Instructor Who Teaches Cops To Dowse For Dead Bodies Issues Hearty Defense Of Corpse Witching

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the dowsing-for-dowsing dept

A few weeks ago, Rene Ebersole drew the curtain back on law enforcement forensic training, showing the public that their tax dollars were being blown on forensic education handed out by Dr. Arpad Vass — someone who in the year of our lord two thousand twenty-two is teaching cops how to utilize witching to locate dead bodies.

Five crime scene investigators wearing white Tyvek suits and purple Latex gloves pace through a Tennessee woodland in a slow wave, searching for areas of sunken ground and other clues that might indicate a gravesite. The chill morning air is scented with loam, leaves, pine needles — and a hint of human decay.

The agents mark three suspicious depressions in the dirt with red flags and discuss their options for investigating further. One student asks about dowsing rods.

“You want to use some?” replies Arpad Vass, an instructor at the National Forensic Academy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where law enforcement officers come to learn how to use science to solve crimes — at least in theory. “I use them on everything.”

[Smash cut to shocked gasps/facepalms.]

Arpad Vass is not happy his psuedoscience has been criticized. Not happy at all. He has issued a response via his business’s (Forensic Recovery Services) website. The headline itself is a treat, reading like something composed by other people who have often had their credentials and/or assertions challenged/debunked by journalists.

BRILLIANT SCIENTIST AND INVENTOR HAS BECOME A TARGET BY PEOPLE BENT ON DESTROYING HIS GOOD NAME AND REPUTATION. RENE EBERSOLE AUTHORS AN INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST ARTICLE FILLED WITH LIES OF OMISSION.

The introduction (and it’s a long one) is credited only to “Admin,” but it sounds like something Vass might have written himself. It’s a pretty fun read, especially since it’s supposed to be the beginning of an unassailable defense of Vass and his dowsing for dead bodies.

Dr. Vass is a brilliant scientist with a breathtaking resume who has invented an amazing machine that is revolutionizing law enforcement investigation procedure.

OK. Most people wouldn’t put “brilliant” in this sort of sentence and no evidence is presented that Vass’ new machine is “revolutionizing” anything.

More on the machine:

Dr. Vass recently invented a machine he calls the QUANTUM OSCILLATOR (QO) that uses resonance frequencies to locate comparative objects in the environment. As mind-blowing as it might be, Dr. Vass can find your relatives from the resonance frequencies given off by fingernail clippings.

[Studio audience]: HOW DOES IT WORK!?!?

Your fingernail clippings (reference sample) will have a similar resonance frequency as your ancestry. Dr. Vass will first do his best to narrow the search with anecdotal information. Then using a comparative sample, in this case your fingernail clippings, his machine will point to where your great-great-great grandfather was laid to rest.

[Studio audience begins searching for EXIT signs]

“Scary accurate.” “Game changer.” “30-mile range.” “Can detect a single drop of blood that is over twenty years old.”

This product is indeed patented. And it looks a whole lot like a slightly more complicated form of dowsing.

By the time readers actually get to the rebuttal supposedly written by Vass, they may already be exhausted. Pressing on, you’ll hear Vass claim Ebersole is a deceptive journalist with a hidden agenda and that her article for The Marshall Project is “fake news.” So, you know, real hard-hitting, deeply-factual stuff.

Despite claiming Ebersole’s discussion of his dowsing training was “misleading and inaccurate,” he admits he does “train” law enforcement officers to use dowsing rods to locate bodies.

Do I also discuss and demonstrate dowsing? – well, yes I do. The QO was actually invented to overcome some of the negative aspects of dowsing (e.g., environmental factors) that would interfere with the detection of bone. Can dowsing locate bone? The answer is yes and I know why. I explain this to the students and let them try it for themselves.

They can make up their own minds after they learn the proper way to use the antennae, the correct materials of which to make them, and the pros and cons of this technology – yes, you read correctly: TECHNOLOGY. It’s not witchcraft or voodoo, it’s actual technology still being used today.

