Such anecdotal ‘evidence’, Mustardmit, is of little value, for reasons I’ll explain.
What matters is that every organised test of water divining fails to show any evidence for it. The explanation is the same as that for the apparent success of the ouija board – the ideomotor effect whereby a person, quite inconsciously and without intentionally cheating, transfers his or her thoughts to the device. Thus, a diviner who has some reason to believe that water is there “tells” the rods to behave accordingly.
Tests involving containers of various substances, water pipes buried secretly underground and so on consistently prove that diving has no more success than you would expect by chance. James Randi, for one, conducted a test of several diviners using a protocol that they had all agreed upon and all failed. He said:
“The sad fact is that diviners are no better at finding water than anyone else.
Drill a well almost anywhere where water is geologically possible and you will find it.”
Did those companies who employed diviners try drilling 50 feet, 100 feet, 200 feet, a quarter-mile, in various directions, from the diviner’s spot to see whether water was unique to that spot? If so, what was the result? If not, then the anecdote means little.