OT, dowsing rods

[robbor]

Just ran across 2 dowsing rods i bought a few years ago and had a laugh. I could not get them to work but heard of great stories. Anyone else?

[Beachnut]

I worked for AT&T for 30+ years. Back in the early 80's we had a Senior Cable splicer who was nearing retirement and was doing all of the underground cable locating. We had the latest technology in the Hewlit Packard electronic cable locater equipment but when it would not work he swore by using two bent welding rods as dowsing rods. (Just two copper or brass rods, like 20" long, bent in an L shape. So you would hold them chest high, arms at sides, elbows bent straight out, rods straight out, held loosely, yet tight enough that a breeze could not swing the rods around in your hands. The rods would swing towards your chest as you walked over something buried in the ground). We all had a good laugh about it in our crew room one morning and he got ticked off! He dragged the whole crew of splicers out into the parking lot and showed us how well it worked at finding most anything in the ground. We all took our turns at trying it and found that it worked for only about 1/3 of the guys on our 22 man crew. In my senior years with AT&T I was doing cable locates for 3 years with the most up to date multi frequency 3M cable locator equipment available trying to mark precisely the exact location of fiber optic, large toll, and copper cables to protect them from being cut by a back hoe. Many times that "best equipment available" would not transmit a good enough signal to read accurately at the distance needed. I just so happened to be in that 1/3 of the crew that those dowsing rods worked extremely well for, so in those impossible to use electronic detecting equipment situations, I pulled out my dowsing rods and was very accurate with them. The problem is you do not know what they are picking up. Water lines, electrical, gas, Phone, even most plastic sewer lines, they would all "detect" by swinging those rods towards my chest as I passed over them. The rods would even point backwards as I passed the items, and swing back to straight as I backed up back over the items.

One day I had a cable locate where the Alanon building (Alcoholics anonymous) had to have their sewer line dug up and had called in a cable locate to locate all utilities, as required by law. They had had paid this plumber to determine where to dig and they used the city maps, and their video camera to determine the blockage, and feet to where it was, to dig. There was no sewer clean out trap in the sidewalk so they marked where they were going to dig in white paint, ("USA") for all the utilities to know where they were digging. The building was on a street corner. I did my phone cable locate, but as I did it the owner explained that they were really not sure which side of the building the sewer lateral came out of, or to which street the lateral went to. The marked dig site was just a best guess using city maps. I pulled out the dowsing rods and walked the corner lot and found the sewer line to be on the other side of the building from where they thought it was at. I marked my suspected location for it and they dug on the other side of the building on their 1st best guess site. I latter was called back to the site to do another locate at exactly where I had marked where the dowsing rods showed the sewer line to be as their first hole turned up no sewer line! On a return visit I learned the sewer line was found exactly where I had marked it would be. While doing my "dowsing", on my first visit there a member of the club came out and asked if I would "read her aura" with my dowsing rods. I'm like, WHAT? Never heard of that! She had me run my rods over her head and down her sides, while keeping the rods like 18" away from her and I was amazed that the rods totally reacted to her! They would swing out, then in, and then out again as you moved down from her head to her feet. We tried this on a few other members standing there, and each person was different! Others tried the rods, and again, only about a third of the people that tried them, worked. Others said we were making the rods move and could not believe what they were seeing!

So the long of it is, Dowsing rods only seem to work for about a third of the people that try them. I would love to hear from someone that has used the one sold in the GPAA magazine and whether or not they have ever had it find Gold for them! I think it would be amazing for someone to do a scientific "study" as to why any of this "dowsing" works. Especially this "Aura" thing also! Maybe it is because the Bible tells us "there is more unseen, than seen" and we humans really don't have ALL the answers!

Beachnut

[Ridge Runner]

Beachnut

I retired from SBC that is ATT now and I located lots of cable in the ground with two copper rods like what you were talking about.You can do the same with water lines.I had 35 years when I went out the door and never looked back.

Chuck Anders

[Beachnut]

Hey Ridge Runner

Nice to hear there is another old phone guy on this site, that can use the dowsing rods too! I too went through the AT&T / Pacific Telephone & Telegraph, Pacific Bell, SBC, and back to AT&T wonderful name change insanity circle as an MST Splicer. Very glad to be off that not so merry go round! I worked mostly in the Napa valley - area, loaned out to most all the bay area, then jumped onto the Construction Splicing band wagon called "Pronto" fiber optic crew, and built fiber optic hubs all over in Sacramento, Chico, Redding, Yuba City, Yuba Sutter, Davis, Vacaville, Fairfield, Marin, for 3 years before getting back on to the MST,(Maintenance Splicing Technician), side of the house. Back to the topic...

I was searching "dowsing" yesterday and found more nay sayers than believers out there on the web.

Any one here "Dowsed" for Gold, or had any experiance with someone who has done it?

Beachnut

[srferjo714]

I come from a long line of rednecks and my grandfather showed me how too use the rods when I was a kid. I still use then to find gas lines sewer lines and power in my yard. But never used them to find gold. 25" rods work will for me.