Dowsing rods and 'waterwitching'. For those unfamiliar, dowsing (or witching) for water (or metals) involves walking around with two parellel peices of wire (or a forked stick) and finding said water (or metals) hidden underground by watching to movement of the tool. The wires are both straightenned and then bent at a 90 degree angle to form a 'handle', you walk around with one in each hand trying to hold them level but paralel to eachother but loose enough that they can move easily, and when you walk over water, the wires cross. Using the forked stick method, you hold it in front of you, also loosely, and it will be pulled toward the ground when you walk over water. There are all sort of theories on how this 'works', including the subtle magentic feilds that underground water (might) create, or simply an innate subconscious understanding that some humans possess on where water should be, based on other surrounding clues such as vegetation and landscape that translate to the dowser/witcher subconsciously moving the tool to indicate to their conscious what their subconscious already knows. Others suggest that some humans are innately psychic even if they don't know, and dowsers/witchers are just latent psychics. Its also theorized that you can find water pretty much anywhere if you just dig deep enough... Its also said that some people simply don't have whatever 'it' is to dowse/witch for things underground. However, there is no shortage of people who dowse/witch very successfully for water as a living, including some large-scale professional well-drilling companies. Anecdotally, my dad claims to be a dowser and has successfully used dowsing as a 'handyman' to find water leaks on people's property so he could dig right where the leak is instead of having to dig up the entire line to find the leak. The company I work for also recently performed work for the Bureau of Land Management. We were just cleaning fresh water storage tanks, but part of the larger project also involved drilling a new well. The company responsible for drilling the well was the regional (multi-state) leader in well drilling, and they employed dowsers regularly to pinpoint their drilling operations, as they did on this project for the BLM. But however it works (or doesn't), is entirely subjective. There is no real science behind dowsing/witching for water. There is no reason why it 'should' work, or why some people have 'it' and some don't. Its about as scientific as trying to figure out why some people see ghosts or UFOs and others don't. If you hire a dowser and then spend thousands of dollars to drill a well that never produces water, you're out thousands of dollars. But then again, if you spend thousands of dollars to drill a well based on USGS geological survey data that never produces any water ...you're still out thousands of dollars. Both happen. What do you think about dowsing/witching for water?
As crazy as it sounds I've seen it done and I've done it to locate water lines underground. It works.
I am skeptical, and for a guy that believes in Bigfoot and UFOs, that's saying something. But, I'd like to see real evidence that it works.
@modernpaladin The most reasonable explanation would be the one about water causing magnetic anomalies. That your dad could use it to find an underground water leak, does not seem to support the "subconscious clues," theory, in that particular case (unless there could be landscape clues that might suggest where a broken pipe would be most likely to occur). But I have several questions: 1) Why wouldn't scientists be able to test the subtle magnetic field theory. Is it just a matter, though it's been around so long, that it sounds silly to them, and so no scientist has bothered to check it? Of course, there's not much incentive for a business to pay some science lab to carry out a study. But what about a college lab-- would they have the necessary equipment? Or why not try to encourage some of those who have t.v. shows, on which they look into scientific controversies, or anything that could be seen as related? 2) After beginning your post with all manner of theories as to how much his works, why did you end your post by saying that there was no reason why it should work?
Good questions. If I had a team of scientists at my direction, I would want to try it out. I just meant there's neither proof nor tested theories as to why it would work. It could be anything from magnetic fields to literal sorcery for all we really know.
