For the Record...

by Mary Nell Wyatt

(First published in newsletter # 16 in Sept. 1996)

During the course of Ron's work on the various projects, numerous people have wanted to become involved. Some have felt Ron was unqualified to continue the work because of his lack of credentials and they pursued independent research without Ron.

While initially, some of these people declared a belief in the validity of certain discoveries, they today have changed their opinion. And we fully believe everyone has a right to their own opinion. However, sometimes all of the facts concerning some of the independent research isn't made available along with the "change of opinion", so we felt it was time to discuss some of these matters. Although we are supposed to meet opposition with the same meek Spirit as Christ displayed, we are obligated to state the simple facts so that people may have the means to make an intelligent decision as to what they believe.

The 1987 Radar Scans

Jointly Sponsored by

Ataturk University and

Staff of Los Alamos National Labs

One month after the official dedication of Noah's Ark, independent radar scans were performed on the site. We were given a copy of what we were told was the "official" report of those scans. However, to be sure it was authentic, I took a copy of it to Turkey on our June 1992 tour and when Salih Bayraktutan met Ron and I in Erzurum on our last afternoon there, I personally showed it to him and asked if it was authentic. (I felt he would certainly know since his name was listed as co-author of the report. Salih is a professor at Ataturk University in Erzurum and is a member of the commission that was established to study Noah's Ark.) He assured me it was the official report. It is titled:

JULY 1987 GEOPHYSICAL INVESTIGATION OF NOAH'S ARK

(DURUPINAR SITE) MAHER VILLAGE, DOUBAYAZIT, ARI

JOHN R. BAUMGARDNER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

M. SALH BAYRAKTUTAN

ATATÜRK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

NOVEMBER 1987

ERZURUM, TURKEY

This report explains in highly technical language the process and data of their radar scans, which were performed by "geologist/radar operator Thomas Fenner" (p 6). The scans were performed with an 

"SIR System-8 ground penetrating radar manufactured by Geophysical Survey Systems of Hudson, New Hampshire", whose "antenna was dragged across the site on transects spaced two meters apart. Radar pulses approximately 5 nanoseconds in width were transmitted at a repetition rate of 50 kHz" (p. 2) with "the radar operating at a frequency of 120 MHZ in order to achieve the maximum penetration" (p. 8).

In summarizing the data, the report states:

"The most noteworthy feature observable in the data of Figure 7 is the V-shaped reflector that is particularly evident in the transects between y=-6 m and y=-50 m. When the topographical variation of the surface is taken into account, one finds that this feature is almost planar in form. The large amplitude of the back-reflected radar signal suggests a large contrast in the dielectric properties of the two sides of a sharply defined interface. The material above the interface presumably is the clay soil observable at the ground surface and exposed to several meters depth in the scarp surrounding the site and in cracks and gullies in the adjacent mudflow environment.

The crucial issue is the type of material which lies below the interface. Is it bedrock that rises up through the mudflow to form something like a small island around which the flow moves? Or is the material something other than bedrock. At least two considerations suggest that it is not bedrock. The first is that in the transects between y=2 m and y=20 m and x>0 in the vicinity of the rock that outcrops at the surface, one does not observe consistently strong reflections of a similar character. The most likely candidate for the bedrock material is the calc-schist rock that forms the hills on either side of the mudflow channel and that comprises the outcrop near the middle of the site. Since the low amplitude radar returns near the outcrop imply a small dielectric contrast between the clay soil and calc-schist rock, the strong reflections of the prominent V-shaped feature are probably not caused by a transition from clay soil to a calc-schist bedrock.

A second consideration which argues that the material below the reflecting interface may not be bedrock is that in several scans, especially between y=-18 m and y=-38 m, there is a double reflection, suggestive of a layer, rather than a simple transition into a material many meters thick. To find such an extensive, almost planar, layer buried within a channel through which a huge volume of mudflow material has moved in a chaotic fashion is highly anomalous from the standpoint of known landslide and debris flow mechanics. If the layer pertains to a buoyant man-made structure, the layer's present setting suggests that the structure has been transported to the present location by a landslide event where it was stranded upon the rock which now outcrops near the middle of the site." (Pps. 8 & 10).

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