Most of the things we use daily are technologies that 1000 years ago would have been called magic. In fact in my mind Magic is what a simple mind calls a technology it does not yet understand. Try to prove the existence of emotions like love or hate….I can not see them but I have an idea of how they make me feel. Many animals can locate North or Electrical disturbances in the environment we do not call this magic or paranormal and we do not try to take the animal out of the equation. If you want to see if a shark can detect the small current used to fire a heart you build a device that simulates that signal and you toss it in the tank and observe the sharks reaction. We can not ask the shark about it and we can not prove anything short of our observation with the device turned on and then turned off and in multiple locations.

I have seen some crazy stuff that is very outside the norm of daily experiences that many would call paranormal. TO me it is just a phenomenon that I can not understand fully or quantitatively document repeatedly. Devinchi(sp) drew images of the hydrodynamic flow of blood in the heart and it has only been maybe the last 10 years maybe a little less that we could actually determine if he was right or not. Turns out he hit the nail on the head and was 100% accurate. Was it magic or just a brilliant man with amazing ability to visualize things on a level few else can or could?

In a good many things man is a key element take the man out of the picture and you are removing the most important part of the circuit. Their will always be those that want to believe and those that will never believe anything no matter how much evidence is staring them in the face. The German Government teamed Dowser with Geologist for locating water and the depth that the water would be found. The Dowsers rate of secess after all the numbers where crunched was 96% heck Cancer treatments are only what 10% secessful at riding a person of cancer and them surviving past 2 years with out the cancer returning. In fact most medications that are approved by various Government Agencies depending on what country you live in are lucky if they are 30% more effective then a placebo . Often doing nothing is just as effective as taking a drug. FOr instance ear infections will normaly sort themselves out in children in 7-10 days with no antibiotics yet it takes 7-10 days for antibiotics to clear them up? Not saying antibiotics do not work only that they do not do that much for a good many of the aliments they are used for. No one would think of calling antibiotics paranormal when they work or do not work or magic. I bet if we took them back 2000 years and cured people with Leprosy with antibiotics we would be seen as prophets, wizards, alchemist etc……….

It was not that long ago people thought man could never fly…..Then they thought he could not break the speed of sound, then it was not being able to survive in space or to go to the moon…..Just saying it is easy and safe to be a doubter.

Oh and I often use dowsing rods along with my metal detector. I am accurate about 50% of the time which is well beyond statistical luck. Often my son will use the detector and I will use the rods. I will have him confirm my site before I dig. I do not see dowsing as paranormal at all. It is no different then being able to see, hear,taste, smell, tell is someone is happy or sad….Ever walk into a room and felt the tension in the air even though no one was facing you ………The ability to detect weak electrical or magnetic signals is nothing new to nature most animals do it all the time. So why should it be that different in a human? The rod are not the key in the process those are just props the human and his interaction in the environment that is the key heck the rods could licorice wands the pendulum could be a spageti noodle they do not matter.

However, it really unnerved me that in 21st century America, people are staking their finances (repairing a damaged fiber optic conduit isn’t cheap) and their lives on magical thinking when you could have people with proper location equipment locate your underground lines. (And we’ll do it for free, too!) It’s only a matter of time until some yokel up in Rhinelander kills himself by digging into a gas or electric line that dowser’s miraculous powers didn’t reveal. That is, if it hasn’t happened already!

Hack…splutter…snork!!!! Billy Meier is a…trickster????!

Seriously, tho, can’t wait to see the book, Jack. Good luck with it!

The whole premise of the book is not about UFO’s or aliens or abductions. It’s a series of biographies (you can thank Phil for the term) on the flying suacer movies,TV shows and other media in the ’50s and ’60s. The whole UFO thing is only a subtext and is used only to explain why saucers were so redily accepted as a spacecraft in these productions. The only photographic trickery mentioned is that used by the special effects artists who created beliveable vehicles for our enjoyment.

Yeah, I’ve always had trouble reining in Jon’s enthusiasm. He tends to go off on tangets in an effort to drum up publicity that (IMO) are ultimately detrimental. Of the 10 chapters in the book, I wrote 7 and he wrote 3. One of his is Chapter 1, which is not about any particular film, but examines the whole post-war flying saucer phenominon and why the public was so eager to embrace these films when it ran against all logic. When you co-author a book, you tend to view it through the lens of the parts that you wrote, so it’s understandable why he’d think it’s about fooling the public, but it still leaves the wrong impression.

Don’t go buying a copy just yet (although you can do so at any time by clicking on my name). Give it another couple of days to see what Phil does.

