Dowsing for wrecks

[Helen F H]

Ok, this weekend im dusting off my rods and am going to attempt to dowse for a wreck. Never tried it before, i have no idea if i can find it.

Idea is that i stand on the deck of the dive boat as the skipper passes over the site - someone will have to watch the plotter to see if im right. If the rods cross, we have a wreck.

I can dowse for water, electric cables etc already.

Do you have faith, or am i talking outta my arse?

[Dominic]

Sod wrecks, dowse for gold!

[Odin]

Arse!

[Dominic]

On a more serious note, I've successfully dowsed for water in the past.

That's not much good on a boat, of course.

But dowsing certainly works somehow. So it might allow you to find a wreck.

An interesting thing about dowsing is that (according to some people) it works as well over a map as it does being 'on location' - so try running it over some charts, too

[Helen F H]

I do have a crystal, but have never really mastered that.

I found that people who dont think they can dowse, cant, and those who think they can, can!

[turbanator]

You'll probably have more luck than a guy in our club had with his magnetometer, he'd only find a wreck with it if he snagged it.

[Odin]

I Think
Therefore I am

Some foreign bloke said that - don't get it myself.... (tongue in cheek..)

[Fiji Dave]

Originally Posted by Porg

Ok, this weekend im dusting off my rods and am going to attempt to dowse for a wreck. Never tried it before, i have no idea if i can find it.

Idea is that i stand on the deck of the dive boat as the skipper passes over the site - someone will have to watch the plotter to see if im right. If the rods cross, we have a wreck.

I can dowse for water, electric cables etc already.

Do you have faith, or am i talking outta my arse?

Hmm, well, my logical, scientific and slightly vulcan mind wants to say in a cool and calm manner "That is illogical Captain" but I've seen strange things happen that I can't explain so I'll put myself on the 'sceptical' side but with a healthy dose of 'perfectly willing to be proved wrong'

The only thing that confuses me, if you can dowse for water, won't the rods cross because of the sea? Is there a technique for differentiating between water/wreck?

Dave

[Dominic]

I think I think
Therefore I think I am


Never did anything with crystals, but you can have fun with a pendulum. Try this simple experiment: Make a makeshift pendulum (small weighto n a bit of string - a clip on a diving reel would probably work ) and draw a thick black line on a piece of paper.

Hold the pendulum above the line. Then, stare at the line intently.

Hey presto, the pendulum will start to swing along the line!

WWWwwwwooooOOOooooOOO!

[tom]

Originally Posted by Porg

I found that people who dont think they can dowse, cant, and those who think they can, can!

That's because of something called the ideomotor effect. See http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing/ for example.

On a personal note, like you I've done it successfully for water and electrical cables (long time ago though). One can speculate about how it might actually work in those cases (moving steel rods through an electrical field). The stuff about dowsing over maps though - hard to see any mechanism by which that could be achieved other than ideomotor effects.

Forgot to say - where I grew up (rural N.E. Scotland), when you wanted to dig a new well, you found the spot to dig by calling the local dowser. The practice was alive and well as recently as the 1970s, which is when we dug ours (and it had water in it ). Of course, the dowser already knew where all the other local wells and springs were, which was kind of handy in locating undergound water flows...