Posted on 07/07/2006 10:05:17 PM PDT by freedom44
High in the mountains of northwestern Iran, a Christian archaeology expedition has discovered a rock formation that its members say resembles the fabled Noah's ark.
The team discovered the prominent boat-shaped rocks at just over 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) on Mount Suleiman in Iran's Elburz mountain range.
"It looks uncannily like wood," said Robert Cornuke, president of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE), the Palmer Lake, Colorado-based group that launched the expedition.
Photos taken by BASE members show a prow-shaped rock outcrop, which the team says resembles petrified wood, emerging from a ridge.
"We have had [cut] thin sections of the rock made, and we can see [wood] cell structures," Cornuke said.
Cornuke acknowledges that it may be hard to prove that this object was Noah's ark. But he says he is fairly convinced that the rock formation was an important place of pilgrimage in the past.
The BASE team has uncovered evidence of an ancient shrine near the outcrop, suggesting that this was an important place to people in the past, Cornuke says.
"We can't claim to have conclusively found the ark, but it does look like the object that the ancients talked about," Cornuke said.
Noah and the Flood
The story of Noah's ark is told in three major world religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
The Book of Genesis describes a great flood created by God "to destroy all life under the heavens."
But before the flood, God told Noah, one of his human followers, to build an ark and fill it with two of every species on the Earth.
But this location doesn't fit the description given in Genesis of the ark's passengers journeying from the east to arrive at Mesopotamia.
Cornuke and his team think that Mount Ararat might be a red herring.
"The Bible gives us a compass direction here, and it is not in the direction of Turkey. Instead it points directly towards Iran," Cornuke said.
Pilgrim Shrine?
Using the Book of Genesis and other literary sources, the BASE team journeyed to Iran in July 2005 to climb Mount Suleiman.
They chose Mount Suleiman after reading the notes of 19th-century British explorer A. H. McMahan.
In 1894, after climbing Mount Suleiman, McMahan wrote in his journal, "According to some, Noah's ark alighted here after the deluge."
McMahan also spoke of wood fragments from a shrine at the top of the mountain where unknown people had made pilgrimages to the site.
"We found a shrine and wood fragments at 15,000 feet [4,570 meters] elevation, as described by McMahan," Cornuke said.
Subsequent carbon dating of samples from the shrine showed the wood fragments from the site to be around 500 years old.
Lower on the mountain, expedition members came across the ark-like rock formation, which they estimate to be about 400 feet (122 meters) long.
Rocks From the Sea?
Not everyone is convinced by the BASE team's claims.
Kevin Pickering, a geologist at University College London who specializes in sedimentary rocks, doesn't think that the ark-like rocks are petrified wood.
"The photos appear to show iron-stained sedimentary rocks, probably thin beds of silicified sandstones and shales, which were most likely laid down in a marine environment a long time ago," he said.
Pickering thinks that the BASE team may have mistaken the thin layers in the sediment for wood grain and the more prominent layers as beams of wood.
"The wider layers in the rock are what we call bedding planes," he said.
"They show fracture patterns that we associate with … the Earth processes that caused the rocks to be uplifted to their present height."
The boat-shaped structure can also be explained geologically, says retired British geologist Ian West, who has studied Middle Eastern sediments.
"Iran is famous for its small folds, many of which are the oil traps. Their oval, ark-like shape is classical," he said.
Meanwhile, ancient timber specialist Martin Bridge, of England's Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, is doubtful that a wooden structure would have lasted long enough to petrify under ordinary conditions.
"Wood will only survive for thousands of years if it is buried in very wet conditions or remains in an extremely arid environment," he said.
Bible scholars think that Noah built his ark somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, making preservation highly unlikely except in extreme environmental conditions.
And even if the wood had petrified, there seems to be little evidence of Noah's carpentry, according to Robert Spicer, a geologist at England's Open University who specializes in the study of petrification.
"What needs to be documented in this case are preserved, human-made joints, such as scarf, mortice and tenon, or even just pegged boards. I see none of this in the pictures. It's all very unconvincing," Spicer said.
Bridge, the Oxford timber specialist, points out that it would also be impossible for a boat to run aground at 13,000 feet.
"If you put all the water in the world together, melting both the ice caps and all the glaciers, you still wouldn't reach anywhere near the top of the mountain," he said.
Does it not occur to you that it is a fable, and that much of the bible is fables, not to be taken literally>
So, tell me how all the animals of the world were on the ark? Or do you only want to be selective in you literal interpretation of the bible?
Keep believing fables, I only wish I was telling them to you and got you to tithe to me because you will believe anything without doing any thinking.
Thank you!
I knew the "great flood" story was universal but didnt know where to find a reference...
Using this same logic however, sea shells should not be found above 13,000 feet, but they still are.
"If you put all the water in the world together, melting both the ice caps and all the glaciers, you still wouldn't reach anywhere near the top of the mountain," he said.
Using this same logic, there should be not evidence of water ever being above where it could reach today if all the ice caps and glaciers were melted. But there is evidence of water being above this limitation.
Obviously, he failed to tell you that those who think there was an earth covering flood of Noah's day, believe the mountains were not nearly as high and the ocean valleys were not nearly as deep before the catastrophe of the flood.
