The “High-Tech” Dowsing Stick Meets the Irresistible Challenge
The incredible power of the Internet has been fully established for me now. One simple experiment proved its effectiveness and changed completely the nature and scope of one of my ongoing projects. For many years I’ve offered a prize of $10,000 to any person who can demonstrate a paranormal, occult, or supernatural event under proper observing conditions (the complete text is to on my WWW page: http://www.mamboland.com/randi/randi.html).
My good friend Ron Leonard, a prominent magician and painter in Toronto, Canada, suggested that if I were to ask interested parties to agree to each put up a $1000 “pledge” towards a larger prize, that sum might rise as high as $100,000 or so, to make the challenge much more interesting and provocative. Ron opined that I’d get lots of takers. No money would be accepted or requested, just a promise that should I discover the psychic breakthrough that the parapsychologists have been promising us for so long now, each pledger would agree to pay.
On October 25th, 1995, I put out a notice to my Star List group on e-mail. I called the group the “2000 Club,” signifying that by the year 2000 we would have proven our point (and perhaps as a gentle poke at another group—the 700 Club). The reaction was incredible. Within 48 hours, I had some $25,000 and we were off! Not all pledges were minimal: On the third day I received a $90,000 bid from a prominent (and officially anonymous!) skeptic, who said that if it were added to my own $10,000 it would instantly meet my goal. Since Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller, who were the very first to send in their pledges) had promised to match any single pledge, that meant I had exceeded my primary goal almost immediately. Then Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine upped his pledge to $10,000 and Rob Pike of Bell Labs offered $5,000. One chap expressed his concern that I wouldn’t always be “infallible” (his term, not mine, more often applied to the Pope) in setting up tests, and that’s a legitimate concern. So I made a promise that if and when I get too senile I’ll turn it over to someone younger, smarter and swifter.
As of this writing (January 18, 1996) we have 216 pledgers offering a total of $506,000! The 15 countries represented are: Australia, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Isle of Man, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US. This is excellent diversity and shows the international interest in putting these claims to the test.
Naturally, the “psychics” have been panicking, and some e-mail forums have been buzzing with alibis from outraged believers who see a put-up-or-shut-up situation threatening their tranquility. One major protestation is that they want to see the money in cash before they deign to prove what they’ve been screeching about for years. The gauntlet has been thrown down—we’re waiting.
In the mean time I had the opportunity of offering the augmented prize twice within a very short span of time. First I went to Japan where I tested a 14-year-old girl who was doing the tired old reading-a-scrap-of-paper stunt that I saw and exposed in China several years ago. But that’s the subject of my next column. Here I want to tell you about the latest “high-tech” dowsing stick that has bowled over the naive who people school boards and police departments. Well, some of them.
It is a chunk of black plastic with a telescoping radio antenna sticking out of it, and nothing more.
The device I refer to is the creation of Wade Quattlebaum, though the basic idea was first described in the year 1538, and didn’t work then, either. This thing, grandly titled the Quadro QRS 250G Tracker, has been sold all over the U.S. It is a chunk of black plastic with a telescoping radio antenna sticking out of it, and nothing more. It costs about two dollars to make, and sells for just under $1,000. It is claimed that the Tracker will locate drugs, guns, bullets, gold, U.S. currency, lost children, stolen property, golf balls (I kid you not!) and just about anything you need to find. The detector, says the advertising, enables substances to be “tracked from vehicles, boats, planes, even helicopters and blimps.” At an extra $250 a shot each, the proud wielder of this magic wand can buy “identifier cards” that are “molecularly tuned” to each specific substance or object being sought. The card is a one-inch-square bit of molded plastic that clips onto the side of the Quadro handle, making no connection of any sort.
By way of explanation, the movement of the rod is brought about by a psychological phenomenon known as the “ideomotor” effect. It is an unconscious tendency of humans to actually move a device while remaining unaware that they are doing so. This seems incredible, but it has been demonstrated many times. The effect could also be called “the Ouija Board Phenomenon,” since that is the means by which that game works. No information unknown to the subject is created; it merely verifies already-held suspicions, based on experience with the kind of investigation encountered.
My test would consist of 10 trials to locate a sample of any of the substances that the Tracker is advertised to work with, and 10 trials to determine whether the Tracker “cards” are sensitive to the specific substance claimed. All tests would be done double-blind, so that no person involved would be aware of where the actual sample is at any time. I conducted this test at the Seminole County, Florida, school board headquarters, and the results were resoundingly negative. The results can be seen on NBC’s Dateline, scheduled to air on February 23rd.
The words “electronic” and “vibration” are strewn through the Quadro literature and used freely in the hilarious “QRS 250 Training Tape,” where Quattlebaum announces
This is the first time a scientific tracking device of this magnitude has been offered to the public as an aid to deter crime and theft. This equipment has been tested and proven by several universities in the United States and abroad.
