NATCHEZ &8212; Though you&8217;ve probably never heard of geocaching it&8217;s all around you.

Geocaching is a sport, which takes participants on a myriad of outdoor treasure hunting excursions in search of caches, which are containers secretly hidden throughout the world.

Geocaching is theorized to have started in Oregon in 2000, but no one really knows for certain since it is an online phenomena, which has spread worldwide and now includes over 250,000 within the United States alone. There is even a movie set to release this fall about the sport.

In the game participants use global positioning satellites or GPS units to find the caches whose coordinates are posted online, for anyone who wants to seek them out.

&8220;The running joke is we use billion dollar satellite technology to find Tupperware containers,&8221; Stan Owens said.

The reward or treasures within the caches are seldom worth more than a dollar, items found range from rubber ducks to notepads, and anyone who takes an item is expected to replace the item with something of equal value.

Sorry treasure hunters, you will find no gold doubloons here, but you might run across a tin one from a recent Mardi Gras parade.

So what is the payoff?

&8220;Often the purpose is to take someone to a location with a view or some history to it,&8221; said Ron Willet, of Flora. Willet is a veteran in the realm of geocaching, having personally located over 500 caches.

Though it sounds easy to locate an object when you have the GPS coordinates, it is misleadingly so. Caches can take hours to find, even when you have the coordinates that take you within a few feet of the cache&8217;s location. That is due to the creativeness of the hiding spots, which can be anywhere.

&8220;I have stood right on top of a cache before and not known I was doing it,&8221; Owens said.

The cache he was referring to was a micro cache hidden at a secret location within the city limits. Micro caches are ones that are usually the size of a matchbox, but inside you will find a list of all the geocachers, who have found the item.

Fellow cachers have found the micro cache Owens spoke of over 25 times.

Geocachers have a surprisingly tight knit community. They spend a lot of time online and in the presence of other cachers prefer to be called by their online handles. Owens&8217; is &8220;DYRTY,&8221; but he is not the only one in the Natchez area. Spruce Derden, pastor of Riverside Baptist Church, goes by the screen name &8220;Bluesprucejr&8221; and is an avid geocacher as well. Though Derden has only been geocaching since January of this year, Derden has discovered 153 caches. For Derden the allure is the fact that geocaching is a way for he and his wife to spend time together in the outdoors.

&8220;We plan our trips around them (caches),&8221; Derden said. &8220;We might be going to New Mexico or just to the coast, but when we do I always look online to see if there are some caches we can track down along the way.&8221;

Derden, Owens, and Willett are representative of the diverse group of people who geocache.

&8220;This is a sport families can participate in,&8221; Owens said. &8220;The players range from the young to old, and come from every sort of professional background imaginable and are located all over the world.&8221;

If you are interested at trying your hand at geocaching or would like more information on the sport, you can go to msga.net or geocaching.com.