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- Within the
realm of uncertainty,

lie myths, stories,

never entirely believed,

but never entirely doubted.

The explorer searches
for their origins,

the answers to who we are.

- For centuries,

legend maintained that the
last of the Incan leaders

had escaped capture by the
Spanish conquistadores,

and retreated to a hidden
city, high above the clouds.

Only in modern times
has the legend proved

to have a basis in fact,

with the discovery
of Machu Pichu.

- Concealed
in the jungle,

this once lost city
is now a portal

to a vanished civilization.

The more we discover,
the more we want to know.

- Dateline: Egypt.

In the shadows of
the giant pyramids

that stood as lonely sentinels
over the vast desert sands,

a 1922 archaeological
expedition,

headed by Englishman
Howard Carter,

sought to uncover the tomb of
an ancient Egyptian pharaoh,

King Tutankhamen.

- I carefully
drew back the bolt,

and opened the door.

- Hidden
for centuries,

the final resting
place of the boy king

made its contribution
to modern man's

clearer understanding
of his ancestors.

The mountains of Ararat.

The head waters of the
Tigress and Euphrates Rivers.

History calls this the
cradle of civilization.

- The seeds of
Judaism, Islam, and Christianity

all came from that region.

Steeped in antiquity,

this area has yielded
countless discoveries.

Like the 1799 unearthing
of the Rosetta Stone.

- The stone
bore three inscriptions,

ancient hieroglyphs at the top,

another unknown text,

and at the bottom,
ancient Greek.

- So, by
translating the Greek,

scholars were now able to
decipher the hieroglyphs.

Another find.

The Dead Sea Scrolls
have been called

the greatest manuscript
discovery of modern times.

They show the evolutionary link

between Judaism
and Christianity.

- It just
completely changed

our understanding of the Bible.

We didn't have any idea
that these even existed.

- But, it
was archaeologists,

traveling through
layers of time,

who, in the 1850s, unearthed
cuneiform clay tablets

containing an ancient
story about a great flood.

The Epic of Gilgamesh,

which has similarities
to the story of Noah.

- The great gods
decided to make a deluge.

- Genesis 6.

"So, God said to Noah,

- "I'm going to
put an end to all people,

"for the earth is filled with
violence because of them."

- The story of Noah is told
many times in the Quran.

In the story itself,

Noah is informed that there's
gonna be a great flood.

After many years of
preaching to his people,

very few followers actually
believed in him and his message.

And so, he was informed
by God to build this ark.

- "So, make
yourself an ark of cypress wood.

"Make rooms in it, and coat
it with pitch, inside and out.

"Take into the boat the
seed of all living things.

" I'm going to bring
flood waters on the earth

"to destroy all life
under the heavens."

- What prompts the deity,
Yahweh, the god of the Bible,

to send the flood?

It has nothing to do with,

that the humans are procreating,

and creating noises
and disturbances.

But rather, their
ethical behavior.

"Every living thing,

that moved on land, perished."

- The rains started falling.

And also the water
started gushing up.

"Everything on dry land,

"that had the breath of
life in its nostrils,

"died."

"But, God remembered Noah.

"And he sent a wind
over the earth,

"and the waters receded."

- When we study the flood,
from a comparative perspective,

is that we see it
in every culture.

The flood was a very
common story told.

That something happened,

and there was an ark
that saved human kind.

- "And on the
17th day of the seventh month,

the ark came to rest on
the mountains of Ararat."

- Did you
go clear to the top?

- Well, we
got up on the ice cap.

We didn't get to the --

- Did you
see the ark, itself?

- I did.

Early history notes

many such sightings of the ark.

- In
the third century,

Berosus wrote that
its location was such

that common people could visit.

- Egyptian
historian Heironymus

mentions the ark --

- Josephus wrote
of the vessel in 50A.D.

- Epiphanius,
bishop of Salem,

has stated that he was
shown wood from the vessel.

- Armenian
historian, Hayton,

wrote that, in the
snows of Mt. Ararat,

one can see a black spot.

That is the ark of Noah.

- Even Marco Polo

wrote about the ark's presence
on Ararat, in 1269 A.D.

- In 1829,

Fredrich Perot reported
being shown wood relics

from the ark, at
the base of Ararat.

- If we don't go, we won't know.

Somebody has to take
up the challenge.

We're part of that group of men

who have tried to
do it, in history.

- Karl
Behrens, in 1835.

