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NOTE: THE COORDINATES OF THE CACHE ARE THE POSTED COORDINATES. THIS IS A MYSTERY CACHE BECAUSE OF THE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REQUIRED WHEN SIGNING THE ONLINE LOG ENTRY.
Despite the joyful and cavity-inducing name of this park, "Gumball Park," geocachers are advised to venture here with great caution. The triangular shape of this park isn't just the result of a coincidental arrangement of bounding streets -- it's an omen, in grass. For this is a spot of strange feelings, odd disappearances, and bizarre happenings.
This is The Arlington Triangle.
You know about the Bermuda Triangle, of course, that stretch of waters off the coast of Bermuda where ships and planes mysteriously disappear. But you probably didn't know that Arlington has its own Triangle too, right here.
The earliest written reference to this patch of land appears in "The Virginia Gazetteer and Geodesia," a really heavy book written by eighteenth-century Virginia surveyor, Sir I.M.A. Cacher:
"Whilst surveying this vicinity with my colleagues, Messrs. Ashton and Heights, Sir Ball, and the son of the latter, known to me only as Ball's Son, we chanced upon a most unnatural and decayed patch of ground, discernible even by the unaided eye of being in the curious shape of a triangle, whereupon grew neither flower nor oak, nor any creature of the forest gave countenance, nor any bird familiarity. It is, to all degree, a barren waste, unfortunately groomed, a bit like the head of King George. My disposition toward the land rose immediately in the negative; I considered it most ungainly. Passing over it on foot didst occasion in me a regrettable feeling of dread and melancholy, one I should not like to have recur, as though the Earth I strode didst shun my very presence. The feeling was not dissimilar to that which I experienced gastronomically upon eating the disagreeable combination of crumbled meat over bread loaf being newly served at the hostelry known popularly here as 'McDonald's Tavern and Icehouse,' a vile establishment of which I am hopeful we have seen the last."
Strange stories about the Triangle continued through the centuries.
One noted archaeologist recently suggested that the lost colony of Roanoke migrated this far into Virginia, tried to set up a new village on this spot of land, and then disappeared! Other archaeologists have cautioned that the first archaeologist isn't really an archaeologist but a nut with access to the Internet, who wouldn't know a pointed bricklayer's trowel if it he tripped over it in the fieldhouse. Which I guess is some kind of joke only archaeologists get.
It gets better. Wait. I mean, it gets worse.
On December 5, 1945, Flight 19 out of National Airport disappeared from the radar screens of air traffic controllers. The pilot's last communication came just as the single-engine plane entered airspace above the Arlington Triangle. Very suspicious! There was never a distress call, and no wreckage was ever found. (Though a single-engine plane did land a few minutes later over in Cherrydale with the same flight number and pilot, there's no hard evidence connecting the two.)
Even today, pilots out of National Airport regularly divert their flight paths to avoid flying over the Arlington Triangle. When I called National Airport to confirm this, the spokesperson angrily asked, "The Arlington WHAT?" Then he told me the diversion was for noise abatement, then asked who I was and who I worked for. I hung up, lest I become involved in what is clearly some type of government cover-up, probably by the same people who named the park Gumball Park to hide its true history.
Sea captains avoid this park like the plague. You could sit in the park for weeks and you wouldn't see a ship navigating anywhere near this spot; in fact, you'd have to go about a mile away down to the marina to find anything nautical. Skippers are notoriously superstitious people, and they refuse to risk steering their cargo anywhere near the Triangle.
Today, the Arlington Triangle remains a place of weird and mysterious happenings. For example, neighbors report hearing strange voices in the park at night, yelling and laughing. But in the morning light, there's nobody there -- only empty beer cans.
Also, you can see that no trees grow here. The trees in the park may look real, but they are artificial. So is the grass and the dirt.
Just a lot of superstitious babble? Well, if you really think so, go ahead and log this cache. But note the following:
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you're brave enough to venture into the Arlington Triangle, share a little mystery from your own life when you log your find on this page. Include in your posting here a story of the spookiest thing that's ever happened to you. Weird noises in the attic? Lights that turn on by themselves? Spectral visitors on a lonely country road?
Log only - BYOP.
If you do not log this cache, it will be assumed that you vanished under mysterious circumstances while hunting for it.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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