Ooh, yet another Noah’s Ark has been found. I’ve lost count, but the Real Noah’s Ark tm must have been found a hundred times by now. And that crack reporting team from CBN is on the story:
Now, a group of scientists say they’ve found parts of the biblical ark.
Daniel McGivern and his team claimed to have discovered two large sections of Noah’s ark resting just below surface atop Mount Ararat in Turkey — where the Bible says the ark came to rest.
“The mountain is treeless. The mountain is volcanic with gases. There is no conceivable way that you could have an object that big on a mountain,” McGivern said.
The team used military satellite imagery and ground penetrating radar technology to locate the ruins. They believe the large object is wooden.
“The evidence is overwhelming,” McGivern added. “This is the large piece from Noah’s ark.”
His evidence is based solely on imaging technology.
I love those last two sentences — the evidence is overwhelming, but based solely on imaging technology that can only show that something is buried in the ice. This is the Ron Wyatt school of archaeology — claim to have found this incredible artifact, but there’s some reason why you can’t produce the evidence for it.
The large piece of wood will likely remain buried under ice.
“There’s a huge problem with getting down to it, because of the fact that you can’t melt the ice,” McGivern explained. “You are up there at 16,600 feet. How are you going to get down to it?”
How convenient for you.
McGivern’s claim may never have the hard evidence to back it up, but the discovery could provide a great opportunity to share the gospel.
Well that makes sense. You can use one claim for which there is no evidence to justify belief in a few hundred other claims for which there is no evidence.
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Aquaria
December 13, 2011 at 2:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There’s a huge problem with getting down to it, because of the fact that you can’t melt the ice,” McGivern explained. “You are up there at 16,600 feet. How are you going to get down to it?”
Yeah, right!
Maybe you need to call some real scientists and real archaeologists in to do a real job, eh?
Aquaria
December 13, 2011 at 2:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh–and that girl found on a mountaintop is now sitting in a museum, intact.
You’re going to have to come up with a better excuse than that idiotic one.
The Lorax
December 13, 2011 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Aquaria, their excuse is pretty obvious: if they were to dig it up, they would be proven wrong. So, they won’t dig it up. Ever. They will specifically prevent people from digging it up, claiming that doing so might damage priceless archeological artifacts.
Now, c’mon. You knew that. :P
Larry
December 13, 2011 at 2:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow, just like their religion.
matty1
December 13, 2011 at 2:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You know actual archaeologists have been known to do this thing called digging, and if you’re wondering about that altitude a search for high altitude archaeology turned up this. Key quote “The world’s highest archaeological site is an Inca ruin, presumably a temporary stone shelter, on the summit of Llullaillaco at 22,015 feet in Chile.”
Now tell me again how finding stuff at 16,600 feet is impossible.
matty1
December 13, 2011 at 2:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Beaten to it, damn my slow typing.
Strategically Shaved Monkey
December 13, 2011 at 2:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Group of scientists” ??
Tee hee, ha ha, ho ho, waaaaahaaaaaa!
“There’s a huge problem with getting down to it, because of the fact that you can’t melt the ice,”
Yeah, know what you mean. The age-old unmeltable ice postulate. Lacking any locally combustable ark wood, I suggest fart-lighting as a useful alternative.
Doug Little
December 13, 2011 at 2:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wouldn’t you at least drill a core sample to see if it is indeed wood. I think we need some real scientists up there to do the due diligence if they are unwilling to do so, maybe the Myth Busters would be interested and could do a special.
tacitus
December 13, 2011 at 2:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Those were the first two words that sprang to mind too — “core sample”. A small price to pay for supposedly the greatest archaeological discovery of all time.
If wood was found, the very fact that there is a large wooden structure of any kind at the top of Mt Ararat would be of major scientific, if not archaeological interest.
lynxreign
December 13, 2011 at 2:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But the mountain is volcanic with gases.
Volcanic with gases everyone! That makes digging impossible. If only it were volcanic with solids or liquids, then they’d have a chance. If it were volcanic with geese then they’d be golden.
