Not so long ago, the CIA announced that it was going to publish several photographs from which it will become clear that Noah's Ark is still in the mountains of Turkey. The pictures were taken from American spy planes and can serve as proof of what some historians and archaeologists have already believed for many decades: the semi-mystical ship hiding under the ice of Mount Ararat (height 5165 m) is the very ark that Noah built according to divine command.
During the Cold War, American pilots took many photographs of what was called the "Ararat anomaly." These photographs confirm the existence of a mysterious and gigantic object hiding under the glacier. But is it really about Noah's ark? This is a different question.
… In the 1950-1970s. the activity of the American secret services in the area was truly feverish. Reconnaissance aircraft of the U-2 and SR-71 class conducted many hundreds of air operations in order not to miss any suspicious movement of the Soviet troops. Mount Ararat, located on the border between Turkey and Armenia, was one of the "hot spots" included in the attention of the special services. Thousands of images of the legendary mountain were taken from American aircraft, but not only because of the strategic interest it represented.
In 1943, during World War II, an air service was established between the United States and the USSR to supply food. An air bridge was installed between the American base in Tunisia and the Soviet one in Yerevan. During one such operation, two American pilots flying in the vicinity of Mount Ararat noticed something resembling a large ship on one of the slopes. Intrigued by such an unusual sight, they flew closer the next time, and on this flight they were accompanied by one of the photographers from the base. But the photographs were developed only after many days. Some of these images were said to have been published in the European edition of Stripes and Stars magazine, a US Armed Forces bulletin. Unfortunately, the rest of the circulation of this magazine, as well as many other graphic evidence received by the pilots of the Allied forces,lost in the old archives of the Second World War.
In June 1949, the Pentagon conducted a covert operation in Turkey, a few kilometers from the border with Iran and the USSR. A US Air Force plane flew over Mount Ararat and photographed a strange object located on its slope. This huge object immediately attracted the attention of the pilots. But when they tried to approach him a second time, they found another object next to the first. This "neighboring anomaly," as military officials dubbed it, was clearly visible in the middle of the frozen glacier. With some probability it could be assumed that these are the fragments of the plane that crashed on Ararat, although the Turkish government denied that there had ever been an air disaster in this area.
The photographs of interest to everyone were unzipped in 1982, but a few years later, or rather in October 1995, Tom Dougherty, a CIA spokesman, said that “since 1949, a series of photographs associated with the anomaly on Mount Ararat.
In 1973, Porcher Taylor, the third professor at the University of Richmond, first heard that the object in these photographs was Noah's Ark. Although Taylor realized that the likelihood that the ark survived intact after 4,500 years was negligible, he spent four years getting the photos from the archives. In the end, the DIA (US Department of Defense Intelligence Agency) gave Taylor two aerial photographs in 1949. Indeed, in these black and white photographs, one could see some strange structure, clearly different from the mountain itself, on the slope of Ararat.
In the spring of 1960, several crews of the 428th Squadron of the US Air Force Tactical Forces based in Adana, Turkey, also saw a large ship-like formation on one of the slopes of Mount Ararat. Numerous witness testimonies confirm that the U-2 pilots photographed this mysterious vessel. It is likely that these photographs were also included in the graphic archives that the CIA collected during the Cold War and which are beginning to be opened today.
