But Where Is It?

On Aug. 9, 1977, they arrived in Istanbul. Things were a lot different then than they are today- they had to take a bus to Ankara, and then a train to Erzurum. This consumed 3 valuable days and they were still not in Dogubeyazit, the little town near the site. In Erzurum, they took a taxi to Dogubeyazit, directing their driver to take them to a hotel there. But Eastern Turkey is no thriving tourist area. It is remote and dangerous. Very few people speak English. How would they ever find the boat-shaped object when they got there? Many people may find Ron's method of getting information strange, but again he did the only thing he knew to do- he prayed about it. He told the boys to say a prayer that the taxi would stall at the place where they were to begin looking. After all, their taxi driver spoke no English, they didn't know if anyone in the town would speak English- and even if they did, would anyone know where this boat-shaped object was? It had been 17 years since the expedition had come there- perhaps the townspeople had forgotten all about it.

The Stalled Taxi

So, they all prayed- not some great elaborate prayer, but just short, silent prayers for help. To Ron's way of thinking, if Noah's Ark was real, then the rest of the Bible was surely just as reliable, including everything said about prayer. And as they approached the town, the taxi stalled.

Full of excitement at seeing their prayers answered, they all three climbed out of the taxi and piled a great number of rocks on the side of the road while the bewildered driver peered under his hood. When they all got back in the taxi, it started up and they continued on down the road. Soon, it stalled again. With a little bit less enthusiasm, they again piled up rocks on the roadside. Again, the taxi started up when they all got back in. Finally, it stalled again, and thinking that perhaps they had just gotten a defective taxi, they each placed one rock in a pile on the side of the road. This done, they headed to the hotel.

It was late when they arrived and as soon as they checked into the Erzurum Hotel in Dogubeyazit, they all fell asleep, completely exhausted from their long journey. The next morning, they got another taxi and headed back to the third and closest pile of rocks, where they began walking in a perpendicular line from the road.

DAY 1- The Anchor Stones

They soon came to a small village where several very intimidating men approached them, one with a shotgun. Communicating in "sign language", Ron convinced the men that they were just tourists, and the villagers appointed themselves their tour guides. Walking over miles and miles of rugged terrain, one of the men motioned for Ron to take his photo by a very large standing rock. Only when he looked through the viewfinder did Ron realize that this "rock" was identical to the anchor stones found in the Mediterranean Sea that he had seen in archaeological books. That is except for one thing- this "rock" was many, many times larger! When he examined it more closely, he saw that it had 8 crosses carved on it. When the villagers saw Ron's interest in this, they showed him several more in the area- all exactly like other ancient anchor stones except many, many, times larger- and all with crosses carved on them (all but one had 8 crosses.)

They were all terribly excited by what they had seen, but the boat-shaped object was no where in sight. As they continued to walk, they showed Ron and the boys a very ancient grave-yard which had strange "monuments" in it which looked like simple representations of a 3 story boat. Were these things connected to Noah's Ark? Ron believed they were. So, he photographed and filmed everything with his 8mm movie camera (no video cameras back then!) and they decided to head back to the hotel for the night. Next...