Noah’s Ark Chapter 7- “1986 and 87 the Final Decision”

Radar Scans Confirm it is Manmade

Ron took the video of the radar scan, along with the printouts, to GSSI in Hudson, NH., where he showed them to both Joe Rosetta, vice-president of GSSI, and Tom Fenner, the technician who had been to Turkey in Aug. of 1985. This resulted in a news report on Hudson's Channel 9 in which Mr. Rosetta stated that:

"This is not a natural object. The reflections are occurring too periodic for it to be a natural type interface."

VIDEO: Joe Rosetta reviewing the radar scans:

Several years ago, we received a promotional package from GSSI on the SIR systems in which we discovered was an article included from The Sunday Telegraph dated Aug. 3, 1986. There was a photograph of Ron holding a radar scan printout, and the title of the article was "Archaeologist Certain He's Found the Ark". In the article, is the following:

"`It's up to him to prove it's the ark,' Rosetta said of Wyatt. `But this equipment gives us another piece of data.' Although Rosetta would not reveal his opinion about  Wyatt's claim, he said of the buried object, `You'd never see anything like this in natural geology.... Some human made this structure, whatever it is'."

The verdict from GSSI was that the scans revealed man-made structure, whatever it was. And they should know- it is their business and they see literally thousands and thousands of scans.

Ron is Trained to Operate the GSSI Sir 3 Radar

Ron was elated, absolutely elated. And with things smoothed out with the radar's owner, he stayed in Hudson and completed the course in operating the Radar. On July 31, about 2 weeks after leaving Turkey, Ron received his certificate:

"Geophysical Survey Systems, Inc. certifies that: Ronald E. Wyatt Has Completed A Training Course In The Theory And Practice Of Applying Subsurface Interface Radar Technology In Engineering And Geophysical Investigations."

Finally.

Ron No Longer Worked Full-Time

By this time, in fact for several years, Ron had ceased to be a full-time employee at the hospital. The only way he could accommodate his travels was to work as a part-time anesthetist in which he would take "call" as often as he was needed. This method proved to be the perfect situation for him, and continues to this day to be so. He would work until he had enough funds to make a trip, and then he was gone.

He did borrow from friends on occasion when he felt it was important to get something done quickly. I know, because we've repaid numerous of these  loans since our marriage in 1988. And sometimes someone would offer to donate to the cause although this was rare.

December 1986- The Official Decision to be Made

After years of struggles and disappointments, things were about to move rapidly. Ron returned to Ankara on November 8 and again met with officials. At that time he was told that the various ministries were set to meet on December 12 to give their official decision regarding the boat shaped site. They not only had the reports of Ron and his associates, they had the reports from their own archaeologists who had not been as hampered in what they were allowed to do as Ron and the others had been.

Turkish scientists from Ataturk University had presented their official report to the government in October 1987.  Their conclusion was that the boat shaped site did indeed contain the ancient remains of a massive ship that was, in fact, the remains of Noah’s Ark. They went public with their findings which were published in the Turkish newspapers.

It's Official!

As expected, the December 12 decision was positive– it was the official decision of members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of Internal Affairs, and researchers from Ataturk University, among others, that the boat-shaped formation did indeed contain the remains of Noah’s Ark!

Ron learned that his two associates, Dr. Baumgardner and Mr. Fasold, had also met with the Turks separately and both expressed the desire to pursue work on the site independently of Ron. They were both told that any further applications to work at the site would have to be made through Ataturk University and the research scientists who were appointed to head the project.

The disappointment at the loss of his associates was offset by the Turks’ announcement that Ron was to be the guest of honor at the festivities connected with the official recognition of the ark. Although he did not discover the site, they considered him the person whose determined efforts and refusal to give up was directly responsible for the identification of the ark.

When he had returned to Turkey in November of 1986, he knew he was going to need some financial help of some type because he was informed that the Turks were to hold the meeting in Dec. 1986 in which a decision would hopefully be made as to whether the site was officially Noah's Ark or not. Everyone else he had worked with had their own cameramen but Ron never had. The film taken by these others would never even be seen by Ron unless it appeared on TV or in a documentary. He began to investigate the possibilities of arranging for a film crew- not to film him, but to document the evidence that he believed would astound the world.

