Not so fast! says David Fasold, a former merchant marine officer and ark researcher. The real discoverer of "Noah's Ark" was a Turkish farmer named Reshit. In a telephone interview from his home in Poway, Calif., Fasold said, "Ron Wyatt is a very amiable person. He has a lot of charisma but he also has a great imagination. I backed away from Wyatt years ago."
Fasold is the author of "The Ark of Noah" (published by Wynwood Press, 1988) and did the scientific work at the site. Fasold said, "I go out there with $15,000-$20,000 worth of electronic equipment. You see the red tape laid out in the picture, I bought that, I took all that out there at my own expense."Fasold said there was an earthquake in 1948 in the middle of the fifth month. "This thing just came out of the ground. A Turkish farmer reported it in October. The API correspondent in Istanbul, Edwin Greenwald, wrote about it on Nov. 13, 1948. But when people go to investigate, they can't find this Reshit and think it's a Muslim conspiracy," he said. In 1959 someone flew over the field taking pictures that caught the eye of George Vandeman and Rene Noorbergen. The Sept. 5, 1960, issue of Life magazine detailed their expedition with a tale that makes archaeologists shudder. Said Fasold, "In 1960 they went out and looked at it and they blew the sides out of it with dynamite." Natural formation - they concluded.
"Wyatt went to Turkey in 1977 virtually asking a cab driver to take him to where Life magazine took pictures," Fasold said.
At the site of the ark, Fasold used frequency generators to determine metal concentration of spikes inside wooden beams, and he did a detailed search of the site with subsurface interface radar. "Personally, I believe that it is the ark, but the story is so far embellished. Ron Wyatt is there seeing stairs inside it and saying there are trainloads of petrified wood. But there is considerable evidence that this whole Noah's Ark story could be based on a natural formation. Is this a copy built by Constantine, a Mongol fortress or something a particular group of Christian fundamentalists use to raise funds to go on mountain climbing vacations?" Fasold wondered.
Petrified wood confirmed by Galbraith Laboratories in Knoxville? Fasold says the lab was asked only to confirm calcium, iron and carbon in the sample and that when called denied having been asked to give an opinion on what the test object was.
"The Turkish government takes this very seriously but they don't take Ron Wyatt seriously," Fasold said. He faxed a copy of an official pronouncement from Turkey about the site on letterhead that reads: "Nuh'un Gemisi Yusek Komisyonu" (Noah's Ark High Commission), by Professor Salih Bayruktutan, engineering faculty, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkiye. The letter reads:
"The commission is satisfied, so far as the evidence suggests, that the final resting place and source for the story of the ship of the Deluge is safely within the boundaries of a national park near the village of Uzengili in the province of Agri, eastern Turkiye.
"The commission was formed to protect the site and adjacent area against business interests and exploitation by certain institutions who might capitalize on the discovery. . . . We would caution those aroused by recent claims from certain individuals suggesting verbal authority has been granted to engage in such activities and against artifacts being displayed."
Regardless of who actually discovered this formation, Fasold believes it is a historical treasure. "We've found 25-million-year-old dinosaur eggs petrified out in the Gobi Desert. Why couldn't we find an ancient vessel?" he asked.