FoI and Noah’s Ark October 6, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Contemporary , trackback
Noah’s Ark has had a bit of a rough time over the last hundred and fifty years. Indeed, from the first attacks on what might be called ‘literal Christianity’ the aetheist rottweillers have gone after the Ark with a passion that is frightening. Why? Quite simply because the authors of the Pentaeuch (God or/and mere mortals depending on your perspective) were foolish enough to give measurements. Darwin sniggered, rather unkindly, at the ignorance of those who used Noah’s Ark to explain dinosaurs (godzilla and co were too big to get on the ark). Here, meanwhile, is a more recent extract from that often very entertaining book Kenneth Feder’s Encylopedia of Dubious Archaeology. It is better written than most and it could stand for thousands of passages out there in print and on the internet.
How would their human caretakers have looked after this vast menangerie of animals? Noah, his wife, and his three sons and their wives (that’s a total of only eight people) proving water and food to the animals would have been an impossible task. What (or who) would the carnivores, living in close quarters with all of those delicious herbivores, have eaten? And, I hesitate to ask, when would htose eight people find time to clean out the poop-filled stalls of all those thousands of animals?.. Consider the enormity of the ark’s dimensions: 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide. Using the standard conversion figure for a cubit…, that makes the ark a stunning 450 feet (137 meters) long and 75 feet (23 meters) wide. Archaeological evidence shows that the largest boats that date to the approximate period of the supposed flood (5,000 years ago), found in Egypt, are no more than about 75 feet (23 meters) long and 7 feet (2 meters) wide.
However, there has long been excitement among ‘literal Christians’ that the Biblical account can be proved for the simple reason that, whisper it, Noah’s ark is still sitting on top of Mount Ararat. Now Mount Ararat is the location of the Ark according to the Hebrew text of Genesis and there is no quarelling with that (at least if you are a literal Christian). But surely literal Christians would just cut their money and run at this point? Yes, the ark arrived on Arafat, but that was a long, long time ago (about 7000 years in fact) and the wood slowly rotted away or was burnt by Noah on disembarkation. Rather surprisingly, though, many of the literals have convinced themselves that the Ark is still there under the ice and many believe it is in pristine condition. There are some slight photos that allege to show the ark, but then, of course, when anyone wants to go and find it, the ark disappears back under the ice, even in July and August. Think of it as a kind of Biblical cryptoid.
Beach vaguely knew about this ark business but did not take it very seriously until yesterday when a fabulous treasure was sent by Jenny (thanks!), a pdf of a Freedom of Information request concerning Noah’s Ark. Of course, the FoI request tells us more about America than about Ararat or Noah, but it deserves to be read just for that as there are some molar-sized lumps of transatlantic gold in there. These include deadly serious discussions of ‘the object’ and a beautiful note from 1994 estimating that it would take one analyst a half year to complete a review of all available imagery collected over the previous thirty years. (If I was paying American taxes…) There are a battery of letters from senators (or references to letters) including a very witty one from Barry Goldwater beginning ‘You may think this is a screwball request…’. Fears that Soviet archaeologists might beat western archaeologists in the battle for Ararat feature. There are also American literalist archaeologists getting hunted down (and luckily not caught) by the PKK and much, much more…
Perhaps the most interesting thing is that there was evidently a legend not just among the literals but among some members of America’s intelligence and military agencies. Here is Dr George Carver answering a question 11 March 1993. Now Carver was a Washington insider and who had served as Deputy to two former Directors of the CIA and was responding to one Porcher L. Taylor III. PLT claimed that there had been strong rumours going round West Point in 1973 that ‘a large wooden object’ had been spotted at about 14,000 feet on Mount Arafat. This is Carver’s reply and might mark the moment that the Noah’s Ark craze went mainstream, helped along by a documentary that had been put out the year before.
Well, I don’t recall the CIA working on Noah’s Ark, but I do remember that at the time there were some pictures taken, and there were clear indications that there was something up on Mount Ararat, which was rather strange. There were various archaeological expeditions that were mounted. The Turkish government was not too thrilled about supporting them, because it was getting into an area that was politically dicey from the Turks’ point of view… [why?] You know, I haven’t been up there; I don’t think anyone has. But it certainly was eyebrow-lifting and it was certainly another indication that, despite its splendor as a work of poetry, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, might not be all that bad as history also.
This passage is included in two forms in the FoI release. There are also other stories gathered there that show that such rumours had been bouncing around among US servicemen for many years. One letter from Raymond G. Smith gathers some examples, though note these were not CIA collected.
