The clip below starts with Mr. Johnson explaining why it's "easier" to find explosives with Sniffex when you already know where they are (!). He goes on to describe, apparently unknowingly, the "ideomotor effect" (click this link for a description of it.) Meanwhile, Mr. White is using Sniffex in an effort to locate an envelope containing 90 grams of smokeless powder and four 9mm. loaded cartridges. Again, these are same four cartridges they used in their earlier demonstrations (see clip #2 at the start of this article). In this test, one envelope contains the explosives and the other nine contain 3 ounces of table salt each. This test is blind to the Sniffex people however I had to prepare the samples spontaneously during a break so I have a rough idea which one has the explosive. This does not seem to influence the test which turns out to be another complete failure of Sniffex.
At the end of the above clip, both Mr. White and Mr. Johnson agree on the sample envelope they think contains explosive. It contains salt.
In the final video clip, Mr. Johnson and Mr. White again search for the bullets and gun powder envelope, this time among only nine remaining envelopes, eight of which contain salt. Using two different Sniffex instruments, they can not get any indication of where the explosive is and after about a half hour more, they give up and admit that Sniffex did not work in these tests. Mr. Johnson promises to find out why. He briefly speculates that they have a "bad batch of devices" but then admits that the very same Sniffex devices worked fine for them before.
In the end, Mr. Johnson signs a receipt for a one ounce sample of the gun powder which we used for the test and which I provided for him. He promises to find out why Sniffex failed the test and to get back to me. He also says he is going to get additional independent testing, possibly with Sandia National Laboratories. As far as I know, no further testing of Sniffex was done. I wrote a final letter, sent by certified mail, spelling out in detail the risks to people and structures if they continue to sell Sniffex without being able to prove that it works reliably to detect explosives. I received no reply. I will be happy to publish one here if I ever receive it.
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4 comments:
Quite obviously the Sniffex device is nothing more than a simple dowsing rod. The occult art and practice of dowsing has been known to man for roughly 2000 years. In all that time, the practice has never amounted to anything other than what you see on these videos.
It is the classic example of grown men being completely fooled by a very compelling and confounding human reaction known as an ideomotor effect (or response).
Whether or not the sellers of this dowsing rod are completely knowing of the scam they are perpetrating, or perhaps they simply have been fooled by targets in full view --is not completely evident in these videos.
Based on their lack of follow-up responses, I would say they ARE aware of it being a total scam.
I have personally been in other contact with dowsing rod scammers, and if there is one single thing that will keep them from being brought up on charges; it is they MUST always maintain and keep up the sham, all the time pretending they don't know why it would work some times and not others. I can think of at least 3 or 4 scammers who sell the same type of devices and maintain the same innocent story line.
Thanks for exposing this scam to the public, perhaps you have saved lives by not having people put there trust in a dowsing rod, since the results are completely on a par with random guessing.
Thanks for the comment.
If these guys really believe that this thing works, it's terrifying to think that someone would actually use this to clear an area of explosives. But perhaps they are pulling an intentional scam. In that case, I hope there really is a Hell so they can rot there forever. It's unforgivable to endanger lives like this.
Someone certainly is pulling a scam. The Iraqui government apparently paid $60,000 per copy for hundreds of similar devices thus wasting more than $100 million of US tax payer money. I'm sure much of it went to kickbacks and bribes.
Read about it by googling "GT200" and in particular, see the New York Times article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html
M.Y.
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