WorldWide Drilling Resource®

Through the Back Door! by Jim Kuebelbeck When Robert Fulton insisted he could build a commercially viable steamboat, they laughed. But in 1807 his ship, the North River Steamboat chugged its way up the Hudson River and just like that, the laughter stopped. Similarly, when Louis Pasteur posed his theory that diseases were carried by tiny little unseen germs, they laughed long and loud. But when the results of his research began saving lives, the laughter grew fainter and fainter, and ultimately died away completely. When Guglielmo Marconi insisted he'd discovered a way to send messages through the air, oh, how they laughed. The laughter even echoed throughout Europe. Marconi would often ask, “Who are these laughers, and don't they have day jobs?” Few people laugh at him today. They laughed raucously when the Wright brothers first announced they had successfully made and flown a heavier-than- air flying machine. The brothers were incensed, and gathered a few people together to witness the fact. When the people saw their machine actually become airborne, they were so amazed, they began to laugh again, but in a different way. “Why are they still laughing?” Orville asked his brother Wilbur. “Is it my mustache?” Wilbur said to him, “I don't think it's your mus- tache. They must be laughing at something else.” Despite the laughter at the time, few people laugh at flying machines today. No laughter can compare, however, to the laughter that ensued when Charles Darwin, who after years of research, pub- lished his treatise “On the Origin of Species”. Of course, in some quarters, the idea of evolution continues to evoke a bit of laughter. It is no different today when people are confronted with things that do not fit into their ingrained belief systems. As recently as 1985, I, Jim Kuebelbeck, a little-known water dowser from central Minnesota (USA) was ridiculed in an editorial published in my little hometown biweekly newspaper. Despite the fact I had successfully located many hundreds of documented satisfactory groundwater sources by my dowsing methods where all previous efforts had failed, the writer of the editorial (then director of an otherwise well-respected water well association) chose to write, “There is not a single shred of evidence to support any of the claims made by 'water witchers' (dowsers) anywhere on the face of the earth. I have deter- mined that the concept, therefore, has no basis in fact, and that the ability to locate groundwater sources by dowsing is no better than chance alone would allow.” The writer had done no research, or attempted to verify the testimonials of the many water well drilling professionals who had often been assisted by my water dowsing methods. My response to the writer of the erroneous statements made in the editorial was to write, “In most cases when a person steps from the arena of one's personal expertise, and attempts to expound upon another, that person often reveals his (or her) ignorance about the other. I find it especially disconcerting, however, when a man whose unquestionable expertise in one area of human endeavor, (and is widely known and respected) makes statements which publicly reveal not only his lack of knowledge, but his unmitigated intolerance of another area of human endeavor. In reference to expounding upon something about which one knows little, my late father once told me, ‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. In this particular case, it would have been better had you remained silent’.” The statements and comments in this article are based on information and references believed to be true and fac- tual. If you have any questions or com- ments, please forward them to me in care of WWDR . Jim Jim Kuebelbeck may be contacted via e-mail to michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com WTR 47 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® MARCH 2020 The first hot air balloon flight with passengers (a sheep, a duck, and a rooster) was on September 19, 1783, in France.

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