Satellite sleuth closes in on Noah’s Ark mystery

By Leonard David

Senior space writer

updated 5:17 p.m. ET March 9, 2006

High on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey, there is a baffling mountainside "anomaly," a feature that one researcher claims may be something of biblical proportions.

Images taken by aircraft, intelligence-gathering satellites and commercial remote-sensing spacecraft are fueling an intensive study of the intriguing oddity. But whether the anomaly is some geological quirk of nature, playful shadows, a human-made structure of some sort, or simply nothing at all — that remains to be seen.

Whatever it is, the anomaly of interest rests at an elevation of 15,300 feet (4,663 meters) on the northwest corner of Mount Ararat, and is nearly submerged in glacial ice. It would be easy to call it merely a strange rock formation.

But at least one man wonders if it could be the remains of Noah's Ark — a vessel said to have been built to save people and selected animals from the Great Flood, the 40 days and 40 nights of deluge as detailed in the Book of Genesis.

The Genesis blueprint of the Ark described the structure as having a 6-to-1 length-to-width ratio (300 cubits by 50 cubits). The anomaly, as viewed by satellite, is close to that 6-to-1 proportion.

Newfound optimism
Identifying the Ararat anomaly has been a 13-year-long quest of Porcher Taylor, an associate professor in paralegal studies at the University of Richmond's School of Continuing Studies in Virginia.

Taylor has been a national security analyst for more than 30 years, also serving as a senior associate for five years at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"I've got newfound optimism ... as far as my continuing push to have the intelligence community declassify some of the more definitive-type imagery," Taylor told Space.com / LiveScience. He points to a "new and significant development," a high-resolution image taken by DigitalGlobe's impressive QuickBird satellite and shown here publicly for the first time.

"I'm calling this my satellite archaeology project," Taylor said. It's an effort that has now included use of QuickBird, GeoEye's Ikonos spacecraft, Canada's Radarsat 1, as well as declassified aerial and satellite images taken by the various U.S. intelligence agencies.

Making the mountain transparent
Taylor said his goal is straightforward: combining this imagery to make the Ararat anomaly transparent to the public, as well as to the discerning, dispassionate eyes of scientists, imagery analysts and other experts.

"I had no preconceived notions or agendas when I began this in 1993 as to what I was looking for," Taylor said.

As for the saga of Noah's Ark, he is quick to note that there are those who say it is fable while others take it as truth.

Nevertheless, the anomaly may not be a ridge line of ice, snow and possibly rock, but an artificial ridge line, Taylor said. "I maintain that if it is the remains of something manmade and potentially nautical, then it's potentially something of biblical proportions."

While chiding the intelligence communities to release more of their closely guarded satellite imagery, Taylor said that soon-to-fly commercial remote sensing spacecraft are sure to help his archaeological undertaking.

"We've got three new birds that are going up. I'm using all my clout, rapport and lobbying to, hopefully, have them at least fly calibration runs over Mount Ararat," Taylor said. Those images would make the mountain even more transparent, he said.

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