American Locomotive
Well-known member
Dowsing of any kind is 100% a pure load of ****. It doesn't work, period. Countless studies have shown it's literally no more accurate than randomly placing your finger on a map with your eyes closed and saying "dig here". The reality is most wires and pipes are put in relatively predictable places, and you can walk just about anywhere in a developed area and find some kind of buried utility if you dig randomly and go deep enough.
This isn't a "It works for some people, but not everyone" kind of thing. It doesn't work, period. You will achieve the same results by just guessing or by looking at surface clues and making educated guesses. Multiple organizations (and people) offer $10,000, $50,000 - even $1,000,000 prizes to anyone who can prove they can locate things underground with a higher-than-chance accuracy.
No one has ever been able to do it. Ever. If you think you can do it, I can put you in contact with a number of organizations who are very interested in awarding you up to a million dollars.
This isn't a "It works for some people, but not everyone" kind of thing. It doesn't work, period. You will achieve the same results by just guessing or by looking at surface clues and making educated guesses. Multiple organizations (and people) offer $10,000, $50,000 - even $1,000,000 prizes to anyone who can prove they can locate things underground with a higher-than-chance accuracy.
No one has ever been able to do it. Ever. If you think you can do it, I can put you in contact with a number of organizations who are very interested in awarding you up to a million dollars.
- Dowsing studies from the early 20th century were examined by geologist John Walter Gregory in a report for the Smithsonian Institution. Gregory concluded that the results were a matter of chance or explained by observations from ground surface clues.[51][52]
- Geologist W. A. MacFadyen tested three dowsers during 1943–1944 in Algeria. The results were entirely negative.[53]
- A 1948 study in New Zealand by P. A. Ongley tested 75 dowsers' ability to detect water. None of them was more reliable than chance. According to Ongley "not one showed the slightest accuracy."[54]
- Archaeometrist Martin Aitken tested British dowser P. A. Raine in 1959. Raine failed to dowse the location of a buried kiln that had been identified by a magnetometer.[55][56]
- In 1971, dowsing experiments were organized by British engineer R. A. Foulkes on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. The results were "no more reliable than a series of guesses".[57]
- Physicists John Taylor and Eduardo Balanovski reported in 1978 a series of experiments they conducted that searched for unusual electromagnetic fields emitted by dowsing subjects, they did not detect any.[58]
- A 1979 review by Evon Z. Vogt and Ray Hyman examined many controlled studies of dowsing for water, and found that none of them showed better than chance results.[10]
- Three British academics Richard N Bailey, Eric Cambridge and H. Denis Briggs carried out dowsing experiments at the grounds of various churches. They reported successful results in their book Dowsing and Church Archaeology (1988).[59] Their experiments were critically examined by archaeologist Martijn Van Leusen who suggested they were badly designed and the authors had redefined the test parameters on what was classified as a "hit" or "miss" to obtain positive results.[59]
- A 2006 study of grave dowsing in Iowa reviewed 14 published studies and determined that none of them correctly predicted the location of human burials, and simple scientific experiments demonstrated that the fundamental principles commonly used to explain grave dowsing were incorrect.[60]
- A randomized double-blind trial in 2012 was carried out to determine whether homeopaths were able to distinguish between Bryonia and placebo by use of a dowsing method. The results were negative.[61]
- A 1990 double-blind study[62][63][64] was undertaken in Kassel, Germany, under the direction of the Gesellschaft zur Wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (Society for the Scientific Investigation of the Parasciences). James Randi offered a $10,000 prize to any successful dowser. The three-day test of some thirty dowsers involved plastic pipes through which water flow could be controlled and directed. The pipes were buried 50 centimeters (19.7 in) under a level field, the position of each marked on the surface with a colored strip. The dowsers had to tell whether water was running through each pipe. All the dowsers signed a statement agreeing this was a fair test of their abilities and that they expected a 100% success rate. However, the results were no better than chance, thus no one was awarded the prize.