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But the pilots had seen the ark before. One such incident occurred, apparently, in the winter of 1916, during the melting of ice. Two aviators of imperial Russia - navigator Roskovitsky and his co-pilot, flying over Turkish positions along the border with Armenia, approached Mount Ararat from the northwest and on the way noticed one almost entirely frozen lake on the mountainside. As the plane approached the lake, Roskovitsky noticed what looked like the hull of a large ship, half submerged in the lake. On the second run over the lake, the Russian aviator was able to see the mysterious find in more detail. It was a huge, banked ship frozen into the ice. On its deck were visible two short masts and a walkway that ran horizontally along its entire length. The message about the find got to St. Petersburg, and the tsar himself ordered to send two teams of engineers to Ararat,so that they find out the nature of the find. Approximately two months later, the expedition reached its destination and began work. It turned out that this is indeed a ship of enormous size, with hundreds of cabins and various halls, and with unusually high ceilings. The military took pictures and measured the ship and made a report that was sent to the king. But communication between Armenia and St. Petersburg at that time was interrupted, and Nicholas II never received this report …But communication between Armenia and St. Petersburg at that time was interrupted, and Nicholas II never received this report …But communication between Armenia and St. Petersburg at that time was interrupted, and Nicholas II never received this report …
The Flood has been described in myths from a wide variety of cultures. From Greece to India, Cuba, Brazil, Oceania - in almost all ancient civilizations, in one form or another, there are legends about a great catastrophe. They tell about Noah, Noah, Nu Ua and a similar hero who managed to escape with his descendants.
From classical Greece, for example, the legend of King Deucalion, who survived the flood thanks to his ship, has come down to us. There is a similar plot in Chinese mythology: The pre-Confucian tradition tells of Nu Wa, a character who experienced similar trials. But we find the most interesting details about the flood in the cultures of the original peoples of the Middle East. At the end of the XIX century. cuneiform tablets were deciphered, telling about Gilgamesh, a hero known in the Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian traditions. Thousands of cuneiform tablets have been found in the ruins of Nineveh in Mesopotamia. George Smith, a young but very talented English philologist, tried to decipher the contents of these tablets, and at some stage he was surprised to realize that he had encountered a very familiar plot. Without a doubt, what he came acrosswas a repetition of the biblical Flood myth, although the author of this version was an Assyrian. The names did not match the Judeo-Christian tradition, but the content was exactly the same. Smith was unable to complete the translation, as part of the text was damaged, but by a happy coincidence later, during a new expedition to Mesopotamia, the missing fragments were found. What the British philologist discovered was nothing more than a copy of what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in all the details that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals.although the author of this version was an Assyrian. The names did not match the Judeo-Christian tradition, but the content was exactly the same. Smith was unable to complete the translation, as part of the text was damaged, but by a happy coincidence later, during a new expedition to Mesopotamia, the missing fragments were found. What the British philologist discovered was nothing more than a copy of what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in all the details that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals.although the author of this version was an Assyrian. The names did not match the Judeo-Christian tradition, but the content was exactly the same. Smith was unable to complete the translation, as part of the text was damaged, but by a happy coincidence later, during a new expedition to Mesopotamia, the missing fragments were found. What the British philologist discovered was nothing more than a copy of what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in every detail that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals. The names did not match the Judeo-Christian tradition, but the content was exactly the same. Smith was unable to complete the translation, as part of the text was damaged, but by a happy coincidence later, during a new expedition to Mesopotamia, the missing fragments were found. What the British philologist discovered was nothing more than a copy of what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in all the details that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals. The names did not match the Judeo-Christian tradition, but the content was exactly the same. Smith was unable to complete the translation, as part of the text was damaged, but by a happy coincidence later, during a new expedition to Mesopotamia, the missing fragments were found. What the British philologist discovered was nothing more than a copy of what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in all the details that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals.since part of the text was damaged, but by a happy coincidence later, during a new expedition to Mesopotamia, the missing fragments were found. What the British philologist discovered was nothing more than a copy of what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in all the details that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals.since part of the text was damaged, but by a happy coincidence later, during a new expedition to Mesopotamia, the missing fragments were found. What the British philologist discovered was nothing more than a copy of what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in all the details that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals.what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in all the details that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals.what is now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. That was the name of the hero who, according to the story, set off on a journey to the next world in search of the secret of eternal life. There he met Utnapishtim, the "Sumerian Noah", who told him in all the details that before the great catastrophe he had built a huge ship, on which he had escaped with his family, relatives and various animals.
