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Disneyland was shut down on Tuesday, February 22, 2011, after a GPS device frightened park officials to the point of calling the police. The GPS device was a part of a treasure hunt.

The object was found on a box on a bridge near the ESPN Zone and the House of Blues, and the Orange County bomb squad was called. All of the shops in Downtown Disney were soon evacuated for safety reasons.

This GPS device was part of a geocaching treasure hunt, a type of game which we have covered in this blog before. This explains why a seemingly suspicious GPS device was left out in the open.

“We would like to inform those who geochache not to leave items out in open places where it could cause suspicion,” a member of the sheriff department said.

The Disneyland bomb scare was not the first time that a GPS geocaching game has caused a scare recently. The Huntington Beach Fire Department bomb squad was called in on February 7th for an alarming device that was found. It was a geocaching unit, a part of a game.

As geocaching continues to increase in popular, some fear that it will continue to cause incidents like this. Will this continue to be a pattern? Perhaps so, although except for these isolated incidents, there has not been an increased trend of these incidents.

Article Written by Greg Minton