As mentioned by others in the comments on the post, one possibility is that there are, in fact, visible indications. In one of the videos you linked to, the gu

As mentioned by others in the comments on the post, one possibility is that there are, in fact, visible indications. In one of the videos you linked to, the guy doing the demonstration pointed out a visible line in the gravel that showed where a cable was buried, before showing how the rods crossed when he was directly above it. Also, unless I misunderstood you, you advocated trying the experiment with utilities marked by flags and spray paint. More subtly, someone with industry experience could be picking up on less obvious cues, as @VLM suggested in this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34558567): > As an engineer I know to look for a slight depression in the ground, maybe so slight most can't notice, and the smell of wet dirt is different, and pipe comes in coils or segments of length X so even unconsciously I might eventually learn to detect at spots multiples of X away from the water main. I imagine I could unconsciously become a highly skilled dowser just by working it hard enough for enough years and storing enough data. Another possibility is something akin to publication bias: successes get remembered and celebrated, and misses get forgotten. As far as I know, dowsing ability has never been demonstrated under controlled conditions, with those attempting to do so performing no better than chance.