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Earth
Sciences
The Earth Has
Experienced a Worldwide
Flood.
Noah’s Ark Probably Exists
• The precise location of the Ark is an open
question.
• While most sightings point to Mount Ararat
in eastern Turkey, consideration should
also be given to a few nearby mountains in
western Iran.
• The following are the more credible
claimed sightings.
• Some are undoubtedly mistaken.
• The search continues.
1. Ancient Historians
• Ancient historians, such as Josephus, the
Jewish-Roman historian, and his earlier
historical sources, wrote that the Ark existed.
• Marco Polo also wrote that the Ark was reported
to be on a mountain in greater Armenia.
• From A.D. 200 to 1700, more than a dozen other
Christian and Jewish leaders wrote that the Ark
was still preserved, although few claimed to
have seen it.
2. British Scientists
• In about 1856, three skeptical British scientists
and two Armenian guides climbed Mount Ararat
to show that the Ark did not exist.
• Allegedly, the Ark was found, and the British
scientists threatened to kill the guides if they
reported it.
• Years later, one of the Armenians (then living in
the United States) and one of the British
scientists independently reported they had found
the Ark.
3. James Bryce
• Sir James Bryce, a noted British scholar and
traveler of the mid-nineteenth century,
conducted extensive library research concerning
the Ark.
• He became convinced that the Ark was
preserved on Mount Ararat.
• Finally, in 1876, he climbed Ararat and found, at
the 13,000-foot level (2,000 feet above the
timberline), a piece of hand-tooled wood, four
feet long, that he believed might be from the Ark.
4. Turkish Commissioners
• In 1883, a series of newspaper articles
reported that a team of Turkish
commissioners, while investigating
avalanche conditions on Mount Ararat,
unexpectedly came upon the Ark
projecting out of melting ice after an
unusually warm summer.
• They claimed they entered and examined
part of the Ark.
5. George Hagopian
• In an unusually warm summer (about 1904), a 10-year-old
Armenian boy, George Hagopian, and his uncle climbed
Mount Ararat and supposedly reached the Ark.
• The boy climbed on top of it and described the structure as
a flat-bottomed, petrified barge without nails.
• It had many windows on top, each “big enough for a cow
to walk through.”
• Two years later, Hagopian again visited the Ark.
• Shortly before his death in 1972, his detailed testimony
was tape recorded.
• This recording has undergone voice analyzer tests which
indicated his account was quite credible.
6. Russian Pilot
• A Russian pilot flying over Ararat in World War I (1916)
thought he saw the Ark.
• News of his discovery reached the Czar, who sent two
large expeditions to the site.
• The soldiers found and explored the boat, but before they
could report to the Czar, the Russian Revolution of 1917
began.
• Their report disappeared, and the soldiers scattered.
Some eventually reached the United States and Canada.
• Although a much later magazine account had a few
fictional elements, further investigations have confirmed
the primary details.
• In February 2000, Joseph Kulik, an alleged expedition
member, was interviewed.
• Details he provided duplicate those in other accounts.
7. Ed Davis
• In July 1943, Ed Davis, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, was
stationed in Iran.
• There he developed a close friendship with some Lur
tribesmen who said they knew the location of Noah’s
Ark. (The Lurs are related to the Kurds.)
• When Davis asked to see the Ark, they first took him to
their village.
• There Davis claims he saw items from the Ark: a cage
door, latches, a metal hammer, dried beans, shepherd
staffs, oil lamps, bowls, and pottery jars still containing
honey.
• This Muslim tribe considered it a religious duty to prevent
outsiders from seeing the Ark, even if killing was
necessary.
• However, their close friendship with Davis made him an
exception.
• Ed Davis with Elfred Lee in
1986.
• Artist Elfred Lee (right) drew
this picture based on the
claimed eyewitness account
of Ed Davis (left).
• In 1970, Lee also drew a
picture of the Ark in the
presence of another claimed
eyewitness, George
Hagopian.
