New photo resparks 'Noah's Ark mania'

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | March 10, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern | Joe Kovacs

[Tim Long]

Digital image of 'Ararat Anomaly' has researchers taking closer look

A new, high-resolution digital image of what has become known as the "Ararat Anomaly" is reigniting interest in the hunt for Noah's Ark.

Satellite image of 'Ararat Anomaly,' taken by DigitalGlobe's QuickBird Satellite in 2003 and now made public for the first time (courtesy: DigitalGlobe)

The location of the anomaly on the northwest corner of Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey has been under investigation from afar by ark hunters for years, but it has remained unexplored, with the government of Turkey not granting any scientific expedition permission to explore on site.

But the detail revealed by the new photo from DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite has a man at the helm of the probe excited once again.

"I've got new found optimism ... as far as my continuing push to have the intelligence community declassify some of the more definitive-type imagery," Porcher Taylor, an associate professor in paralegal studies at the University of Richmond, told Space.com.

For more than three decades, Taylor has been a national security analyst, and has also served as a senior associate for five years at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

"I'm calling this my satellite archaeology project," Taylor said.

Space.com reports the project has been combining the photographic resources of QuickBird with GeoEye's Ikonos spacecraft, Canada's Radarsat 1, as well as declassified aerial and satellite images snapped by U.S. intelligence agencies.

While it's quite possible the item of interest could simply be a natural ridge of rock, snow and ice, Taylor says there's also a chance it could be something manmade.

"I had no preconceived notions or agendas when I began this in 1993 as to what I was looking for," he said. "I maintain that if it is the remains of something manmade and potentially nautical, then it's potentially something of biblical proportions."

The anomaly remains ensconced in glacial ice at an altitude of 15,300 feet, and Taylor says the photos suggest it's length-to-width ratio is close to 6:1, as indicated in the Book of Genesis.

The U.S. Air Force took the first photographs of the Mt. Ararat site in 1949. The images allegedly revealed what seemed to be a structure covered by ice, but were held for years in a confidential file labeled "Ararat Anomaly."

The new image was actually taken in 2003, but has never been revealed to the public until now.

Arking up the wrong tree?

Meanwhile, there are others who believe Noah's Ark has already been found, and tourists can actually visit it on a mountain next to Ararat.

Some believe this is Noah's Ark, already found on a mountain next to Mt. Ararat (courtesy: wyattmuseum.com)

The late Ron Wyatt, whose Tennessee-based foundation, Wyatt Archaeological Research, purported the ark has already been found at Dogubayazit, Turkey, some 12-15 miles from Ararat, noting Genesis states the ark rested "upon the mountains of Ararat," not mountain.

Is this a hair from a large cat aboard Noah's Ark? (photo: Richard Rives, wyattmuseum.com)

Wyatt's website is filled with on-location photographs and charts promoting its case with physical evidence including radar scans of bulkheads on the alleged vessel, deck timber and iron rivets, large "drogue" stones which are thought to have acted as types of anchors, and even some animal hair inside, possibly from a large cat like a lion or tiger.

A flood of doubt

However, there's been no shortage of critics from both scientific and Christian circles who think the Dogubayazit site is erroneous.

Lorence Collins, a retired geology professor from California State University, Northridge, joined the late David Fasold, a one-time proponent of the Wyatt site, in writing a scientific summary claiming the location is "bogus."

"Evidence from microscopic studies and photo analyses demonstrates that the supposed Ark near Dogubayazit is a completely natural rock formation," said the 1996 paper published in the Journal of Geoscience Education. "It cannot have been Noah's Ark nor even a man-made model. It is understandable why early investigators falsely identified it."

The Answers in Genesis website provides an in-depth report attempting to debunk any validity the Dogubayazit site has, and concludes by stating:

"[A]s Christians we need to always exercise due care when claims are made, no matter who makes them, and any claims must always be subjected to the most rigorous scientific scrutiny. If that had happened here, and particularly if the scientific surveys conducted by highly qualified professionals using sophisticated instruments had been more widely publicized and their results taken note of, then these claims would never have received the widespread credence that they have."

Officials with Wyatt Archaeological Research remain unfazed in the face of such criticism.

"The site ... is actually something that you can look at. Not some made up story that no one is quite able to reach but something that is really there," said president Richard Rives. "It is a 'boat-shaped object' composed of material containing organic carbon, which is what is found in petrified wood. ...

"While there is more research that needs to be done at the site, there is a substantial amount of evidence that would indicate that the Wyatt site is not a natural object. ...

"Today, everyone wants to tell us how to think. We, at Wyatt Archaeological Research, do not do that. We just present the evidence that we have and let each individual make his own decision."

In both the Old and New Testaments, the Bible speaks of Noah and the ark, and Jesus Christ and the apostles Paul and Peter all make reference to Noah's flood as an actual historical event.

'Noah's Ark' by Pennsylvania artist Edward Hicks, 1846

According to Genesis, Noah was a righteous man who was instructed by God to construct a large vessel to hold his family and many species of animals, as a massive deluge was coming to purify the world which had become corrupt.

Genesis 6:5 states: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

Noah was told by God to take aboard seven pairs of each of the "clean" animals – that is to say, those permissible to eat – and two each of the "unclean" variety. (Gen. 7:2)

Though the Bible says it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, it also mentions "the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days."