Are the Judaic-Christian and Muslim versions not simply translations of the Babylonian myth? Perhaps, although with equal success, such "translations" could be a reflection of the same event, which, due to its great importance, got into the chronicles of different cultures. But it is known that the size of Utnapishtim's ship surprisingly coincides with the size of Noah's ark, and, in addition, both ended their voyage on Mount Ararat.
There is a lot of evidence that connects Mount Ararat with the place of the last resting place of Noah's Ark. Berossus, a Chaldean historian who lived there around 280 AD e., speaks of "a ship that docked in Armenia." He also said that the inhabitants of this area tore pieces of a large ship for amulets. Josephus Flavius, Jewish historian of the 1st century n. e., assures in one of his writings that "some of the remains of the ship can still be found in Armenia."
In the same 1st century. the historian Nikolai Damaskin mentioned Mount Ararat, however, under the name Baris: “In Armenia there is one large mountain called Baris, on the top of which the Ark has been sitting aground since the flood”.
Before visiting this mountain in 1316, the Franciscan monk Odoric wrote: "The locals told us that no one can climb this mountain because it is not pleasing to the Highest." Forty years later, Sir John Mandeville observed the mountain and, trying to calculate its height, reported: “Noah's ship still rests on its top, and in clear weather people can see it from a great distance. She herself must be a good seven miles high."
Marco Polo also did not escape the magnetism of the sacred mountain. He writes: “You know that this country, Armenia, is the very place where Noah's ark is located, on the top of some huge mountain. Its peaks are constantly covered with snow, which is why no one can climb it."
At the beginning of the XVII century. German traveler and writer Adam Olschlager mentioned Mount Ararat in his work "Travels and Wanderings of Ambassadors": "Armenians and Persians believe that the remains of the ark are still found on this mountain, so solidified over the past time that it seems to be stone."
But the first "official expedition" to the top of Ararat, about which we know, was carried out in October 1929. It was led by the German Friedrich Parrot, professor of natural philosophy at the University of Derpt (now Tartu, Estonia). In the days preceding the ascent, Friedrich Parrot visited the monastery of Ahora in a small village located on one of the slopes of the mountain. The abbot of the monastery showed Parrot an icon, written on a board, the tree for which was taken from the Ark.
In 1840, under the pretext of investigating the consequences of an earthquake that destroyed both the village of Ahora and the monastery itself, the Turkish authorities organized a whole expedition. Kurdish workers hired to clear rubble and debris found strange pieces of wood that appeared to belong to a large ship. Were they not the remains of the ark?
Nevertheless, long before these expeditions, more or less documented, there were numerous rumors about climbing the peaks of Ararat, about how many saints, in their search for a relic, found the ark. They also tell how some shepherds, trying to remove the cattle that had strayed from the herd, found the remains of a huge ship from the mountains. Knowing the local tradition, the shepherds immediately fled in fear, fearing a "divine curse" for blasphemous penetration into the forbidden area. Once upon a time, residents generally avoided the uppermost regions in the mountains, believing that the peaks are places of illness and death. But, no doubt, some of the ailments that befell people and livestock were attributed to "mountain sickness" and not God's wrath.