• Because both Hagopian and
Davis were present as Lee
made each drawing, they
requested many on-the-spot
changes.
• As Lee was completing
Davis’ drawing, he suddenly
realized that each man was
describing the same object.
• This, Lee said, made the hair
on the back of his neck
stand up.
• Tribal leader Abas-Abas and his seven sons took Davis on
a three-day climb up the northeast side of what Davis
thought was Mount Ararat. (Based on Davis’ description of
his trip, he probably was on a mountain in northwestern
Iran.)
• Steep, slick rocks, made worse by cold rain, prevented
them from getting closer than one-half mile from the Ark.
• Two broken portions of the Ark, lying on their sides and
one-third of a mile apart, were visible during moments
when fog and clouds lifted.
• Wooden beams, three decks, and rooms were seen.
• Abas-Abas told Davis other details: the Ark’s wood was
extremely hard; wooden pegs were used in its
construction instead of nails; its large, side door opened
from the bottom outward (like a garage door); and the
human quarters consisted of 48 compartments in the
middle of the top deck.
• In 1986, several dozen Ark researchers questioned Davis
extensively, and in 1989 he passed a lie detector test.
The CIA’s “Ararat Anomaly”
• In 1974, during a private meeting with William
Colby, Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), he was asked if he was aware of
the claimed sightings of Noah’s Ark. He said he
was not. After summarizing several “sightings,” It
was told him that a dangerous and expensive
search, for an object with profound international
importance, could be done safely and cheaply
with technology Colby controlled. Perhaps the
CIA already had information in its files that could
help in this search.
• Weeks later, there was contact by a man I will call H.S. He
said that Director Colby asked him to see if any information
could be provided. In the discussions, H.S. asked many
questions. About a year later he called to tell that his work
was completed and to invite them to CIA headquarters in
Langley, Virginia. In his office, H.S. said he had examined
all photography of the Mount Ararat region. He could not be
sure if an object he was seeing was the Ark or a rock. H.S.
was asked if, after studying the information on the various
claimed sightings, he thought the Ark was on Ararat. He
said, “Yes.” He was asked why, because he had just told
that no photographs clearly showed the Ark. H.S.
responded, “There is too much smoke for there not to be
fire.” There was great confidence in his candor.
Suggestions that any agency of the U.S. government
would (or could for long) withhold conclusive evidence that
Noah’s Ark exists are implausible.
• The CIA calls this object the “Ararat Anomaly.”
• It was first photographed by a fixed-wing aircraft
in 1949 and later by a U-2 in 1956.
• Satellites photographed it in 1973, 1976, 1990,
and 1992.
• Some of the low-resolution, 1949 photographs
have been released to the public, thanks to the
efforts of law professor Porcher Taylor.
• In 1999 and 2000, private funds paid for the best
private sector satellite (IKONOS) to photograph
the object at a resolution of 1 meter. (Some CIA
photographs had a 6-inch resolution—enough
magnification to see a soccer ball from space.)
• Insight asked seven diverse photo
analysts to independently study the
available low-resolution photographs.
• Two analysts said it was likely a rock, four
said it could be a man-made object, and
one called the evidence inconclusive.
• Some factors considered were: shape,
dimensions, shadows, color, thermal
characteristics, nearby snow and rock
patterns, and possible movement of the
object.
• I suspect it is not the Ark, because it has too little
in common with the most credible sightings,
especially its specific location on Ararat.
• Nevertheless, whenever the Turkish government
finally gives permission, an expedition needs to
go to the location of the “Ararat Anomaly”
(39.703°N, 44.275°E) and dig into the ice.
• Unfortunately, during recent years, the Kurdish
rebellion in eastern Turkey and the Turkish
military’s iron control have prevented access to
important areas on Mount Ararat.
• Is the “Ararat
Anomaly”
Noah’s Ark?
8. George Greene
• George Greene, an oil geologist, reportedly took
several photographs of the Ark in 1953 from a
helicopter.
