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For Real
By Brannon S. Howse
   
© Brannon S. Howse
June 16th, 2006
 
           How many times have you yawned at the claim "Noah's Ark has been discovered"? Right, you say, and Elvis has been sighted again, too. People who hoped to find the famous vessel and the legendary voice have been pretty much in the same boat (so to speak)-No proof. Until today.
 
Led by explorer, adventurer, and featured Worldview Weekend speaker Dr. Bob Cornuke, a fourteen man crew returned this week from Iran bearing stunning evidence they may have found the long-anticipated even coveted discovery of the remains of Noah's Ark. Bob's team consisted of a "Who's Who" of business, law, and ministry leaders including Barry Rand (former CEO of Avis), the author and Christian apologist Josh McDowell, Frank Turek (co-author with Norm Geisler of I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist), Boone Powell (former CEO of Baylor Medical Systems), and Arch Bonnema (president of Joshua Financial).
 
The unusual object is perched on a slope 13,120 feet above sea level. After studying the discovery site, Bonnema observed, "These beams not only look like petrified wood, they are so impressive that they look like real wood-this is an amazing discovery that may be the oldest shipwreck in recorded history."
 
Reg Lyle, oil and gas geologist said "the object appears to be a basalt dike, however, it is absolutely uncanny that the object looks like hand hewn timbers, even the grain and color look just like petrified wood….I really need to keep an open mind about this."
 
The team returned to the U.S. from rugged mountains in Iran with astonishing video footage of a monstrous black formation which looks like rock but bears the amazing image of hundreds of massive, wooden, hand-hewn beams. Could it be the lost ark on which two of every animal once sailed with their human rescuer?
 
Bob Cornuke, president of the BASE Institute, is a veteran of nearly 30 expeditions looking for yet-to-be-discovered locations and artifacts described by the Bible. He is cautiously-but enthusiastically-optimistic about the find: "We have no way of confirming for sure that this object is Noah's Ark, but it is probably the most interesting and baffling object ever found by ark searchers...it sure gets my heart to pumping just thinking of what it could be."
 
 The arkish object is about 400 feet long and consists of rocks that look remarkably like blackened wood beams while other rock in the area is distinctively brown. And one visible piece is "cut" at 90-degree angle. Even more intriguing, some of the wood-like rocks were tested just this week and actually proved to be petrified wood. It is noteworthy that Scripture recounts Noah sealed his ark with pitch-a decidedly black substance. Upon being cut open, one of these "rocks" also divulged a marine fossil that could have only originated under the sea.
 
Scouring the mountains all around the object, team participant Steve Crampton found thousands of fossilized sea shells blanketing the landscape. Cornuke brought back a one inch thick rock slab choked with fossilized clams.
 
High above the ark suspect, the team also found wood splinters and broken pottery shards under snow and rock at the 15,300 foot level. It showed evidence that ancients had thought this an important worship site for hundreds-if not thousands-of years. The landing location would also be an unusually hospitable place to live. The team notes that every ecosystem helpful to humans and the animals is reachable within a 25-mile radius of the ark's location.
 
Cornuke initially became involved in the search for the ark after meeting Apollo 15, moon walking astronaut Jim Irwin. In the 1980s Cornuke participated with Irwin in several searches on Mount Ararat in Turkey but was disappointed with the results. After several years of frustrating expeditions, Cornuke started looking elsewhere for the ark.
 
Cornuke found clues in the Bible that the ark might be on a mountain other than the famed Mount Ararat of Turkey. Cornuke's observation was based on the Genesis 11 account that says descendants of Noah came to the Mesopotamian valley from the east. According to Cornuke, that would put the Biblical mountains of Ararat somewhere in the northern reaches of Iran. He also cited ancient historians such as Nicholas of Damascus and Flavius Josephus who wrote just before and after Christ that timbers of the ark had survived in what would today be the higher mountains of Iran.
 
Although his research is by far the most definitive ever, Dr. Cornuke is not the first to suggest Noah's Ark came to rest in Iran rather than Turkey. In 1943 an army observer named Ed Davis said he saw the ark on a high mountain in Iran. Sergeant Davis was a road construction engineer in Iran during World War II, building army highways from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. During his tour of duty there, some Iranian friends told Davis of the ark and led him to the site. After the war, Sgt. Davis passed a lie detector test affirming his testimony about actually seeing timbers from an ark-like object high in the mountains of Iran.
 
Before his death, Davis became acquainted with Bob Cornuke and gave him a map showing the way to the object. "It was right where Ed said it was in his map," Cornuke relayed, "After seeing it from a distance I thought it at first unimpressive, but once we stood on the object we were all amazed at how it looked just like a huge pile of black and brown stone beams."
 
Mary Irwin, wife of late Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin, viewed the evidence and stated that it was "compelling and certainly could be the actual Ark of Noah."
 
Many Christians will be eager to see the pictures and video footage, and hear the Biblical evidence for why Noah's Ark and the mountains of Ararat must be in Iran. Unfortunately, I also expect that Dr. Cornuke will be venomously attacked by both Christians and non-Christians. His discovery will greatly distress evolutionists who do not want the story of Noah and a worldwide flood to be verified. And many Christians that have spent years and millions of dollars searching on Mt. Ararat in Turkey will be quick to dismiss Cornuke's discovery out of jealousy (and perhaps a bit of embarrassment that they spent so much time looking in the wrong place).
 
Dr. Cornuke has used the Bible as his primary guidebook to one Biblical location and artifact after another. Has he once again overcome huge odds to make what is arguably one of the greatest archeological discoveries of all time? Has this crime-scene-investigator-turned-explorer pieced together clues from years of examination and discovered the remains of Noah's Ark?
 
Some of America's leading businessmen, an attorney who has argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and two leading apologists believed the evidence was compelling enough that they made a daring trip to the politically volatile state of Iran and climbed a harsh mountain to see the object firsthand. Now that they've returned, they seem anything but disappointed. Elvis may have long since left the building, but it looks as if the Ark may have just appeared at the door.