$500 Reward For Project APE Caches

Carl Jones isn’t monkeying around …

Carl Jones

So keen is the owner of Australian webstore Geostuff to track down his country’s two Project APE caches that he’s put up an A$500 reward (NZ$631) for each.

“These two caches are an important piece of history and of significant interest to the sport of geocaching, so Geostuff.com.au is offering to pay A$500 for each … no questions asked,” he wrote on his store’s website.

Eleven years after GC1058 and GC1412 were muggled, Jones will surely have his work cut out for him. He suspects at least one of the ammo can containers will be gathering dust in somebody’s shed.

For those unfamiliar with the iconic series: Project APE was Groundspeak’s first joint commercial venture, involving the placement of 14 caches in five countries to promote 20th Century Fox’s 2001 Planet of the Apes movie. Each was classified by its mission name and rank, though two of the ammo cans were accidentally named No 10.

To build hype, a special Project APE cache icon was issued, movie props were distributed as FTF prizes and a special website created to explain a theory of Alternative Primate Evolution.

According to Cacheopedia: “The series was released under a tight level of security. The individual players who placed the caches did so anonymously, under the direction of Geocaching.com officials.” Their locations were drip-fed to players; first came clues about the country, then the state before the cache co-ordinates were revealed.

Once the film left theatres, Fox abandoned the project and the surviving caches were eventually adopted out. Today only the original Brazilian hide – GCC67 Mission Four: Southern Bowl - is still active. Examples remain in California, New York, and the United Kingdom but are no longer part of the official series, having been replaced by traditionals.

Of Australia’s two archived Project APE caches:

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