First off, dowsing can’t locate bones. In all the words Vass expends here, he points to no scientific study that backs this claim. All scientific research dealing with dowsing shows it’s no better than a coin toss. In fact, it may be worse than a coin toss since law enforcement officers wouldn’t waste their time being instructed by someone flipping coins. But they do waste their time (and our money) being taught by Vass that dowsing is a legitimate method for finding dead bodies.

It’s hilarious that Vass claims in this rebuttal that there is a “correct material” for making dowsing rods. Because that’s not what he tells his law enforcement students.

There are no official dowsing rods at hand, but that doesn’t matter. “You can use the flags,” Vass offers. “Bend them like you would coat hangers.”

So, basically anything you have on hand is the “correct material.”

Since Vass doesn’t have science or facts on his side, he’s reduced to issuing rebuttals that don’t actually rebut anything Ebersole asserted.

To claim dowsing is the ‘pseudoscience of witching’ is completely misleading and indicates to me that the unnamed experts Rene interviewed have never looked into the science behind the technology.

The 2021 dowsing ‘study’ was, in my opinion, ‘useless’ because in order to properly dowse, you must be instructed in proper techniques and theory, use the right materials, and be informed of possible of interferences, which did not apply in that study.

In other words, dowsers must be prepped by someone who believes dowsing works before dowsing will work for them. That’s not how science works. That’s how confirmation bias works.

Vass cannot simultaneously claim that the rods respond only to emanations from dead bodies (like “piezoelectricity” [more on that in a moment..]) while claiming a scientific study is wrong because people weren’t fully instructed in how to operate the rods. Either they move in response to outside stimuli or they don’t.

It’s not just Vass’ claims about dowsing being science that are unbelievable. Other assertions made in his so-called rebuttal sound like someone making stuff up to sound better and smarter than they actually are. This doesn’t sound like a scientist talking. This sounds like Donald Trump:

While Ms. France is correct that getting a patent doesn’t mean that it works, Rene failed to mention that when we submitted it to the patent office, the lawyers asked us to come up to Washington, D.C. for a demonstration because they didn’t believe it worked as claimed.

The lawyers were so impressed by the engineering and effectiveness, they wanted to fast-track the patent through National Security channels.

None of this sounds plausible. I can’t find any information from the USPTO that suggests there’s a NatSec acceleration option. The USPTO doesn’t care if you can make a working prototype. It’s just there to ensure it doesn’t infringe on previous patents. And it certainly doesn’t care enough to ask inventors to meet with its lawyers.

Vass also takes some time to bash other scientists who work with dead bodies but, you know, with actual science.

Regarding anthropology professors Bartelink and Gill-King, who claim that the QO is not scientifically valid (Rene never indicates that they have any expertise regarding radio frequencies, resonance frequencies, physics, electrical signatures, or antennae theory, etc.), how are they qualified to comment on dowsing or the QO?

It is doubtful, in my opinion, that these anthropologists had even heard of piezoelectricity (or knew that bone has this property) until Rene talked to them and told them what I said. Have they ever called me to discuss my technology, gone out on a search with me, looked into how the QO works, or talked to people who do? Of course not.

I’m sure these people have heard of “piezoelectricity.” They — like pretty much everyone else — probably don’t consider it relevant to dead bodies. Piezoelectricity has its uses, and can be detected and measured, but almost all research focuses on living people and what this can contribute to healing fractures. There is also some research being performed to see if this energy can be harvested (from LIVING people) and stored as they generate it via movement.

What you’re not going to find (outside of this vague citation from an organization with ties to Vass) is scientific research saying dead bodies can be located via detection of piezoelectricity emanating from human remains.

Vass appears to sincerely believe dowsing for dead bodies works. I don’t believe he’s just running a con on law enforcement and non-profit search-and-rescue entities. But that doesn’t make him right. It just makes him someone who shouldn’t be trusted to instruct law enforcement officers or suggest dowsing as an option during search-and-rescue efforts. Until Vass is able to produce scientific research that backs his dowsing claims, he should probably stop claiming accurate reporting about his training efforts and firm belief in pseudoscience to be “fake news.”

Filed Under: arpad vass, dowsing, law enforcement, rene ebersole, witchcraft, witching