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© Denver PostStorozuk's custom license tag speaks to his water-witching ways.
Two L-shaped metal rods slowly spin in Greg Storozuk's clenched fists as he gently steps through the grass near Sloan's Lake.

"The answer is already known," he says.

The rods rotate into a wide Y. Beneath bushy brows, Storozuk's blue eyes stare vacantly at the horizon. He stops walking.

"Good flowing drinking water. About four gallons a minute. Pretty close to five. Flowing this direction," he says as the rods rotate into a straight line.

For more than a quarter century, the 62-year-old Edgewater man has made a living as a professional dowser. He is part of a growing tribe of more than 5,000 dowsers across the country whose ancient profession of using rods or branches to find everything from water and oil to dead bodies

As he senses the water below, Storozuk's lips start moving. A half-minute passes without a blink as he silently asks himself yes-or-no questions about the depth of the water.

"Wow, 360 feet deep, too," he says, snapping to and pointing his sneaker at a clump of grass where he is certain a stream gurgles 360 feet below. "But it's too deep to drill, especially for a target this narrow."

Using an assortment of rods he keeps holstered around his waist, Storozuk claims to find things like water, gas and gold. Anything, really. His specialty is locating "geopathic zones" where he says "electromagnetic radiation" seeping from the Earth can contribute to ailments like arthritis or cancer.

"Anyone can do this. The key is you have to want to. There is a mental attitude that is essential," he says.

Storozuk anchors his dowsing on yes-or-no questions he poses to himself. "You have to know exactly what you are looking for, and you have to ask the right questions. Either something exists or it does not."

Dowsing dates back centuries, or even millennia, depending on how you interpret some rod-wielding figures found on the walls of Egypt's pyramids, Chinese carvings and African murals.

Many theories purport to explain dowsing, and most revolve around two primary schools of thought.

One is that dowsers establish some sort of mental connection with the substance or object they are seeking. Another explanation holds that some underground objects - like water or minerals - emit a type of energy that rod-wielding dowsers can detect.

Water witches

Dowsers - some call themselves water witches - are a varying lot. There are the salt-of-the-earth-type ranchers, whose great grandfathers dowsed for well sites using forked willow branches. There are scientists who admit there is no science to support their dowsing, but are convinced it works. And there are new-school dowsers who typically choose pendulums over rods and - creating a sort of new-age schism among the dowsing community - are using the practice in mystical, psychic practices, away from underground water or mineral detection.

Today's newest-school dowsers purport to find anything, from missing pets and lost jewelry to chakras and auras.

"They meditate, and I'm not sure what they are doing. I've asked them about what they are doing, and they give me the strangest answers that don't make any sense scientifically or geologically," says Dan Fodor of Trinidad.

Fodor is a retired geological engineer from the Colorado School of Mines. For the past 15 years he has been a successful dowser in southern Colorado, helping landowners pinpoint well sites. Fodor, who is quick to note he is not a "mystic witcher," says his geologic understanding of southern Colorado's underground fracture system, which moves water in subterranean streams, has helped his dowsing.

"I believe those systems are an electromagnetic field," he says, "and the willow sticks I use are very sensitive to those fields."

Joel Hellwege, who owns Pagosa Springs' Justice Water Systems well drilling company, was a lifelong skeptic. Then some longtime ranchers who dowsed for water began writing down where Hellwege could find water.

"They'd say there would be water at 120 feet or 160 feet or whatever and once I started drilling, I would find them to be accurate to within inches," says Hellwege, who thinks a dowser's divining rods can detect changes in the Earth's layers where water tends to flow. "I mean what is up with that? We established that they would be right over and over again. It still amazes me."

Some say dowsers are all wet

Remember that 96 percent of the Earth's surface has water within a drillable distance, says James Randi, a dowsing skeptic and soldier in a battle against superstition.

"Anyone can find water," he says.

Randi's eponymous foundation in Florida seeks to debunk paranormal and supernatural claims by promoting critical thinking. Since 1964, he has offered cash to anyone who can prove any paranormal or supernatural event. The cash prize has reached $1.1 million and hundreds of applicants have vied for the award. More than 80 percent were dowsers.

"All have failed. This is the world's most popular and pervasive delusion," says Randi, who explains the movement of a dowser's rods as an unconscious, involuntary motion triggered by a thought. "Yes, it is very convincing because you feel the sticks twisting in your hands and you seem to think it is from an outside power. There is not an outside power at all."

Mental connections?

Retired chemist Duane Kniebes admits "conventional science does not explain dowsing," but, he says, "amazingly enough, it works."

Kniebes has never dowsed for water or oil or gold. But he has spent several years dowsing unmarked burials for the Colorado Council of Genealogical Societies' cemetery mapping project. Once he has detected a grave, he dives into historical records that show, indeed, a homesteading family or village had used the location as a burial plot. Today, Kniebes is writing a book on his search for graves in northern Colorado and gives lectures on dowsing for the dead.

"I have become convinced that the rods work on what you are thinking about," Kniebes says. "It doesn't have to be just water or bones or whatever. It has some sort of connection with your conscience."

Ancient practice, ancient debate

Dowsing can be traced to ancient cultures. Egyptian hieroglyphics show men using dowsing rods. Greek poet Homer referenced dowsing. The Bible describes Moses using a staff to find water. Murals dating back thousands of years found in North Africa's Sahara Desert show a crowd following a man dowsing with a forked stick.

Without scientific proof supporting dowsing, debate around the practice has always been contentious. In the 1500s, dowsing was connected to witchcraft, and church reformer Martin Luther described dowsing as a violation of the Ten Commandments.

Modern dowsing's roots stem from European miners who used dowsers to locate mineral ore in the 1800s.

Albert Einstein, shown below, in a 1946 letter wrote: "The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time."

During the Vietnam War, U.S. Marines used dowsing to find enemy tunnel complexes near Cu Chi, Vietnam.

Scientists around the world have conducted dozens of studies debunking dowsing and those studies far outnumber research supporting it.