• After returning to the United States, Greene
showed his photographs to many people but
could not raise financial backing for a groundbased expedition.
• Finally, he went to South America where he was
killed.
• Although his pictures have not been found, more
than 30 people have given sworn, written
testimony that they saw these photographs that
clearly showed the Ark protruding from melting
ice at the edge of a precipice.
9. Gregor Schwinghammer
• Gregor Schwinghammer claims he saw the Ark
from an F-100 aircraft in the late 1950s, while
assigned to the 428th Tactical Fighter Squadron
based in Adana, Turkey. Schwinghammer said it
looked like an enormous boxcar lying in a gully
high up on Mount Ararat. He said U-2 pilots had
photographed it.
• Note: Many others claim to have seen the Ark.
Some stories are of questionable, and others
are inconsistent with many known details. Only
the most credible are summarized above.
• Many of the Earth’s Previously
Unexplained Features Can Be
Explained by a Cataclysmic Flood.
• The origin of each of the following is a subject of
controversy within the earth sciences.
• Each has many aspects inconsistent with
standard explanations.
• Yet all appear to be consequences of a sudden
and unrepeatable event—a cataclysmic flood
whose waters erupted from interconnected,
worldwide subterranean chambers with an
energy release exceeding the explosion of 10
billion hydrogen bombs.
• Consequences of this event included the rapid
formation of the features listed below.
• The mechanisms involved are well-understood.
• The Grand Canyon and
Other Canyons
• Mid-Oceanic Ridge
• Continental Shelves
and Slopes
• Ocean Trenches
• Earthquakes
• Magnetic Variations on
the Ocean Floor
• Submarine Canyons
• Coal and Oil
Formations
• Methane Hydrates
• Ice Age
• Frozen Mammoths
• Major Mountain
Ranges
• Overthrusts
• Volcanoes and Lava
• Geothermal Heat
• Strata and Layered
Fossils
• Metamorphic Rock
• Limestone
• Plateaus
• Salt Domes
• Jigsaw Fit of the
Continents
• Changing Axis Tilt
• Comets
• Asteroids and
Meteoroids
• The Seemingly Impossible Events of a
Worldwide Flood Are Credible, If
Examined Closely.
10. Water above Mountains?
• Is there enough water to cover all the
earth’s preflood mountains in a global
flood?
• Most people do not realize that the volume
of water on earth is ten times greater than
the volume of all land above sea level.
• Most of the earth’s mountains consist of
tipped and buckled sedimentary layers.
• Because these sediments were initially
laid down through water as nearly
horizontal layers, those mountains must
have been pushed up after the sediments
were deposited.
• If the effects of compressing the
continents and buckling up mountains
were reversed, the oceans would again
flood the entire earth.
• Therefore, the earth has enough water to
cover the smaller mountains that existed
before the flood. (If the solid earth were
perfectly smooth, the water depth would
be about 9,000 feet everywhere.)
11. Shells on Mountains
• Every major mountain range on earth
contains fossilized sea life—far above sea
level and usually far from the nearest body
of water.
• Attempts to explain “shells on mountain
tops” have generated controversy for
centuries.
• An early explanation was that a global flood
covered these mountains, allowing clams and
other sea life to “crawl” far and high.
• However, under the best conditions, clams move
too slowly to reach such heights, even if the flood
lasted thousands of years; besides, the earth
does not have enough water to cover these
mountains.
• Others said that some sea bottoms sank, leaving
adjacent sea bottoms (loaded with sea creatures)
relatively high—what we today call mountains.
• How such large subterranean voids formed to
allow this sinking was never explained.
• Still others proposed that sea bottoms rose to
become mountains.
• Mechanisms for pushing up mountains were
also never satisfactorily explained.
• Because elevations on earth change slowly,
some wondered if sea bottoms could rise miles
into the air, perhaps over millions of years.
• However, mountain tops erode relatively
rapidly—and so should fossils slowly lifted by
them.