February 1987- Meeting with the Governor of Agri

In Feb. 1987, a meeting was arranged between Ron and the Governor of the Agri District, Mr. Sevket Ekinci. The December 1986 decision was positive. It was the official decision of members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of Internal Affairs, and researchers from Ataturk University, among others, that the "boat-shaped formation" did indeed contain the remains of Noah's Ark!

Ron to be Guest of Honor at the Dedication Ceremony

At the February meeting, plans were discussed for the official dedication of the site which would include Ron as guest of honor. It had been 10 years since his first trip out there, and 27 years since he first read the LIFE Magazine article. He was being honored, not as the discoverer of the site, but as the discoverer of the fact that it was truly the remains of Noah's Ark.

April & May 1987- Complete Radar Scans

The thing that Ron still had to do was complete scans of the ship. As a believer in striking while the iron is hot, he returned in both April and again in May doing complete scans of the site. Covering every square foot, either Dilaver or his Turkish accomplices pulled the antenna while Ron notated the locations on the printout.

By adjusting the length of the wave sent out, he scanned the same sites over and over, recording the structure at various depths. In this manner, he was able to see what was at approximately three feet, or five feet, or ten feet or fifteen, etc. The picture was emerging of a massive ship with chambers still evident; with one outside door which had a ramp system which led to each level; with long, massive timbers extending out from back of the ship, something which he still does not understand.

 

A Mystery Solved

Ron discovered that the hull had a very large void down it's center, the same approximate size as the strange section of ground he had found above the ship with Orhan Baser in 1984. Dave had made this determination in 1985 with his MFG and now the radar confirmed it.

The MFG was and still is under constant attack by critics who claim that it is like a divining rod simply because the rods used are similar in appearance. But to Ron, Dave's discovery of the void in the hull with the MFG proved its reliability, at least, in the hands of a skilled user. When Ron and Orhan had found the strange section of ground which appeared to be rimmed with petrified wood, and contained a large amount of the strange material scattered over and around it, Ron suspected it was something significant.

When the lab analysis of the specimen Ron had taken from this site matched the analysis of the material he had found falling out of the hull at the present location of the ship, he had theorized that this section of ground above the site with the strange rim of petrified wood was a portion of the hull of the ark.

He believed the ark had originally landed at this higher location and as the water dried, the hull was embedded in the earth. Years later, a volcano over what is now the Iranian border to the south, he theorized, erupted and ejected a massive amount of lava which reached the ark and then ripped it from the embedded portion of the hull, carrying it down the mountainside. When it struck the very large limestone outcropping, which extends into its midsection, the ark swung around in line with the lava flow and was covered completely.

This theory was confirmed when the scans also showed a void along a portion of the hull. In 1985, Ron had taken Dave and John above the site to show them this section, but the immense amount of villagers accompanying them caused him to change his mind. By now, he was paranoid of showing any interest in anything because of fear that the villagers would destroy it as had happened to the tombstones and grave. And without this information, Dave interpreted this void in the hull to be a moon-pool, which made sense to Dave because he believed the ark was made of reeds.

It has been a constant stream of amazing circumstances which has accompanied Ron's work here. After all, it was the specimen from the above location that Jim Irwin sent to Los Alamos, which resulted in John Baumgardner's involvement. The specimen displayed evidence that it was slag, or waste product, from some type of metal production.

June 20, 1987- the Dedication of Noah’s Ark

The dedication was set for June 20, 1987. In March, Ron signed an agreement with a local movie producer to make a documentary about the ark and his research. Arrangements were made just in time to get a crew to the dedication.

But to be sure, Ron took his own video camera and had Dilaver film the events he couldn't personally film. Ron believed that God preserved the remains of the ark for a purpose, and it was certainly for more than just his own knowledge. But with the attacks both he and the site had received, he needed careful documentation. The dedication would just be another story without the event recorded.