The mountain is volcanic with gases may be the stupidest sentence I’ve read all day and I read the post about Rich Perry!
Brett McCoy
December 13, 2011 at 2:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Their reading of the Bible is incorrect anyway, it says “The Mountains of Ararat” (meaning Urartu, a region described by the Assyrians around Lake Van, in northeast Turkey) and could have been as far east as Iran.
bbgunn
December 13, 2011 at 2:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If you want a good laugh or cry, read the comments on the CBN site. I believe enough stupid is burning there in those comments to melt the snow and ice on that 16,600 ft. mountain.
Blondin
December 13, 2011 at 2:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A coupla’ thermite bombs oughta do it (ala “The Thing”).
imrryr
December 13, 2011 at 2:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Our friend from the old Dispatches, Elijah Saatori (maker of crazy-ass maps), will not be pleased.
MikeMa
December 13, 2011 at 2:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Unbelievable find! Really. Unbelievable.
And unverifiable. And unlikely. And destined to raise millions for the protection of this site from ever actually being explored properly by actual scientists rather than religious ijits.
eric
December 13, 2011 at 3:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hey now you disbelievers, McGivern’s web site says that the block of wood slopes. In places it covered with between 23 and 100 feet of ice. Don’t you understand? 23 whole feet!!! Clearly it would take some sort of alien super-technology or a miracle to drill through that amount of ice! :)
d cwilson
December 13, 2011 at 3:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If you brought them all together, which do you think would be bigger: All of the “arks” that have been discovered or all of the pieces of the “True Cross”?
d cwilson
December 13, 2011 at 3:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Which of course, is far more important to them than having actually hard evidence.
reverendrodney
December 13, 2011 at 3:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Now, a group of scientists say they’ve found parts of the biblical ark.”
A group of what?
Etiene
December 13, 2011 at 3:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Quick, someone call Bruce and Ben, they did a great job on that asteroid!
Oh but Bruce didn’t come back. Be a shame if that happened to Ben…
bubba707
December 13, 2011 at 3:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Maybe they need to talk to the guys that recovered a P-38 from under the ice in Greenland some years ago. If they could recover, restore and fly a WW II airplane that was lost under the ice the Ark should be easy.
Mr Ed
December 13, 2011 at 3:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well they did recover P-38s from Greenland but they were only covered in 268 feet of ice. Of course this is biblical ice and would be harder to melt.
reverendrodney
December 13, 2011 at 3:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
An unverifiable find. Unprovable. Just like the bible. It all fits.
Doug Little
December 13, 2011 at 3:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ahhhh, now I understand how Jesus walked on water, it wasn’t water at all but biblical ice which is impervious to melting, they must of transported a piece via that P-38 so Jesus could go all Chris Angel (Hmmm name seems to fit) on his disciples.
Rasmus Odinga Gambolputty de von Ausfern....of Ulm
December 13, 2011 at 3:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“There is no conceivable way that you could have an object that big on a mountain,” McGivern said.”
There’s also no conceivable way that flood waters could top the highest mountain peak by 20 feet, but let’s not get hung up on details.
richardelguru
December 13, 2011 at 3:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What surprises me is how the buggers keep loosing the damn thing.
I mean constantly misplacing your keys is one thing, but an ark??
Those things a big! And the price of gopher wood these days…
bigjohn756
December 13, 2011 at 3:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Mount Ararat must be cluttered with remnants of the Real Noah’s Arks. It should be easy to find a piece of at least one or two of them.
had3
December 13, 2011 at 3:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Now, if they could recover, restore, repopulate, and re-sail the Ark; that would be right up there w/the P-38.
raven
December 13, 2011 at 3:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think everyone has lost track of how many times it has been found.
No one even knows how many times Fake Noah’s arks have been “found”.