- Claudius
Rich, in 1836.

- Herman Von Abich

conquered the Ararat
summit in 1845.

- Englishman,
H. Danby Seymour

reached the peak in 1846.

- Colonel
Khodzko of the Russian army

climbed in 1850.

- Englishman
Major Robert Stuart

made it in 1856.

- And hopefully, one
day, it will be done.

- I always thought,

"Let's just go up
and find the thing.

"Put this to rest,
once and for all."

And people have been trying
to do that for centuries.

- Even
getting to Mount Ararat,

today's explorer deals
with obstacles on the road

to what locals call Abridah,

"the Painful Mountain".

- This will be our third try.

- We're having a little
trouble getting up the hill,

so we all had to bail
out of the vehicle.

I think the ark of Noah,

on greater Ararat,
in Eastern Turkey,

would be the ultimate
archaeological find.

- It's
a big mountain.

I'm 50 years old,
and I'm thinking,

can I really make
it up that mountain?

You know what I thought?

"God will go before me.

"I'll make it up that mountain."

What it means to me, to
search for Noah's ark,

is to come back with some

tangible evidence
that the ark existed.

- The
local Kurdish people

protect this mountain.

No one climbs without
their support.

- I believe the ark
on this mountain.

- In ancient times,

this land was a buffer
kingdom, between rival empires.

Throughout the centuries,

it has often known
the thunder of hooves,

and the clash of steel.

As modern borders were redrawn,

Ararat was seized from its
ancestral home in Armenia,

and given to Turkey.

Now, it rises majestically,
across the border,

a constant reminder.

- This is why we have
pain in our heart.

Because, our symbol
was taken from us,

without considering the
will of Armenian people.

It was in Armenia where
Noah constructed temple,

It was in Armenia where he
made his first sacrifice.

If you take out Ararat
from Armenia mythology,

Armenia will cease
to be Armenia.

- This is not a normal
part of the world.

This is a hostile
part of the world.

- It's a
demilitarized zone.

It's highly classified.

- We had the PKK.

We have the Turkish army.

Needless to say, they
don't like one another.

- In the decades
long conflict with Turkey,

the PKK controls the mountain.

- The PKK view themselves
as freedom fighters.

They represent the people.

They once had land, they
no longer have lands.

They believe they're fighting
for a righteous cause.

- You walk into a context
where there's a war zone.

You're on a mountain, dominated
and controlled by the Kurds.

At the same time,
you're in a country,

and the mountain
exists in that country,

that is under the sovereignty
of the Turkish authorities.

- With
the dissolution of
the Ottoman Empire,

after World War I,

the treaty of Severa guaranteed
a homeland for the Kurds,

until the treaty was dismissed,

after the Turkish War
of Independence in 1923.

And hostilities escalated.

In 1945, the Kurds petitioned

the newly formed United
Nations for a sovereign state,

and received

nothing.

So, Iraq, Iran, Syria,
Armenia, and Turkey

all have chunks of, what
should have been, Kurdistan.

- That's why
they're so militant.

They want their
own country back.

I understand that.

- These are freedom
fighters, in there own eyes,

for what's legally always been,

and should have been, theirs.

- In years past, we have
been directed by the PKK,

through our Kurdish partners,

to exit the mountain.

- And you know once you
get on that mountain,

no one really is
going to help you.

The military doesn't
go where you go.

- We had Turkish
commandos with us,

until they decided they
didn't want to go any higher.

- You're on your own.

If someone wants to kidnap you,

they want to shoot you,

they have every
freedom to do it.

- But, for those
searching for Noah's Ark,

there is no other destination.

- They call me Cowboy.

I came over, and
agreed to set up,

and make sure everybody
got to the top,

make sure the equipment works,

make sure the food is here.

Deal with political
problems that we have.

- We're going up to drill.

My hope is that, yes,
indeed, we find it.

- Word.

- I think we're supposed to
look for things like this.

- I think there's
so much evidence,

that it's irresponsible
not to look.

- We are built to
explore, find and reveal.

It's just a part of who we are,

from Marco Polo to
Christopher Columbus.

- It's a great team.

I look at them all like
brothers, you know?

- For me, the past
five years has been,

really a mirror into my soul.

Why am I doing this
year after year?

Why am I risking life and
limb to look for something

that we have no conclusive
evidence actually exists?

- The quest to find the
ark starts with my faith.

It started with my faith.