Well, that’s partly true. The prestigious Sandia Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took one apart and discovered that there is nothing inside it at all. They X-rayed and sliced it, sniffed it electronically, and looked carefully for the presence of any working parts. The “tuned” bits of plastic supplied with this device were taken apart and were found to be empty except for a small bits of filter paper. That’s it.
The First Wimp of 1996 Award goes to the Sandia legal department for making sure that science has been silenced.
Sandia Labs have now been threatened with legal action, and their lawyers, before pulling their heads back into their shells, have issued a “safe” edict instructing their scientists not to discuss their findings or to release their official written report. The First Amendment is once more subject to the intimidation tactics of those to whom Truth is the greatest enemy. The First Wimp of 1996 Award goes to the Sandia legal department for making sure that science has been silenced. But, Political Correctness was properly satisfied—Quadro continued selling these useless toys to the taxpayers at $955 apiece, Sandia is safe, and the lawyers have sent in their bill for advocating this glorious retreat of reason and progress. So, relax. We have nothing to worry about! (Apparently, the news from Sandia got out before the Cone of Silence descended. The city of Albuquerque had intended to invest $200,000 in the Quadro gimmick, but decided against it when the facts became known.)
Significantly, the Quadro Corporation has ignored my personal offer to them to prove their device works, but it may be because the scientific evidence showing that it doesn’t work is pouring in. That may be one claim I can ignore, because I have a strong feeling that it will go down in flames all by itself—with the help of federal agencies. (Quadro could win the $506,000 and use that to pay their lawyers!)
Endorsing the product are 19 people specifically named and quoted by the Quadro Corporation (of Harleyville, South Carolina). In the spirit of inquiry, on November 27, 1995, I mailed out very specific, individualized letters to these endorsers and the Quadro folks, offering the prize money to any of Quadro’s staff or distributors, any purchasers of the product, or any person Quadro might care to designate. Despite the fact that Quadro apparently chose not to communicate this happy news to anyone, I received a response from the Interquest Group, Inc., of Texas and California, a reputable and well-known company who train dogs for use in contraband detection. They had formerly endorsed the device, and their statement was printed in the Quadro publicity material. But after Interquest personnel attended the mandatory training session in Harleyville, South Carolina, and then had the device examined by Southwest Research Institute (SRI) in San Antonio, Texas, their tune changed:
We, too, fell victims to the hustle of the “Quadro Tracker” … we now recognize that the entire training mission was staged … based upon the conclusions of [the SRI] report and our inability to achieve any form of consistent results with the product, we disassociated our company from the Quadro Corporation. At present, we remain some $10,000 in the hole as a result of our encounter with the Quadro Corporation as well as sustaining a certain degree of damage to our otherwise flawless reputation …
The SRI lab report to Interquest stated its conclusion that
the tracker is not functional and the operating principle suggested by the manufacturer is scientifically highly questionable at the very least. Both analyses support the suspicion that the tracker is a fake device.
SRI tested the two “Training Samples” sold to Interquest with the Quadro, and found nothing inside but “epoxied scrambled dead ants.” It remains to be seen whether Interquest will take action to get their $10,000 investment refunded by Quadro.
One of the endorsers, Steve Lassater of the Region 6 Drug Task Force in New Mexico, called to inform me that he had been misquoted and denied any endorsement of the Quadro device. But Peter Blauvelt, president of the National Alliance for Safe Schools, still staunchly defends the dowsing-stick:
Could it be true …? The amazing answer is yes! The Quadro Tracker System does exactly as it is advertised to do … I am willing to Endorse the Quadro Tracker System unequivocally …
Corporal Johnson, a K-9 officer with the North Charleston Police Department, was quoted by Quadro in respect to the use of the device in finding drugs, as saying, “There is no doubt that the Quadro Tracker can do everything dogs can do, and from a much greater distance.” Corporal Johnson never said any such thing. In a phone conversation he told me that his department has not purchased the Quadro product, nor do they intend to do so. The quotation is a lie.
An article from the Daily Times of Farmington, New Mexico quotes Malcom Roe, VP of Quadro, as claiming that, “We don’t sell [the device]. We let people come and buy it.” He then hints that an advanced, “Phase Two” tracker is in the works: “In the first case we’re using molecules; in the second case, we’re using photons. But it’s a little scientific, and there are a lot of people who can’t come to terms with it.” I agree with that last statement.
As a footnote to this ridiculous scenario, I’m now told that Wade Quattlebaum, the “inventor” of this wondrous Quadro toy, showed up four or five years ago at Sandia Labs and announced that he had a device which would detect explosives, no matter how well concealed. Ever willing to examine a claim, and in the true spirit of science, Sandia scientists put him to the test. It was a resounding flop, and Quattlebaum told the researchers that he would work on it and return. He never came back.
On Friday morning, January 19, 1996, the FBI raided the Quadro headquarters and charged Wayde Quattlebaum with fraud and wire fraud under the economic crimes statutes. The merchandise and all the records were confiscated and the FBI put out a statement that “the Quadro Tracker is a fraud. All agencies should immediately cease using the device if used as a basis for probable cause.” It has already been thus used and will likely result in a reversal of charges.