Well, your work and Noah’s Ark scans as a whole has been making headlines really across the world as people are really pondering and wondering if you have potentially found the site of Noah’s Ark.
There’s obviously a lot of debate around this.
You’ve had detractors.
You’ve had a lot of people very curious in the middle, not really sure what to think, and you’ve had a lot of supporters, but there was a big development just this week that you announced revolving surrounding wood that reportedly was uncovered at the site.
Can you tell us what’s going on?
Yeah.
So, the wood though was found earlier this summer.
The professor kept it quiet just to make sure the site was secure and people wouldn’t dig up more, you know, so he made that decision.
Uh, but we decided to announce it now because we’re about to send we actually have um some of it’s already been sent off to the lab, but another lab in the US is about to test it.
And so the professor said, “Yeah, go ahead and tell the tell everyone we found wood.”
And so there is uh charred blackenwood and also uncharred wood that has been found inside the site.
And we’re so we’re looking when you’re looking at the site, it’s about um 8 to 9 m down and at least a meter or so in uh and we’re looking at the west side.
And so this is the location that in up to 1968 and 1978 this this west side of the boat was covered with dirt and because of the earthquake that the dirt fell away.
So that uh became exposed back in uh 68 and 78.
Uh but before that that was uh the the location where he found it was underground and so it’s only so and just to just to clarify I wanted to clarify this with you.
The wood was uncovered deep down around the location in the site where you believe this structure to be.
Right?
Because that’s what the the debate has been.
Is this Noah’s ark?
Is it is it some ge natural geological sort of development?
That’s what the debate is.
But you’re saying that this wood that was uncovered earlier, found earlier this summer, dug up, that it came from down in that area.
Yeah.
Inside the site, not on the surface, not outside the site.
It was found inside the site.
Wow.
So, so was it hard to sit on that information and not because I mean you’ve been you’ve been doing a lot of interviews.
We’ve done a number of interviews and this idea of wood has sort of been the question that people have had.
Are they going to find wood?
Is there you know is the wood remaining?
Is that what the structure is?
What was that like to have to sit on that information all these months?
Well, a couple things.
First, even the professor didn’t tell all of us right away.
He wanted to make sure that, you know, he he explained the reason.
It would make sense.
He says look, he’s been on digs where you’re because we’re always with locals helping.
Uh he he he can’t trust everyone and if someone sees that you’re interested in a site and this even happened to people in the past just like Ron White as a tourist explorer walking around if he shows an interest in something the next season it’s gone or broken up.
And so the same thing he was concerned about.
He said he’s been on excavations where local workers will come and and steal stuff, you know, like overnight or over the weekend when you’re not there.
And so he was concerned, especially how fragile and important type of evidence this is.
Now, as our soon-to-be press release and some of the social media statements out, we’re very careful.
We’re not saying yet that this is dating to the time of Noah’s arc.
What we’re saying is we found wood in the Drupar boat formation.
And so, was it just a shepherd’s uh fire?
If this was Noah’s arc, did someone like go in there at night and have a campfire?
Did lightning strike the ark?
Did someone try to set the ark on fire?
You know, if it if this is from the ark, you know, we’re going to test the wood for carbon 14.
We’re going to see if we can determine the type of species it is.
If it’s from that area, uh we’re going to see, as the professor told me just tonight, he said, we’re going to test to see if there’s uh tree sap or pitch or bitamin, you know, whatever we think uh coated the art.
Maybe that’s why it’s black.
Maybe that’s maybe it’s not burnt.
Maybe it’s because of the aging of this uh coating.
Uh, you know, there’s many things that we’re going to be bringing out there and more uh uh announcements over the winter.
It is just one of the uh the many that he told me that we’ll have news to announce as we continue this investigation of the site.
Yeah.
And so, you’re being very careful.
You’re not saying these are pieces or parts of of the ark.
You’re saying that there was wood found in that location.
Um, have you seen photos of this wood or have you seen the wood yourself?
So, it’s it’s the biggest piece I’ve saw.
Um, it’s about that big and it’s charred.
Uh, it is black and you can see the it’s not like rock.
So, it is charred wood.
You can tell it’s like burnt.
Yeah.
Um, well, that is that is really interesting.
So, so the next steps get this dated.
When do you anticipate to have results from that?
Well, the US lab said they could do something in a couple weeks for the dating.
Uh, that’s like a fast track.
We also have the Turkish lab already started and they’re claiming two to three months.
Uh so you know I don’t know what the capabilities are of each of these labs.
So we have uh three different labs we’ll be testing and one will be in Switzerland in January.
Uh right now the Turkish lab has already started and there I think there’s one in France too but then we’ll have the US lab starting soon.
Uh so over this winter and there’s more than just carbon 14 tests.
We’re yeah looking at other things too.
Well, you know, before I let you go here, because we’re doing a quick update, it’s very late there while we’re having this conversation.
What do you what are you thinking?
I mean, you’re you’re looking at this, you want to be cautious.
I’m sure you were anxious and excited when you heard that this had happened.
You know, what do you what do you think if if you could predict, and I know this is dangerous to do, what do you think happens next?
Do you think that you are on to something?
Do you believe you have found the location of Noah’s Ark?
Yeah, deep inside I do.
But as part of the university project, we’re doing this uh one step at a time and they’re being very careful.
You know, the people have been excited about the site on and off for many years, decades.
Uh you know, we’re trying to go beyond just excitement and actually dig into this site literally and figuratively and get real scientific data.
That takes time.
So, you know, we’re very excited that we started this process, but this is just the first season and we’re not even finished with the first season.
And we still have this lab work to do with the soil.
You know, we got almost 400 soil samples to still test.
Now we have this wood to test and we have more announcements coming up.
So there, you know, it’s going to be quite a process and multi-year we hope to continue next season.
Well, I appreciate you taking the time.
We’ll continue to update with you.
This is a big development and we appreciate you joining us today.
Take your habit.