Fernand Navarre, a French entrepreneur of Spanish descent, has been fascinated by the story of Noah's ark since childhood. He served in the military near Damascus in Syria. There, just before the outbreak of World War II, he met Alim, a young Armenian, who told that his grandfather had repeatedly said: the ark rests among the eternal ice of Ararat. After the end of the war, Navarre managed to fulfill his dream. He organized several expeditions to Ararat, but all of them were not successful. Finally, in 1955, the circumstances were favorable. It was a geodetic year, which meant the maximum melting of glaciers. Fernand Navarra began his ascent to Mount Ararat with his eleven-year-old son Rafael. After a difficult climb, accompanied by many troubles, Navarre climbed into the cave to wait out the unexpected storm. When the storm died down, he suddenly discovered that between the icy slope and the rocks there was some kind of formation, clearly made of wood. Descending a few meters, he became convinced that this object is the creation of human hands. And moreover, he realized that the piece that he got was part of something larger, frozen firmly into the ice. Navarra with great difficulty broke off a small piece, a little over a meter in length, and returned to his son Raphael, who was impatiently waiting for him a few meters below. Before returning to France with his "treasure", Navarre visited Egypt and showed his find in the Cairo Museum. They confirmed that the age of the piece of wood is 5 thousand years.that this object is the creation of human hands. And moreover, he realized that the piece that he got was part of something larger, frozen firmly into the ice. Navarra with great difficulty broke off a small piece, a little over a meter in length, and returned to his son Raphael, who was impatiently waiting for him a few meters below. Before returning to France with his "treasure", Navarre visited Egypt and showed his find in the Cairo Museum. They confirmed that the age of the piece of wood is 5 thousand years.that this object is the creation of human hands. And moreover, he realized that the piece that he got was part of something larger, frozen firmly into the ice. Navarra with great difficulty broke off a small piece, a little over a meter in length, and returned to his son Raphael, who was impatiently waiting for him a few meters below. Before returning to France with his "treasure", Navarre visited Egypt and showed his find in the Cairo Museum. They confirmed that the age of the piece of wood is 5 thousand years. Navarra visited Egypt and showed his find in the Cairo Museum. They confirmed that the age of the piece of wood is 5 thousand years. Navarra visited Egypt and showed his find in the Cairo Museum. They confirmed that the age of the piece of wood is 5 thousand years.
Although subsequent analyzes were unable to determine the age of the remains found by Navarra with such precision, many experts believe that the piece of wood brought by a French explorer from Ararat is indeed part of Noah's ark.
The discovery of the French enthusiast was the impetus for organizing other expeditions to Ararat. However, the basic data that may help to solve this mystery came from the sky. This is not only the testimony of the American U-2 pilots, which we described above, but also photographs from satellites. In mid-1973, Thomas B. Turner, head of the McDonell-Douglas Astronomy Company, contacted Dr. John Montgomery for a consultation on a photograph taken from the CIA satellite ERTS from an altitude of 720 km. The picture showed the mysterious anomaly of Ararat. It was something rectangular in shape and obviously not related to the mountain itself.
The location of this rectangular shape was all the more significant because it coincided with the coordinates of the square, which was shown by many observations from the ground.
The problem of aerial photographs of the "Ararat anomaly" is basically a technological one. If it is possible to roughly determine the size of an object, then finding out its nature is much more difficult.
On February 25, 1995, Miami Gerald announced a special meeting in which Al Gore, US Vice President, also attended. Some photographs taken from the CIA satellite were presented at this meeting. A few months later, photographer and journalist David Barak analyzed these photographs using a scanner. On one of them, he found "something like a submarine" under the ice cap. Was Noah's Ark actually photographed from a satellite, or is it a bizarre rock? This time, one can hope that the photographs that have fallen into the possession of the CIA will be able to reveal this secret.
“Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make compartments in the ark, and coat it with pitch inside and out … And make it this way: the length of the ark is three hundred cubits; its breadth is fifty cubits, and its height is thirty cubits. " In Genesis (chapters 6-9) we find a real shipbuilding manual, the oldest in human history. With this textbook, Noah accomplished a project that many of today's critics consider impossible for his era. But does it not seem to us impossible to build the Egyptian pyramids, the Rhodes colossus and other wonders of the world? Suppose Noah had a special talent for a task of this complexity. So he had enough people at his disposal and had the appropriate technology. Impossible? Experts who estimate the dimensions of the ark (135 m long, 22.5 m wide and 13.5 m high) have concluded thatthat they are very perfect from the point of view of hydrodynamics. The length of the vessel is related to its width in a ratio of six to one, which corresponds to the parameters of an albeit slow, but very stable vessel, able to withstand the harsh climate that it was clearly exposed to along the way - according to ancient tradition. These same shipbuilding experts claim that the ark's internal center of gravity and its rectangular shape made it virtually unsinkable. There is even one funny project that you can read about on the Internet, called "Project Noah's Ark": American researchers have created a computer model of this ship. The shipbuilders who took part in this project came to the conclusion that Noah's Ark really had excellent seaworthiness. The length of the vessel is related to its width in a ratio of six to one, which corresponds to the parameters of an albeit slow, but very stable vessel, able to withstand the harsh climate that it was clearly exposed to along the way - according to ancient tradition. These same shipbuilding experts claim that the ark's internal center of gravity and its rectangular shape made it virtually unsinkable. There is even one funny project that you can read about on the Internet, called "Project Noah's Ark": American researchers have created a computer model of this ship. The shipbuilders who took part in this project came to the conclusion that Noah's Ark really had excellent seaworthiness. The length of the vessel is related to its width in a ratio of six to one, which corresponds to the parameters of an albeit slow, but very stable vessel, able to withstand the harsh climate that it was clearly exposed to along the way - according to ancient tradition. These same shipbuilding experts claim that the ark's internal center of gravity and its rectangular shape made it virtually unsinkable. There is even one funny project that you can read about on the Internet, called "Project Noah's Ark": American researchers have created a computer model of this ship. The shipbuilders who took part in this project came to the conclusion that Noah's Ark really had excellent seaworthiness.but a very stable vessel, capable of withstanding the harsh climate that it was clearly exposed to along the way - according to ancient tradition. These same shipbuilding experts claim that the ark's internal center of gravity and its rectangular shape made it virtually unsinkable. There is even one funny project that you can read about on the Internet, called "Project Noah's Ark": American researchers have created a computer model of this ship. The shipbuilders who took part in this project came to the conclusion that Noah's Ark really had excellent seaworthiness.but a very stable vessel, capable of withstanding the harsh climate that it was clearly exposed to along the way - according to ancient tradition. These same shipbuilding experts claim that the ark's internal center of gravity and its rectangular shape made it virtually unsinkable. There is even one funny project that you can read about on the Internet, called "Project Noah's Ark": American researchers have created a computer model of this ship. The shipbuilders who took part in this project came to the conclusion that Noah's Ark really had excellent seaworthiness.that the inner center of gravity of the ark and its rectangular shape rendered it practically unsinkable. There is even one funny project that you can read about on the Internet, called "Project Noah's Ark": American researchers have created a computer model of this ship. The shipbuilders who took part in this project came to the conclusion that Noah's Ark really had excellent seaworthiness.that the inner center of gravity of the ark and its rectangular shape rendered it practically unsinkable. There is even one funny project that you can read about on the Internet, called "Project Noah's Ark": American researchers have created a computer model of this ship. The shipbuilders who took part in this project came to the conclusion that Noah's Ark really had excellent seaworthiness.
