Recently, it was determined that there are descrepancies in our family cemetery plots that were purchased during the 1930-1940s. Research was done to bring in a ground penetrating radar device. Quotes for such service were triple the cost of a single plot and the family paused to regroup. Later, a family member came up with possible solution that a church member suggested.

A construction company employee in a another county digs graves as a sideline business and locates graves by dowsing. He was immediately contacted and gave us a price we could live with. Several family members, the Cemetery Association Director and I met with him yesterday. Long story, short he located existing graves and verified the plots that did not have a record of burial. He used two wire rods and verified by driving a 1/2" 5' steel rod.

The family was amazed and appreciative. I had witnessed dowsing previously on some land I was to build a cabin. The contractor I hired to put in a well had the dowsing ability. He simply looked around for a suitable tree limb fork and found a Black Cherry tree with what he was looking for. The dowsing showed him where there was a strong water source and a plus that two courses of underground water crossed and he marked the spot. I asked him to search nearby I was proposing to put up a horse barn. We went over to the area and he said for me to try it. Nothing happened, then he walked over to me and placed his hands on mine and after a few steps, the forked stick went straight down.

The force is not with me.

A man here can find draintile water.

Graves are 6’ deep, why the 5’ rod drove into the ground?

It's WITCHCRAFT!

But the top of the vault or coffin is not.

I'm guessing the coffin isn't one inch high.

Crap. That's why I always found bones instead of water.

How does that work, roundoak?

There was a shoot-out in my small Iowa hometown back in 1901. It has been called Iowa's largest gun battle. One of the three miscreants was killed (by a .44 rifle). He was unceremoniously buried in the township cemetery and forgotten. In later years, there was interest in the grave, and an old fellow who was around in 1901 recalled that he was buried somewhere at the outer margin of the cemetery, away from the rest of the graves. A douser was employed and found the grave. It now has a small marker.

Welcome aboard new friend.

Dowsing the real deal. I had my doubts about it but had a shop teacher take a pair of metal rods and let us walk over a known to him water line under a commercial concrete floor. Most of that tried couldn’t find it. They swiveled over it unmistakably when I walked over it with them. I had no problem seeing where the main lead with no knowledge of where it was at.

I have no idea what the science is behind it or if it’s grip or whatever.

There is no science behind it. That's why it's all bullshit, lol.

I've seen it work.

It is NOT the real deal !

Witching sticks?

I've seen it work for water sources as well, the guy also took an old cross cut saw out of his truck held it by the end of the blade and counted the bounces it made and told my dad that the water would be at 18 feet.

The water was at 18 feet.

I've never tried it, I'm told only some people can do it.

Get 4 brass welding rods. Bend one end on each about the width of your hand. Slip a piece of copper tubing over the handle of two of them so it can swivel. Walk over a buried water line, electric line, with the rods with the handles and the rods will cross. Walk over with the rods without handles, and the rods will line up with the water line. Try it. My father and grandfather were plumbers and used that to find waterlines, septic tanks, and buried wells. I've showed this to a lot of people and it's worked for them. I think the "feel" or "gift" or "witchcraft" comes with finding smaller objects, minerals, ect. and I've never tried that.

Get 4 brass welding rods. Bend one end on each about the width of your hand. Slip a piece of copper tubing over the handle of two of them so it can swivel. Walk over a buried water line, electric line, with the rods with the handles and the rods will cross. Walk over with the rods without handles, and the rods will line up with the water line. Try it. My father and grandfather were plumbers and used that to find waterlines, septic tanks, and buried wells. I've showed this to a lot of people and it's worked for them. I think the "feel" or "gift" or "witchcraft" comes with finding smaller objects, minerals, ect. and I've never tried that.

Sorry about the double post

Had a college professor who said basically the same thing. I said she was wrong and I’d prove it. She set up the test and I proved my case. I’d take any wager, south of $10, that I could still do it



Same offer ?

I'd rather call it, divining.

Make sure you're not walking under power lines. Sometimes it will give a false reading because of the overhead lines.

I have served on a cemetery board for 35 years where most of my family/ancestors are buried. It has been used since this area was first settled so there are many graves over 150 years old. Some graves never had a stone monument or were poorly marked/located and the old records/maps weren't always kept up.

There's often issues where someone wants to buy a lot next to an ancestor where there appears to be an open spot. A couple of years ago one of our board members suggested we dowse to locate filled spots. I always had thought it was a bunch of hooey, but...

It works. I can do it too. A couple of metal rods, and they will cross over a grave over 100 years old. Just this evening we met to pick up the decorations that needed to be removed and we did some locating and updated our map.

I'm sure it works for finding water lines and well sites.

