Centauri History....
In late 2002, as measured by the Terran calendar, a Mother Ship from the planet Centauri crash-landed near a small metropolis within a dank, dreary, forest.
Working under cover of darkness, the Centauri explorers attempted to repair their vessel, but the small yellow sun proved to provide insufficient energy to recharge the vessel's solar arrays during the planet's daylight hours, and the primitive culture and the polluted natural resources made locating equipment and fuel to permit repairs impossible. The Captain of the Centauri ship was forced to make an impossible choice, jettison the shuttle craft and all aboard in escape pods, and attempt to return home with just the command crew aboard the crippled command ship. Each crew member was on their own.
Fast-forward 18 Terran months...
The mother ship lasted less than one Terran lunar cycle before being ransacked and removed by the barbarian inhabitants of the planet. Two of the shuttlecraft, and six of the escape pods were known to be still earthbound in various locations, some near lakes, some still concealed from the natives near metroplitan areas, some as far away as across a small mountain range east of the crash site. The remainding two-thirds of the crew, and their vessels, were missing and presumed lost.
In the interim, the arrogance of the primitive inhabitants of the waterlogged planet permitted them to deem themselves somehow worthy to resume their laughable solar system exploration, sending a number of absurdly simple robotic vessels to the next planet from the local sun, a red planet, known as "Mars" by the savages.
Little did the savages know, but "Mars" was a close ally of the Centauri people. Close indeed...
The Martians stealthily observed the probes approaching from the safety of their underground cities, managing to damage several of the vessels after landing, and destroying two incoming spaceships with particle beam defenses while the descending orbiters were obscured and out of line-of-sight view of the blue planet. Two of the robot crawlers somehow survived, one taking the following low-resolution picture capturing a Martian Centurion examining the childish Terran probe.
Intercepting the picture's transmission back to Earth, it was now clear that the Martian civilization had been unfortunately detected by the uninvited visitors. The Martian High Council met to discuss their options. It had been over 65 Terran years since the Martians first attacked and had been repulsed by the toxic atmosphere and its single-celled defenders near Browns Mill, New Jersey. It had been far too long a time. Had the Terrans evolved to the point where they were indeed a threat ? Action was required...and soon.
Shortly thereafter on a starlit night in the late Terran winter, a tiny rectangular craft silently descended from the sky into an area quite near the original Centauri crash site. It was a small vessel by any measure, about 0.3 by 0.2 by 0.1 meters in dimension. Small, but well-stocked for its mission...
This vessel contained a number of strange items thought common enough according to electronic intercept to be considered non-threatening by the Terrans. But there was more...
Hidden in the vessel was a total of eleven small cylindrical transmitters, each capable of intercepting any electronic transmissions from the primitive culture, in order to provide the High Council with in-depth knowledge regarding the intent, and the capabilities, of the Terran culture. The vessel landed in a location where it was unobtrusive to passersby, and the transmitters remained undeployed, waiting for the few (hopefully) surviving Centauri explorers to receive their new orders on the joint Centauri/Martian emergency frequencies.
The mission - locate the hidden vessel and its cache of transmitters. Deploy the transmitters to far-flung locales surrounding the crash site. Stay calm. Stay vigilant. Await further orders...
This is a large cache, which contains eleven ready-to-hide Bison keyring micro-caches. Please take no more than 'one' micro-cache from the large cache, and plant it somewhere else, at least a few miles from here. The further away from the large cache, the better. Please do 'not' take the micros as souvenirs, take one only if you plan to plant it.
The back of each micro-cache log is marked with a unique name. Make a note of it. When you hide it, post it as a new cache to Geocaching.com, and include the word 'Centauri Alliance: Martian Probe [its name]' in the title.
Special request - when the micros are hidden, please refrain from "first finder fever" from more than 'one' of these micros. Lets let others get a chance too please.
There are other items in the large cache. For those, take an item, leave an item. Enjoy the hunt.
Probe Locations: