Feedback: Dowsing the night away


Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more


BOMB detection is big business, so it's no surprise that it attracts scams. It does seem to have more than its fair share, whatever "fair share" might mean. First, a recap.


A while ago we reported on tests carried out by the US Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division on the "Sniffex" device (21 May 2011).


The tests were conclusive: as the Sniffex operator was noting "a positive indication" of 20 pounds of explosives in a building, two trucks "containing a total of 1000 pounds of explosive drove up behind him to a distance of approximately 20 feet away. The SNIFFEX failed to show any indication of this much larger quantity of explosives." The device seems to have been a dowsing rod dressed up in hi-tech black and chrome.


We ended by ...


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