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Dowsing: Fact or Fiction?

For more than 300 years, people have been using dowsing rods to find things hidden underground, such as metal objects, ancient relics, and-most importantly-water. Today, scientists are trying to find out if dowsing really works and, if so, how.

Ray Burbank was having trouble finding an underground water pipe. So he asked a friend named Henry Gross for help. Gross took a Y-shaped twig and held it in his hands. Then he walked back and forth over the ground. “The pipe's right here, ”Gross said at last, marking the spot with a wooden stake.

Meanwhile, the water company had sent its own men to find the pipe. When the men saw Gross with the twig, they broke out laughing. Still, even though they used fancy machines, they couldn't find the pipe. The next day, Ray Burbank dug up the spot Gross had marked. Sure enough, there was the water pipe.

Gross found the pipe by using the age-old art of dowsing. Dowsers claim they can find water and other hidden things under the earth. They simply walk over the ground while holding a forked stick or rod.Suddenly,they say,the stick or rod will tremble in the dowser's hands. It will point down toward what is hidden below the ground. When asked what makes the stick move, many dowsers shrug. “I don't know how it works, ” they say. “It just does.”

Henry Gross is not the only dowser to amaze his neighbors. An old Vermont farmer named Milford Preston was famous for picking the best place to drill for water.One day a friend challenged Preston to a test. The friend dumped five piles of sand behind his barn. He told Preston he had hidden a quarter in one of the piles. In truth, the friend was trying to trick Preston. He had actually hidden quarters in two different piles.

Preston picked up a forked stick and went to work. He stopped over the second pile. He could tell a quarter was buried there. But to be sure, Preston checked the other piles. He knew right away that there was another quarter in the fifth pile. “You're not as tricky as you thought you were! ”Preston smirked.

Dowsing goes back at least to the 16th century. That's when the first written account of it appeared in Germany. In those days, dowsing was used to find precious metals. The practice spread throughout Europe and, later, the United States. People in Asia and Africa also began to practice dowsing. Over time, dowsers have expanded their claims. Today they still say they can find water, pipelines, and metals. But they also say they can locate buried treasure. They claim they can find ancient relics, land mines, and dead bodies. Some dowsers even insist they can find objects just by swinging a chain over a map.The chain,they say,will pull their hand toward the right spot.

Some of today's dowsers have a pretty good record of success.One of the very best dowsers is Hans Schroter. Schroter has spent a lot of time in Sri Lanka. He has picked sites for hundreds of wells there. In fact, he has chosen 691 spots. Only 27 of these have failed to yield water.

Still, the question remains: How do dowsers do it? What could make a stick suddenly bend down toward something far underground? Is there some force in nature at work? Some people think there is. They believe each hidden object must send out some kind of mysterious wave. Water, too, must send out waves. Dowsers, then, would be people sensitive enough to pick up these waves.

Few scientists believe in such unseen waves. Some say that dowsers' success stories are just a matter of luck. Others have a different theory. It's not the stick that helps a dowser, they say. It's the dowser's own knowledge of the land. Most dowsers are not geologists. They have no formal training in earth science. Still, they often know the land they are walking very well. So they might pick up clues without even realizing it. They might see that underground water changes the look of the soil in a certain area. The shape of the ground might offer hints. So, too, might the presence of certain plants or grasses. Geologist Jay Lehr says that experienced dowsers are often experts in picking up such clues. He says dowsers always“have an understanding, whether they're aware of it or not, of various surface clues.”

Still, a few experts have decided that dowsing is for real. One is the German scientist Hans Dieter Betz. In 1995 Betz wrote a report on dowsing. In it, he declared that good dowsers can indeed detect water below the ground.Betz is respected in his field.His report has caused other scientists to take a second look at dowsing. So far, though, most are not convinced.

So that puts us back where we started. Is dowsing fact or fiction? Tests have shown that it does work. But all of these tests, including ones done by Betz, have been challenged. Critics of dowsing say that every test has been flawed in one way or another. So dowsing remains an open question. Most scientists still reject it. But many people around the world practice it. Can they all be wrong?