Did you know our troops and the Iraqi Army have been using dowsing rods to search for IEDs? [View all]

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Dowsing rods.



But it's true.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/2046-a-matter-of-numbers-news-on-the-ade-651.html

Swift
Written by James Randi

For a few years now, I've been writing and speaking about a "explosives detector" device supposedly manufactured by the ATSC company in the UK. This hand-held toy is just that, a swiveled metal rod on a hand-grip that is said to indicate the presence of explosive materials. This brief note is to inform you that the news services, as well as the claimed manufacturer, can't seem to get the actual name of this thing decided upon.

I have: ADE561, ADE 561, ADE 651, ADE651, #ade561, and every combination of those letters and numbers, as the name. Since Wikipedia uses the ADE 651 designation, I've decided to do so, as well.

Just this morning, I got the startling news that James McCormick, the vendor of these devices who is presently on trial in the UK for fraud charges, far from being the inventor of the ADE 651, as he claimed, has been buying them from the USA. Yes, he purchased a very large number of "golf ball finders" and merely re-labeled them. The prices at which he sold them varied considerably, from a few thousand to $60,000. Mind you, since they didn't work – either as bomb detectors or golf ball finders – many lives were lost in Afghanistan alone, when improvised explosive devices (IEDs) went undetected because the trusting customers had used an ADE 651.

ATSC, McCormick's company, shows these variations: (ADE stands for Advanced Detection System) ADE650, ADE 650, ADE651, ADE 651, ADE101, ADE 101, ADE750, and ADE 750. And they all work equally well…