Oxford professor Bridge knows this, but he didn't mention it for obvious personal reasons.
Remember the last Noah's Ark fraud?
Sun Goes Down in Flames
The Jammal Ark Hoax
Copyright © 1993-1997 by Jim Lippard
[The following appeared in Skeptic magazine, vol. 2, no. 3, and is copyright 1993 by the Skeptics Society, 2761 N. Marengo Ave., Altadena, CA 91001, (818) 794-3119 (individual subscriptions $35/year, $25/year for students). Permission has been granted by the author and the editor of Skeptic for electronic distribution.]
"Will you speak falsely for God, and speak deceitfully for him? Will you show partiality toward him, will you plead the case for God?" -- Job 13:7-8 (NRSV)
On February 20, 1993, CBS aired "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark," Sun International Pictures' rehash of its 1976 film "In Search of Noah's Ark."[1] At the end of June, Skeptics Society advisor Gerald Larue publicly revealed (via Associated Press and Time magazine) that George Jammal, one of the alleged eyewitnesses of Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat, was a hoaxer, and that Larue himself had played a role in the hoax.[2] The purpose: to demonstrate the shoddy research of Sun International Pictures.
CBS, Sun, and the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) set out to control the damage to their credibility by defending the program against the criticisms of Larue. Since Jammal was continuing to defend his story, at first the three organizations went on the offensive against Larue. CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky stated that "There was clearly a hoax perpetrated ... we're not sure whether it was on Sun International and CBS or whether it was on Time magazine." A press release from Sun called it "sad and unfortunate that Dr. LaRue [sic], a distinguished USC professor, would victimize Mr. Jammal and his family to execute a third party hoax in which he was the primary benefactor." John Morris, the Administrative Vice President of the ICR, made much of Larue's "long association with humanistic and anti-Christian organizations" and concluded that "This is hardly the resume of an objective critic." All defended the overall quality of Sun's research.[3]
But subsequent events began to undermine a defense based on Jammal's veracity. On August 26, 1993, the Long Beach Press-Telegram--Jammal's hometown newspaper--ran a story about the hoax. In the story, Jammal did not admit to a hoax, but stated in response to a question about his religious background that "If I told you that, you'd know the secret." The reporter noted in the article that a poem framed in glass on Jammal's piano begins, "Humanism is a philosophy for people who think for themselves ...." The September 1993 issue of Freethought Today, the monthly publication of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), announced that Jammal had been a member of the Foundation since 1986, and was scheduled to be a speaker at the group's annual convention at the end of October--where he would reveal his hoax. Sun's position evolved, and their press release was revised to say that "Sun researchers now believe [Jammal] may eventually confess to committing a hoax." It continued to defend the quality of their research, however, stating that Jammal's confession "would mean that he has through an elaborate lie successfully hoaxed well-meaning individuals, religious groups, psychiatrists, Ararat explorers, and others since 1986. Even our exhaustive research would have failed to uncover this hoaxer if that in fact is what he is by his own future admission."[4]
Now that Jammal has revealed his hoax at the FFRF convention, to the Los Angeles Times, and on a public access cable program produced by Atheists United, it is clear that Sun did present false information in their program.[5] But is their defense sound? How extensive was their research? Did Jammal engage in an elaborate hoax that resisted even the most cautious investigation? Or did Sun simply present claims which supported a particular viewpoint--that Noah's Ark has been found on Mt. Ararat--without regard for truth or accuracy?
Jammal's Hoax: 1985-1986 Several events inspired George Jammal to play the practical joke which became a major hoax. A May 30, 1985 creation/evolution debate between Fred Edwords (now executive director of the American Humanist Association) and Duane Gish (vice president of the ICR) which aired on KABC radio apparently got Jammal to thinking. While observing railroad ties near his workplace, Jammal got the idea of telling Gish that he had found Noah's Ark and using that wood as his evidence.
On November 1, 1985, he wrote to Gish: "Since I was a little boy I was fascinated with the story of Noah and the Ark. I made up my mind that when I grow up, I will do my share as a good christian to prove the bible is the true word of God." Jammal told a story about saving money and flying to Greece in 1972, where he bought a Volkswagen. From Greece, he drove to Turkey, to the village "Nakhitchevan." There he was assisted by a man and his family, but he was unable to find the Ark. A similar trip in 1980 was also unsuccessful, but in 1984 he and a companion crawled into a cave of ice which proved to be the Ark. Each chipped off a piece of wood to prove that they had found the Ark. Disaster then struck: Jammal's companion fell into a crevasse while attempting to take a photograph and was killed. Jammal said that he had kept his discovery secret until writing the letter to Gish.
In the letter, he reports the names of those who assisted him. The man whose family aided him was "Mr. Asholian." His companion who died was a "Polish friend" of Mr. Asholian's son-in-law, named "Vladimir Sobitchsky." The son-in-law, whose full name is conspicuously absent from Jammal's later accounts, is given in the Gish letter as "Allis Buls Hitian." (Read that name carefully.)[6]
In 1986, John Morris contacted Jammal about his story and arranged to interview him at length. In an early letter from Jammal to Morris dated January 21, 1986, Jammal gives another hint of a hoax when he writes to give Morris his phone number and adds: "But the people here are not religious at all. And I think they don't believe in my story about Noah's Ark. Please don't discuss it with them."
