Bomb Squads and Geocaches – Some Tips

 If you watch the RSS feed on the home page you will notice that there seems to be an ever increasing number of geocaches being exploded by the bomb squad.   One of the more recent being an ammo box located in a industrial/office park that was near an airport.

I can’t help but wonder if these types of things continue to happen what the ultimate result will be to the sport, or worse yet what the consequences might be to those that are hiding the caches for others to find.  (How much do you think a 1/2 dozen fire fighters, and the bomb squad robot and the explosives, etc… cost each time they blow one of these up?)

I’d like to offer some practical suggestions to the general caching audience:

1. Remember the muggles.  They are not educated to geocaching and if they happen to observe you retrieving a strange container or re-hiding a strange container they really have no option but to report the suspicious activity for the safety of their community.  You should always use stealth when retrieving or hiding a container.  Never assume that people will just ignore your activity.
2. Clearly label your caches.  This is probably not going to solve the problem of someone calling the authorities but at least they won’t have to spend a large amount of time trying to figure out what it is.  I might even suggest a phone number although with privacy concerns, etc… this could be problematic as well.   At a minimum they should know that it is geocache XXXXXX and that they can look it up on geocaching.com.
3. Be thoughtful of your container.  Not all situations require an ammo can.  I like to use them in rural areas out in the woods.  They provide great protection of the contents and when closed properly are waterproof.  In an urban environment perhaps a clear container, where the contents is visible, is a better solution.
4. Permission and Education.  When placing a cache letting people in the area know that is there will help to defuse a potentially volatile situation and it may also get more people interested in the sport itself.  I might even go so far as suggesting that perhaps we notify our police and fire departments that we have hidden at cache at a specific location.
5. Where are you placing your cache?  I would think we might want to avoid things like bridges, airports, water towers, dams, federal and state buildings, etc…  Use common sense here.  If you are going to hide a cache don’t hide it in or around what could potentially be considered a terrorist target.

I would hate to see our hobby/sport come under unnecessary scrutiny and negative publicity.  I think if we all act responsibly, and just use some common sense that these types of “scares” can be minimized or even eliminated.  Perhaps it’s time that we do a little bit more self governance before we no longer have the opportunity and are forced into a situation controlled by external forces.