• A man uses dowsing rods, which he believes are affected by the Earth's magnetic field, to locate unmarked graves.
• He believes that disturbed earth from a burial creates a different magnetic field, causing the rods to cross.
• The man uses this method to help families find the unmarked graves of their loved ones.

Walking on a hilltop in an all-but-deserted town in Southwest Mississippi, a man searched for lost graves. Most graves in the area are unmarked, so he relies on copper, steel and the Earth's magnetic field to locate the dead.

"It's just some steel rods placed inside some copper tubing that lets them freewheel around," said Neil Randall of Slidell. "That's basically all it is."

The steel rods are bent at 90 degree angles in the shape of an "L". The short ends sit inside copper tubes that Randall uses as handles. He holds the rods in front of him with the longest parts of the rods parallel to the ground as he walks along. When the rods turn inward and cross, that indicates a grave.

"I believe they pick up the Earth's magnetic field," Randall said. "If dirt is disturbed it creates a different magnetic field than the Earth's normal magnetic field.

"That's what causes the crossing of the rods. Dirt that has been disturbed has a different magnetic field than dirt that hasn't been disturbed."

Finding graves in a lost Mississippi cemetery

Randall, a Vicksburg native, was recently working with a cousin, Trent Lewis, who owns The Cemetery Doctor. Lewis' business is cleaning and repairing headstones, clearing overgrown areas and bringing old cemeteries back to life.

On this rainy afternoon, the two were trying to find graves in what appears to be a Black section of a cemetery in Rodney that Lewis recently located adjacent to another section of cemetery that he and others have been trying to restore for a number of years.

Some of the graves have headstones and Randall, who enjoys genealogy, researched the names on them. "They were African-American, definitely," Randall said. "A number of them are on the 1900, 1910 census."

According to Britannica, dowsing appears to have first come into fashion in the Middle Ages and is a practice used to find a number of things including underground water sources. While Randall relies on metal rods, other methods call for forked sticks. The practice has its skeptics, but Randall believes it works.

Man finds more than graves through dowsing

Randall said he was introduced to dowsing when he purchased a set of the rods from a member of a historical society about 10 years ago. Randall said he first tried dowsing over known graves and found the method to be reliable.

"To my surprise, it worked," Randall said.

Randall said he can also determine the sex of the deceased. Holding a single rod over a grave, Randall said a clockwise motion indicates a male and a counterclockwise motion indicates female.

"I can't explain how it works, but it does work," Randall said.

Randall said it's exciting to find graves, but it can also bring a sense of satisfaction. He said he was recently able to locate an unmarked grave for a family that wants to provide a headstone for their departed relative.

"I feel like that was a success; giving the family a location where the grave is," Randall said.