A "Royal Prince" Comes to Nashville

Ron hadn't been home too long when he received a phone call from a man who identified himself as a friend of some of Ron's captors. Samran Al-Motairy was a close relation of the king and he had heard of Ron's claim that Mt. Sinai was in his region. There had been several of Ron's captors who had believed Ron's claim, and they had convinced Samran, who lived in Tabuk, just a couple of hours from the mountain. Samran told Ron over the phone that ever since he had heard about this mountain, he couldn't eat, sleep or concentrate on anything- he had to see it for himself. Samran even came to Nashville and spent several days with Ron to discuss the matter and convince Ron to return to Saudi-but legally this time.

Samran is an extremely wealthy man- why was he so interested in this mountain? He said he "wanted to do something for his God." After all, Mt. Sinai is a very important holy site for the Moslems as well as the Christians and Jews. The area of Jebel el Lawz is so vast that Samran knew he needed Ron to find the exact spot. And it was just 11 months after their release from prison that Ron would return again to Jebel el Lawz- legally, this time.

But in the mean time, other things were keeping Ron busy. Four months after he was released, in August of 1984, Ron was back at Noah's ark. This trip, he took several other "ark hunters" to the site as interest in the "boat-shaped object" was increasing. It was at this time that Ron first did the metal detector scans which showed the regular pattern of metal in the object. After seeing all the evidence, one "ark hunter", Marv Steffins became convinced. He took some specimens from the ark, called a press conference in Ankara and announced the "discovery of Noah's Ark". Mr. Steffins was then accused of attempting to take "valuable artifacts" from Turkey, and he and others quickly told the authorities that Ron had also taken samples.

In fact, Ron was already on his plane, headed to New York when all this took place. But he had received permission by phone from the Minister of Culture and Tourism to take his samples. When he arrived in New York, he found out he was being aced of "theft" of valuable artifacts, so he called the Turkish UN consulate and offered to turn over his specimens. Three men from the consulate came to his hotel room, examined his specimens, had a nice discussion with him, and told him he was free to keep them. They had checked with Ankara and discovered that he had received permission, so he was exonerated of all charges. What at first seemed like an unfortunate incident turned out to have resulted in causing the Turks to take a serious interest in the site. A reporter from the "UN Observer and International Report" even interviewed Ron about the site and featured it in a full page article in the January 1985 issue. Ron returned to Turkey on October 26, 1984 and finally, things seemed to be moving on that project.

Col. Jim Irwin had also gone to the "boat-shaped object" with Ron in August of 1984 and knew there was something there which needed scientific exploration. Jim Irwin, though not convinced that the "boat-shaped object" was the Ark, felt that it needed thorough scientific study before any conclusions were drawn, and that Mt. Ararat also needed to be thoroughly explored. After all, traditional thought was that the Ark had to be on Mt. Ararat. If no ship was found on the mountain, maybe this was the Ark. Their conclusion was that the true answer to the fate of the ship depended on both efforts- Jim's on Mt. Ararat and Ron's on the "boat-shaped object".

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