An “Unknown cache” – or more commonly called ”Mystery cache” can be constructed in many different ways. If you are new to the game or not used to solving mysteries, here are some examples of different types of mysteries to help you get started. Because it is a lot of fun to solve mysteries :-)
1. Questions or photos
A simple type of mystery includes answering questions about various topics or recognizing the content of photos. The answers give you hints to the coordinates. In most cases Google can help you here! And you often learn a lot about topics you probably never knew anything about! One example is Vinprovaren #5 Grundsmakerna where you learn about wine tasting!
2. Mathematical or logical puzzles
This involves mathematical algorithms or logical puzzles where you "just" need to figure out the right method to solve the riddle. This category includes Japanese games like Sudoku or different on-line games that will lead you to an answer. One of my favourites in this area is locked-closed-open-source-target which included a fascinating, logical game that took me MANY hours to solve!
3. Challenge caches
This is not really a mystery cache, but altogether a different type of cache. In order to log a challenge cache you need to fulfil some criteria related to geocaching. For example, “Log a cache every day for 30/100/365 days”, “Find a cache in 5 countries”, “X number of founds”. We were FTF on this favourite challenge cache Challenge #026 - 25 Nature reserves in Stockholm.
4. Steganography
Steganography is the art of hiding messages in texts or photos. This can be done by many different techniques, the thing in common of all these techniques is that it is not obvious to the reader where to find the message. One cache that caused us lot of headache was this one with a very clever solution - Steganography/Steganografi.
5. Code systems
There are many, many coding systems out there – and many of them are used for mysteries. So if you find a list of random numbers, they could be referencing laws, import codes, country codes... And of course the other way around as well, if you find a list of items, you need to figure out how to transform them into numbers. You just need to find some kind of hint to know where to start looking! The example cache here is a list of numbers that need to be transformed in some way to coordinates: Berg- och Dalbanan.
6. Field puzzles
There are also several types of mysteries where the given coordinate is the starting point. So, you start at the coordinates and then solve the mystery there. One popular type of cache in this category is trails with reflective light that you can only follow when it is dark. It could also be that you should enter a building, cave or fort and follow clues. The example here is our very own field puzzle Hör du musiken?
7. Bonus caches
One popular type of mystery is the bonus cache. Then you need to collect hints from nearby caches in a series, and then the bonus cache is the grand finale. In many cases this gives you a great walk around the woods, for example Kamouflage 9 - Bonus which is a great series of well hidden caches on Järvafältet.
8. All others…
And then there are so many other types of mystery caches. You never stop being amazed of the creativity of cachers! Some mysteries are really hopeless to solve, the advice here is to leave it for a while, when you look at it next time you might see the problem from another angle. Or get together with some friends and solve mysteries together, it’s a great way to spend a Saturday evening!
So, what technique is used to solve this cache???
To save the environment from you guys driving around the city looking for the cache - you can use the Geochecker to try your solution.
