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MG's founder, "Heartless," was once quoted as saying, "To me, looking out at a city is a lot like looking out across a lake. Don't you ever wonder what that cold, black water is hiding, deep beneath the waves?"
Urban exploration is just that: Exploration. Sometimes this means "going stealth mode" avoiding and/or countering security guards, cameras, motion sensors, etc.; but usually it's just the Group and its friends and affililiates getting together and photographing things of interest. These incursions usually take place at night, but not always. They usually consist of countless hours of historical and other research beforehand, but sometimes not. Sometimes it's a spur of the moment decision derived from a spur of the moment observation, i.e. "Hey, I wonder where that manhole goes..."
The Group places a lot of emphasis on factual historical information gathered from various research projects. It is one thing to tour the abandoned property of a defunct world war two era ordnance factory, but it is another thing to tour the same property knowing that after the war, many of the remaining buildings were used as polio infirmaries; and that many people died terrible deaths in them years ago. See "The Rosemount Project" to learn about this disturbingly creepy place, which also happens to be where the Midnight Group came to life...
Urban exploration is usually (technically) illegal. Explorers have been cited for things such as tresspassing and misdemeanor burglary; and recently, six friends of the Group were arrested and detained under suspicion of terrorism and conspiracy. That was obviously not the case, but with the public paranoia regarding terrorism and the various threat levels which we hear about almost every day on almost every news channel in the country, police and civilians alike are on edge about what we do; and for good reason. See the Local section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Tuesday, December 30th, 2003 for the whole story.
In times past, i.e. pre-September 11th, if an explorer were to be caught in a cave or an abandoned building, he or she would almost certainly just be sent home with a warning after it was discovered that no one was under the influence or had any outstanding warrants. Today, playing the dumb curious kid doesn't work anymore; and extreme caution must be excersized at all times.
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