Didaktylos
December 13, 2011 at 4:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
One assumption all “Arkeologists” seem to make is that the vessel’s structure would have remained pretty much whole. But surely, if there had been an Ark, the vessel would have been broken up pretty much as soon as it was no longer needed to be recycled for fuel and building materials.
RustD
December 13, 2011 at 4:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
OK, so the same people that don’t believe global warming could raise the ocean a few feet believe the floods from rain raised a boat 16,000 feet?
grumpyoldfart
December 13, 2011 at 4:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And if you follow the link on that page, you find that the “experts” are from The Center For Scientific Creation
fifthdentist
December 13, 2011 at 4:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Another problem could be the matter of how animals made their way from there to Australia and the Galapagos Islands, and all the other places separated by large bodies of water.*
… Assuming, for the moment, that this particular set of primitive myths are actually true.
* Maybe there is a second crack team of scientists working on this issue. Did the animals snorkel? Hover? Ride on the backs of large turtles? Oh my, all those animals are dead. I guess we’ll never know now.
meg
December 13, 2011 at 4:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@fifth dentist
I remember as a kid we had a record (yes, record) with a bunch of ‘Aussie themed’ songs. One was the story about how the flood wasn’t as high here, and all the animals climbed trees to survive.
I was always sceptical – 1. Have you ever seen a kangaroo? No way they are climbing anything. 2. Let alone a wombat. Those things dislike moving in general.
freemage
December 13, 2011 at 4:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Aw, now you’re just straw-manning. Obviously, Jesus was walking on Biblical water, and when Biblical water freezes, it becomes Biblical ice. If the water alone is enough to let people walk on it, obviously the ice is gonna be supa-tough. See? Science!
frankb
December 13, 2011 at 4:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A previously discovered Ark was a rock formation but that didn’t phase their storytelling at all.
Michael Heath
December 13, 2011 at 4:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Here’s my favorite comment so far, from Michael 4 days ago:
Cliff Hendroval
December 13, 2011 at 5:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
fifthdentist: That was the beginning of the end for me, when my Sunday school teacher couldn’t explain how the kangaroos got back to Australia. I was six and thought kangaroos were really cool.
Ben P
December 13, 2011 at 5:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No no no, the really fun parts come from YEC apologists who try to explain how the flood occurred and where the water went. You find some truly insane shit about “vapor canopies” and “catastrophic plate tectonics.”
The old earth creationists have some slightly more sane theories about flood mythologies being rooted in a rise in sea levels at the end of the last ice age, but that of course requires the admission that Genesis is something less than word for word literal truth.
kraut
December 13, 2011 at 5:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“His evidence is based solely on imaging technology.”
maybe even imaginary technology…
peterh
December 13, 2011 at 5:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
More jubilant marchers in the Parade of Stupid.
fifthdentist
December 13, 2011 at 6:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath @ 37
Man, that’s scary stupid.
kraut, I hope they didn’t use thermological imaging. That causes climate change, you know.
unbound
December 13, 2011 at 6:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Didn’t Leonard Nimoy already cover this?
>.>
mikede fleuriot
December 13, 2011 at 6:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How much would it cost to bribe the Turkish government to allow a team of proper science guys to go and search whole goddam mountain range in person. Save the coin spent on billboards and put a couple 100K together to find out once and for all, if there is anything there. Get two or three independent TV stations to broadcast the event.
Invite every major nut job group to send a couple members with as well. Make the expedition totally transparent and above board.
fossilfishy
December 13, 2011 at 6:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[Meta] The snark here is melting my cold, cold heart. Thanks for the laughs.
sailor1031
December 13, 2011 at 6:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I believe the real ark sank at sea after a disastrous fire started when one of the dragons sneezed. Everyone had to swim for it but the dinosaurs and dragons were just too heavy and didn’t make it to shore. That’s why you never see any around these days. I don’t have any evidence for this, just a deep abiding faith that it is the Truth.
fifthdentist
December 13, 2011 at 6:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
meg, if the kangaroos could climb in the trees, couldn’t the humans do the same? It also seems like all the animals would have starved what with raining for 40 days and nights and then the period it would take for the water to recede.
