Dousing

Is this where you find buried water lines with a couple of bent pin flags?

That is one of the many uses. In the right hands, it is a wonder to behold.

I was a major skeptic of dousing...until I was taught in Nevada how to use two modified coat hangers to locate underground H2O pipe...I concentrated on trying not to make those wires cross in case it was just a psyche head trip thing but they crossed every time on top of that pipe. I still prefer the metal detector but in the pinch ...

Please tell me you are joking! Or at least that you'll be setting up a true test of the supposed skills. Heck, you could make them a million dollars. Www.randi. Org.

No jokes. Straight facts.

Dowsing

How did they teach you? Just "hold the wires like this and it will happen", or was there more to it?

My wife's mother used to use dowsing to find unmarked graves while working with the historical society on their cemetery book. My wife's brother does it for water lines. My wife hasn't practiced, but can seem to get a response.

I can walk the same path as them and absolutely nothing happens. It would scare me out of my boots if it did.

Spelling note:
dousing means dumping a lot of liquid on someone/something
dowsing is finding underground things

Dowsing

Dowsing...yeah.
The wires are "L" shaped with the short end inside the closed fist...so if you turn your fists inwards then gravity would make them cross...so this is what I was fighting...inadvertently making my fists turn inward. But when they did cross it was fast and immediate and I could not discern at all that I was physically causing it to happen. They didn't over cross like if gravity had a roll in it... The check was the actual known position of the waterline after the fact....and yeah....kinda freaked me out...

The first time I ever saw it was at Denver International Airport. There were a number of ducts and water lines running through a proposed runway, and the construction crew needed to know where the existing lines crossed proposed taxiways. Trouble was the existing lines were old, with no good asbuilt info, and nobody was really sure where they were. We had a set of "theoretical" plans to give us an idea, and that was it.

The party chief I was with decided dousing would be the best way to locate them, given the unreliable nature of the record plans. So, while the construction guys were watching us a smirking, he started finding lines. After he did a couple of taxiways, I tried it. I, too, had to actually try it myself, because that's the only way I could believe it wasn't a sham.

The construction guys thought we were full of BS... until they dug down and found ducts or waterlines at every single one of our stakes. Including the two lines that weren't in the plans at all...

I can do it but I won't teach a class.

First time I saw it I was skeptical but I have an open mind and wanted to try it. Sure enough, wires cross we dig down and find something buried in a trench. I don't think it finds water but rather the disturbed earth from trenching cause we could locate underground wires and water pipes.

Some people can't do it, I think it has something to do with individual body chemistry. Maybe I have the force or something. Never could wear a mechanical watch as after some time it would start running fast.

I wouldn't do any Blue Staking with it!

I heard oil and vinegar works good.

Around here we call it "Witching".

And yes I am a firm believer.

Randy

Me to Randy. It's worked many times for me. I never depended on it for putting something on a map but to find a location to do a pothole for a project then I've used many times with great success.

a Brass Pair

Here is a link to a Brass Pair.

Pin flags work for me, good luck.

:coffee:

I have used copper wire bent into an "L" many times to find an unknown location of a septic tank and septic lines. It also worked for RCP and water lines. Some of the people we were working for would give us a funny look and kind of move away from us. Not all of the crew could do it.

a Brass Pair

Not this again, this has been beat to death on this forum and others. There is still a million dollar prize for someone who can prove it works.

Uncle

I give up.

a Brass Pair

That million dollar prize is only as good as the man who is offering it and willing to pay it. I have seen the believe it or not controlled tests where they prove that dowsing does not work because the folks could not locate some 5 gallon buckets filled with water or some such. I have also seen abandoned oil wells, buried pipelines and other things located by dowsing. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. If that man is so sure that it doesn't work, let him come to our "test grounds" and see for himself. I'd love to see him slapped off of an oil well pad by some track hoe operator who just located a dowsed up abandoned well and had some Nancy boy (or Randi boy in this case)pull back the carrot that he had been dangling in front of his nose. Believe it or don't - just because the million dollars hasn't been paid out does not mean that it doesn't work.

a Brass Pair

I had never heard of it for uses other than water wells until I went to the conference class in Washington. We went in the parking lot with our bent wires, closed our eyes and walked until they moved. Low and behold there was a line. It worked better for some than others. The instructor offered no explanation for why or how it works. Since then, I've seen it work numerous times. I bought an expensive telephone line locator for several hundred miles of as builts. One of my employees was as good as the machine using dousing. How and why it works I can't tell you, but I've seen it work well.

Have you tried it? I thought it was vodoo too.