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Noah’s Ark?

By Brannon S. Howse
© Brannon S. Howse

June 16th, 2006

How many times have you yawned at the claim "Noah’s Ark Has Been
Discovered"? Right, you say, and Elvis has been sighted again,
too. People who hoped to find the famous vessel and the legendary
voice have been pretty much in the same boat (so to speak)-No
proof. Until today.

Led by explorer, adventurer, and featured Worldview Weekend speaker
Dr. Bob Cornuke, a fourteen man crew returned this week from Iran
bearing stunning evidence that theirs is the long-anticipated even
coveted discovery of the remains of Noah’s Ark. Bob’s team consisted
of a Who’s Who of business, law, and ministry leaders including Barry
Rand (former CEO of Avis), the author and Christian apologist Josh
McDowell, Frank Turek (co-author with Norm Geisler of I Don’t Have
Enough Faith to be an Atheist), Boone Powell (former CEO of Baylor
Medical Systems), and Arch Bonnema (president of Joshua Financial).

The unusual object is perched on a slope 13,120 feet above sea
level. After studying the discovery site, Bonnema observed, "These
beams not only look like petrified wood, they are so impressive that
they look like real wood-this is an amazing discovery that may be the
oldest shipwreck in recorded history."

Reg Lyle, oil and gas geologist said "the object appears to be a
basalt dike, however, it is absolutely uncanny that the object looks
like hand hewn timbers, even the grain and color look just like
petrified wood….I really need to keep an open mind about this."

The team returned to the U.S. from rugged mountains in Iran with
astonishing video footage of a monstrous black formation which looks
like rock but bears the amazing image of hundreds of massive, wooden,
hand-hewn beams. Could it be the lost ark on which two of every animal
once sailed with their human rescuer?

Bob Cornuke, president of the BASE Institute, is a veteran of nearly
30 expeditions looking for yet-to-be-discovered locations and
artifacts described by the Bible. He is cautiously-but
enthusiastically-optimistic about the find: "We have no way of
confirming for sure that this object is Noah’s Ark, but it is probably
the most interesting and baffling object ever found by ark
searchers…it sure gets my heart to pumping just thinking of what it
could be."

The arkish object is about 400 feet long and consists of rocks that
look remarkably like blackened wood beams while other rock in the area
is distinctively brown. And one visible piece is "cut" at 90-degree
angle. Even more intriguing, some of the wood-like rocks were tested
just this week and actually proved to be petrified wood, and it is
noteworthy that Scripture recounts Noah sealed his ark with pitch-a
decidedly black substance. Upon being cut open, one of these "rocks"
also divulged a marine fossil that could have only originated
undersea.

Scouring the mountains all around the object, team participant Steve
Crampton found thousands of fossilized sea shells blanketing the
landscape. Cornuke brought back a one inch thick rock slab choked with
fossilized clams.

High above the ark suspect, the team also found wood splinters and
broken pottery shards under snow and rock at the 15,300 foot level. It
showed evidence that ancients had thought this an important worship
site for hundreds-if not thousands-of years. The landing location
would also be an unusually hospitable place to live. The team notes
that every ecosystem helpful to humans and the animals is reachable
within a 25-mile radius of the ark’s location.

Cornuke initially got involved in the search for the ark after meeting
Apollo 15, moon walking astronaut Jim Irwin. In the 1980s Cornuke
participated with Irwin in several searches on Mount Ararat in Turkey
but was disappointed with the results. After several years of
frustrating expeditions, Cornuke started looking elsewhere for the
ark.

Cornuke found clues in the Bible that the ark might be on a mountain
other than the famed Mount Ararat of Turkey. His observation was based
on the Genesis 11 account that says descendants of Noah came to the
Mesopotamian valley from the east. According to Cornuke, that would
put the Biblical mountains of Ararat somewhere in the northern reaches
of Iran. He also cited ancient historians such as Nicholas of Damascus
and Flavius Josephus who wrote just before and after Christ that
timbers of the ark had survived in what would today be the higher
mountains of Iran.

Although his research is by far the most definitive ever, Dr. Cornuke
is not the first to suggest Noah’s Ark came to rest in Iran rather
than Turkey. In 1943 an army observer named Ed Davis said he saw the
ark on a high mountain in Iran. Sergeant Davis was a road construction
engineer in Iran during World War II, building army highways from the
Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. During his tour of duty there, some
Iranian friends told Davis of the ark and led him to the site. After
the war, Sgt. Davis passed a lie detector test affirming his testimony
about actually seeing timbers from an ark-like object high in the
mountains of Iran.

Before his death, Davis became acquainted with Bob Cornuke and gave
him a map showing the way to the object. "It was right where Ed said
it was in his map," Cornuke relayed, "After seeing it from a distance
I thought it at first unimpressive, but once we stood on the object we
were all amazed at how it looked just like a huge pile of black and
brown stone beams."

Mary Irwin, wife of late Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin, viewed the
evidence and stated that it was "compelling and certainly could be the
actual Ark of Noah."

Many Christians will be eager to see the pictures and video footage,
and hear the Biblical evidence for why Noah’s Ark and the mountains of
Ararat must be in Iran. Unfortunately, I also expect that Dr. Cornuke
will be venomously attacked by both Christians and non-Christians. His
discovery will greatly distress evolutionists who do not want the
story of Noah and a worldwide flood to be verified. And many
Christians that have spent years and millions of dollars searching on
Mt. Ararat in Turkey will be quick to dismiss Cornuke’s discovery out
of jealousy (and perhaps a bit of embarrassment that they spent so
much time looking in the wrong place).

Dr. Cornuke has used the Bible as his primary guidebook to one
Biblical location and artifact after another. Has he once again
overcome huge odds to make what is arguably one of the greatest
archeological discoveries of all time? Has this
crime-scene-investigator-turned-explorer pieced together clues from
years of examination and discovered the remains of Noah’s Ark?

Some of America’s leading businessmen, an attorney who has argued
several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and two leading
apologists believed the evidence was compelling enough that they made
a daring trip to the politically volatile state of Iran and climbed a
harsh mountain to see the object firsthand. Now that they’ve returned,
they seem anything but disappointed. Elvis may have long since left
the building, but it looks as if the Ark may have just appeared at the
door.