It started with a
calling that I felt.

- We have come together
to meet this challenge of

scientifically
examining, investigating,

and revealing to the world,

the evidence that may exist for
Noah's ark on that mountain.

- Last year, it was
an amazing trip.

Being able to work with my son,

on top of a mountain.

We work and play well together.

And we added value to the trip,

because we were able to
Frankenstein stuff together.

And that's what you have
to do in a place like this.

- None of these things
are labeled, of course.

We had an active volcano

on a fault line,
within recorded history

that's demolished
multiple civilizations.

And, then to think,

okay, there's something
that's gonna be suspended

in a 60 foot deep glacier,

that breaks off and
falls into a gorge

twice as deep as
the Grand Canyon.

There's different arguments
about how old the earth is,

whether it's 6,000, or
60 million years old.

And, even if it's the young-
smaller model, the fact
that and a matter what

if it's concrete
wood, bathed in,

who knows what kind
of chemical pitch,

if there's a splinter up there,

I'd come to the point where,

if there's a splinter
of wood up there,

it will be by the hand of God,

let alone some intact anomaly.

- I've had my worst nights
of my life on that mountain.

I've frozen on that mountain.

I've been bloody
on that mountain.

You sit in your tent,
and the wind is whipping,

and hitting the flaps.

You're eating your granola bar,

which you're gonna
throw up anyway,

because you're so nauseated.

It's just an
unpleasant place to be,

and sometimes you question
the sanity of just doing it.

- You know you're taking
your life in your hands

when you go on that mountain.

So, it has to be a cause bigger,

and greater than yourself

to motivate you to do that.

- I expect

something amazing on this trip.

I think there's
gonna be a transfer

from what I got,

and this is all
spiritual in nature,

what I received was word that

I was going to
receive something.

And, I was gonna be
giving something to God.

How could I not come?

- Finding the ark would indicate

that God, actually,
has intervened

with man.

And that has a profound impact.

People that have
thought this through

are scared to death
to find it to be true.

- Then you realize,

if you do see these
rotten timbers

of this boat, sticking out
of the ancient optics of ice,

it could change everything.

It could change the whole
perception of the Bible.

It could change
people's thought process

about where they came from,

who they are.

- Do you believe the entire
Bible is to be taken literally?

- Well, if it's
history, as Genesis is,

it's written as typical
historical narrative,

you take it as history.

If it's --

- Part of the root
of the fascination

of the story of Noah's
flood is, first of all,

it's a really good story.

I mean, it's an epic tale.

It has all the elements
of a good story.

But, there's particular
branches of Christian theology

that have basically
embraced the idea

of viewing the Bible as
a literal, historical,

and complete record of
the history of the world.

- It sounds as though you
believe your world view,

which is a literal
interpretation

of most parts of the Bible,

is correct.

- The conflict between
science and religion,

that is often portrayed
in the media today,

I think , is actually
better portrayed

as a conflict, within religion,
over how to view science.

- There are some difference
between Jews and Christians,

in the way that they relate
to the story of Noah,

and the way Muslims do.

- Everyone, whether they're
Muslim, or Jewish, or Christian,

the three accounts
that have the ark

in their religious documents,

all believe that the ark exists,

because their founding
documents say it does.

- I believe that
historical texts

are all part of the
human knowledge.

And, the human knowledge
is all based on both

the religious texts,

and the things that
they saw in nature,

and the things they were
told by their elders.

- Hundreds of
cultures throughout the world

share the same legend
of a catastrophic flood

that destroyed most of mankind.

In 95%, the flood
was world-wide.

In 88%, a certain
family was favored.

In 70%, survival was
by means of a boat.

In 67%, animals were also saved.

In 35%, birds were
sent out from the boat.

And in 9%, exactly eight
people were spared.

- And, rather than
immediately dismissing

a literal world-wide flood,

just suppose that, maybe,

actually, that this is
speaking of real events.

- If the biblical
stories in Genesis

are literally true, and
historically accurate,

you basically have to throw away

geology, and all the
physics, and chemistry,

and math, and biology
that it's built upon,

to embrace that view.

- Being a flood over
the entire earth.

And, those that
take that literally,

are kind of bound to
understanding it, in that way,

even if it contradicts science.

Where as Muslims, we're kind
of bound to accept science,

whatever that says,

and then reconcile
that with the text.

