Bewitching Water Stories : Dowser Gene Dyke Points to 50 Years of Locating Underground Streams

Science has no place in the world of water dowser Gene Dyke. And he says he has a track record to prove it.

For the past 50 years, the Thousand Oaks man has been locating underground streams using little more than two welding rods and a lot of concentration.

Dyke says he has hundreds of wells to his credit.

“It works good for me,” said Dyke of his water-witching activity, which he says has produced a 98% to 99% margin of success. “Don’t ask me how, but it works.”

Well drillers throughout Ventura County have used Dyke’s mysterious talent to uncover gushers of all sizes, and some say the 76-year-old has a better average than geologists.

One drill company employee, Richard Perry of Fillmore, said dowsers in general have a 3-1 edge over their scientific counterparts. He said they have an uncanny ability to find water under the drought-parched soil, when some geologists “couldn’t find water if they were drowning in it.”

“I’ve been with this company for 3 1/2 years and the dowsers have hit almost every time,” said Perry, a pump repairman for Council Drilling & Pump Co.

Through the ages, forked sticks have been used to find a variety of hidden materials, defying all logic. The device is held palms up, one fork in each hand. When the end of the stick bends down, the presence of the desired object is there.

Dyke and others in the vocation charge about $200 to pinpoint a well for customers, charging extra if customers want more than one well located. Contrasted with geologists, that’s pretty cheap. They charge about $1,000 a shot, Dyke said.

So far this year, Dyke has had about four jobs a month, mostly on ranches and in agricultural areas.

Finding water is not the only thing dowsing can be used for--some claim it can be used to determine the ripeness of fruit or to heal wounds.

“My grandmother could stop people from bleeding,” said Dyke, whose sons are also gifted dowsers. “My wife can’t do it though.”

The skeptics say water can be found anywhere in the county if one digs deep enough, and some hydro-geologists scoff openly at the practice.

“It’s monkey business,” said geologist Mark Latker, who has been working in mineral exploration and ground water throughout California for the past 28 years.

“Every geologist knows that all ground water is charted by the United States Geologic Survey and the California Division of Water Resources. That’s all public information.”

Latker said he has run into some clever dowsers in his time, and said most could be considered practical geologists because they have spent some time with well drillers.

But Latker said a majority are just crackpots who “blow a lot of smoke when they hit something and don’t say a word when they fail.”

“The surface of the Earth is covered in water,” he said. “It’s not so mysterious.”

But Dyke is quick to dismiss his doubters.

“My dad didn’t believe in it either. Until I found him water,” he said.