Jammal visited libraries and read books about Noah's Ark claims, and about Mt. Ararat and the surrounding region, which he had never visited. At some point, as part of his preparation, he watched a videotape of the 1976 Sun Classic Pictures production, "In Search of Noah's Ark."
On June 10, 1986, Morris interviewed Jammal and produced a transcript from the tape recording. A careful examination of this transcript reveals not only that Jammal's account contains numerous inconsistencies, but that much of the information flow in the conversation is from Morris to Jammal rather than vice-versa. For example, the following is their discussion about the size of Lake Kop, west of Ararat (notations in brackets are Morris'):
JM: How big was Lake Kop in diameter when you saw it?
GJ: It wasn't that big like Lake Superior. It's a small lake.
JM: Is it 100 feet across? 500 feet across? It changes every year. I was just wondering how it was in 1984.
GJ: That's it, it changes. It depends on what time of the year you are there. [pause] I think it was 100 ft or a little bit more than 100. I don't really know.[7]
A few other exchanges while viewing slides of the area also show Morris giving information to Jammal:
JM: This is up by Lake Kop. You saw something like this? [rocky slopes]
GJ: Oh yeah.
...
JM: There is a prominent ice cliff here. Do you remember that? [west side]
GJ: Yes, I remember the big cliff, okay. [not convinced]
JM: This is that same glacier with the crevasses. Coming down to Lake Kop, down here. There is a very big rock [A-K rock], hundreds of feet tall. You don't remember that? There are many similar rocks, but this big rock next to the big glacier? We are standing near Lake Kop to take the picture.
GJ: Lake Kop is to the left of here?
JM: No, behind us.
GJ: Yes, behind us. To the left, down there.
...
GJ: Do you have a picture from the lake up to the summit?
JM: Well, you can't see it from Lake Kop; you have to climb the ridge and then look up, but I have some from up there.[8]
The transcript also points out some inconsistencies in Jammal's account:
JM: Where did you start from? ...
GJ: They told me there is a city there--it's called Nakichevan, or something, I don't remember exactly the name. It is "where the ark was landed"--that's the meaning.
JM: That's in Russia [pointing to a map].
GJ: Well, that's what they told me; I don't know where that city is.
JM: The one you mentioned in your letter was Nakichevan.
GJ: Yes, that's what they told me. This is Russia? [astonished at the location of Nakichevan]
JM: Yes. This is Russia; here's the Russia-Turkey border; here's Mt. Ararat. So you drove to Turkey in your VW. Did you cross over into Russia?
GJ: No, I didn't go to Russia. But that's what they told me, if my memory is not failing me.[9]
Morris himself gets suspicious at one point:
JM: A man in Igdir, you think? Do you remember his name?
GJ: Asholian.
JM: But that's an Armenian name. I would be surprised if someone in Turkey had that name.
GJ: Part of Armenia is taken by the Turks, and part of Armenia is taken by the Russians. Maybe he has a different name, but that's what he told me. ...
JM: Please forgive me, I'm not playing the district attorney, but for clarity, a minute ago you said you thought you came from the south, but then in looking at the map you thought you came from the north.
GJ: Okay, this is north. We came there, this is what I mean we went between the two mountains and then we started to go from the south to the north.
JM: You cannot drive across.
GJ: No, we didn't drive, we walked.[10]
And what about Jammal's piece of wood from the Ark? What had he done with this incredibly valuable archaeological find?
GJ: Now you saw my place; I have to look for the piece of wood. You saw my house--you didn't see the garage. You know it is all boxes.[11]
Jammal's initial hoax was not very convincing, and nothing came of it. John Morris published nothing about it, and other Ark researchers to whom he sent tapes of the Jammal interview, such as Bill Crouse, thought that Jammal's story was obviously untrue. The evidence was overwhelming: Jammal contradicted himself, but resorted to saying "that's what they told me" when inconsistencies were pointed out to him. He let Morris do most of the talking, and usually just agreed with what Morris had to say. He suggested that his own family didn't believe his story, and asked Morris not to talk to them. His first letter to the ICR contained obviously bogus names, one of which was a very strong hint that his story was fabricated. And his alleged most valuable possession, a piece of Noah's Ark, was stuffed away in a box somewhere that he hadn't bothered to keep track of.
Morris, however, did not--and still does not--seem to recognize the significance of this evidence. On the one hand, he has stated that "When I first interviewed [Jammal] ..., I remember thinking he had nothing of interest to tell us as far as searching for the Ark. He didn't know where he was sufficiently to be of any help and his story was so different [from other claimed Ark eyewitnesses]."[12] On the other hand, he wrote that
It is my impression that [Jammal] was on Mt. Ararat. He seems to know Lake Kop and described in reasonable detail the terrain nearby. He especially was familiar with the loose rocks. His memory of the size of Lake Kop is accurate. His feel for the elevation at the base of the main ice cap is about right.[13]
Morris continues to maintain uncertainty about whether or not Jammal's original story was true. While he agrees that Jammal's present position (that he is a hoaxer) is inconsistent with his previous position (that he actually visited Ararat and saw the Ark), he was unwilling to endorse either position in a telephone interview.