- We know for
certain, geologically,

that before 5,000 years ago,

there were enormous
amounts of rainfall,

where a great deal of water
would have accumulated,

and a major flood
would have occurred.

There is no question about it,

because we see the evidence
of this in the rock, itself.

- So, when you come at it from
a Christian point of view,

I don't think you should
be closed to the possiblity

that Genesis is
actually just simply

describing what happened.

- In which case,

validating your faith relies
on the reality of that story,

as a global flood,

and that it ended up on Ararat.

- This is my father place.

My father was put
his tent down here.

This is my grandfather
places also.

I remember, my mother
would say to me,

"Come, I have to wash you",

but I always run away.

And, there she was,
come behind me,

take my arm, and then hit me,

"Come here, you very dirty,

"I have to clean you".

It was like this.

Yeah, it was like this.

- Every season,

Kurdish shepherds lead their
flocks above the desert heat.

To graze in pastures fed
by the melting ice cap.

The warmer the summer,

the greater the exposure,

leading to the most
intriguing of local legends.

- Throughout
the 1800s, they came.

In 1856, local boy, Haji
Yearam, and his father,

were hired by three
unbelieving scientists

to take them up to the ark.

When the scientists
saw the vessel,

they flew into a rage, and
attempted to destroy it.

- They took a blood oath,

that if any one of the three
ever revealed the truth,

the other two would kill him.

- Some
50 years later,

one of the scientists gave
a deathbed confession,

which corroborated
Haji Yearam's story.

- In July, 1955,

Fernand Nevara, traveling
with his son, Rafael,

climbed Mount Ararat.

Rafael saw the ark
first, in a crevasse.

After lowering himself
into the crevasse,

and using a pick axe to
chop through the ice,

"I found wood!" he called.

Yes, Nevarra had found wood.

But, was it a piece of the ark?

- Testing
proved it wasn't old enough.

The wood was from
the 8th century,

4,000 years after Noah's time.

But, what was the wood doing
on the slopes of Ararat?

- What I have listed here,

are four reports of the
ark with the door off,

seven reports of
one end broken off,

18 reports of sticking
out of the ice --

- In 1883,

reports issued by a
Turkish commission,

investigating avalanches
on Mount Ararat,

detailed that they
had seen Noah's ark

protruding from a glacier.

- Prince
Nouri declared

that he had found the
ark, high on Ararat,

that he walked within its walls,

and that it's measurements

were exactly as
described in the Bible.

- There are nine
reports of a melt-water pond,

eight reports
sitting on a ledge,

10 reports of a ravine,
valley, gully --

- In 1902, as a boy,

Armenian, George Hagopian,

was taken to the
ark by his uncle.

- You saw
it how many times?

- Twice.

- Twice?

- Mm hmm.

- In 1916,

Russian aviator,
Vladamir Roskovitsky

described how he saw the ark,

while on a flight
over Mount Ararat.

The czar sent soldiers
up the mountain

to confirm the sighting.

They brought back photographs,

displaying hundreds
of rooms with cages.

But, the Bolshevik Revolution
occurred shortly thereafter,

and the photographs
were destroyed.

- You could see
a large vessel there,

laying on its side --

- These guys didn't even
know what they had seen.

They just described it to us.

They realized it
was a huge boat.

- He said he saw this object,

this murky object in the snow,

and he said it looked like
timbers from Noah's ark.

- And then, off
to the left back here,

is the part that broke off.

And it is laying slightly down.

You could see in the back of it.

- Of all the people that have
said they've seen Noah's Ark,

Ed Davis has the most
reliable eye-witness account.

- He had been there as part of
the Army Corps of Engineers,

building roads.

He rescued the grandson of
one of the Kurdish chieftains.

- The only way that they
could say thank you,

was to share with them their
most precious possession,

which was the remains
of Noah's Ark.

- He got within about
a hundred yards of it.

Storm kept them
from getting closer,

but he viewed it with
the army field glasses.

- Comes back after the war,
tells a few people about it.

I find out about it, I go
give him a lie detector test,

we give him three
lie detector tests.

He passes all three of them.

- He passed one
with flying colors.

- I mean, you just
can't dismiss this.

- Okay, three reports
of a stream and a pond.

The point is, we
have so many reports,

and many of them
say the same things.

- They describe
it in the same fashion.

As a long rectangular shape,

with a catwalk on the top,

found on a very rugged
area of the mountain.

- And, there's no chance
of collaboration here.

They come from different
sources, over different years.

