Dowsing for IEDs

[a3sigma]

Please see this mornings New York Times front page article: "Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. Sees as Useless"

(perhaps a more veteran poster will provide a link)

I suggest we set the dowsers to work clearing minefields -- give natural selection a chance.

David Clark in Southern Maryland, USA

[Akhenaten]

BAGHDAD — Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.





Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html)

[LTC8K6]

I guess this is a good answer to those "what harm" questions...

[Pure Argent]

Okay, that's going a little overboard there.

[Big Les]

An earlier thread on this issue;

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=5080615

[Silly Green Monkey]

The Gazette (or was it the Denver Post?) had this on the front page for Wednesday (below the fold) with a quote from Hal Bidlack.

[Madalch]

I was going to start a parody thread entitled "Dowsing for IUDs", but then remembered that VfF seriously suggested that she could do something like that.

[Andrew Wiggin]

Just think of it as evolution in action. Darwin award pageant contestents doing the 'talent' portion of the contest. If you're stupid enough to believe that a magic stick can find bombs, and you're the one who has to defuse the bomb, then all I can really hope for is that you haven't reproduced yet. Hopefully after they lose a few folks to 'the magic stick said there wasn't a bomb' incidents, they'll be smart enough to throw away the magic stick.

A

[Brainache]

But, maybe if it was a really really long stick...

[foxholeatheist]

My Iraq dowsing experiment here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=150720) and blog entry here (http://foxholeatheist.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/dowsinginthemilitary/).

Nothing new, it was done in Vietnam. And believe me, it's not the most suicidal thing that the Military has resorted to in order to counter the IED threat.

[EHocking]

My Iraq dowsing experiment here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=150720) and blog entry here (http://foxholeatheist.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/dowsinginthemilitary/).

Nothing new, it was done in Vietnam. And believe me, it's not the most suicidal thing that the Military has resorted to in order to counter the IED threat.Do you have any reputable cites for this? I can only find unedited regurgitation of the same gushing article from pro-dowsing and new-agey sites, but nothing beyond anecdote.

[Nursefoxfire]

My Iraq dowsing experiment here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=150720) and blog entry here (http://foxholeatheist.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/dowsinginthemilitary/).

Nothing new, it was done in Vietnam. And believe me, it's not the most suicidal thing that the Military has resorted to in order to counter the IED threat.

That was a fantastic dowsing experiment! And yeah, your hair was lovely :)

[foxholeatheist]

For what? That it was done in Vietnam?

There is footage floating around of Marines using dowsing to locate tunnels and traps. That gentleman I wrote about, Louis Matacia, in my blog entry (I couldn't get an interview :sad face:) offered to train Marines on dowsing and he did but it was a sort of under the table training. I guess the USMC figured that dowsing supplies were cheap and easy to manufacturer.

BBC's "Supernatural Science" did a piece on it showing the footage from Vietnam. I can't search youtube here in Iraq and if anyone can find a link of the Marines using dowsing in Vietnam I would appreciate it.

One thing I can say is that when I was taking my "Dowsing Experiment" pictures some of the people in my unit were genuinely afraid that I would find UXO or "set it off" somehow. I suppose if the thought waves concentrated by the dowsing rod could set off the unstable UXO that littered that area. I was amazed, they were very familiar with what I was doing and said they knew folks that did it back home.

I've spent quality time among quality people (read: Rednecks/bogans, whatever) and I only witnessed dowsing once in Texas.

[GreyICE]

Now, now, everyone dismissing this is being a little hasty. Having expert dowsers cover every square inch of ground looking for IEDs seems like an excellent idea to me.

By the way, using them on checkpoints is interesting. I wonder how placebos fare against improvised nitrate explosives?

[George152]

There are a lot of military types out there at present (and their civilian equivalents) who are clearing mines every day using methods guaranteed to bring them home at the end of the day.

If any-one is killed using these 'devices' their builders should be held accountable and prosecuted as murderers

[Brian-M]

Just think of it as evolution in action. Darwin award pageant contestents doing the 'talent' portion of the contest. If you're stupid enough to believe that a magic stick can find bombs, and you're the one who has to defuse the bomb, then all I can really hope for is that you haven't reproduced yet. Hopefully after they lose a few folks to 'the magic stick said there wasn't a bomb' incidents, they'll be smart enough to throw away the magic stick.

A


I think you've got that one backwards.

If "you're the one who has to defuse the bomb" should you find it, then the best survival strategy is to find as few bombs as possible. In this situation, using the least effective bomb-locating device available is the smart course of action.

[Biff Starbuck]

A few of us have been trying to keep the fight against these devices going, since they never seem to die. Randi exposed the Quadro Tracker, and the criminals just moved overseas and kept changing the name of the company. Now copy-cat devices like the Sniffex also present a threat.

The most recent thread is Dubious Dick, Techowiz, some other members and I have been posting there for a while with updates. We would love for more more JREF members to take up the torch and join the fight!

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=128253

[gtc]

I was going to start a parody thread entitled "Dowsing for IUDs", but then remembered that VfF seriously suggested that she could do something like that.

I can think of a few ways to do that.

[shawmutt]

Obviously someone's family member works in the company that provides this crap.

Bomb sniffing dogs? Don't Iraqis hate dogs? Or is it just the proliferation of strays I read so much about?