kraut
December 13, 2011 at 6:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“I believe the real ark sank at sea after a disastrous fire started when one of the dragons sneezed. Everyone had to swim for it but the dinosaurs and dragons were just too heavy and didn’t make it to shore”
You’re so wrong. The dragons survived – remember all those old maps where it says: “here be dragons”. You really think those guys were lying?
ethanol
December 13, 2011 at 7:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Perhaps before releasing anymore discoveries they ought to read this: “An open letter to people who think that they have found the artifact that will change archeology as we know it”
F
December 13, 2011 at 7:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And yet here you are, saying that something is there. (Never mind your reasoning against being based on presence of gasses and dearth of trees.) You wanna back up and try that again?
Trebuchet
December 13, 2011 at 8:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Turkish government has a long history of prohibiting Christian “Archaeologists” (and I use the term very loosely) from actually looking for the many arks on Ararat. This is usually blamed on security (the mountain being near the Iranian border) but is really for religious reasons. They’d probably be better off letting the Xians dig all they want, under government supervision, and show what fools they are.
chilidog99
December 13, 2011 at 8:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Haven’t you people ever heard of Tree-Kangaroos?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree-kangaroo
chilidog99
December 13, 2011 at 8:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A couple of weeks ago, I was driving across southern Illinois, or maybe it was part of Missouri when the only radio stations I could get were bible thumpers. One station had a “pastor” who was explaining how the reason the dinosaurs died out was that they were too big to fit on the Ark.
And apparently angels mated with humans to create a race of malignant giants. He was very into that, the cross breeding thing.
coragyps
December 13, 2011 at 9:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But surely, if there had been an Ark, the vessel would have been broken up pretty much as soon as it was no longer needed to be recycled for fuel and building materials.
You have obviously never tried to cut up gopher wood that’s been soaked in Bible water. It’s tougher than thulium alloy!!
roundguy
December 13, 2011 at 9:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If only there were a way for the people of earth to work together to raise the temperature of the planet and melt the ice….nah, something like that is ridiculous.
dingojack
December 13, 2011 at 10:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Meg – just for you : http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KWc_MzKFVZo/S8_pBV8Le7I/AAAAAAAAAEI/VHb2omSD7tY/s1600/tree-wallaby.jpg
;) Dingo
llewelly
December 14, 2011 at 12:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Why don’t they just admit Satan owns the mountain and Satan will never let their puny god retrieve a piece of the Ark from his mountain?
meg
December 14, 2011 at 1:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@fifth dentist – not to mention, koalas can be damned vicious if their supply of food is threatened.
@dingo/chillidog – dare you to tell a creationer the 6 foot tall red kanga evolved from that after the flood!
sezme
December 14, 2011 at 1:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Good news, I say. Cut that sucker out and ship it to Kentucky. The ice will melt, leaving a beautiful ark and save a lot the Ham man a shed load of money building a new one.
Rip Steakface
December 14, 2011 at 1:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Meg
FYI, records, while old, are still quite well-known, even among the young. I’m a teenager and I’m familiar with records, what they look like, how they sound, and how long they’ve been used. Perhaps not various types of records, but I don’t call it “a big black CD” or anything. Actually, vinyl is rapidly becoming a preferred music medium, since modern CDs suffer from the loudness war.
Back on topic, it really irritates me when I hear un/misinformed Jebusites constantly spewing forth the claim that we found Noah’s Ark. *sigh* When will they learn?
dingojack
December 14, 2011 at 1:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Meg – The real mystery is the sloths.
Even allowing them travel via the Great Circle route (the shortest possible) from Mt Ararat in Turkey to the Amazon Basin (some 11,779 Km) at their maximal speed of 2m per minute (allowing 10 hours of sleep a day), it would take about 19 years and 70 days to get there.
