Bogus “dowsing rod bomb detector” still being sold from the UK

Jim McCormick is the man behind the ADE-651. He’s appeared on TV claiming his device will detect anything from elephants to drugs to TNT with his magical dousing rods. On inspection the devices contain no actual working parts. But this didn’t stop the devices raking in an incredible $85 Million.

The device sold all over the world is very prominent at checkpoints in Baghdad. Thousands of the “detectors” were bought for an astonishing $40,000 each from Jim McCormick’s Somerset company ATSC.

Many experts were quick to denounce these devices stating that they are not just completely bogus but the practice of selling them is completely immoral.

James Randi came forward and asked ATSC to take part in his JREF Million Dollar challenge. When he refused Randi notified the authorities and Jim McCormick was arrested on fraud charges. (See video from jan 2010 above).

However in a recent investigation has shown that these devices are still being sold around the world for extortionate amounts. The government’s Department of Trade and Industry, which has since been superseded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, helped two of the manufacturers sell their products in Mexico and the Philippines.

Just three months after the ban on sales to Iraq and Afghanistan, a product called the HEDD1, consisting of a radio aerial on a handle made in Bulgaria, was displayed at a security exhibition at Olympia in London.

The company selling the devices, Unival, claimed that while all the other products which looked like it were a “massive scam”, theirs was different.

The HEDD1 was marketed by a retired British Army colonel, John Wyatt, who told prospective buyers that it had “proved extremely successful in several foreign countries”, including in “double blind” tests.

In reality the maker of HEDD1, Yuri Markov, had been charged in the United States in 2008 for fraudulently claiming that the previous version of his so-called bomb detector could detect explosives.

The US Navy had subjected it to a double-blind test and found it “does not work”.

More information on this at BBC