original spot...

 

I get in my truck and up comes another car with a guy just sitting there.  I dont know what he is doing, but I did not want him to see me take the box back because the spot would still be in view from the road, so I wait a little while.

Hmm... I'm surprised that this subject has not been discussed before.

A lot of these nice little parks that are so convenient for placing caches are also gay cruising areas. It took me a while to figure out what all the guys parked in cars, reading their papers, when we logged Sammie & Matt's Cherry Blossom Cache were doing there.

Since then, we've discovered this sort of thing at ten, or so, cache locations. Reading some of the logs for caches like Hackensack Sanctuary Cache , or Rifle Camp, it becomes fairly obvious. Heck, I've been to a few where the conversation of passing muggles could not be printer here. And I won't mention the places where I've witnessed unmentionable acts going on.

There is no need to worry about these people. They're looking for willing participants, and they're not looking to muggle the cache, or do anything to you unless you're willing.

Some of these places might not be suitable for youthful geocachers. Perhaps there should be some warning in the cache pages. Perhaps the cache owners are not aware of the situation. Reading the logs should give you some indication.

Edited by Harry Dolphin
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Yup, we have our share of "pickle parks" in the area - one cache owner, who had placed a cache in one quite unwittingly, archived it when the gay activity came to his attention via the logs, others have just made a note that this is an active area and let the finders decide.

 

I applaud what you did by not being obvious about hiding the cache - I have done this several times, returning in a few minutes or the next day to make the re-hide so as not to be watched.

 

As a licensed carrier of a pistol I am appalled at the promotion of violence and threats to shoot a muggle or cache thief! Get real, folks! Even in jest such statements make a very poor reflection on you and by extension on all gun owners! Anyone that says something like "steal my cache and I'll shoot you" has NO business with a gun!

 

Lastly, the Boy Scout headquarters in Alabama was just recently raided by the FBI to impound documents pertaining to their inflating membership numbers in order to retain more funding - indictments are sure to follow. Makes stealing a cache sound like child's play.

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We found one cache where a note was left saying we have your stuff and gave a phone number. So, we called the number and turns out the kids had found it and didn't really understand what was going on. I really don't know what was up but we went and got the cache back and returned it to its owner to rehide somewhere else. Spent the better part of the day tracking down that cache but it at least we got it back. We found one cache where some kids had found it and burned everything and left a little effigy.

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:blink: as an eagle scout myself ive been through everything scouting has to offer... and if i stumbled upon a "cache" of low cost items in the middle of nowhere i would probably not feel too bad about takingan item... an item.. however with clear knowledge of what it is... its purpouse... and the mere fact that someone took their time and energy to provide an awesome experience for many more people to enjoy... it would have been respected for what it was... someone elses thing... a scout is curteous... this point of the scout law should be enough to make you think twice before plundering what obviously belongs to someone else... well sealed containers with all kinds of goodies dont just grow up out of the dirt or sprout out of the branch of a tree... come on guys... Id like to challenge any scouters out there to really think about what youve learned... and use it... thats why we enter the program... and for you eagles and leaders... set the EXAMPLE!
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This thread got me thinking.....always a dangerous thing. While we all agree that what this jerk did was deplorable, what is the legal situation? That is, can we say from a legal standpoint that a theft occurred? Is there any case law? A geocache is placed so others may find it and trade items but it is intentionally left in an unsecured location. Hmmm.

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I would imagine that a geocache would fall under some kind of "abandoned property" clause. I can't imagine any court of law taking a cache violator charge seriously. They might, however, take a dim view of vigilante-ism. I'm not sure that messing up a person who messed with a cache would be considered anything less than assault, or worse if a weapon were involved.

 

Honestly, caches disappear sometimes. Not everyone out there is a geocacher. All Boy Scouts (and leaders) don't live up the the Scout's Motto. It still isn't worth the trouble of getting overly distraught about it.

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LOL, HarryDolphin... I just posted about an encounter by the Cherry Blossom Cache. Yes, that parking area up there is a cruising spot. When I first parked, guys all got out of their cars to scope me out. I lit a cigar, and walked down the trail, ignoring them. Then when I showed my sister the cache, two druggies followed us, probably thought I was a john or something. Lovely area I live near :o

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I thought you were talking about this thread...

 

I think i need to set up a cache with a camera to photo all seekers so i know who is visiting.

We did loose over 100 caches here in southern Oregon and if I had met that man with the scouts I would asked him what troop he was with or something to try tracking him down.

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