- Everyone
tells the same basic story.

- The structure is there.

- We got the
word from a military guy,

that says, "We
know where it is".

You go, just a little
bit, to the north,

about seven meters,
and you'll hit it.

- Okay, but our
window is closing.

We've got, just over 30 days.

Our window is gonna be
closing very quickly.

- You've got 'til
the first week of September,

before it starts getting nasty.

- Cowboy's in agreement with me,

but I want to get
your permission

to go, and to climb.

- Just as soon
as you get those drills,

soon as they arrive,

absolutely, you got it.

It's gonna be a good year,

and we're gonna find something.

- Alright.
- Goodnight.

- Thanks Richard.

Thank you, thank
you very much, gentlemen.

Appreciate it.

- Alright, goodnight.

We're going.
- Yep.

- The moment we
got the news that

we were gonna be
leaving the next day,

I did scramble to
find a computer

so I could Facebook my wife.

- I thought you
were calling at two,

and we were at the bank,
and the car overheated,

and everything else.

- That's what Andrew told me.

- So, how are you?

- I'm terrific.

I'm gonna climb a
mountain tomorrow,

so you guys can
be praying for me.

- There's very little
privacy at Murat Camping Inn,

unless you had your own room.

You're sleeping
in a room that has

three or four other
guys in there,

and they're getting ready
to climb a mountain,

so they're throwing
everything in a bag.

I'm getting ready to
throw all my stuff in.

I was in my little
bubble, talking to my,

I call her my girlfriend.

I was focused.

'Cause I knew it
was my only chance

to talk to her for awhile.

I thought I was
climbing later, but,

it's kind of like
military around here,
You just uh..you know

they tell you they're shipping
out, you're shipping out.

So, I'm shipping
out in the morning.

Just wanted to see y'all's faces

before we leave.

You don't know if
this may be the end.

It's a great expedition,
but something may happen.

I don't know when I'm
gonna talk to y'all next.

- You want me
to pray for you, first?

- Yes, please.

- Father, I pray, right
now, for my sweet husband,

that you'll protect him --

- I did take this
very seriously,

knowing it was a
treacherous climb,

and anything could happen.

- Bless him, Lord,

and may this be a blessed
time, and that he find the ark.

And be home safely.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

- Amen.

We prayed, and signed off,

and the next morning,
we were out the door,

on our way up.

- We begin our journey,

try to get up to
the first base camp.

And then, overnight.

We're on our way.

♪ Long live the young at heart

♪ You know who you are

♪ With your spirit burning

- At 17,000 feet,

Mount Ararat's dangerous terrain

is a challenge for even the
most experienced adventurer.

Living atop a
glacier at altitude,

you're combating
fatigue and hypoxia,

working in white-outs,

and 100 mile per hour winds.

But, advancing technologies
allow explorers

a better glimpse
into the ancient ice

that legend says
entombs the ark.

♪ Long live the young at heart

♪ You know who you are

♪ With your spirit burning

- I didn't expect
that long of a walk

just to get up to
the first camp.

♪ Long live the soul set free

♪ Don't be afraid to dream

♪ While the world's
still turning

♪ Every moment, make it happen

♪ Two left feet, keep on dancing

- Precisely six hours

on the first day.

And we

have made it to base camp one.

♪ Beat by beat

♪ Breath by breath

♪ Walking hand in hand

♪ Step by step

Time to overnight.

- Six hour trek up to
the first base camp.

It was long, but
I'm glad I'm here.

I'm tired, but I'm
glad that I did it.

- Been a forensic
architect for 27 years,

and in my forensic
architecture, I go around,

and look at buildings,
what's wrong with them.

It's the equivalent
of being a doctor,

but to buildings.

My background in
architecture has been,

a lot of it has been in
water proofing materials.

I told them I was interested
in doing my dissertation

on the waterproofing
of Noah's Ark.

As it says in the Bible,

it was covered inside
and out with pitch.

- When I was even 17 years old,

I remember seeing a documentary

on the search for Noah's Ark.

- This may be the
most incredible film
you will ever see.

- Even as a young
boy, I thought,

"I want to do this someday."

And then, 20 years later,

I'm sitting at home,
watching another documentary,

the same documentary
comes on T.V. again.

I'm watching that, and thinking,

"They've still not
found Noah's Ark."

