Avalanche Dowsing

Didi you know that the 'principle' of water-divining was used to find people buried under snow? I did not, until I read about it in Nature (letter from Rolf Manne, of Pergen, Norway, in the issue of 4 December, 1986). This practice has been foisted on the Mountain Rescue Organisation of the Norwegian Red Cross, and is also taught in the Norwegian Army.

Manne's letter to Nature was occasioned by a tragic accident in northern Norway in March, 1956, when a party of young soldiers was overwhelmed by an avalanche, and sixteen died. an officer tried dowsing, and got numerous signals, only one or two of which led to a victim. The bodies of almost half the victims were later found in the area dowsed by the officer, but he had not pinpointed these. Manne's analysis of the incident confirms earlier conclusions that in the absence of external clues, dowsing results are no better than would be obtained by chance.

Manne reports that dowsing is not accepted by the Norwegian police, nor by the country's avalanche scientists. We wonder when the Norwegian Red Cross and army will learn from last year's sad experience, and depend on more reliable methods of detecting avalanche victims.