Bill Crouse of Christian Information Ministries, International, an Ark hunter who publishes the newsletter Ararat Report, was not so hesitant. Crouse disbelieved Jammal's story from the time he first heard it in 1986, and was both surprised and disappointed to see Jammal on "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark," a program which he thoroughly debunked in the May 1993 issue of his newsletter. Crouse wrote on the basis of Morris' interview that Jammal
is extremely confused when confronted about the geography of the mountain. He first claims to have started his ascent from Nakhichevan (60 miles away!). ... whenever he was confronted with contradictions he would defer to: 'I was told this...' ... he says he found a man in Igdir named Asholian. An Armenia? Living in Igdir in 1980? Highly unlikely. ... We were at Ararat in 1984, and no climbers were allowed to climb on any route but the southern route. He claims, however, to have seen a group of climbers at Kop. He claims he rented mules at Igdir. How could he do this without getting caught? ... Does he have any proof that he was ever in eastern Turkey, such as photos, or his passport? Is he willing to have his wood tested for age?[14]
Crouse's article shows that a critically thinking person-- even one who believes in the Ark and the Flood of Noah--had plenty of reasons to question Jammal's story prior to public allegations of a hoax.
Jammal's Hoax: 1992-1993 Yet when Sun International Pictures came to John Morris asking for information about persons claiming to have seen the Ark, Morris gave them Jammal's name, along with copies of the material he had already collected. By this time, Jammal and Gerald Larue had become acquainted, and Larue had appeared on Sun's previous CBS program, "Ancient Secrets of the Bible." Larue, who was unhappy with the way his interview had been edited, encouraged Jammal and offered him suggestions for carrying out his interview with Sun. Jammal prepared a piece of wood by soaking it in a variety of sauces including wine, teriyaki sauce, spices, alcohol, and seeds, then microwaving and baking it. Jammal's interview with Sun went smoothly, and he was able to keep his story fairly consistent with his original interview in part because Morris had provided him with a transcript. Sun expressed no doubts about Jammal's claims, and his segment was prominently featured on "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark."
When Larue blew the whistle on the hoax in June, he criticized Sun for making no effort to verify Jammal's story. Sun not only overlooked the overwhelming evidence of a hoax already in their possession, they continued to ignore it when it was pointed out to them.[15] Sun and the ICR have subsequently made no mention of any of this early evidence of a hoax, but instead referred to the early years of Jammal's hoax as evidence against Larue's claims. This offensive maneuver against Larue was enabled by the fact that the initial stories reporting Jammal's hoax incorrectly described Larue as the initiator of the hoax. CBS, Sun, and the ICR all latched on to this incorrect claim as a means of self- defense. CBS's Sagansky stated that "The crux of that [Time] article was that Dr. Larue from USC apparently put Mr. Jammal up to this hoax. And in fact, we have the exact same testimony from Jammal dating back to 1986." Sun Executive Producer Charles Sellier, Jr. wrote that "It is difficult for us to understand how Dr. LaRue [sic] master-minded a hoax in 1992 based on facts first recorded in 1986." John Morris reported that he sent his early Jammal materials to Time magazine with the expectation that its reporters would take it as evidence against Larue's hoax charges. He concluded:
Don't hold your breath for a Time magazine or Associated Press retraction. If it happens, it will be buried on an obscure page. Don't look for LaRue's [sic] fellow humanists to insist on a higher standard of integrity. The damage has already been done; the goal has already been accomplished. Christianity and creation have been given another 'black eye' in public, with no recourse.[16]
Morris suggests that a retraction is in order for this relatively minor mistake--reporting that Larue initiated the hoax, rather than simply helped with its last stages--while ignoring his own failings which contributed to the success of the hoax in the first place.
The primary line of defense--denial that there was a hoax by Jammal--was accompanied by a secondary line of defense: that Sun's research was exemplary. (When it became clear to everyone--except Morris--that Jammal was a hoaxer, this became the primary defense. As Sun's Allan Pederson told the Los Angeles Times after Jammal confessed, "We certainly will be as conscientious as we can and scrutinize sources as closely as we can in the future. But frankly, we took the same due diligence before all this. My stance is that it's just about impossible to defend against that kind of well-planned and well-thought-out deception." The attacks on Larue were completely dropped from a later revised version of Sun's press release, except for a single paragraph which reiterated the point about Jammal's story being told to the ICR prior to Larue's involvement.)
The secondary defense consisted of four parts: (1) That Sun had examined Morris' interview with Jammal. (2) That Sun had conducted their own two-hour audio taped interview looking for inconsistencies in Jammal's story. (3) That Sun compared the two interviews and found them to be consistent with each other. (4) That Sun gave Jammal's interview tapes to psychiatrist Paul Meier, who pronounced Jammal credible. By late September, Sun added a fifth defense: (5) That Sun had Jammal's hand-drawn map of Ararat and his expedition routes examined by Ararat expeditioneers who "assured us that it could not have been drawn by anyone who did not have experience with the mountain."[17]
The first point of this defense is clearly no defense at all, since Jammal's initial interview should have made it clear that his story was not credible. The second point is difficult to judge without knowing what questions were asked, but it is clear that Sun did not bother to check Jammal's passport, test his wood, or find anyone who could confirm any part of his story. The third defense is negated by the fact that Jammal possessed a copy of his original interview and had ample time to prepare. The fifth defense is undercut by the fact that Jammal had read books by Ark researchers in preparation for his interview, several of which contain maps of the area. It is also counteracted by Jammal's lack of detailed knowledge of the geography of the region in his interview with Morris.
