Northwoods Sporting Journal: (No site)

The origins of flashmobs - the surrealist gatherings of Internet-organized groups of irony thrill seekers - may have been discovered in the deep woods of Maine.

For the past few years, a crunchy bunch of hikers, mountain climbers, orienteers and "geo-cachers" have been publishing global positioning system (GPS) coordinates on the web to encourage people to reach the same destination - sometimes at the same time - to create hidden caches of mementos. Hikers with the skill to reach and find these caches are supposed to take one item from the sealed container and deposit another.

The New York City equivalent of it became flashmobs. Despite lame attempts by trade publications to make this sound relevant to marketing, neither have really been employed for the purpose. The person perhaps most responsible for the "geo-caching" movement is orienteering trainer and consultant Randy McEwen (who, in case anyone cared to hit him with a J-DAM, has GPS coordinates of 19 493295E 4960830N during normal business hours).