Dowsing — also called divining, water and well witching, water finding, map and remote dowsing and doodlebugging — is an art used to locate water and other hidden objects underground. A Y- or L-shaped twig or rod is generally used. One of the first recorded evidence of dowsing in the United States was found in a cave painting by the east coast. It was done by a group of nomadic hunters, the Red Clay People. The drawing showed a group of hunters following the trail of a herd by dowsing.
Military Dowsing in World War II
The art of dowsing was used successfully by both sides during World War II. German sea captains used it to locate Allied ships to torpedo. The British Admiralty used the services of two dowsers during the war to map-dowse enemy harbors for ships worth bombing, with a success rate of 75%.
The British Admiralty and the Australian Navy discovered dowsing could successfully locate German submarine wolf packs. The US armed forces used dowsers to locate water wells along ancient trade routes in Africa. General Patten had two dowsers from Tennessee transferred to his unit for this purpose.
Major Nelson Hardacker’s Demonstration of Military Dowsing
This commanding officer of the 13th Engineer Battalion of the Fifth Marine Division used a coat hanger bent into two L-shapes. There were simulated hidden tunnels and caches of arms on the ground.
He loosely held the L’s short ends at his chest height. As he walked along the ground, the ends suddenly spread apart, pointing in the opposite direction indicating there was a tunnel going in the wires’ direction. A Marine Lieutenant Colonel who knew nothing about dowsing tried it with the same results. This helped to pave the way for the use of military dowsing.
United States Military Dowsers in Viet Nam
A member of the American Society of Dowsers, ASD, proved the efficacy of dowsing to Marines at a USMC training center in Virginia by successfully finding all of the concealed underground installations, amazing camp officials. He dowsed a map of the training center the night before the actual demonstration. At USMC Camp Pendleton in Southern California, enlistees were screened for their dowsing ability. One out of five was found to have the ability.
Louis Matacia, an operations analyst at the Marine Corps Schools at Quantico, Virginia, is given credit for instituting and teaching the use of dowsing. He taught one hundred and eight Marines, en route to Vietnam, military dowsing basics. They used it successfully during the Vietnamese war. Its efficacy was proven beyond any doubt to the Marine Command, but it wasn’t sanctioned for use. Despite this, the Corps used it.
Dowsers were used to locate booby traps, message drops, buried telephone lines and supplies, mines, enemy tunnel systems, Viet Cong underground emplacements and weapons caches. They were able to locate subterranean tunnels at Khesan when electronic detectors were useless. A professional military dowser can locate the enemy, day or night, under and above ground, underwater and the precise location, despite the distance between the dowser and the target. Dowsing was said to have saved many lives.
Very little publicity was released about the success of dowsing at the time. It was classified until recently. Paul Smith, retired Intelligence officer, led the department of military dowsing and teaches civilian dowsers methods and techniques used in military dowsing.
Articles Related to Dowsing
Readers who enjoyed this article might be interested in Dowsing the Rods and the Pendulum and What is Receptive ESP?
Source:
- The Psychic Reader, Martin Ebon, Ed., (The World Publishing Company, 1969).
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