And, really, that's
when I took my

skills as, really, a
wilderness explorer,

being in the woods,

and took them to
the mountaineering,

kind of started to
train in mountaineering,

because I wanted to
bring a tool to the team.

- Get rested up,

get re-hydrated,
and get some food,

and we'll spend two days here,

and on up to camp two.

- Everybody's gonna
sleep real well tonight.

- There are a number of
different kinds of volcanoes.

on earth.

Some of them are
actually underwater,

most vulcanism goes
on on the sea bed,

and we see very little of it.

Tectonic plates, that meet
in the middle of oceans,

have hundred, and hundreds,
and hundreds of volcanoes.

On land, we can
classify volcanoes into

ones that have built up
over a long period of time,

with successive eruptions,
they might have layers of ash

and lava flows,

so the whole thing gets
built up like a layer cake.

We often call those
strata volcanoes,

or composite volcanoes.

And that would be
the kind of volcano

that Mount Ararat,
in Turkey, is.

If you pile up a big mountain,

then there are all kinds
of erosive processes

that bring it down again.

And, particularly in
the case of Ararat.

It's glaciated,

and will have been even
more heavily glaciated,

back in the ice ages.
and that

The action of those glaciers
is to remove material,

all the rocks and boulders,

and carry them down the slope.

And that's reflecting
the erosive processes

that have occurred.

- So, this is base camp.

We're about 10,000 feet.

Camp two is, what?

1,000 meter?"
- 1,00 meters up.

- 1,000 meters up.

- Yesterday was our easiest day.

Took us about --

Took us about six hours

- There's some gunfire.

- Yeah, we just heard some ...

... just heard some gunfire.

Just right up above us, there,

so somewhere ...

That's interesting.

- You get the feeling

this is not a place
you wanna get hurt.

This is not the place you
wanna do something stupid.

Because, it's a
long way to help.

Not a great environment
for anything to go wrong.

- So, Jim's
hurt, he's busted up,

can't move.

- It nearly killed
him, nearly took his life.

- Jim Irwin was a
dedicated astronaut,

a very fine man,

a highly reasoned individual.

He worked very hard on
the Apollo 15 mission.

- Dave, an extraordinary
television picture, here.

Okay, Huston as I

stand out here, in the
wonders of the unknown,

at Hadley, I grow to realize,

there's a fundamental
truth to our nature.

Man must explore.

And this is exploration
at its greatest.

It was just a very
significant time in my life,

to be on another world.

A world where there's no life,

there was no sound,

there was no sky,

just looking up into
the blackness of space.

Looking up and marveling
at the beauty of the earth.

And, there it was, in
the blackness of space,

but, so small that I could
hold it between my fingers,

like a little marble.

In a spiritual sense,
I felt magnified.

Because, I was holding
God's special creation

between my fingers,

and really seeing
it with his eyes.

- Splashdown,
we have splashdown.

- His mission on Earth,

after being an astronaut
on the Apollo mission 15,

is to find Noah's Ark.

- He said, "You know, I'm
planning a trip to Mount Ararat,

"to look for Noah's Ark,

do you think you'd want to go?"

- Here was a man who
stood on the moon,

and he said that wasn't
the greatest achievement

of his life.

Standing on Mount Ararat was.

- He was disappointed, of
course, when he'd come down,

but, keep going back,
year after year.

- He just wanted to
find out the truth.

- So, today, we're
gonna move camp,

and go on up to 4200.

And spend a couple of
nights there to acclimate.

And then, on the way
up to the summit.

- I found an anomaly, organic,

on Mount Ararat.

- He says, "There's
two rectangular forms,

"up on that
mountain,under the ice.

"I've seen them,

"on this special satellite
imaging that we got

"that can penetrate ice."

- It's a man-made
object, organic.

It's not a rock structure,
or anything like that.

How it got there, I don't know.

And that's not for
me to find out,

it's for whoever goes
up there and does it.

But, it's definitely
a man-made object.

- Mr. X was

a man who worked for NASA,

and had access to a radar

that could penetrate the ground,

and go into the ice.

- My relationship with
the man we call Mr. X

goes back about six years,

to the beginning of
our current project.

- Said, "Well,

" actually it's up there
on the eastern plateau."

- It is, in fact,
the leads he gave us,

that lead us to
the site we're at.

- It's in two pieces,

now it's three,

because the glacier's
moving all the time.

- And when the glaciers move,

they start grinding things up.