In WW2 pilots claimed to have seen ‘numerous sightings’ of the ark on Ararat. (What were American pilots doing in Turkey in WW2?)
Gregor Schwinghammer, a US pilot based in Turkey in the 1950s saw a ‘big rectangular, huge boxcar-like manmade structure’.
DC-3 pilot in eastern Turkey saw the ark while flying CIA missions.
Al Shappell in an F4 saw, in 1974, ‘a dark foreign object two-thirds of the way up the mountain near a gorge. It was oblong and partially buried in glacial ice.’
1974 there was allegedly a special project set up in Washington about Ark knowledge, Ararat information and Ark contacts’ under Bill Colby.
But again most interesting is the general state of rumour in US agencies. Carver answered without any hesitation in 1993 and his questioner Taylor had heard rumours at West Point in 1973. The FoI act includes the claim in a letter received by the Pentagon that ‘It is also known by people familiar with the capability of US Defence photographic satellites and CIA radar-penetrating satellites that these satellites have confirmed the Ark on Mt. Ararat.’ Other than these few names there is a lot of hearsay. We have a Washington not a Turkish or Christian legend.
Why did this legend emerge? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com Some initial speculation. Christian literalists are to be found not just on American high streets and churches but also in American public life. Perhaps here too there is interest from those of the Forbidden Archaeology school who would want to turn all established archaeological models upside down then inside out: though they depend more on Hinduism than Christianity. Finally Ararat was partly in Turkey, partly in the Soviet Union when these stories first emerged. Naturally the association with the red antichrist must have made these tales that much more piquant. Why didn’t they do an Indiana Jones film?
31 Oct 2014: The always interesting KHM on the ark: I believe whatever is up there will be found and subject to scientific scrutiny because global warming will eventually melt enough of the ice to permit it. No need to believe the water of the Flood may have reached 14,000 feet – earth changes in this region are violent and the surrounding area could have risen thousands of feet in the past. A regional flood is the only reasonable scenario; a global flood isn’t necessary, and the Americas never figured in to ancient Semitic thinking. What was called the Earth at that time was never much beyond the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. No need to believe every living animal species was on the ark – only those that had been previously named by Adam (Gen. 2:20) would have qualified. So, ridiculous pictures such as the giraffe with his head stuck out of a window never happened since giraffes live in the south savannas nearer to or below the equator. The supposed Biblical date of the Ararat ark has serious problems. It is highly unlikely to have been c. 3,000 BC according to the Biblical genealogy. There is an extensive history of ark-sightings in previous centuries and it supposedly became a shrine for pilgrims in ancient times, but earthquakes have destroyed whatever had been built up. You might find further research on ark sightings interesting.
25 Nov 2016: Alan makes an obvious point but one that had never occurred to me. I’d bet he is right:
‘….or the Ark is a boat-shaped rock formation which has been known since time immemorial. In other words, the rock formation was known (by hearsay) to the scribes who wrote down the book of Genesis, and they included the site in their version of the Utnapishtim legend (from the epic of Gilgamesh).’
Bruce T writes, 25 Nov 2016: Yet another sight the missionary who witnessed the Hanging Gardens of Babylon saw! It’s all out there, you’ve just got to have faith and imagination. Ruby slippers help, too. Now for a serious off record reason the Ararat anomaly gets so much official attention in the States. During the Cold War both NATO and the Soviets had both missiles and listening posts up there. As far as I know the US still has missiles and listening posts in the region. The missiles in Turkey that Khrushchev wanted JFK to remove in exchange for the ones in Cuba that Kennedy supposedly refused to move? They were in the Ararat region and quietly removed shortly afterwards as a quid pro quo. Why do you think Goldwater was really poking around about the Ark in ’63? He was planning a run against Kennedy in ’64. Goldwater was in a position to see classified photos, if they confirmed the missiles were gone, Goldwater could beat Kennedy to death over the issue. Until 1978/79 the US had listening posts stretching along the northern Iranian border from Turkey to Afghanistan for monitoring Soviet military comms in Central Asia. With the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet push into Afghanistan, the US lost those assets overnight. The listening posts for Central Asia moved wholesale into eastern Turkey, in particular the Ararat region. The PKK was but a minor threat. The reason to keep people out of there was to keep them from accidentally seeing all of those guys from the Signal Corps up in those hills. I had a friend who did a couple of years in the region. One, it’s spartan. Two, there are no women. Three, all there is to do in your down time is smoke hash and drink. Four, the winters are fierce. He saw only seeing shepherds and goats in his stint there. Lots of locals trying to sell you pieces of wood as part of the Ark, but no one could ever take you to the thing.
