"Overcome Evil with Good"

On Sept. 5, 1985, Ron signed a contract with an "old colleague" that he had been told was responsible for having him and his sons arrested in Saudi Arabia. It was a contract to write a book on Ron's ark research. This man, despite his treachery, was an excellent writer in Ron's opinion, and Ron's theory was to get him involved in the work and make him an ally. Ron never told him he knew who called the Saudis and made the accusation which cost him and the boys 3 months in Saudi prison. What good would it accomplish? All that was past. So now, this "old colleague", whom we will now refer to as "Mr. T" was, in a sense, a part of it all. Ron would soon learn that was not enough for Mr. T.

Oct. 1985

There wasn't much else Ron could do at the site until they could do a radar scan and the system is extremely costly- neither Ron nor Dave had any way to purchase it. Rental was thousands of dollars, and that was too much of a gamble after the August scenario. So Ron, (naively, some may consider) enlisted his nephew, Gary Rucker, to build a small version of a radar system with a sensitive "idiot" light that lighted when high levels of reflection (which indicated solid objects) were encountered. Gary is in electronics by vocation and, once he understood the principle, felt he would be able to construct a crude one. And he did. Handheld, it produced a frequency which it sent directionally; when it returned, it was recorded on a wire-type recorder.

On Oct. 23, less than 2 months later, Ron returned to Turkey with this "radar" scanner and Mr. T, who was supposed to take photographs for the book he had contracted with Ron to write. But when Mr. T arrived, Ron noticed he had a very large video camera which looked professional, along with his photography equipment. It was obvious he had more in mind than simply writing a book.

Ron took him to see the anchor stones in the "Village of Eight" and Mr. T was more intent on filming than he was photographing anything.. Back at the hotel, Ron overheard Mr. T telling someone on the phone that he had a deal with the BBC to do a documentary on the ark. It finally sunk into Ron's skull that this man felt no bounds to tell the truth about anything. Realizing he could no longer trust the man at all, Ron refused to show him the actual ark site, or anything else other than the things he had already seen. And Mr. T was livid.

But the trip wasn't a waste. Ron arranged to make a quick trip to the site without Mr. T, and he took the makeshift scanner. Ron scanned the site with it and the results were impressive in his estimation. At least this let him feel better about making further efforts to get the official SIR system to the site. He knew the results of the "makeshift scanner" would be ridiculed.

The entire scene with Mr. T was a fiasco- he raged and insisted that Ron show him everything, but Ron was adamant. At one point, as they were returning from the village, Mr. T became so enraged at Ron's refusal to show him things, that he got out of the taxi (in the light rain and cool temperatures) and began to walk. Ron had the taxi drive slowly, behind him, until he silently got back into the car, nearly frozen. Mr. T would get his revenge, or at least he would try. But it would be many years before Ron would know the full extent of it.

At Last- RADAR!

The next series of events is not the sort of thing we can fully explain and it's one of the reasons Ron receives so much criticism. He believes in prayer. He prayed about the radar and then went to talk to a Tennessee businessman Ron had once worked for many, many years earlier for a short while, and who was known to assist financially in projects he felt were worthy. Explaining about the radar and its importance in the project, this gentleman agreed to purchase a system, which his company would own, but which he said he would allow Ron to use.

It was initially shipped to Ron's home in Madison, Tennessee, and he immediately took it to the Customs office at the airport and completed the required forms, which he tucked into the radar case. It was too late to use it that year, but Ron wanted to be ready to go as soon as possible. He wrote his name on the card that came with it and placed it in the glassine window of the large, gray case which held the cables and one of the antennas. Then, the owner's office contacted Ron and said they wanted to use it on one of their building projects, so Ron drove it down to their offices.

Scratch that Radar

Now, back in August, during the time "20/20" was there, etc., the Turkish newspapers were full of "ark stories." One paper, which is exactly like our "rag mags" here, printed a totally fictitious story about a feud between Jim Irwin and Ron. Jim was sort of a hero in Turkey and was always in the news whenever he was there, and this made him a target for any kind of story that would attract readers. Since Ron headed the team which believed the ark was not on Mt. Ararat, he was chosen as the antagonist. On the front page were photos of Ron and Jim, with captions that each had said pretty terrible things about the other, in Turkish, of course.

Mr. T took this opportunity to again try to devastate Ron. Mr. T gave a copy of the newspaper to the businessman who bought the radar (he knew him) and provided a translation, convincing the owner that Ron was not to be trusted and was up to no good. The fact that Mr. T knew about the article suggested that he had, in fact, been the one who had given the stories to the Turkish press. He had been a press correspondent for many years and the story appeared soon after his ill-fated trip to the site. In Dec., Ron received a letter from the owner stating that he needed to find someone else to buy him the radar.

This was a tremendous blow to Ron, but he was getting used to it by now. It was as if there was an unseen struggle going on constantly; sometimes Ron's side victored, and sometimes the dark side gained a few points. He prayed about it and still was convinced that he would get to do a radar scan. He was so convinced that he returned to Ankara on May 6, 1986 and again applied for permits. If he didn't get to do the scan, at least he'd have the permit. Next...