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Last year a suspicious container was blown up that later turn out to be a cache. Should the WGA be doing something to prevent this from happening again? In the likely event that this does happen again, should the WGA have a planned response?
When a geocache gets “rendered safe” by a bomb squad, it make a pretty big splash in the geocaching world, but I don’t think that it puts geocaching in a bad light. It has been pointed out in the Groundspeak forums that many suspicious objects get detonated including lunch boxes and DOT traffic counters. It doesn’t matter what markings are an the container, or even if the contents are visable. If someone calls in a report of a suspicious object, there is a better than average chance that it will be exploded. This happens regardless of location, placement permission, knowledge of geocaching, size, shape, markings or anything else that might be done to keep it from happening.
Should the WGA have a planned response? I don’t think so. At least not in this case. There doesn’t seem to be a negative back-lash from the incident you are referring to. Any response would seem apologetic and there wasn’t anything to apologize for.
I think the WGA should have a news release ready to go that can have some fill in the blank areas to send to the newspapers in the area of the problem cache. Kind of like damage control. It could explain geocaching what it is and have a link to our site and GC.com
First, I am sorry to hear of your… loss 😥 (assuming it was your cache but maybe not..)
While I agree with Brian (Team Black Cat) on “It doesn’t matter what markings are an the container” (based on reading many posts on both our forums and the groundspeak forums), I still think it’s a good idea to put a label on geocaches (if possible) and to write your caching name on the log sheet so you can be contacted if there are issues.
Some people just feel the need to report “suspicious behavior” or a “suspicious container”. In today’s society this is a sure bet. We just have to keep playing and educating land managers, park officials, and officers of the law when encountered. As Brian stated, if it gets reported it will get blown up. That’s what the bomb squad is paid tax payer dollars to do.
If the WGA and/or a specific board member was contacted directly for a response from the media, one should be readily available to give. This “could” happen if the exploded cache page has our banner on it.
The presence of our forums and the ability for cachers to openly communicate and “compare notes” on events like this and what may have been the cause and effect for the situation is our group’s best offering for addressing this.
Do I dare say “Communication is the key” again 🙂 As it was stated already, that if the authorities get a call regarding something suspicious, they will not hesitate to neutralize it regardless of markings. What it comes down to for them is (and it was stated similar to this in that thread whence it happened) “all my men go home at the end of the day.”
What does it mean to the geocaching community? Maybe we need to be proactive instead of reactive in some of these situations. Because we hide and seek hidden things and don’t want them to be “muggled”, we tend to be secretive about what we are doing (this is a generalization, I know several cachers who go out of their way to let people know what they are doing). If “we” would strive to submit some informative articles relaying some of the adventures to be had geocaching to our local newspapers, getting the sport some exposure might be a way to let people know that not every person lurking in a park or every box tucked in a hollow tree, is not dangerous but maybe something of value. There are some great log writers out there, maybe there is a journalist out there too.Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.
@labrat_wr wrote:
…. If “we” would strive to submit some informative articles relaying some of the adventures to be had geocaching to our local newspapers, getting the sport some exposure might be a way to let people know that not every person lurking in a park or every box tucked in a hollow tree, is not dangerous but maybe something of value. There are some great log writers out there, maybe there is a journalist out there too.
I agree.
Though it’s unfortunate when a cache is blown up I don’t know that it’s caused a huge backlash against Geocaching as a whole. In general these events seem to be small blips on most peoples radars that are quickly forgotten.
In todays environment the authorities are most likely going to error on the side of caution whenever something unusual is reported. The best thing all of us can do is to practice good caching etiquette by hiding our caches well with proper labeling, and when hunting caches using stealth and re-hiding caches well.
With this in mind I don’t feel the WGA could have much of an impact in preventing this from occurring in the future.
I do beleive that public education will help with this exact scenario. This has happened close to Green Bay, a few times, and the containers were destroyed. I believe it is up to the cache owner to ask for permission, or let others know where the cache is located. This still will not always work , as if something suspicious is reported, it is going to be taken as “Bomb Threat”, as someone could always pull said cache, and place a bomb.
The WGA Has articles on proper cache placement, and guidlines, and if they are followed, problems will be reduced.
Unfortunately, though no matter how much people are educated, when it comes to public safety, the container is going to be no more.
I think the best approach here is education. I would like to see a more active approach to educating public safety personnel about geocaching. I also agree with the idea that asking for permission helps avoid these situations, but the particular cache Steve is talking about was in a public park in an area which allows geocaching. Sometimes, permission isn’t enough to prevent these issues.
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