[GeoStL] Tribble's Article

This is the news article that Tribble found, what a blast:)

  
Box game brings out bomb squad 
Saturday, March 27, 2004
By Jim Six 
jimsix@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
GREENWICH TWP. -- The plywood box, maybe a foot square with a hinged lid, was 
jammed into a tree trunk, and the green trip wire that came out of the device 
was stretched to a tree maybe 20 feet away. 
It wasn't a bomb, though. It turned out to be part of a game called 
geocaching. 
The suspicious-looking contraption immediately alerted the man walking his 
dog near Greenwich Lake Park, behind the park's garage, at about 9 p.m. 
Thursday, so he called police. 
The police, having heard an explosion that occurred in Woolwich Township 
several hours earlier and knowing that investigation was still going on, asked 
for 
help from the Camden County Sheriff's Department bomb squad and agents of the 
federal Bureau of Alcohol who were still in the area. 
Technicians determined the device was not a bomb. The trip wire, if pulled, 
would trigger a loud electronic alarm stuck inside the small box. 
Also in the box was a notebook serving as a log book indicating that the 
device was put together and hidden -- at least for the first time -- by someone 
calling himself Lavarock. 
Geocaching involves hiding a container someplace where it can be found and 
posting the global positioning satellite coordinates to its location on the 
Internet. 
Inside the box found here was a Pokemon doll, a Pokemon book, a small plastic 
action figure, a couple of cheap watches, and a few other items, said 
Detective Sgt. Joseph Giordano Jr. 
At one end of the trip wire and inside the box lid was a hand-drawn symbol, 
said Giordano. 
"Whoever locates it opens it, leaves something in it, signs the logbook, and 
puts it in some other place," he explained. 
"Our concern is the time consumed. The four fire trucks, the bomb squad, ATF 
and police were tied up with this for approximately three hours," said 
Giordano. He said he was also concerned that "in this day and age, people want 
to 
play these 'Star Trek' games." 
The last entry in the logbook was dated March 21 and signed by someone who 
wrote he was from Louisville, Ky. 
A search of the Internet turned up a Web site on "Geocaching" which features 
forum posts made by Lavarock, whose profile identified him as a man named Rob 
from Woodbury. An e-mail sent to Lavarock asking for comment about the box 
found Thursday night did not get a reply by press time. 
Camden County Sheriff Michael McLaughlin said his Technical Services Unit has 
seen something similar in Camden County and Burlington County in recent 
years. 
According to the Web site, geocaching usually involves some kind of 
water-tight plastic container, but no mention is made of trip wires or alarm 
devices.

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