The fourth defense is the one which Sun has placed the most weight on and devoted the most space to in its press releases. Quotations from Meier--who has never met or spoken with Jammal--fill two and a half of the six pages of Sun's initial defense against the hoax allegations. Meier's qualifications are given by Sun as follows: "a well-known California psychiatrist, co-founder of the 28 Minirth-Meier clinics across America, and author of 40 books on human behavior." It is also mentioned that Meier "served as the field physician on Astronaut James Irwin's Noah's Ark expedition to Mt. Ararat."
Meier, who now practices in Richardson, Texas, combines Christianity and psychiatry in his clinics which provide "a ministry for Christ as well as ... help hurting people."[18] It is not at all clear that Meier is qualified to offer a judgment about Jammal's veracity on the basis of an audio tape but even so, some of his own statements seem to cast doubt on Jammal's story. He states that Jammal seems to be "an 'obsessive-compulsive with histrionic features' ... a perfectionist performer ... He wants fame and yet he's humble enough to admit it. ... He wanted to feel special." But Meier's statements also bring his own credibility into doubt. He states that he finds Jammal to be "the most credible" of the four alleged eyewitnesses on the program, in marked contrast to Bill Crouse, who found Jammal to be the least credible. Meier claimed that Jammal's "descriptions of the customs of the people, of the Ark itself and its location, are very accurate" and that they match "exactly what I know to be true about the Ark from the secret government reconnaissance photos." On the former point, Meier is at odds not only with Crouse, but with John Morris, who found Jammal's account unhelpful with regard to pinpointing the location of the Ark. On the latter, Meier owes an explanation of what "secret government reconnaissance photos" he is talking about and how he came to have access to them.[19]
Jammal's most concrete piece of evidence for his claimed visit to the Ark was his piece of wood, and Sun's program made much of it. Near the end of the broadcast, the narrator's voice says, over a scene from a dramatization of Jammal's fictional Ark visit and then a photograph of Navarra's wood: "Samples of the wood taken from the vessel have been dated to the time when the Bible indicates a worldwide flood occurred." This strongly suggests that Jammal's wood was tested, but it was not. Gerald Larue, in Time, specifically criticized Sun for failing to perform any tests on the wood. Sun's excuses for failing to do so have evolved. In the original Associated Press story on the hoax, Sun's chief researcher David Balsiger stated that "We couldn't test the wood in time for our deadline." In the September Long Beach Press-Telegram article, Balsiger stated that "This is an entertainment show. We're not supposed to make our own news or tests," a position also taken by Sun's press releases. In a letter from Sun's Charles Sellier to CBS Vice President Steve Warner, Sellier wrote that "Even if we had the money and time to test every piece of evidence presented by experts, it would not have been definitive as there would still be those who would disagree and take exception to the findings." The first Sun press release expanded on this, claiming that "the sample according to the Time article was contaminated by baking and juices. This would have prevented obtaining accurate carbon-14 dating results."[20]
As Gerald Larue has pointed out in his reply to Sun, the contaminants would have been discovered by a dating test, and would themselves have indicated that something fishy was going on. He further points out that the sauces the wood was baked in have caused it to reek of teriyaki sauce, which could have been determined by simply smelling the wood.[21] Sellier's claim that a carbon-14 test would "not have been definitive" seems to be completely without foundation.[22]
Sun International Pictures claims that they made every reasonable effort to validate Jammal's story, and that they cannot be held responsible for being taken in by his hoax. While this defense is highly implausible in light of the evidence that was available to Sun prior to the broadcast of their program, it becomes even more implausible when it is noted that Jammal's story was not the only one on the program lacking in credibility.
Other Hoaxes? "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark" featured the stories of several other people who have claimed to have found the Ark on Ararat. One of these was Ed Davis of Albuquerque, New Mexico, who was stationed in Hamadan, Iran in 1943. Davis claims that while there, he saw a snow-capped mountain in the distance and was taken there by Lourd natives of the region, including one named Abbas, who showed him the Ark. The Sun program made much of the fact that Davis took and passed a polygraph test. But the show failed to mention certain relevant facts. These include: (1) Davis' polygraph test consisted of a total of six questions, one of which showed unusual stress. That question was "Are you lying when you state that no one ever told you about the Ark other than Abbas and the Bible?" (2) Davis claims he saw Ararat from Hamadan, which is 400 miles away. (3) Davis claims his trip to Ararat took about half a day. (4) Davis' story has changed significantly over time--e.g., he now says Kurds, not Lourds, took him to Ararat.[23]
Another claimed Ark eyewitness was Ed Behling, who has refused to talk about his claims since the early 1980's. (His appearance on the Sun program was taken from an older interview.) Behling claims to have been shown the Ark while in Turkey with the Air Force. Behling's story contains dubious details which, when he was questioned about them, he refused to answer. For instance, he claims to have built a campfire just below the Ark (above 13,000 feet), but would not answer questions about the nature of the campfire and what he used for fuel. Those who know Behling have described him as a sincere Christian who sometimes embellishes stories.[24]
A third claimed Ark eyewitness was Fernand Navarra, a Frenchman who has been variously described as a "junk dealer" and an "industrialist." Navarra traveled to Ararat on several occasions in the 1950's and 1960's, and claimed to have found wood from the Ark in 1955 and 1969. The Sun program reported that
Navarra himself had the hand-hewn wood that he had found tested in three different laboratories. He was told that its age was around 5,000 years, clearly in line with the biblical account of the flood. The scientific tests prove beyond question that something very old, something very mysterious, was definitely on Mt. Ararat.
