Bonnie Rose, grasps a straightened, metal coat hanger, tightly in each hand and proceeds to determine the
dimensions of a grave, by when the two metal rods mark an "X."


"Dowsing Graves"
A Fine Art
With Definite Accuracy

by: Bobby McDonald

 

Many of us have heard about the man in the country community who could take a peach tree limb and find the exact spot to dig a water well, and then, there are those who we've seen take a couple of welding rods and watched for them to "make and X" and told you where your water line was, before you dug. But, frankly I'd heard many make claims that they could denote graves in a graveyard, using some of the same techniques, but thought it was probably a bunch of "hokus-pokus!" That was, until Monday morning, when I witnessed Mrs. Bonnie Swain Rose demonstrate her technique in the Reilly Springs Cemetery, in southern Hopkins County.

Bonnie, who lives in Sulphur Springs and was reared in the Bethel Community of Hopkins County, had told me a couple of months earlier that she could not only find graves with definite accuracy, but she could also tell if it was a male or female buried in the grave. To say the least, I was a "doubting Thomas," but she was so, so convincing, that I made an appointment for Monday.

Bonnie came prepared with two common coat hangers, that were straightened to form handles, and "l-ed" forward. As she walked across an area in the cemetery where graves were known to be, the two hangers would miracuously make an "X" when she came to where someone was buried. I stood in astonishment, to see her in action.

Note the two metal rods crossing to form an "X" as Bonnie arrives at the gravesite.

"I first learned about 'witching' for water from my Grandpa Hayden, who lived at Bethel, when I was child," denoted Bonnie.
"I tried it and found that I had the ability, also!"

Where her grandfather used a peach tree limb to find water, Bonnie is equipped with her coat hangers and can mark the dimensions of a grave with such accuracy, that she can tell you by the size of the grave, if it is an adult or a child.

Being the skeptic that I was, Bonnie asked me to find an unmarked grave in the cemetery and we'd try her technique on something that wasn't marked. Again, in the case of a small baby that was buried in 1934, Bonnie marked the exact location of the grave and told me it was a child. Seventy-two years after burial, there was evidence in the ground of the baby's grave, that activated Bonnie's unique method.

Impressed, to say the least, I was completely mystified when Bonnie pulled out a small, wooden dowling rod, string, and plumb-bob, that she told me would determine the sex of the child. Using the simple instrument, Bonnie stood still and asked me to watch the plumb-bob, and soon it started occilating back and forth, and then began to turn clockwise. Twelve rotations back and forth, and twelve circles in clockwise rotation, and Bonnie told me it was a male child, in the grave.

Bonnie moved to an area where a female was interred and stood with her instrument. The pendulum swung six times back and forth, and then made six rotations, counter-clockwise, the correct numbers to indicate a female gravesite. I'm awestruck!

 

Bonnie demonstrates her use of a "plumb-bob," that she uses to determine
the sex of the person buried in a grave. She counts the times the instrument turns
and denotes the direction it will turn, to determine if it is a male or female
buried in the plot.

Time after time, Bonnie completed the process with 100% accuracy.

"About the only explanation I can acertain is that there is some magnetic field in the grave, that pulls the instruments in their rotation and oscilation," explained Bonnie. "I really have no scientific explanation, but it works!"

Bonnie revealed that her own granddaughter can do the same procedure with just the same accuracy, to the dismay of her son, who is a molecular biologist. "Being a scientist by trade, he didn't want to believe it was this accurate," explains Bonnie. "But, when he saw it time after time, he was finally convinced! He doesn't have any scientific experiment with this accuracy in his lab!"

The question "popped" into my mind, about how long after a person had been buried could you determine the location and sex of the buried? So, I located my great-great grandfather's grave. He died in 1892, and is buried in the Reilly Springs Cemetery. After 114 years, Bonnie's rods located his gravesite dimensions, and soon her "plumb-bob" oscilated back and forth twelve times, as I counted them one by one. Then, a clockwise rotation of twelve turns made their revolutions!

Bonnie has used the methods to determine gravesite locations of individuals who had been buried for over 150 years, and doesn't know for certain how old a grave must be, before the method would be unable to detect the site.

Some even claim that should there be a male and female buried in the same grave, that the method will add the two numbers together and the plumb-bob will oscilate 18 times. Another man, who can use the technique, claims to have worked a grave where three known horse thieves were buried in one grave. And, the plumb-bob made thirty-six back and forth moves, and then rotated clockwise thirty-six times, or three times the twelve revolutions.

I haven't seen the addition of numbers, but I have witnessed with my own eyes, the ability of Bonnie Rose, to pin-point graves and to determine the sex of the person buried there!

Astounded, would be the only way to describe my feelings after witnessing the phenomenon, and I have a much, much deeper faith that there is definitely a "Higher Being" controlling our every action, "and knows the number of hairs on our head!"

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