I'm a Missouri boy and you have to "Show Me"

That was how it was shown to us with welding rod bent in a 90 but minus the the copper tubing. I’d think that the tubing would have upped the success factor as some maybe most were gripping the welding rod unintentionally. I like to think of myself as being a logically based person but it absolutely worked for me. Idk how it works but it worked.

I just want to chime in with my theory.
This topic about dowsing came to mind when I watched this video recently. It makes sense now.
So far I've not found anyone with scientific answers for this phenomenon. If there was one, it seems reasonable that one would have been discovered by now.
That leaves only one other alternative that I can think of.
Assuming that dowsing usually works for some people, they must have help from someone who can see that which lays below the surface of the earth.
I believe that angels can see things that we can not, whether fallen ones or elect. There is no Biblical reason for an elect angel to answer someone's prayers or lead anyone to seek mystical means of discovery. However, there are many of the other spirit beings that encourage such communication or methods of discovery.

If you don't want to watch it all, there's a similar phenomenon that is a trend with the youth shown from 2:34 minutes onward.



Guess what?
It involves crossing two sticks and letting the spirit take control of the direction one goes. Food for thought.

HC

I know how to dowse for water. All due to electromagnetic fields. I had no idea it worked for graves.

PS:
One very important point that I was just reminded of is at the end of the video.
It says if you don't have Jesus Christ as your Savior, to "give your life to Him today."

I must sternly correct that error of the producer of this video.
Salvation is Not imparted to anyone on the basis of "giving your life to Him." That is the OPPOSITE of the truth.
The gospel is that HE GAVE Himself for our sins.
When we Trust Him alone for salvation, He gives to us everlasting life. If we offer anything in addition to that, whether our life, our heart, our wealth or our might, He withholds that gift. It was already paid for, so faith in Him is the key . Please see links below.

Thank you and may He bless you.

Divining was pretty prevalent around here, never seen it work

I’ve seen people witch for water with a pair of pliers, a willow stick, heavy copper wire and steel rods. It think it’s BS.

I thought it was utter BS.

My dad told me about it and called it "water witching". Thought he was pulling my leg. He was using a couple of pieces of wire coat hanger trying to locate a water pipe during the construction of some property of his. I took the rods, and gave it a try. It worked. It was actually spot on. I have no idea how it works and had I not actually done it myself I still would have called BS. But it worked. Don't ask me how. It was one of the WTF kind of moments. LOL.

It does work. You can locate underground current with two metal rods

I assume the top of the vault is less than 6' to the surface.

A rod in each hand pointed straight out, cross when it detects a grave. Drive the rod to hit the top of the vault

I can find water with either brass or copper rods bent in a L shape.
GrandDad used a forked tree limb, which doesn’t work for me. He preferred the limb of a peach or pecan tree. He found water wells for most of the neighboring ranches and farms when he was young. Folks claimed he was never wrong.
Friend of mine finds graves for Old Cemeteries. He uses two L shaped pieces of coat hanger wire. Never tried doing that. Kinda creeps me out.

I've done it, another odd thing is I can't wear a regular wind up wristwatch they always quit working after a few days, think it might be something with magnetism in my body or something. Maybe that's why chicks are attracted to me lol.

When I was with the water department we relied on 2 pieces of wire bent from flags as much as we used the locate machine.

Generally as accurate unless there were overhead lines or other buried utilities.

Using 1 wire, if held in your left hand it will swivel to the right, if held in your right hand it will swivel left.

I haven’t warn a watch in years but I used kill them within a few days to a few weeks if it wasn’t rated for extended time and depth underwater.

I can use bent wire, usually from coat hangers to find water lines and underground electric lines, but failed with the grave search thing. I really hoped it would work, as out Cemetery has a lot of old, presumably unmarked graves. miles

I've been locating pipelines, etc that way for many years.

Even found an underground water main leak for a water system that they couldn't find for a couple of years. Took me about 20 minutes. He called the backhoe in and damned if it wasn't right where I told him it was.

It's always entertaining to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt to those who are skeptical.

Does your cell phone charge when it's in your pocket?

I have used flagging wires many times to locate water lines, have never heard nor tried on graves, will have to give it a try.

This guy would PAY if you could prove you could do it. Nobody ever can of course, not even the dozen plus on this thread.

Me too. My son can find water lines using a coat hanger cut into two pieces.

I've heard of them dowsing for water, sewer lines, electric lines, actually pretty much anything buried and at incredible depths.

I once had a dowser show me how he did it, he said he could accurately locate whatever we wanted him to find..

He went to work and located water at 300ft in depth for a well driller seeking a location to drill a well for a new home we were working on, that's what he'd been called to the property to do.

After he was done locating a spot for the well I asked him if he could find the septic system on the property.

He set to work cover much of the same ground he'd searched for water on and soon pointed out where he felt the tank was located and the went on to find and point out the area the drain field covered.