To do so would put enormous strain on their slow digestion (about a month from mouth to anus) and their folivorious dietary habits (not a lot of foliage in the mid-Atlantic), not to mention having to be at a sloth-sprint for nearly 20 years. And then there is the exinction of the megafaunial Giant Ground Sloths, possiblly by human hunting…
;) Dingo
meg
December 14, 2011 at 4:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@steakface – I’m early 30s. My teenage nieces and nephews take great delight in asking me what is a record when I start telling stories. One asked me this week (when I offered to take her to a concert we were both interested in) if I ‘did moshpits’. sigh
@Dingo – hadn’t thought of them – could they have travelled on the back of the Thai elephant maybe?
Aquaria
December 14, 2011 at 4:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Aquaria, their excuse is pretty obvious: if they were to dig it up, they would be proven wrong. So, they won’t dig it up. Ever. They will specifically prevent people from digging it up, claiming that doing so might damage priceless archeological artifacts.
That’s why I used the example I did.
But the mountain is volcanic with gases.
The mountain where the girl was removed from an ice pit–intact–was a volcano.
dingojack
December 14, 2011 at 6:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Meg – I suppose so, except they’d be going the wrong way.
Dingo
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
December 14, 2011 at 7:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No, see, the continents were actually all stuck together at that point. Mount Ararat was in the very center of the hyper continent and after the flood all the animals separated to their relative areas. Then after the Tower of Babel incident, God broke the hyper continent up and all the differences you see nowadays is where they were then.
(Yes, this is honestly what I’ve seen be told… there’s even a map… but I’m not dedicated enough to find it *shrug*)
agenoria
December 14, 2011 at 7:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Three hundred years ago…
In October the Royal Society journal archive was made permanently free to access. So I looked up Edmond Halley. He tried – and failed – to explain the flood in 1694. He calculated that 40 days and nights of rain didn’t produce enough water. He suggests comets, a change in the tilt of the Earth’s axis, moving continents… and comes to the conclusion that anything that could have moved enough sea water to produce a flood would have been so violent that even the Ark would not have survived.
Although he read the papers at the Royal Society, Halley was apprehensive about publishing them, and they did not appear in print for 30 years.
Some Considerations about the Cause of the Universal Deluge, Laid before the Royal Society, on the 12th of December 1694. By Dr. Edmond Halley, R. S. S.
Some Farther Thoughts upon the Same Subject, Delivered on the 19th of the Same Month. By the Same
MikeMa
December 14, 2011 at 8:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The idea of sending real scientists to scour the mountain is laughable. Where would you find enough real scientists who believe this tosh or would be willing to waste their time, energy and reputations on something so stupid?
Jeremy Shaffer
December 14, 2011 at 11:16 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I thought the name Daniel McGivern sounded familiar. It’s because he’s been making this claim since at least 2004.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0920_040920_noahs_ark.html
rwgate
December 14, 2011 at 3:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ve always liked the response that Graham Kendall gave, in his article about Noah’s Ark. It still makes great reading.
http://www.grahamkendall.net/Unsorted_files-1/A130-Noah_Ark.txt
I’ve saved it to a PDF file and send it to all my fundie friends, although I sincerely doubt that they’ll read it.
Aquaria
December 15, 2011 at 7:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I remember as a kid we had a record (yes, record)
My son knows about records–because I had probably 1500 of them, until his Dad left them outside during an unusually warm July. HInt: Never trust a husband you’re separating from with your stuff while you’re out of state doing job interviews.
I still make him apologize profusely for that (among other things). I enjoy knowing that how I got even with him forever convinced him that he’d never dare not apologize for whatever I wanted him to apologize for.
It’s a gift.
Climate change is happening, rube … « Homeless on the High Desert
December 14, 2011 at 9:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] because I am really going to enjoy it when the ice melts on Mount Ararat and there’s no ”Noah’s [...]
Bahnhof-Apotheke
May 13, 2012 at 2:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bahnhof-Apotheke…
[...]Noah’s Ark Found. Again. | Dispatches from the Culture Wars[...]…