• Furthermore, mountain tops accumulate few
sediments that might protect such fossils.
• Some early authorities, in frustration, said the
animals grew inside rocks—or the rocks simply
look like clams, corals, fish, and ammonites.
• Some denied the evidence even existed.
• The means by which mountains were
pushed up in hours during a global flood
will soon be presented.
• The mechanism is simple, the energy and
forces are sufficient, and supporting
evidence is voluminous—not just sea
shells on mountains.
12. Flood Legends
• A gigantic flood may be the most common of all
legends—ever.
• Practically every ancient culture has legends
telling of a traumatic flood in which only a few
humans survived in a large boat.
• This cannot be said for other types of
catastrophes, such as earthquakes, fires,
volcanic eruptions, disease, famines, or drought.
• More than 230 flood legends contain many
common elements, suggesting they have a
common historical source that left a vivid
impression on survivors of that catastrophe.
• Chinese Word for Boat.
• Classical Chinese, dating to
about 2500 B.C., is one of
the oldest languages
known.
• Its “words,” called
pictographs, are often
composed of smaller
symbols that themselves
have meaning and together
tell a story.
• For example, the classical
Chinese word for boat,
shown to the left, is
composed of the symbols
for “vessel,” “eight,” and
“mouth” or “person.”
• Why would the ancient
Chinese refer to a boat as
“eight-person-vessel”?
• How many people were on
the Ark?
13. Was There Room?
• Could the Ark have held all the animals?
• Easily.
• A few humans, some perhaps hired by others, could
build a boat large enough to hold representatives of
every air-breathing land animal—perhaps 16,000
animals in all. (Of course, sea creatures did not need to
be on the Ark. Nor did insects or amphibians. Only
mammals, birds, reptiles, and humans. Much plant life
survived the flood in a surprisingly simple way.)
• The Ark, having at least 1,500,000 cubic feet of space,
was adequate to hold these animals, their provisions,
and all their other needs for one year.
• Since the flood, many offspring of those on the Ark would
have become reproductively isolated to some degree
due to mutations, natural genetic variations, and
geographic dispersion.
• Thus, variations within a kind have proliferated.
• Each variation or species we see today did not have to
be on the Ark.
• For example, a pair of wolf-like animals were probably
ancestors of the coyotes, dingoes, jackals, and hundreds
of varieties of domestic dogs. (This is microevolution, not
macroevolution, because each member of the dog kind
can interbreed and has the same organs and genetic
structure.)
• Could the Ark have held dinosaurs and elephants?
• Certainly, if they were young.
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Ark in Football Stadium.
This sketch shows how the Ark would fit into a
football stadium.
The Ark is frequently depicted as a small boat by
those who have not bothered to check its
dimensions.
It was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30
cubits tall.
While there were several ancient cubits
(generally the distance from a man’s elbow to
the extended fingers), a cubit was typically 1.5
feet or slightly longer.
The 450-foot-long Ark would snugly fit in a
football stadium and would be taller than a fourstory building.
This sketch of the Ark is based on George
Hagopian’s credible account.
The Ark did not look like a boat. It had a flat
bottom, was not streamlined, and had windows
in its top.
The flat bottom would have made loading on dry
land possible.
Streamlined shapes are important only for ships
designed for speed and fuel efficiency—neither
of which applied to the Ark.
Windows in the side might be nice for the
passengers (or for the proverbial giraffes to stick
their necks out), but side windows limit the depth
of submergence and the maximum load.
Riding low in the water gives a boat great
stability.
Actually, the Hebrew word for Ark does not
mean boat; it means box, coffin, or chest—an
apt description unknown to Hagopian.
Special Thanks to:
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ICR – Institute For Creation Research
Center For Scientific Creation
Dr. Ray Bohlin, Probe Ministries
Dr. Tim Standish, University Professor
AIG – Answers In Genesis
Origins Resource Association
Northwest Creation Network
CRSEF – Creation Research, Science
Education Foundation