- And, I feel whatever
this object is,

here in the next
four to five years,

probably, that will be the
end of the exploration,

because it will be
pretty well crushed.

- He's also helped me
with a project in Israel,

not just on Mount Ararat.

So, I've had a secondary type of

means of testing his accuracy.

We actually have dug, and
been able to determine things.

- There is photographs, taken
by a branch of the government,

years ago.

- During the
late 50s and early 60s,

the American spy plane, the U-2,

was making its global
reconnaissance missions

for military intelligence.

Many of the flights
passed over Ararat,

on their way to Russia,

and a number of pilots
reported seeing,

what looked like, a ship,
locked in the ice below.

- Irwin and I stood at the front
of Incirlik Air Force Base,

and the commanding general
came out to the gate,

and knew Irwin.

They knew each other
from times past.

And Jim said,

"Yeah, we're here
looking for Noah's Ark".

And the guy said, "Well,
I've seen the ark."

And, I said, "What?"

And Jim's face was
incredulous as well.

And he said, "Yeah, I've
got pictures of it".

And we said, "Well,
let's see them".

He said, "Oh, no.

"It's all classified."

- For decades, the
pictures remained classified

but then, in 1995, the CIA
finally released the photos.

- The photographs are
taken way back when,

were U-2 and SR-71,

which one I looked at,
probably was a U-2.

I couldn't find nothing that
didn't look like a rock.

- This report came
from here in 1917.

They came over from Russia,

and they went up
and took it apart.

I mean, there was
so much intrigue,

and shadows.

- In 1980, I served onboard
the U.S. nuclear submarine,

U.S.S. Casimir Pulaski.

As sonar supervisor, I
carried top secret clearance,

and was in charge of
classified material.

- Somebody would say,
"I have pictures,

"here's the documentation."

- In the year 1968,

a friend and I were
employed at the Smithsonian,

in the vertebrate and
paleontology section,

and they had some photographs,

which I went over and looked at,

arranged on a table, that had
been taken from a balloon,

they told me,

showing a ship-like
object down in some ice.

- Mount Ararat had
been experiencing

the warmest weather on record.

As a result, the ice on
the top of the mountain

began to melt.

Lo and behold,

there sat a large ship.

- They, pretty well, came out,

and told everybody to
keep their mouth shut.

- The U.S. military science,
and intelligence community

were in complete agreement,

that this was, in
fact, Noah's Ark.

- Many, many people
believe the Ark

has already been found.

It's a done deal.

- In 1959,

a mysterious boat-shaped object

was photographed by a
Turkish reconnaissance pilot.

A team of Turkish
explorers and scientists

examined the object,

and discovered that its
dimensions were indeed

near those of the Ark,

as stated in the Bible.

The September 5, 1960
issue of Life Magazine

carried the story.

Then, in 1977, Ron Wyatt,
an amateur archaeologist,

inspected the site
with a metal detector.

- What we
actually have found,

is physical evidence
that this is a boat.

My personal feeling is,
that it is Noah's Ark.

- Is that Noah's Ark?

No. What is it?

It's the push-up in
the earth of Riolite.

And that was established
by a geologist.

- And, there have been people

that have been up and
down Mount Ararat,

and have come back,
and told lies.

There have been movies filmed

that have been
outright deception.

Back in March, Noah's Ark
Ministries International,

or NAMI,

claimed to have found
and entered Noah's Ark.

- I mean, they had film footage,

and they were inside
the mountain, in a cave.

And, they were knocking
on these wooden panels.

So, Don was really
intrigued with this.

"Is this real, is this genuine?

"I must find out."

So, that is the reason he went.

- Donald
Mackenzie was described

as a Scottish Indian Jones,

who had been to Turkey's
Mount Ararat many times,

in search of proof
of Noah's Ark.

But, in 2010, he
failed to return

from a trip up the mountain.

- Went with the intention of

getting answers
to his questions,

and then, he simply disappeared.

- Inside of a cave,

they found the
remains of the ark.

What's it doing in a cave?

Noah didn't drive
the ark into a cave.

- They build that stuff.

They talked to people that said,

"Yeah, they had us up there,
carpenters doing this,

"They said this was
gonna be a Noah's Ark,

for a film,

a movie set."

- "Oh, yes, yes, yes."

"Everybody knew, yes, yes.

"There were paid money
to carry the wood up

"to the mountain,

"and construct the false ark.

"Yes, yes, oh yes."

