A British businessman who has made millions selling dowsing-rod “explosives detectors” to the Iraqi security forces has been arrested on suspicion of fraud.
A simple plastic holder is fitted with a special piece of cardboard which has been prepared using “the proprietary process of electrostatic matching of the ionic charge and structure of the substance” to be detected. There is no power source or electronics – the device is said to be “charged” by the body of the user.
Major General Jehad al-Jabiri of the Iraqi interior ministry insisted last year that he really believes in the ADE. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” he told the New York Times last year. He even went so far as to “demonstrate” that it worked by placing a grenade and a submachinegun in his office (in plain sight) and having one of his policemen “detect” them with the ADE. When a reporter couldn’t get the dowsing rod to work, the general blithely stated:
“You need more training.”