How did the ship run aground at an altitude of three kilometers? To answer this question, we must turn to the "flood theory." She claims that huge masses of water have covered truly gigantic land areas. In 1929, the British archaeologist Leonard Woolley made a sensational discovery. During excavations of the ancient city of Ur in Mesopotamia, it occurred to him to dig a hole through all the layers of the city to determine exactly when the Sumerian civilization began to develop on this place. After going through many layers of debris, archaeologists stumbled upon a layer of silt. In spite of everything, Woolley decided that he had to go through him too. After about another four meters, new objects were excavated, which testified to the existence of a civilization of a different level, which preceded the formation of a layer of silt. What does this mean? None of the archaeologists had any doubts:the swampy layer is the result of the immense flooding of the local soil. It was found that the water stood 8 m above the ground. No matter how funny it is, we find exactly the same figure in tradition - when recalculated in cubits: “And the water on the earth increased enormously, so that all the high mountains that are under the whole sky were covered; the water rose fifteen cubits above them, and all the high mountains were covered”(Genesis, 6. 19-20). In the Ararat region, we meet sea shells at an altitude of more than 3 km. If the waters rose up to here, then we may well trust the "theory of the flood" and understand how, in fact, Noah managed to land on his ark to the top of Ararat.“And the water on the earth was strengthened exceedingly, so that all the high mountains that are under all the heavens were covered; the water rose fifteen cubits above them, and all the high mountains were covered”(Genesis, 6. 19-20). In the Ararat region, we meet sea shells at an altitude of more than 3 km. If the waters rose up to here, then we may well trust the "theory of the flood" and understand how, in fact, Noah managed to land on his ark to the top of Ararat.“And the water on the earth became exceedingly strong, so that all the high mountains that are under the whole sky were covered; the water rose fifteen cubits above them, and all the high mountains were covered”(Genesis, 6. 19-20). In the Ararat region, we meet sea shells at an altitude of more than 3 km. If the waters rose up to here, then we may well trust the "theory of the flood" and understand how, in fact, Noah managed to land on his ark to the top of Ararat.
While most scholars reject the biblical story of the Great Flood and Noah simply because the animals mentioned could not fit in the ark, some biblical fundamentalists and archaeologists argue that calculations based on the numbers in the Bible show that this. The fundamentalist American journal Pure Truth says that “criticism of the Bible usually flourishes on soil richly fertilized with misconceptions. According to traditional views and popular literature, the ark was slightly larger than an ordinary fishing boat, unable to withstand the slightest squall."
Of course, they are correct in stating that the ark described in the Bible was by any standard a large ship. It is believed to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. Even with the minimum value of the cubit, this gives a displacement of 43,000 tons. With a larger cubit, the latter figure can be 66,000 tons. And the ark from the Babylonian myth was even larger - it had seven storey decks, in contrast to the one built by Noah, and a displacement of 228,000 t. Even assuming that the achievements of the ancients in shipbuilding were greater than is generally believed, it seems incredible that a ship of this size could have been made in prehistoric times.
Bypassing the question of how Noah could have built it, American fundamentalists argue that Noah took on board two pairs of each "kind" (breed) of "unclean" animals and seven pairs of "clean" animals: all the creatures in which there was " spirit of life ". Seventy percent of the animal world of the land is arthropods, and if you take 40 cubic centimeters of all of their currently known varieties for each pair, you will need a room with a volume of 18,900 cubic meters. The size of the rhesus monkey, which can easily be kept in a cage of 4.5 cubic meters, is taken as the average size of the rest of the land dwellers - mammals, birds and reptiles, of which there are about 18,000 species. Considering the fact that "clean" animals (of which there are not many) were loaded in seven pairs, on the ark, in addition to insects,there should have been approximately 40,000 species of fauna requiring approximately 180,000 m3 more for their accommodation. Thus, if we take the numbers given in the Bible on faith, then the total space required for the transport of all the "creatures" should have had a volume of 198,900 m3, that is, only 45 percent of the volume of the entire ark when calculations are based on the minimum the cubit and only slightly more than 20 percent, if they are based on a large value of this measure of length. The fundamentalists' comment on this score could be as follows: “… the last question. Why did Noah need so much space? "That is, only 45 percent of the volume of the entire ark in calculations based on the minimum value of the cubit and only slightly more than 20 percent, if they are based on a large value of this measure of length. The fundamentalists' comment on this score could be as follows: “… the last question. Why did Noah need so much space? "That is, only 45 percent of the volume of the entire ark in calculations based on the minimum value of the cubit and only slightly more than 20 percent, if they are based on a large value of this measure of length. The fundamentalists' comment on this score could be as follows: “… the last question. Why did Noah need so much space?"
Nikolai Nepomniachtchi