They arrived several days before the ceremony and filmed as much of the region as they could, including the Village of Eight (Arzap) with the drogue stones. Then came the dedication. There, on the mountainside overlooking the now official ark, were gathered a large number of dignitaries from the local level to the national level as well as high ranking military and many journalists. The plans were made public for a visitors' center to be erected on the spot where they stood.

The governor spoke the dedication in Turkish and then he lifted the first shovelful of dirt for the groundbreaking of the new visitors' center. Ron was next, and after him, others. Banquet-tables had been set up in the grass beside the ark and they retired here for a while, as Ron conversed with the Governor, Mine Unler translating.

VIDEO: The dedication ceremony. I can't show a lot because they sacrificed a goat and I think it is too offensive for many people to view:

As things began to break up, Governor Ekinci asked Ron to do a radar scan on the site to demonstrate for the journalists the unseen structure beneath the earth.

 A MAJOR Discovery

Governor Ekinci  issued instructions that the American crew was to stay upon the hill. They were not to film this event- it was his. He allowed some journalists, a Turkish cameraman, some members of the military, and other dignitaries only, to witness the next events. Setting up the radar, Ron made several passes. Explaining the printout to the group with Mine translating, he noted that one particular reading appeared to be very near the surface. The Governor then order one of the soldiers to dig at the location Ron had indicated, which he did.

There soon emerged what looked like a flat rock. As more dirt was removed, it could be seen that it was about 18 inches long and it was then removed. All captured on film by TRT (Turkish Radio and Television), it was obvious that it was a petrified section of a hand-hewn timber! Everyone was stunned, but most of all, Ron. For ten years, he had wanted to excavate but had never been allowed to retrieve anything that was not on the surface. His dream had come true!

Not only was it a section of a timber but it was almost perfectly preserved, showing the wood grain and perfect symmetry. Even more miraculously, it appeared to be an end of a timber with the other end clearly broken off- and it was petrified! The Governor then did something that could only be directed by a Divine Hand- he told Ron to take it to the States and have it tested. Ron then placed it in the radar case which would protect the extremely valuable specimen during transport.

The entire event was shown throughout Turkey on TRT. It was a day Ron will never forget- not in a million years.

July 1987- MORE Scans

He returned again in July, again, less than a month after his last trip, and did even more radar scans. He now had enough data to begin construction of a small model of what the metal detector and radar scans revealed. The top deck could not be reconstructed with certainty. It had collapsed and it couldn't be determined if it had slanted or straight outer walls. It was possible to determine where they began- they did not run the entire length of the ship- by locating the point where the deposit thickened.

Interior walls were seen on the scans but only to some degree- Ron assumed some symmetry and sometimes reconstructed identical sections when the east portion, for example, was destroyed but the west portion was intact.

The bottom deck, however, was better preserved and an immense system of small chambers could be determined. There was a double section which extended along lengthwise with other chambers along the walls with a walkway separating these.

To the chagrin of the traditional ark-hunters, it wasn't barge-shaped. The upper end was definitely pointed and the radar indicated that the lower end was at the least, rounded. But even with all the evidence, it still didn't look like a ship just coming out of the ship-yard, and the learned men weren't about to accept it. The Turks, on the other hand, were very matter of fact- the evidence spoke for itself. What else could it be?

It must be stated also that with the sub-surface interface radar of 1987, exact depth could not be determined. Many factors had to be considered, so all that Ron knew for sure was that certain features were at a lower depth that others.

The Deck Timber Analysis

On Sept. 16, 1987, he took the section of petrified wood that had been dug up on June 20 to Galbraith Labs in Knoxville, Tennessee. By now, everyone there knew him pretty well and whether they believed in Noah's Ark or not, they are a superb laboratory and were very painstaking in all their analyses, including Ron's.

