Dowsing

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Meat, May 9, 2016.


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  1. Meat

    Meat Monkey+++

    I feel like dowsing is utter nonsense. I've seen folks use it to find water, power and a variety of other things. What do you think? :D
     
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  2. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    It works, that's all I know.
     
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  3. arleigh

    arleigh Goophy monkey

    Dad taught me how when I was a kid, and it works like a charm .
    I you don't believe in something, and haven't the patience to learn, of course it won't work for you .
    Much like learning how to operate a car, start with paying attention to instruction.
    I use a pair of steel coat hanger bent into an L only point the top forward, and let the crook of the L set in your hands loosely so that both Ls and pointed forward from you, held about 6 inches apart in parallel, and balanced horizontally so the they just slightly will be capable of moving off balance point .
    and start waking across the yard .
    Usually pipes and under ground streams will cause the Ls to cross or oppose one another. what I believe is happening is the magnetic field in the stream created by the flow of water and iron deposits being in the soil get connected and create a field the wire hangers respond to . don' try doing this in the wind it will just frustrate you.
    Keep working at it on both known and areas you have no previous knowledge of what's under the surface .
     
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  4. UncleMorgan

    UncleMorgan I like peeling bananas and (occasionally) people.

    Dowsing is a genuine skill. A lot of people have made there living "water-witching" for years, telling people where to drill their wells on a straight no water/no pay basis. Likewise, scientific studies have repeatedly proven that it works far more reliably than random chance would allow.

    I saw a documentary many years ago about a guy that dowsed with a pendulum and a map. He could locate just about anything.

    Anyway, he saw a notice about two guys that went missing in the Great Lakes area one winter. They hopped in their pickup truck, drove to the local store for beer and then just disappeared. Extensive searches found nothing.

    So the guy dowsed a map, and got a hit on their location. He called the local police and got laughed at. Eventually he managed to get the police to do a search at the point he indicated, but the police demanded that he come along and show them exactly where the missing men were.

    So they loaded up some divers and went out on the lake near where the the guys disappeared.

    At a certain point, the dower told them to drop the anchor immediately.

    They did, and then the divers went down.

    The anchor was in the bed of the missing pickup, and the two missing guys were still inside.

    They had gotten lost in the bad weather, driven out on the lake ice, and fallen through.

    Then the police did a test. They tossed the anchor over the side repeatedly. Even knowing exactly where the pickup was, they were only able to drop the anchor into the bed of the truck 25% of the time.

    The chance of the dowser doing it the first time by "chance", with no visual references at all, was about zero the the power of infinity.

    There are many kinds of dowsing, and many dowsers with varying levels of ability. Almost anyone can learn to dowse at least a little bit.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2016
  5. Ganado

    Ganado Monkey+++

    It works and a good water witch can even tell you how deep to drill.
     
  6. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    Yep, it works. I have used it many times to locate underground pipes. I read an article where some science students had tested it and found that there were variations in magnetic fields around pipes and underground water sources that certain metals reacted to.
     
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  7. Altoidfishfins

    Altoidfishfins Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    I hired a water witch about 2 years ago (only wanted gas money to drive out there - reasonable as he had about 150 - 200 mile round trip) to find my present well. Said he found an intersection of several streams, one being about 8 feet wide. We drove a stake and marked the spot.

    We then sank a well that went to 753 feet and ended up with a yield of 1/2 gallon / minute.

    We had previously drilled a well about 10 years before that went to 702 feet and yielded 1 gallon / minute by my wife just picking a spot that looked convenient. But we didn't case it because there were no solar pumps at the time that could push more than 600 feet of head. Now there are.

    Based on that experience - Not impressed with water witches or dowsing. We actually did better by guessing.
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2016
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  8. Airtime

    Airtime Monkey+++

    There is no physical science behind it. There has been a ton of research to discern what physical force actually exists to cause the L shape welding rods to swing or the wishbone stick to dip. None. Nada. Zip. If there was, there would be detection technology far more sensitive than the friction of objects moving in one's hands. And there would strong demand for it in locating buried utilities without having to connect signal generators to them that can be sensed.

    What is behind it and why it appears to work is behavioral science. Generally, one or both of two factors exist for the dowser: he already knows about where something may be located and there are very subtle (or often not so subtle) clues that give location suggestions of which he may not even realize exist and he is using. The "force" that moves dowsing rods is the exact same one that moves the pointer on a Ouija board.

    For example, pipes and wires generally run in modestly straight lines and often the dowser knows where the two ends are located. Draw a line between and you'll be pretty close. When pipes and cable are laid, generally the ground is trenched or they are knifed into the ground. This disturbs the ground and there may be very suble depressions as the fill settled in the trench, or the dirt went back in such that some of the dirt with less organic material from the bottom filled in on top and is a slightly different color or grass grows just slightly different. For locating wells, places with lightning hits may have water closer to the surface. Various terrain features can give low probability clues to sub-terrain features that may have slightly higher probability of containing aquifers and multiple clues may exist.

    Of course the final reason it seems to exist is a psychological one. It's our memories. We don't remember exactly all the lottery tickets that won nothing (unless you spent a lot for a dry hole), but we sure remember the few that did.

