There's been significant media attention about our June 2006 expedition to find Noah's Ark in Iran. AOL, Fox News, CNN, Good Morning America, and National Geographic have all run major stories on it. Here are some of the links:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060705-noahs-ark.html
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2133311&page=1
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/has-noahs-ark-been-found/20060629173309990001

The accounts are mostly accurate, but they did get a few of the details wrong. Here are the facts:

• Contrary to some reports on the internet, we are not claiming that we have found Noah's Ark (after all, the object does not say "USS Noah" on the side). We are simply reporting on a very interesting find which may be the remnants of the Ark. We would like to live by the adage, "we report and you decide." Here's a summary of what we can report.
• It's natural to be skeptical of a story like Noah. However, the greatest miracle in the Bible is not Noah and the flood. The greatest miracle in the Bible is recorded in the first verse: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." If that miracle is true, then every miracle in the Bible is at least possible (including Noah's Ark). If God created the universe, then He can do whatever He wants inside it.
• We now have five lines of strong scientific evidence that the first verse is indeed true: that the universe (and time itself) was created out of nothing (see chapters 3 and 4 of our book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist). Therefore, it's at least possible that the story of Noah is true (I personally believe it is for reasons we discuss in the book). It is also interesting to note that most ancient cultures have a flood story.
• Ancient writers such as Josephus and Nicholas of Damascus claim that Ark remains are in an area we identify to be in NW Iran.
• An American Solider working in Iran in 1943 confirmed that local Iranians believed the Ark landed in an area we now believe to be Takht-i-Suleiman. He claimed to see the Ark from a distance, and passed a polygraph test in 1988. (Following our expedition, it was brought to our attention that a British Explorer in 1894 had claimed Takht-i-Suleiman was believed by some to be the resting place of Noah's Ark. That's true, but we have since learned that the reference was to a Takht-i-Suleiman in Pakistan, not the one in Iran. Same name, different location. Sorry for the confusion.)
• Takht-i-Suleiman means “Solomon’s Throne.”
• We climbed Takht-i-Suleiman, which is 55 miles NW of Tehran. On June 7, 2006, we reached the object we believe Ed Davis saw in 1943.
• We found wood at the Summit (2,000 feet above the object), which may be from a shrine. The wood has been dated to be about 500 years old.
• The object consists of dark rock with an uncanny beam-like appearance in several places. For pictures, see the page at Worldview Weekend.
• If this is the remains of the ark, it is a collapsed corpse of the original structure. Moreover, much of the original structure may have decomposed.
• The color and texture of the rock appears to be unique in the area.
• The object fits the approximate dimensions of Noah’s Ark (I walked off the length to be about 500 feet long).
• Five of the nine rock samples tested from the site by an independent lab are petrified wood.
• The object is at 13,120 feet but the nearest tree is at about 8,000 feet (and there are very few trees even at that level).
• We found abundant fossilized sea life at an adjacent summit.
• We found microscopic fossilized sea life in a rock sample from the object (a foram, which is normally only found at the depths of the sea).
• All major climates are close by.
• For more on why we believe NW Iran, not Turkey, is the right place, see the pages at B.A.S.E. Institute. This is the website of our expedition leader, Bob Cornuke, who has been looking for the Ark for twenty years. He has been up Mt. Ararat in Turkey several times, but says the Iranian find is the best candidate so far.

More testing is being conducted by scientists right now, and I am compiling a journal of the trip (see a few pics below). Stay tuned.

In the meantime, if your church or organization would like to see a live presentation of what we've found (complete with pictures, video, and samples from the site), please contact me at FTurek@USA.com or 704-845-1997.

Blessings,
Frank

Click picture for larger view