He videoed everything they did, including their taking the sample from the specimen, and the actual execution of the analyses. The important thing to determine was if the specimen contained organic carbon. A rock doesn't, but petrified wood does. To run a test for organic carbon is extremely costly and complicated, so Gail Hutchens, Vice President of Galbraith, suggested another route.

They would run an analysis for total carbon content. This would include both inorganic and organic. Then, they would test for inorganic, which is a much simpler test. Then, the two tests would be compared. By subtracting the amount of inorganic from the total amount, the amount of organic carbon would be determined. The result was that it contained .71% total carbon. Inorganic carbon totaled .0081%.  It contained .7019% ORGANIC CARBON- almost 100 times more organic than inorganic! It passed the test- now a new phase was about to be entered.

Why Didn't The Discovery of the Ark Make Headlines?

The evidence was there. It was beyond the realm of simple coincidence that every detail was consistent with the object containing the remains of a ship which could only be Noah's Ark. But the world wasn't about to accept it. The traditional ark hunters continued to search on Mt. Ararat even though Turkish scientists and archaeologists had determined that it was a ship in the mountains of Ararat- a very ancient ship- and that it could be nothing else except the ark of Noah.

The main problem is that it was a phenomena that is one of a kind- no other object comparable to it has ever existed. A 4,300 year old wooden ship simply could not survive without a means of preservation such as the lava which covered it so many years ago. This lava effectively hid it from the world for perhaps several thousands of years; therefore, there was no knowledge of its location during this time.

Locals Have No Knowledge of the History of the Area

Some of the names of various locations in the region still retained the connection to the ark, such as "The Place of the Eight" and "Doomsday Mountain". But the local inhabitants admitted, when questioned by Orhan Baser in 1984, that they had no idea where these names came from.

As mentioned earlier, in the early 1900s, the local inhabitants of the region, Armenians, were massacred and completely removed from the area. Over the ensuing years, Kurdish people came in and replaced them. They took over their villages, moved into their homes and plowed their fields. All knowledge that the original inhabitants may have had of the history and legends of the region were lost when this occurred. This war was so bloody and devastating that the museum in Erzurum has an entire floor dedicated to it.

Mount Ararat is Not a Possibility

While we discussed this earlier, for a moment, let’s assume the ark had landed on Mt. Ararat. If we disregard Ron’s experiments in a lake, building different configurations of mountains, it would have been impossible for all of the animals to have walked down off the mountain as it is today. And if that did happen, then the ark would surely have been destroyed in the passage of time and numerous explosions of the, at times, extremely active volcano throughout history. However, scientists know that Mt. Ararat is a recent volcano. It was not in existence right after the flood.

The logical place to look would be in the cretaceous mountains of the region- mountains that were non-volcanic and within the altitude that scientists have determined would be the maximum depth all of the water in, on and above the earth, would attain if all was on the surface at one time.

Checking the Area Outside of the Boat Shape

When Ron was investigating the site with the radar, he noticed that the internal "lines" all converged at the south end, consistent with the timbers of a ship. But to be sure it wasn't just a very rare geologic quirk that he wasn't familiar with, he took the radar outside of the perimeter of the object and performed scans above it, below it and along each side. He found nothing other than random loose stones in the soil.

Earlier, in 1985 when Dave, John and Ron did the metal detector scans, they too checked the adjacent terrain for similar readings. However, they too, found none. In the live interview John Baumgardner did with CBN's "700 Club" back in August of 1985, he confirmed this when asked if the formation was unique:

"We feel that the formation is quite unique. There's several formations that have a superficially similar shape and we've investigated several of them. And they, uh, as we investigate them, we find they do not have the special characteristics we find in the site we've been focusing on."

The world at large doesn't want to know the ark really existed and therefore that the Bible is true. Just recently, when an Australian film crew visited the site and personally saw the metal detector scans performed, they didn't even film it. An eye-witness to the event said they only filmed what they thought would serve to discredit the site. It is possible to twist and omit truths in a way which presents an overall picture that looks convincing, but is, in fact, a lie.

 

Noah’s Ark- Chapter 8 : Ron Wyatt