What the show did not say is that one of Navarra's expedition members and his guides have said that Navarra purchased the wood from natives in town and carried it up the mountain himself, prior to his 1955 discovery. The show also did not reveal that the testing methods which gave an age of 5,000 years were of dubious scientific value, and that radiocarbon tests on Navarra's 1955 and 1969 wood by six labs yielded ages from 1,190 to 1,690 years old. Finally, the show failed to note that Navarra has pointed out several different locations as where he found his wood.[25]
All of the above information was in Sun's possession during the production of the show. Ark researcher Bill Crouse provided Sun with copies of all back issues of his Ararat Report, which included critiques of these alleged Ark eyewitnesses. Crouse, who was filmed for "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark" but was not used in the program, says that he specifically told Balsiger when the film crew was at his office that Jammal, Davis, and Behling were not credible.
Is Sun Biased? In Charles Sellier's letter to CBS defending the quality of "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark," he stated that "our role is to present all of the known information and let the audience decide." Sun's Allan Pederson told the Los Angeles Times that "we don't take a point of view, creationist or otherwise."[26]
These claims, however, stand in stark contrast to the facts. First, the program's foregone conclusion is given in its title. It claims that Noah's Ark has been discovered, and that therefore the creationist claim that the Flood of Noah was a historical event is true. Ark researcher Bill Crouse has complained of his disappointment with the program and how he has "absolutely hated" to tell excited Christians who viewed the program that "No, that's still premature; the discovery of Noah's Ark has not yet been authenticated."[27]
Second, the program was scripted by Sun; token skeptics were given straw man arguments to read for the cameras. The scripts for Sun's programs are written in advance and approved by the network even before some of the actors are selected to read their parts. In some cases, skeptics have been allowed to write their own scripts, but Sun freely edits the results. Skeptic Farrell Till, who appeared on the Sun program "Ancient Secrets of the Bible II," was allowed to write his own script for three taped segments. Sun discarded one, edited one down to almost nothing, and aired one as written and read by Till. The straw man script which had originally been written for Till was read by someone else.[28]
Third, the "experts" on the program were overwhelmingly believers in the Flood of Noah and the reality of the Ark on Ararat, even though the scientific consensus is the reverse. I counted forty on the pro-side and only three on the con- side. Of the forty pro-Ark "experts," at least six (John Morris, Ken Cumming, Henry Morris, Larry Vardiman, Walter Brown, and Carl Baugh) make their living as advocates of creationism, the first four for the ICR. These affiliations were not disclosed, but instead these six people were identified as "Professor of Geology," "Professor of Biology," "Professor of Hydraulics," "Professor of Atmospheric Sciences," "Professor Emeritus--Physics," and "Paleoanthropologist," respectively. Other creationists on the program included John Whitcomb, Ethel Nelson, Don Shockey, and Roger Oakland. (No doubt there were many others.) None of these experts address the numerous scientific absurdities in the Ark story.[29]
A fourth and related point is that credentials of "experts" were frequently misrepresented. Just examining the above examples, the misrepresentations get progressively worse: John Morris is a professor of geology for the ICR's Graduate School, but his title on ICR stationery is "Administrative Vice President." Henry Morris has been a professor of hydraulics at respected universities, but he presently serves as the President of the ICR. Walter Brown's Ph.D. is in mechanical engineering, and he is presently the Director of the Center for Scientific Creation, which he operates out of his home in Phoenix, Arizona. Carl Baugh, advocate of the Paluxy River "mantracks" and the proprietor of the Creation Evidences Museum in Glen Rose, Texas, has claimed a remarkable assortment of degrees in theology and science, but his credentials have been found to be of dubious validity. He has claimed a Ph.D. in theology from the California Graduate School of Theology, an unaccredited school not even listed in most college directories, but he has subsequently admitted that despite completing the required work he never actually obtained a degree. He has claimed other theology degrees which have also failed to stand up under scrutiny. All of his science degrees are from unaccredited institutions run by himself or by a former associate, Clifford Wilson. His claimed degree in paleoanthropology is from Pacific College, a small religious school in Australia run by Wilson, where it is not accredited or authorized to grant science degrees.[30]
Perhaps the two worst misrepresentations of credentials (apart from Baugh) were the show's on-screen identifications of "Dr. Ethel Nelson, Chinese Pictograph Linguist" and "Dr. Don Shockey, Professor of Anthropology." The viewer was given the impression that both are academic researchers with Ph.D.s in the fields identified. In fact, Ethel Nelson is a medical doctor in Dunlap, Tennessee and Don Shockey is an optometrist. In the latter case, at least, Sun knew full well it was misrepresenting Shockey's credentials--in the closing credits of the program, "Don Shockey, O.D." is credited as a technical advisor.[31]