    In junior high I learned to dowse and thought it great. I too thought there were forces such as magnetic that moved my welding rods. Got into college and electrical engineering and learned much more to the contrary. Here is a fun test, instead of holding L bent welding rod or straightened coat hangers in each hand, put them in a block of metal in two lubricated and precisely drilled parallel holes. The rods will move in perfect unison depending on how the block is tilted regardless of the objects beneath and never swing in opposite directions (been there, did that.)

    Dowsing is a guessing game with associated lore and mystery. The odds of success may be bumped up by the above mentioned factors. The bump might be zero, a bit above nothing or it might be a lot, depends upon what you are looking for, the nature of the clues and how good one is discerning them. But the bump won't be any greater than just applying a trained eye and some brain power to the search to improve your guess.

    AT
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2016
  9. marlas1too

    marlas1too Monkey+++

    when I was much younger an old man 40 years my senior taught me how to find water using 2 metal rods .I tried to hold them as tight as I could but they still turned to cross when the were over under ground water . I will be the first person to say yes it does work
     
  10. Meat

    Meat Monkey+++

    I'd say from experience it's a potentially dangerous way to find underground power lines. I've seen personally that it's no better than chance. Water? I am also a skeptic. Interesting responses though. :D
     
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  11. Meat

    Meat Monkey+++


    One of my favorite dudes. Turns out he's gay. Who knew? :D
     
  12. Ganado

    Ganado Monkey+++

    I have no proof of these statement this is just my opinion

    We are all made up of electrical impulses, (some of us are pure impulsive but that is a different topic[grlft])
    even water when is moves gives off low level electrical impulses. I suggest that some people are more sensitive to those impulses than others. Or they pay closer attention to them. Either way, I believe as human beings we are all connected to all things and some people are more tuned in (whether its electrical or not) I just know dowsing works and its a skill anyone can learn. But like anything else it takes practice. (tbh I don't know how the guys that know water depth practice that but the the good ones, do know depth)
    @Airtime consider that perhaps one experience cannot be extrapolated into and entire conclusion.

    'absence of evidence does not = evidence of absence' just because you don't know how it works or it cant be measured, doesn't mean it doesn't work. Scientist deal with this all the time and there is no money in studying dowsing.
     
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  13. Meat

    Meat Monkey+++

    Ouija boards are said to work with the same principle. Ideomotor effect.
    :D
     
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  14. arleigh

    arleigh Goophy monkey

    I have found well sources, and under ground streams, and sewer pipes and been completely new to the area or the ends of the circuit I am searching.
    I have walked for hours in some areas an not found any thing , you can't produce or reproduce something that isn't there that easily. Verification to one's own satisfaction takes a lot of disproving even to one's self wile doing it .

    Under ground streams often take turns due to hard rock or clay in the area and change direction just as they do above ground regardless of what the surface looks like.
    There is another form of dousing which I think is spirit influenced and those are the ones doing by remote with maps . and can I deed be exact in their findings.
    I would not subscribe to these personally but I know they are real .
     
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  15. azrancher

    azrancher Monkey +++

    When I built this place, been here 21 years, I would not buy the land without a guarantee of water, two different dowsers, two different methods.
    The first one beat us out to the property and had it drawn out on a sheet of paper, (that would be the map method) used a pendulum to determine where and how deep, he told me drill here go 250'.
    The second one came out and said you have to use a fruit branch to witch with, and she had a mesquite branch, I questioned that and she said the beans were fruit, but they she blew it by asking where I was going to put the septic field in at.... duh, where the well isn't of course.
    You don't drill a well in Arizona without a dowser, for $50.00 it's well worth the entertainment.
    I drilled by the map method, well driller pulled out and left when he drilled to 120', cased to 100', 18 GPM water.
    But of course that was on a wet year, I am at the base of a mountain, so what I was getting was snow runoff, delayed by the percolation thru the sand and gravel. I now have a 3,000 gallon storage tank and only pump about 500 gallons at a time, with the submersible protected by a Pumptec. I was running low on water around October, sounds strange but it must take that long for the water to percolate.

    Rancher
     
  16. Seepalaces

    Seepalaces Monkey+++

    I haven't seen dousing, but I find the evidence opposing it compelling. It's a free country, for now, so ymmv.

    OSU just did a study on ag run off, they probably have some good numbers on how long it takes to filter through layers. That I find interesting, actually.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 10, 2016
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  17. arleigh

    arleigh Goophy monkey

    We had a well in the mountains that about went dry because the city drilled a well a few hundred feet away from ours .
    My nephew has a similar problem with a neighbor below him drilling their well deeper.
    NO matter where the water comes from it gets to be a bone of contingency when the well runs dry.
    People falsely depend on a well rather then having a reservoir , but a simple earth quake can change the water way under ground.
     
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  18. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    That is an excellent point. I am one of those people that thought I am set because I have a well. I was woke up real quick after flooding and water that was coming out of the tap reddish/brown.

    I believe in dowsing. I have seen my step-father do it and it is something I grew up hearing as the way to find water.
     
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  19. Cruisin Sloth

    Cruisin Sloth Special & Slow

    I can do it , BUT !!
    Im a dumb dude for depth or what I sensed , Wife agrees 2G %
     
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  20. Meat

    Meat Monkey+++

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