Geocaching the Internet treasure hunt game sparks bomb scare
The inoffensive West Yorkshire market town of Wetherby seems an unlikely target for a bomb threat yet it was visited last week by a unit from the Royal Logistics Corps at Catterick Garrison and a bomb disposal robot. A suspect package was reported by a concerned local the BBC reported when they witnessed someone “acting a bit suspiciously” with a small plastic box wrapped in industrial tape which he then hid underneath a flower planter.
The police were called and the area was sealed off for several hours while an Army bomb disposal unit took care of the suspicious box. The package turned out not to be a bomb, it was a Geocache.
According to the website “Geocaching is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online.
Geocaches can be found all over the world. It is common for geocachers to hide caches in locations that are important to them, reflecting a special interest or skill of the cache owner. These locations can be quite diverse. They may be at your local park, at the end of a long hike, underwater or on the side of a city street.”
There are some warnings for the game, items banned for obvious reasons are explosives, ammunition, knives, drugs and alcohol. Also food or heavily scented items in a cache as cheeky animals will get there without the need for gps.
The appropriately named “Weatherby Shambles” isn’t the only geocache to have been mistaken for a bomb, the geocache website has another 158 incidences of a similar thing happening across the world.
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