Fifth, the program made statements which the producers knew or should have known to be untrue or misleading, even apart from the credential misrepresentations. For example, footage at the end of the program showed a photograph allegedly taken from the air by former astronaut James Irwin during his last flight over Ararat. In fact, the photo shown was taken by Bob Garbe, an Ohio pharmacist, while standing on the mountain. The photo has been analyzed and the formation pictured is too small to be Noah's Ark. Bill Crouse has reported that he provided Sun with the Garbe photo and identified its source, and that it had also been published in a book by John Morris with the correct attribution to Garbe. This factual error was the only one on the program which John Morris found worthy of note for the ICR's Acts & Facts readership.[32]
The program devoted one lengthy segment to a reenactment of the alleged discovery of the Ark by a Russian expedition in 1916. This story apparently comes from an article which appeared in New Eden magazine in 1940. Floyd M. Gurley, the author, has admitted that the story was a hoax. Ark researcher David Fasold says that when he tried to show a copy of a letter from Gurley to Balsiger, Balsiger refused to look at it. Balsiger says that he doesn't remember such an event.[33]
One person on the show, Vence Will, identified as "World War II USAF," said that he saw photos of the Ark around 1944 published in the military newspaper Stars & Stripes. The newspaper and photos were not shown on the program, because despite extensive searches, no such photos have ever been discovered. Sun's Balsiger and Sellier report these negative results in their 1976 book.[34]
Other misleading omissions include the fact that "Ararat" refers in the Bible to a region, not to a specific mountain (see 2 Kings 19:37; Jeremiah 51:27). Some of the ancient writers appealed to by the program, such as Berosus, specifically claimed that the Ark was in the Cordyaean mountains, more than two hundred miles south of Mt. Ararat.[35]
Sixth, Sun has produced numerous shows filled with wild speculation and dubious factual content. Past Sun productions have included "Ghosts from the Dead," "The Lincoln Conspiracy" (also a book co-authored by Balsiger and Sellier), "Hangar 18," "The Bermuda Triangle," and "The Mysterious Monster" (about Bigfoot). Planned future productions included "Mysteries of the Ancient World" (still forthcoming on CBS in February), "Revelations," and "The UFO Phenomenon." The latter two projects were canceled by CBS as a result of the controversy over "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark."[36]
A seventh and final point bearing on whether Sun knew what it was doing is that its researcher, David Balsiger, has a past history of involvement with Christian hoaxes. During the early seventies, Balsiger wrote both books and newsletter articles for the Christian publisher Logos International. He ghost authored or co-authored a number of "autobiographical" books giving Christian testimonies, including Fernand Navarra's Noah's Ark: I Touched It, self-proclaimed former Satanist turned Christian comedian Mike Warnke's The Satan Seller, and faith healer Morris Cerullo's The Back Side of Satan. Warnke's story was exposed as a hoax in a lengthy article in the Christian magazine Cornerstone in 1992, though Balsiger continues to defend it. Cerullo, for whom both Balsiger and Warnke worked prior to the formation of Warnke's own ministry, has come under heavy fire from Christian critics for his incredible claims (e.g., that he was taken from an orphanage by angels and transported to heaven for a face-to-face meeting with God) and unorthodox theology. Logos International, which is no longer in business, also published a hoaxed biography of a former rabbi turned Christian and a book which initiated the "urban legend" about NASA computers discovering a "missing day " and proving the biblical account of Joshua making the sun stand still (Joshua 10:12-14).[37]
Conclusions In David Balsiger's most recent public statement about George Jammal's hoax, he writes that
There is something wrong with the ethics of the news media when they glorify the acts of humanist hoaxers who intentionally and successfully deceive 40 million TV viewers; and then blame the show producer and CBS for not discovering their elaborate hoax. This is not a case in which the producer or the network is guilty of deceiving viewers, but rather one more example of humanists who tout themselves as 'Ethical Humanists' being neither ethical nor honest when it comes to advancing their hidden agenda.[38]
Had circumstances been different, Balsiger would have had a point. If Jammal's hoax had really been "elaborate" and carefully constructed to resist anything less than the most scrupulous and detailed investigation; if it had not been filled with inconsistencies and intentional clues; if Balsiger had not been warned about Jammal being a hoaxer prior to the show's completion; if the show had not otherwise misrepresented and omitted facts; if Balsiger and Sun had a reputation for sober and accurate research, then his criticism would carry some weight.
There are, of course, serious moral questions which should be raised about the kind of hoax Jammal performed. Is the intent to discredit an entire worldview, or to reveal the inadequacies of particular organizations or individuals? If the latter, is the hoax the only way to bring public attention to these inadequacies, or are other methods available which would be about as effective? Are those being hoaxed given adequate chance to avoid falling into the trap?[39] Whatever Jammal's intent, his hoax has clearly demonstrated the inadequacy of the research of Sun International Pictures and brought it to public attention after letter writing campaigns and even books of criticism have failed to do so.[40] Sun had every chance to avoid being caught by the hoax, but disregarded the evidence and chose to produce a program filled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Now it must face the consequences.