- Jack

That sounds like a great book! I’m curious, did you happen to mention any photographic trickery by that Billy Meyer guy?

Also, it seems that if you were the co-author of a book, your co-writer would have to get your permission before advertising or promoting your work. I’m not a legal expert, but I’d expect something like that would be covered in your agreement.

In any case, I’ll be looking for it on store shelves soon!

In my previous entry, I was complaining about a space.com entry that can be found here:

http://www.space.com/entertainment/090220-ent-saucer-fleet.html

The one that Wayne linked to is a brief “Discover” review of the book.

Like I said, y’all will learn a lot more about it in a couple days.

- Jack

You guys are too quick. Wait a couple more days until our host has had a chance to recover from his trip to San Diego.

That particular reference was a surprize to me. I first learned about it when the publisher forwarded me the link. It (the space.com article) was written by my co-author without telling me first. If he had, I would have encouraged him not to do it, or at least change the tone. The way it’s written it completely distorts the purpose of the book. It is NOT some sort of expose of the movie industry creating the appearance of “real” flying saucers in the ’50s. It’s a modelers’ guide to give some background and social impact of the famous saucers found in film and TV during that decade and the ’60s along with some other references.

Actually, I’m pretty miffed about it. The book is actually a serious work on a fun subject, but this undermines its credibility (IMNSHO).

- Jack

When the utilities were marked by proper methods, I saw that he had indeed marked the electrical line and that the water line was a good distance away from where he marked it. I could have been injured or killed had I dug where the dowser marked the alleged position of the water line.

I complained to the water company and they said they would look into it.

On a personal note, I have the irritating habit of finishing other folks sentences, leaving them wondering if I’m telepathic ( but it’s just logic),,, while my acquaintance is considering their next word, I’ve already figured out where they’re going with the conversation and can’t help trying to hurry them along,,,I guess I just have a short attention span,,,

Sometimes, it just takes “knowing someone”.

Some years ago, my then-girlfriend/now-wife and I had the habit of doing things just like you describe. In one instance, we were listening to the car radio when a Simon and Garfunkel song came on. She said “trivia question…”, to which I immediately responded “Tom and Jerry”. She gave me the strangest look and said “stop doing that!”

(In case you missed it, before they called themselves “Simon and Garfunkel”, they were known as “Tom and Jerry”.)

What I want to know is how the hell does that globe spin? It looks like there is nothing supporting it, and I want one.

Haven’t you ever read Einstein’s papers? It’s not spinning. The Earth is spinning under it, taking us along, making it appear that the globe is spinning.

This might be a shallow observation but people who hangs their keys off their belt strap always seem kinda dim to me.

Hey, my dear hubby hangs his keys off of his belt strap! This is because, if he just stuffs them in his pocket, they rip a hole clear through the pocket in a matter of weeks. Similarly, if he hangs them off the belt strap and does nothing else, it rips the belt strap off. By using the pocket *and* the belt strap, the load is distributed a bit better. He’s got a lot of gadgets attached to his keychain, and he could probably beat a dowser to death with it.

On the video, I *love* how he tells us that he’s not doing that, and not moving his hands, even as his hands visibly move.

Gravitational fluctuations can be used, when measured with a gravimeter, to find oil and mineral deposits (look up Gravimeter in Wikipedia), but they are not nearly strong enough for dowsing for water.

There are some papers online providing measurements of gravity variations due to hydrological factors. For one, see http://preview.tinyurl.com/bsaszt

In that study, they measure variations due to groundwater of 20 nanometres per second squared. That would change the weight of the dowsing rod by 2 parts in a billion. Detecting a 1% change through your hands would be hugely impressive. The stretch from there to 2 parts in a billion, 0.0000002%, is very big.

Maybe the dousing video was meant to be a comedy? In that case they might get an honorable mention.

And that video… good grief. He goes on and on about how the rods stayed level, as though there were only one way to move them. How would that convince anyone?

Or was it not intended to convince, but just as a pretext to sue the JREF?

biblical codes predict certain death!! Beware of 2012!!

Geez, I know it’s a Roland Emmerich film, but let’s not go overboard.

And I hate to admit it, but the trailer with the ocean surging over the Himalayas *is* pretty cool.

I damn well should have known better than to click on them…

I liked that documentary-style story of the dowsers. My 2nd favorite part is at the end where they tell everyone the results (less than 12% of the tests were accurate) and yet when they asked who still believed in dowsing, 100% raised their hands.

My 1st favorite part is the graph that shows where in Australia you can find water under the surface. You might as well blindfold yourself, throw a rock, and wherever it lands, say, “Yep! There’s water!”