In searching for dowsing in Vietnam, I ran across woo woo called "teabag reading". I don't know if it's just because I haven't had my morning coffee yet, but that gave me the funniest image I've had in a while.

I'm still looking for that for ya foxholeathiest, but man, what I did find so far about that program Supernatural Science...why the hell don't we have cool shows like that here? That needs to be on DVD so I can buy it! Episode 1 is available on google videos, on esp in animals. I love the way they turned common woo woo phrases--and those witty Brits and their puns!

[shawmutt]

Here's a woo site with some footage. I skipped to the part that talks about it--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO3wUtD0rro#t=2m45s

eta: I'm just going to throw a hypothesis out there. The slow walk necessary for dowsing, and the attention to detail while dowsing, may be responsible for finding things out of the ordinary. Discard any false positives due to confirmation bias, and voila! magic rods!

[JimBenArm]

Isn't dowsing for IED's similar to bobbing for french fries?

[666]

I was going to start a parody thread entitled "Dowsing for IUDs", but then remembered that VfF seriously suggested that she could do something like that.

I can think of a few ways to do that.
I'd even volunteer to help on condition that I supply my own rod.

[GreyICE]

I can think of a few ways to do that.

Dowsing rod?

[technoextreme]

Obviously someone's family member works in the company that provides this crap.

Bomb sniffing dogs? Don't Iraqis hate dogs? Or is it just the proliferation of strays I read so much about?

In searching for dowsing in Vietnam, I ran across woo woo called "teabag reading". I don't know if it's just because I haven't had my morning coffee yet, but that gave me the funniest image I've had in a while.

I'm still looking for that for ya foxholeathiest, but man, what I did find so far about that program Supernatural Science...why the hell don't we have cool shows like that here? That needs to be on DVD so I can buy it! Episode 1 is available on google videos, on esp in animals. I love the way they turned common woo woo phrases--and those witty Brits and their puns!
Is that the show with Randi in it? There is a show that involved Randi, dowsing, and Vietnam. I don't remember what it was though. It had Randi dowsing for water and then finding it. Of course he was standing next to the ocean. :boxedin:

[foxholeatheist]

Is that the show with Randi in it? There is a show that involved Randi, dowsing, and Vietnam. I don't remember what it was though. It had Randi dowsing for water and then finding it. Of course he was standing next to the ocean. :boxedin:

That's the one. I have them on my hard drive. There was several episodes in that series, subjects like Lake Monsters, Levitation, Physical Feats and stuff. Good series and hot fire eating chick in latex. Puurrrr...

The insurgents are pretty clever when it comes to hiding their bombs. One IED that really sticks out in my mind was sewn up inside a dead dog. Every counter measure we have they have come up with a way around it. The Iraqi Army and SOI checkpoints have really cut down on some and the old strongholds don't really exist anymore. The locals figured out that random explosions in their 'hoods was a thing they didn't really need.

[gtc]

Dowsing rod?

Dowsing Rod? No, I don't swing that way.

[Andrew Wiggin]

I think you've got that one backwards.

If "you're the one who has to defuse the bomb" should you find it, then the best survival strategy is to find as few bombs as possible. In this situation, using the least effective bomb-locating device available is the smart course of action.

Good point. Use something that won't find it, and wait till it's someone else's problem/funeral. I feel so much better now. When you put it that way, it's a pretty good PERSONAL survival strategy, but I wouldn't like to be the guy working down the road from the guy who was finding bombs with a radio antenna and a swivel.

A

[a3sigma]

Nothing new, it was done in Vietnam. And believe me, it's not the most suicidal thing that the Military has resorted to in order to counter the IED threat.[/QUOTE]


I have heard a story, perhaps apocryphal, that shortly after WWII an American, British, and Russian general were discussing how to deal with minefields. The Yank and the Brit described various technical measures they had developed. The Russian general is said to have remarked, "We always thought the best way to clear a minefield was to march infantry through it."

David Clark in Southern Maryland, USA

[quadraginta]

These people sure do get around. One connection to Vietnam dowsing is here (http://www.paranormaladvisors.com/about.html).

ABOUT LOUIS MATACIA
<snip>

One of his most unusual assignments was to teach dowsing to US Marines for use in combat during the Vietnam War. He obtained detailed information, without prior knowledge, of a Viet Cong combat village and its network of tunnels, traps and wires. One soldier reported that many lives were saved by the use of the angle-rod to locate traps and enemy underground tunnels. A year later, Matacia explained to Marine volunteers how to find a safe route through jungle without a compass by using a dowsing device, and how to locate troops and airfields using a pendulum and a map. The reason I ran into this dude's resume is because his daughter ... and business partner, Ginnette Matacia Lucas, managed to get a walk-on role in one of the more bizarre twists in the Caylee Anthony murder case.

I won't go into details here, but it was definitely a plot line that wouldn't pass muster for fiction.

[Soapy Sam]

The first casualty of war is the truth.
Convincing your opponent you have magicians who can detect their weapons is good psyops.(And hides the fact you have a spy in their camp). Convincing your enemy you have working sniffers that will find explosives at ranges of miles and that you have lie detectors that will tell when they lie about having them could be useful.
The snags come when your enemies get hold of lie detectors and you issue your own bomb disposal men with lies.