The ark then "rested" upon the mountains of Ararat, but it was still months before Noah and his family – his wife, his three sons and the sons' wives – were able to leave the ark and begin replenishing the world.

[Tim Long]

While God certainly could have done anything He wished, Creation Science tries to find somewhat natural explanations for phenomena such as the Flood.

[Central Scrutiniser]

Continental drift?

Show me the fossils.

[Central Scrutiniser]

No, you dodged my questions about how all the animals somehow made it home, over 10,000 miles and several oceans away.

And each time you dodged my questions, you sidestepped, danced, and then tried to make a smartass remark.

I've asked you to explain how the animals made it home, and you ducked, dodged and weenied out.

I'm guessing you didn't master debate in school.

[Tim Long]

Elaborate, please. The marsupials were living in Australia (after the Flood) before it separated from Pangaea (or Gondwanaland), isolating them.

[Dog Gone]

Come on. Surely you can envision a parade of penguins leaving Mount Ararat, walking through Iraq, perhaps hanging a right to get to Egypt, then walking all the way to South Africa, and then jumping offshore and swimming to Anatarctica.

[VadeRetro]

The water canopy theory accounts for the extra water, but I couldn't tell you where the water went afterwards.

You probably couldn't explain where the kinetic energy of so much water infalling from some fantasitic height went, either. It should have cooked the Earth.

[Tim Long]

Well, the canopy didn't have to be at a fantastic height.

[Coyoteman]

Elaborate, please. The marsupials were living in Australia (after the Flood) before it separated from Pangaea (or Gondwanaland), isolating them.

The date of the global flood:

2252 BC -- layevangelism.com

2304 BC -- Answers in Genesis (+/- 11 years).

2350 BC -- Morris, H. Biblical Creationism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993.

Final breakup forming Australia some 55 million years ago.

Whoops?

[Beckwith]

That's the USS Missouri.

[SoCal Pubbie]

According to Wilkpedia (for what it's worth):

The first signs of iron use come from Ancient Egypt and Sumer, where around 4000 BC small items, such as the tips of spears and ornaments, were being fashioned from iron recovered from meteorites (see Iron: History). By 3000 BC to 2000 BC increasing numbers of smelted iron objects (distinguishable from meteoric iron by the lack of nickel in the product) appear in Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley (Pakistan and North India). However, their use appears to be ceremonial, and iron was an expensive metal, more expensive than gold. Some sources suggest that iron was being created then as a by-product of copper refining, as sponge iron, and was not reproducible by the metallurgy of the time. The earliest systematic production and use of iron implements appears from the 14th century BC in the Hittite Empire though recent excavations in Middle Ganga Valley in India done by archaelogist Rakesh Tewari show iron-working in India since 1800 BC. By 1200 BC, iron was widely used in the Middle East but did not supplant the dominant use of bronze for some time.

[VadeRetro]

1.8 times the water we have on Earth now is suspended somewhere it won't pick up too much energy falling to the ground. That conjures up an interesting picture of pre-flood people walking around on the underside of a glass-bottomed pool--only there's no glass, just the diminishing patience of the Lord holding up all the water.

If it's too low, it's cutting off part of the atmosphere. Or does it have perforations for breathing?

[VadeRetro]

Also, the lower it is the thicker it is and the more light it cuts off. I think you just have to say, "It was ALL a miracle!"

[Angus MacGregor]

That's a cool looking ape skull.

[Coyoteman]

That's a cool looking ape skull.

It is a beautiful cranium. However, paleontologists place it within Genus Homo, which includes modern humans and a number of their ancestors, as well as some dead-end branches. As such, it is not technically an ape.

In the following chart, H. ergaster, or H. erectus as some prefer, is on the direct line of human descent. You have to go back to the early Australopithecines before you get something that looks very much like an ape (actually a chimp), and even then many of the parts of the skeleton have diverged from the chimp pattern.

If you want to see more cute crania, I could post the Taung baby or Mrs. Ples. Let me know.

Source: http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/environment/eePages/eeDating/HumanEvol_info.html

[Central Scrutiniser]

Of course! Don't forget the anacondas, snaking their way through the snows to the seas, swimming home.

Nothing like reality to spoil a good fable eh?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Nothing like reality to spoil a good fable eh?"

Let's not tell them about teh viruses, bacteria, and other assorted parasites that would need to be incubated and preserved on the Ark, either. That would just be cruel. :)

[Central Scrutiniser]

LOL

Yeah, the whole continental drift just happened in a few years then?

Amazing how you have to create silly non-science to explain the fable of creationism.

It was a miracle, yeah, that's it!

Please explain how all the cold blooded reptiles managed to slither down that snowy mountain.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"Let's not tell them about teh viruses,"

Dyslexic much?

[Central Scrutiniser]

And all the wood boring insects as well.

Them tigers musta got real hungry climbing down that mountain after all the plants were wiped out, I betcha they ate the two unicorns.

[VadeRetro]

But ony two big cats were needed, since tigers and lions are still interfertile and can have fertile offspring (barely). There's still some cross-fertility between lions and leopards as well. The big cats of today must have diverged very rapidly indeed in 4000+ years since some founder pair stepped off the ark.

And I thought I believed in evolution!