The "WHOLE WORLD" to the people who wrote Genesis was a whole lot smaller than the Whole World - They hadn't an inkling about most of the other continants, AFter all, if you sailed too far to sea, you would fall off the edge...there was no North/Central/South America to them, nor Austrailia - as far as they were concerned. They probably had no idea there was a land that would become Englang...etc
In other words, their WHOLE WORLD could flood without it affecting the Whole World
hmm... I'm no geologist, but I've done plenty of rockhounding in my days and I've seen rocks and outcrops looking just like these in many, many places. And it's called shale. Sorry. But anybody who has ever gone hiking around bedded shales or mudstones will recognize these rocks in a flash. Oh well.
It looks like shale to me.
Do you believe in the 5,000 year old earth story too?
What about Jonah spending time inside a whale?
Or are you a literalist only part-time?
Look at it this way...if the faithful are wrong...and there is no life beyond this existance....big deal....we're still dead...
but consider for one second if YOU are wrong....
Where will that leave you?
I would expect people to die, rather than to bebop merrily along as if no worldwide flood took place, as did the pharoahs of Egypt in every timeframe to which the alleged Flood might be dated.
Perhaps you could expect to find a worldwide memory of such an event?
Yes. I would expect to find records of pharoahs dying, rather than carrying on with their reign as if no worldwide flood took place, as did the pharoahs of Egypt in every timeframe to which the alleged Flood might be dated.
Who was there to remember this flood that killed every human except the ones in Noah's ark?
What I want to know is, the ark landed on a mountain top, and all the world was flooded, and somehow the carnivores stopped eating meat and walked a few thousand miles home and propagated an entire race using just one male and female without inbreeding.
Somehow, the reptiles didn't freeze up on that cold mountain. Somehow they all swam home, all to N. and S. America, Australia, Asia, Africa. Somehow, the 3 toed sloth which can only live in a tree and eat a certain leaf (same goes for Koala) found their way home. Somehow they made it pretty quick, as there are no fossil records of any marsupials in the Mount Ararat/Iran area, or any pandas, sloth, anacondas, tapirs, orangutangs, chimpanzees, gorillas, Thompson's gazelles, warthogs, or any of the hundreds of thousands of species.
But, I'm just trying to apply logic to a fable, the sad thing is that some folk embrace fables as if they were they were the truth because they were written in a book after generations of hand me down stories.
Dim folk.
"Who was there to remember this flood that killed every human except the ones in Noah's ark?"
The decendants of Noah and his children.
Yet I fear the day will come when some Ann Coulter is going to condemn us as a bunch of godless atheists for not believing this story.
Proof? BTW, sea shells above 13K would be because of mountains being thrust up over many millions of years. As for a boat landing above 13,000 feet, how come none have been found in the 2000 plus years since the fable was published? You'd think that by now, someone would find it. Hell, even since we had satellite 3D mapping someone would find it. Instead, you have a well known fraud on Ararat, and a bunch of unsubstantiated sightings of a jutting rock.
Ann Coulter has a link to this story, she has Adam's apple!
I bought a grilled cheese sandwich with a picture of The Virgin Mary on it on ebay.
Ah'm a goin to heven, fur sure.
Does it not occur to you that it is a fable, and that much of the bible is fables, not to be taken literally>
So, tell me how all the animals of the world were on the ark? Or do you only want to be selective in you literal interpretation of the bible?
Keep believing fables, I only wish I was telling them to you and got you to tithe to me because you will believe anything without doing any thinking.
Take a DEEP breath.
May I respectfully suggest you do some reading before you froth-off?
from my post # 15: Does it not occur to people that the Bible was written by people who knew nothing of the existence of of other continents? That the 'all the world' flood covered their known part of the world...therefore, it was "all the world" to them?...
and further: my post# 25: The "WHOLE WORLD" to the people who wrote Genesis was a whole lot smaller than the Whole World -
They hadn't an inkling about most of the other continents, After all, if you sailed too far to sea, you would fall off the edge...there was no North/Central/South America to them, nor Australia - as far as they were concerned. They probably had no idea there was a land that would become England...etc In other words, their WHOLE WORLD could flood without it affecting the Whole World
and in your post #49 you wrote:
Do you believe in the 5,000 year old earth story too? What about Jonah spending time inside a whale? Or are you a literalist only part-time?
Take THREE deep breaths. It would seem you read my posts without comprehension...or you have such an abhorrence of the BIBLE that your anger overrides reasonable discussion. I have reread my posts and cannot see anything that should create such ire. I respond to your posts not to answer you nor try to convince you of anything - I value my time - but for the benefit of others who may have read your little fits and wonder what the heck I wrote.
You accuse me of believing anything without doing any thinking - pretty broad brush. I could write a book about all the reading and research and 'thinking' I have done over the past 5+ decades about the Ark. This forum, however, provides room only for snippits.
But one does wonder - even think - about why you are so frothy about something you don't even believe in...one wonders, but not enough to care.
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