Does Noah's Ark lie hidden on a Turkish mountain?
A lot of people still refuse to believe that the story of Noah's Ark from the Bible is true, but naysayers might just drop their jaws if a group of explorers manages to prove their claim that Noah's Ark is hiding in the "mountains of Ararat" in Turkey.
The group of evangelical Christian explorers made a claim back in 2010 that the traces of the biblical ship are on the mountain, according to the Daily Mail. The team carried out carbon dating on the wood, which revealed that it was 4,800 years old - believed to be about the same age as the Ark. They measured the vessel to be "300 cubits, by 50 cubits, by 30 cubits," which translates to up to 515 ft. long, 86 ft. wide and 52 ft. high.
However, experts dismissed their claim due to lack of evidence. Now a California-based "ark hunter" claims to have discovered new evidence that Mount Ararat is indeed the final stop of the ark and the place where its inhabitants disembarked. His belief has gathered support, so much so that over 100 researchers all across the globe recently came together to attend a three-day international symposium on Mount Ararat and Noah's Ark in Ağrı in Turkey.
"My purpose is to visit the sites around the mountain to find clues about catastrophic events in the past," said Professor Raul Esperante from the Geoscience Research Institute, which is sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Esperante acknowledged that a lot of work must be done to prove the claims made by the Christian explorers. "I think that rigorous, serious scientific work is needed in the area, and I would like to collaborate in that," he told Express. "We have technical resources and we can work together with local experts."
But for now, Esperante said people have to wait a while longer before they can prove anything. "The result of my findings will be published in books, publications and journals, but at this point it is too early to know what we are going to find," he continued. "Once the scientific community knows about the existence of Noah's Ark in Mount Ararat, we can make it available to the general public."