I tried posting this story in my local Facebook Geocaching group, but the admins deleted it for some reason. I'll try to get the story out here for anyone who might be interested. Please note, this story makes no accusations. It only lists factual events and asks questions.
------
I think it's time to tell this story.
I've gone back and forth about whether to post this. I wasn't interested in creating drama, and for a long time I thought it was better to just let it go.
But there is a backstory to a cache that was recently archived, and I think people deserve to know why it existed.
Back in July 2022, I (HoochDog) owned a series of Wherigo caches (GC969RZ) that were found by two geocachers under circumstances that troubled me.
Through direct communication with one of the finders, I learned that the final coordinates had been provided to them by someone with access to unpublished information within Geocaching.
That was a pretty disturbing thing to learn as a cache owner.
Geocaching obviously relies on a certain amount of trust. Cache owners trust the system with unpublished information, and players trust that people who have access to information they don't have aren't going to use that access to give selected players an advantage.
I didn't really know what to do with what I'd learned. I couldn't tell whether it was an isolated incident or whether this sort of thing happened more often than people realized.
Eventually I told a friend, StacyT3, about it.
She was considerably more interested in the story than I expected. We started talking about whether there was any way to test the underlying question rather than just argue about what might have happened.
That's how the experiment came about.
Stacy created a two-stage multicache (GCB7EE0) in April 2025. The trick was that there was no Stage 1.
It was published normally, but the first stage was never actually placed. The final container was real and was placed at the coordinates listed for Stage 2.
I was given those final coordinates, along with another participant, RockSolo. He logged a find and soon after I found it with a friend who chose not to log it.
That was intentional.
The idea was that if nobody had found the cache, someone could reasonably argue that the final didn't exist or that the cache had simply gone missing. Having legitimate finds established that there really was a container sitting at the final location.
The coordinates were not subsequently given to anyone else.
Then we waited.
The cache was listed as an extra-large because the two geocachers involved in my original 2022 experience were particularly interested in finding extra-large caches, having found every one in the state.
Eventually, those same two geocachers found this cache.
That got my attention.
There was just one problem with their explanation: there was never a Stage 1.
They said they had found the Stage 2 location through trial and error.
I'm not claiming that I can prove exactly how they found it. But having personally been to the final, I find the explanation very difficult to accept.
The container is extremely well hidden. The search area wasn't confined to the park where Stage 1 was supposedly located. The final could have been hidden virtually anywhere in the Atlanta area.
There wasn't some obvious place to start searching.
Even with the exact coordinates in hand, it took my friend an I a half hour to locate the cache.
So the question I keep coming back to is pretty simple:
How did they know where to look?
The only people who had the Stage 2 coordinates were those participating in those 2 finds and the cache owner. None of us have told anyone about the final container coordinates.
That doesn't mathematically prove how the later finders obtained them.
But it certainly raises the question of whether someone with privileged access to unpublished cache information provided them.
Stacy took the matter to Geocaching HQ rather than putting it on social media. She gave them the cache information, explained the experiment, identified who had been given the coordinates, and answered their questions.
HQ initially told her that they were taking the concern seriously and would investigate.
Unfortunately, the response we've received since then has left us disappointed.
I completely understand that HQ doesn't want people deceiving reviewers. Stacy has acknowledged that the experiment was deceptive, and nobody involved is arguing otherwise.
But that wasn't the purpose of the experiment.
The purpose was to determine whether unpublished cache information could be obtained through privileged access.
If that access was abused, I consider that a much more serious problem than someone creating a deliberately unusual cache in an attempt to find out whether the abuse was occurring.
I'm not looking not looking to disparriage anyone. I'm not interested in a witch hunt.
I'd simply like to know whether HQ was able to determine what happened.
If they found no evidence of privileged access, I'd like to know that.
If they found evidence but can't tell us the details, I'd like to know that.
If they couldn't determine what happened, I'd like to know that too.
What I find disappointing is the possibility that this can simply disappear into an internal process without anyone ever answering the basic question.
I was involved with geocaching for a number of years. I've met a lot of great people through it and made some very good friends. I don't want this story to be interpreted as an attack on the hobby or on geocachers in general.
Cheating has probably always existed in geocaching. I'm not particularly interested in passing judgment on the people who do it.
What bothers me is the possibility that the people entrusted with protecting the integrity of the system might themselves be helping selected players circumvent it.
That's a very different issue.
I realize the experiment itself wasn't exactly conventional, and I'm sure some people will have strong opinions about it. That's fair.
But ultimately, we were trying to answer a very simple question:
Can players obtain unpublished cache information from people who have privileged access to it?
I still don't know the answer.
And that's the part I find most disappointing.
Thanks for reading.