From Ark-eology to UFOlogy, from Ararat to Arizona - Column

The world of Ark-eology - the determined search among certain creationists for the supposedly still-frozen remains of Noah's Ark on the slopes of Mt. Ararat in Turkey - is once again abuzz with excitement. (Every few years, excitement over the presumed imminent discovery of Noah's Ark reaches a fever pitch: see this column, Spring 1993).

According to a story published last November 18 in the Washington Times, "Former intelligence officials say soon-to-be-released U.S. spy photographs of the odd formation high on Turkeys Mount Ararat could reveal something far more explosive: the remnants of Noah's Ark. According to the story by Bill Gerz, 'High-level U.S. government interest in the search for Noah's Ark led to a study by the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) of the Ararat Anomaly back in the 1970s, and the Defense Intelligence Agency conducted a second, more recent analysis.'"

Dino Brugioni is a retired CIA photographic specialist who says he was directed two decades ago to study certain high-resolution photographs snapped by a U-2 spy plane at the end of a 3,000-mile reconnaissance flight from what was then the Soviet Union to Turkey. "We measured things, but none of them fell within the dimensions given in the Bible," he said. "If you didn't have the biblical dimensions in cubits, you could pick up those pictures and say they look like a ship. But when you measure it, it doesn't come out right. . . . At no time did we say we saw an ark."

Other Ark-eologists, flushed with the exciting idea that their Fundamentalist teachings about a global flood are about to be confirmed, are making even bolder claims. Robert G. Corbin Jr.'s website (www.noahsarksearch.com/anomaly.html) contains many photos of the supposed "Ararat anomaly," which to the untrained eye looks very much like an outcropping of rock. Porcher Taylor III goes even further to talk about an "adjacent anomaly" that is suggested to be possibly the "remains of the keel of a ship." He continues, "A naval architect who reviewed this frame tells me, off-the-record, that the 'structure' reminds him of the skeletal remains of the keel [bottom spine] of a ship." What struck him was that the design appeared to be "relatively modern." If proved to be true, "this would shatter the prevailing Biblical archaeological view that Noah's Ark was an unsophisticated, rectangular barge."

Gerz's article promises that "over the next few months, the CIA will begin releasing more detailed high-resolution spy pictures of the distinctive formation near the summit." The world waits for the exciting news.

The much-hyped Arizona UFOs of last year have now entered the arena of politics. The Associated Press reported on January 18 that Frances Emma Barwood, a former Phoenix city councilwoman and vice-mayor, is running for Arizona secretary of state on a platform that includes, among other things, the demand for an explanation of any UFOs seen over Arizona. To show she means business, when she kicked off her campaign she was surrounded by UFO researchers and lobbyists. But not everyone is impressed. Attorney General Grant Woods, discussing her candidacy on the radio, played the theme from Woody Woodpecker, and a political cartoon suggests that Outer Space might be found between her ears. We'll see how well the issue plays with the voters.

Unfortunately for some UFOlogists, even Thomas R. Taylor, state director of MUFON for Arizona, agrees that the video we've seen many times of bright lights in a row was in fact a flare drop occurring at 9:57 P.M. on March 13 from eight A-1O aircraft of the 175th Maryland Air National Guard on a training mission over the Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range (see http://www.idowebpages.com/mu.article.html). The planes were dropping high-intensity flares from 15,000 feet, which fall slowly by parachute, illuminating the target area. (Barwood disagrees, saying that the explanation is just too convenient.)

MUFON folks wish that people would stop paying so much attention to that non-UFO, widely seen at approximately 10 P.M. local time, and pay more attention to the real UFOs that were flying in V-formation at about 8:30 P.M. However, several amateur astronomers and pilots did see these, and quite unambiguously identified them as aircraft in formation (see http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1996/current/news2.html). Very likely, this was a training mission in night refueling.

But perhaps the most significant recent nondevelopment in UFOlogy involves the supposedly "haunted ranch" in Utah that was purchased by Las Vegas investor Robert Bigelow for his National Institute for Discovery Sciences (see http://www.nids.com). James Moseley reports in the Nov. 15 issue of his newsletter Saucer Smear (http://www.mcs.nett~kvg/smear) that no sooner was the ranch purchased by these investigators eager to confront the paranormal, than all of the unearthly manifestations - UFO sightings, interdimensional portals, even "dog-killing balls of light" - suddenly ceased. Somehow we're not surprised.