What's the most amazing about dowsing is how the rods know what the dowser is looking for at the time.

I asked him why he hadn't detected the septic while searching for water a short while earlier?
He didn't have much of a answer for that. He'd also walked back and forth over the underground electrical feed to the home and never mentioned it although he'd said he could locate them.

The main issue with his locating efforts were that we hadn't installed the septic system on the property yet.

Locating water isn't very impressive being you can find water anywhere you drill for it on 95% of the earth.

That's pretty much everywhere except Jim Conrad's property up on the highline.

Water dowsers have pretty good odds at being correct at least 95% of the time. Pretty good gig if you can get someone to pay you for it.

It's just amazing dowsers can detect a water pipe, deeper water to drill for and now a water leak when all three would be in exactly the same spot.

Tell me Waterwitch, do those dowsing rods have settings for leak/pipe/pool?
How do the rods know what you seek?

LOL.

Kinda hard to get money from a dead democrat.

I'm sure he still votes for Biden though.

I don't propose to be a water witch. I also don't propose to know how it works.

About a month ago my neighbor rancher needed to find a waterline splitting to two stock tanks, each one several hundred feet long.

I located the lines for him and flagged them up. Last week he had an excavator follow the lines to the ponds.

They were empty lines. No water in them.

Won't argue with you, since debate on the subject has no effect on those who already have their mind made up, and refuse to hear anything other than what they believe.

I don't claim to know what is down under from the rods action, but go by crossing a line several times and looking where it is going. Most of the time I know by that, as there is usually some other clue that you can see if you are observant. I can only know from the rods if there is an anomality there. Lets say there is a water line that you want located, I start near a known part of the line, and by crossing it several times, I can find the turns and branches. miles

Should add that when I first heard of this I was skeptical, but I was working for the AHTD, surveying, and I got some rods and tried it, while waiting for one call. I was soon convinced that it worked, at least for some people. I have never tried anything but underground lines, water, electric, telephone etc. and the graves. It seems to work for me for everything but graves. I must say that I only tried that for a short time, as this was after my back got bad and walking with my arms extended was uncomfortable. miles

I think that you just described the majority of the 'fire members.

My grandfather and my dad could do it iv tried, no luck. Always used fruit tree forks or willow.

What does Tommy Chong know about this stuff.

I found my well had two veins cross drilled it driller said it was best and strongest well he had drilled around these parts. After that when he has had trouble finding water he will call. I have found water every time he needs it. NO CHARGE. But have a freezer full of beef, and pork. Also worked 25 years for a gas & water company of course they used me when they needed too. LOL Upper boss would come out and try but no luck. Also did mission trips to Haiti to find water but would not let locals watch they still have and believe in witchdoctors, and they are scary. Found 7 places for wells. they have drill 4 and all have water 5000 gal. per. day. When you see kids walk 2mi for 5gal. of water and carry it home on their heads. Well, enough said.

Grand Paw said it was a gift and I should share it. Alway have and always will.

Thanks, for reading.

That's how I started.

By surveying.

Never made any money doing it, and never even tried to "witch a water well"... Wouldn't even know how.

In surveying, I found it most useful to locate and determine how many pipelines were in a right of way. Once done, the locations and numbers have been verified by hydro-vac many times.

A couple "L" shaped wires from metal coat hanger works for me. Been able to do it since I was a kid. I've found wells and traced paths from one well to another.

i was a skeptic once upon a time.

but after watching several guys locate under ground lines. i tried it.

i could find cross country buried cable in a field thousands of feet from markers

actual visual verification was necessary so digging and seeing the cable was required. also it was nice to be able to put a locator on the cable and verify it. but we still had to see it to know for sure.

You either believe or not. I have seen it my whole life. I have tried it and can at times hit it and other times I don't. How it works, don't know but I have witnessed it enough with proven results I don't argue with it.

Being in the backhoe business working with well drillers and pump guys I have literally located thousands of water lines with which in sticks my version of what's in the sticks heavier copper wire been at 90°, one end a little over a foot long the other end for 6 in. Simply works. The copper wires are also find buried electric service quite easily
As for the graves never done nothing with that but I have dug graves around here graves are 4 ft deep 4 ft wide 8 ft long. That puts the top of a vault usually about a foot to foot and a half depending on the vault under the surface of the ground. Exception around here is national cemetery there at bolts are actually stacked up one on top of the other so then you have an 8-ft deep dig

I should apply for a Federal grant to research and determine how dowsing works.

It only works if you believe it works.

