Geocaching in Boston????

[Haffy]

Just goes to show you how paranoid those Bostonians are I guess.

[brdad]

Paranoid or not, the incident closely resembles caching so it really should make us think. Especially with the number or urban caches now. It doesn't matter if it's a micro or not. It may not even matter if it is marked. It's very possible if someone sees a cache container or one of us hiding/retrieving a cache container, that that person may consider it suspicious and report it. It could happen right here in Maine. Law enforcement will (and should) look into such reports.

I think many urban caches are hidden without this consideration. A light pole in a mall parking lot; A coin-op child's riding toy; under the front steps of a building; bleachers at a sporting area; a mailbox; a bus stop bench - all examples of places that could be considered bomb-worthy by suspicious passersby. And most of the time such caches are hidden without consent, so the property owners would not be aware it was a game piece.

I would hope that as the group we are, if we heard on the news that something suspicious was found and we thought it might be a cache, that we alert the authorities of the posibility before things go to extremes as in Boston. Such an event could prove devestating to Geocaching.

[cape ann carol]

It may be worth it to take a train north out of that hussle & bussle and head up to Gloucester, I would be willing to meet up and take ya's into the woods for tour of Gloucester. I also have caches along the Ipswich river, if youd like to take the girls for an overnite canoe camping trip I can accomodate. I have plenty of boats and can get them to the water for everyone.
I guide a mothers/daughters trip every year on the river and it has been quite fun.
Good luck on your trip, and have fun.
Cape Ann Carol

[firefighterjake]

Paranoid or not, the incident closely resembles caching so it really should make us think. Especially with the number or urban caches now. It doesn't matter if it's a micro or not. It may not even matter if it is marked. It's very possible if someone sees a cache container or one of us hiding/retrieving a cache container, that that person may consider it suspicious and report it. It could happen right here in Maine. Law enforcement will (and should) look into such reports.

I think many urban caches are hidden without this consideration. A light pole in a mall parking lot; A coin-op child's riding toy; under the front steps of a building; bleachers at a sporting area; a mailbox; a bus stop bench - all examples of places that could be considered bomb-worthy by suspicious passersby. And most of the time such caches are hidden without consent, so the property owners would not be aware it was a game piece.

I would hope that as the group we are, if we heard on the news that something suspicious was found and we thought it might be a cache, that we alert the authorities of the posibility before things go to extremes as in Boston. Such an event could prove devestating to Geocaching.

I believe saying it "could happen" here in Maine is erroneous . . . it would be more correct to say it has happened here in Maine. I believe Hollora may have some insights here as to an event that occurred at a cache north of Bangor . . . I won't say too much except to say that I believe she told me the State Police Bomb Squad ended up blowing up the cache container.

[hollora]

Yes, Jake - that is true. It happened North bound on I-95 in a rest area. Fortunately, I had been talking with the Duty Officer/Sgt. about caching just the week before. He called me as my name was the one he recognized on the shredded log.

His guidance was make sure the cache is labeled (they do look with binoculars)(of course sometimes that interfers with camo), avoid areas of concern such as pieces of infrastruction like bridges, also avoid communications areas such as phone booths and try to let local law enforcement know of the location.

I have shared with him that by coords it could be search on line for the probability of it being a cache. Of course, there often is not time to do this.

Communication is key. Since I had talked with the SP Sgt about caching, he was comfortable to call me. Often we may not hear of it until after the fact.

[Trezurs*-R-*Fun]

Augusta Maine is known to have one of the first domestic terrorist bombings in the US. To say that the Police are paranoid, well most are but beyond that they have reason to "never let your guard down."

...Here in Maine, Levasseur was linked to the bombing of Central Maine Power’s Augusta headquarters in May of 1976. The United Freedom Front opposed racism, apartheid, and US policy in Central America and South Africa, as well as the corporate exploitation of the environment and workers. Warning calls were always made, and nobody was ever hurt in a bombing that Levasseur would ultimately be convicted of involvement in, but a reputation for avoiding bloodshed did the UFF little good in the eyes of the FBI. They placed Levasseur on the Ten Most Wanted List in 1977.

...

[team teebow]

Yikes, you all are scaring me.

Never really thought of caching being seen that way. Sure as heck could be seen as placing bombs and suspicious behavior.

Maybe I wil just pass on the caching part. I don't need my girls to be all freaked out.

[hollora]

It is all, in my eyes, an educational process. Our world has changed a lot over the last few years. The Boston thing can be viewed in 2 ways - overreaction or what to heck happened to the other cities where this was done (they did nothing).

I was in a FEMA class last week and we had a huge discussion about this. Was this overreaction? A lot depends on what Boston has written as an emergency management plan.

It is not my belief you should stop caching or remove your children from enjoying the sport. So far concerns have been isolated. One must remember that action is taken based upon complaints. Everyone is watching today.

Infrastuctures are more suspect that anything else. I doubt the average reporter will be up in the woods by Jake's Booknobile cache with their cell phone. More urban caches are suspect. We in Maine are not used to these.

In Southern Maine and further down into more populated areas this is everyday course. I remember someone telling me about FL caches - everywhere, like under light posts, every 1/2 mile or so.

Don't give up. We are fortunate in Maine that we can work with our local law enforcement, County, & State folks to make this a safe, fun, family sport for all.

[sheeplady]

Have any of you Geocached in Boston? We might be taking my Girl Scouts on a day trip to boston via train.

Wouldn't that be a cool cache event trip kind of thing? A whole bunch of us load up on the Downeast...ah to go caching in Boston. Hmmm......

There is a multicache sort of cache near, in and around the Boston Museum of Science. It is composed of 9? caches. You have to find 4-5 of them in order to log it as a find. I found a couple by accident, but didn't have the other information with me when I was there. (It is a virtual cache, so you don't have to hide anything.)

Kathy