Noah’s ark “found”?

I got a barrage of emails over the past couple of days regarding a press conference claiming that Noah’s ark has been found on Mt. Ararat.

I have many friends who have been expedition organizers/participants on Mt. Ararat as they searched for Noah’s ark, and while I haven’t personally been there yet, I have been invited to participate in expeditions.  After getting a second-hand email from Randall Price (who’s been on Ararat multiple times) giving cautioning words, I also phoned Dr. Don Patton to discuss the recent press release.

The Press Release:

You can read a report on the press release here:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2949640/Noahs-Ark-found-in-Turkey.html

And the website for the Hong Kong search team:

http://www.noahsarksearch.net/eng/

The history:
First, you need to understand that this is the same team that claimed to have a piece of petrified wood, assumed to be part of Noah’s ark, taken from Mt. Ararat two years ago:

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=local_news&month=january2008&file=local_news2008011955044.xml

After the 2008 press release, Dr. Patton and another friend of mine, Dr. Don Shockey (another long-time Noah’s ark researcher and Ararat explorer) flew to Hong Kong to meet with the Chinese team to discuss their findings, and see if they could possibly collaborate on research.

It very quickly became apparent that the “petrified wood” was simply volcanic rock, and not petrified wood at all.  An honest mistake, but unfortunately, this particular piece of “wood” has resurfaced with the media hub-bub of this past week.  This “petrified wood” was not the sample that was carbon dated, mentioned in this recent press release (more on that in a minute).

The person who “found” the site is a Turkish man by the name of Parasut, who has already been known to con ark researchers in the past, and it would appear that this particular case is no different.  Parasut has been the “guide” for the Hong Kong team.

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