I'll relay a story the gunsmith I work for told. There is a black church that wanted to bury someone. Black church's are notorious for not putting headstones up apparently. Like the OP, they could not afford to pay someone with ground penetrating eqt. So one of the folks in the church brought a family member who charged them $500 to douse the area. They called in the grave digger who began digging the grave. after three tries and finding bodies each time, he told them they needed to get their $500 back.
The same church bordered the gunsmith's cousin's house. They shared a driveway. The cousin as a gesture of being a good neighbor seen that the picnic table behind the church was falling apart. So, one Saturday went to Home Depot, bought a load of PT wood and rebuilt the picnic table. The preacher didn't know who had done this and was in the pulpit the following week and said that he appreciated whom ever did this great thing. He asked the clergy who did this? A women stode up and said she had done it. The preacher applauded her and thanked her. The preacher was telling the neighbor a few days later about how great his people were, it was then the neighbor revealed that it was actually him and his wife that had rebuilt the table.

I've tried it many times with #6 copper ground wire. Sometimes it works and sometimes not. Can't say. Could be just me.

I have located sewer lines, power lines, water lines with two wires and have shown countless number of folks how to do it.

Using two wire coat hangers cut the hooks off and one side .You have the bottom and one side left. Bend the side to 90 degrees of the bottom. Cut that side to about 6-7"long.

Hold a side in each hand with the bottom parallel to the ground and each pointing out and away from you.Hold so the bottom stays in place, but not tight enough to keep it from moving.

Walk slowly across where you think the line or object might be buried .When you cross it, if held loose enough,the two wires will cross so they are pointing at each other. As you walk pass, the wires will turn and point at you. Any solid wire will work. I have even done it with1/8" brazing rod.

Some plumbing shops use to sell them with a wooden handle. The handle had a hole in it that the wire fit loosely in and could turn so your hand never touched the wire. My father could find water with a forked willow branch and I had secretary at work could also. She witched several wells for folks

I have too and I experienced it myself.

Which way are you leaning?

Us humans are electrically charged beings, some +, some - I guess.
Mysteries abound.

I've found water lines, power, and water in the pasture (drilled and verified)
Don't claim to know how it works, or why some can do it, but others can't.
Like Roger - I kill wind-up watches. Related? I have no idea.

I, too, am apparently a killer of wind-up watches. My folks got me a Bulova Caravelle for 8th-grade graduation. Within a week, it no longer ran. Took it back to the jeweler. He was puzzled and replaced it. Back a week later. He refunded the money. I don't remember what I got instead.

Me too.

I cannot wear a cheap watch. They just die in short order. Windup or otherwise.

Take off your watch when beating off ... It'll last much longer ....🧐

Always good to hear from first-hand experience.

Maybe you should get one of these, Roger:

https://www.rolex.com/watches/milgauss.html?ef_id=Cj0KCQjwhqaVBhCxARIsAHK1tiPc-hhGMAy_k8o6EWaT_Z6yloFnPEnCVNIcmUftoq7hNN7anI6pvKkaAj1uEALw_wcB:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!141!3!520491434339!e!!g!!rolex%20milgauss

Like Green Energy?

Factory made rods for those who don't believe in it.

I had 2 on the water truck, but normally used the flag wires.

https://www.usabluebook.com/p-277534-magnetomatic-pipe-locator.aspx

I was born a skeptic. Doubting Thomas from the get go.

My lovely sainted Grandmother was the family water witch, though as she was a VERY devout Seventh Day Adventist, that term was never used.

I was ten when my folks hired a well driller. Grandma came out and Dad cut her a forked limb from a peach tree. Pretty soon, we all saw that limb dive in her hands and point to the ground. Grandma said, "right here".

My younger sister and I were not worthy of sacrificing more limbs from the peach tree. But Dad did cut us each a forked willow branch. 55 years later, I vividly remember that branch twisting in my hands as I stepped over the spot Grandma had picked. It really unnerved me, as even at that age I wanted to know the science behind the action. But nobody had an explanation. I only KNEW it had nothing to do with any demon or spirit or such.

Now, I do not know. They might have hit water anyplace on that dry 20 acre hill. I do know they punched through about five veins and each time Dad told the driller to keep going, that one is still too hard. The casing is 200 ft deep. Static level is 80 ft. I can pump 25 gpm 24 hrs a day for days on end without appreciable draw down.

My son in law carries wire dousing rods in his truck at all times. He owns a drilling company which specializes in municipal, agricultural, and industrial wells up to 30 inch diameter. Usually $300K and up for each well. He douses every one, and he has a richly deserved reputation for providing high volume wells.

No, I still have no idea how dousing works or why it works for one person and not another. Nor why the willow branch picks a particular place to dive, but it does. It is an easily observable phenomenon.

Does it mean that is the only place you can find water under the ground in the area? Probably not!

dousing and dowsing are different things.....

The graves that I tried to dowse were very old, and would probably be just a pine box, or maybe just wrapped in a blanket. I did not try, but do think that I could find a concrete vault with rebar in it, and verify with a probe. miles

Well, how about a dose of what they are?