- I think it probably
got to the certain point

to where they had so
much invested in it,

that they couldn't admit that,

eh, this could be a hoax.

- If it's God's will
that I don't see

the answers to my questions,

then I accept that.

I must accept that.

But we don't know what God's
will is for the future.

So, we just continue seeking.

- Here comes our
gear on the horses.

Up to camp two, at 4200 meters.

So, I'm getting out of the way.

Here goes the last horse.

They are much more faster

than we are.

But the Kurds

can keep up with them,

at the horse's pace.

Plus they smoke.

I don't know how they do it.

No wonder they call
this Agri Dagh,

The Painful Mountain.

And, I can tell you,

that it is.

- At 4200 camp,

it was almost like the
environment really changed.

We went from rocky
slopes, and what have you,

to really rocky.

Not even hardly a level
place to put a tent.

Like being on the surface of
a Star Trek moon, out there.

It really felt like you
were on a different planet.

I did have some fears
the first night.

When we first got up
there, what happened?

A guy had already fallen,

and broken his
shoulder and his leg.

- The Kurds around here
tend to yell a lot.

But this was a
gut-wrenching scream.

Several of them.

- We got a guy who fell down
the ravine, on the snow.

Looks like he's got a
compound break in his leg.

We're back at camp,

trying to find stuff
to make a stretcher.

He's a big fella.

We're gonna bring you
along for the ride.

- Gotta get to the
rock, It's most steady.

- He's got it, he's a doctor.

- It's coming.

Yeah,

Okay?

Just stay warm, are you warm?

Okay.

He was very uncomfortable
with his shoulder dislocated.

I tried to set it.

But shoulders are
very difficult to set.

I tried once, I
told him, "no more",

because it will just

knock you out with pain.

- So, what we're waiting for,

is a military
helicopter to come.

At the moment the
visibility is good,

but in these conditions,
you never know

when the helicopter arrives,

it may cloud over, and
we'll have to wait.

- A helicopter here is not
normally supposed to happen.

Because, any one, of a
number of fighting factions,

could shoot it down.

- The weather just
started clouding up,

and there was zero viz.

So, after about an
hour of loiter time,

they decided that they'd have
to move the casualty down.

They were going towards 3200,

but there's another place
between here and 3200,

only about a quarter
of the way down,

and the helicopter was
able to land there.

- So, a big fella.

He had, not very good equipment.

He was alone.

- He did not have crampons on.

- Physically, not in
the best of conditions

to be doing something like this.

He must have lost his footing,

and it cost him.

- On the top of that mountain,
life slows down a lot.

You have time to think.

But, when you have that
time to really reflect,

and to chew on stuff,

and you run out of the
simple little decisions

that you have to
make in a busy life,

and all you are left
with is the big stuff,

you have the chance to,
kinda, explore that,

if not with others,
at least personally.

- Snowed last night.

It either blew off, or
started melting already.

It's very beautiful up here.

It was kind of windy last night,

but the wind has
died down, yet again.

Feeling good.

I think we're starting
to physically get ready

for the next part of the climb,

which is going up to the top.

- What is hopeful, is that
there is enough ice up there

to entomb

a vessel of quite some size.

I think that most
people would agree

that we could be dealing with

a hundred feet of ice,
or more, in some areas.

So, it could be saved
for all of perpetuity,

somewhere to have a woolly
mammoth would be saved,

after digging that up in
the Siberian wilderness.

So, that's the theory, at least.

- For remnant wood
to be preserved

for long amounts of time,

generally you need an
oxygen free environment.

You need that piece
of wood to be locked

or entombed in
sediments, like in a bog,

or underneath a lot
of marine sediments,

that is oxygen free.

Because when you have
oxygen in an environment,

you have fungi, and you
have bacteria, that,

once that organism
dies, that tree dies,

bacteria and fungi
are gonna attack,

and start eating and
decomposing that piece of wood.

- What we don't know,

is how long the ark was
exposed to the elements

prior to being entombed in ice.

- If organic material, or
wood, or other features

was locked in the ice,

and remained cold and dry,

it would have the potential
to last very long.

- There's no reason
to think that wood

of any kind of density or size,

wouldn't be able to
survive, locked in ice

for 4,360 years.

I mean we have the frozen
mammoths in Siberia,

and if you believe
evolutionary time scales,

they've been there
for 25,000 years.

- I think the only
slam dunk that we have

is that we've just gotta
drill something up.

And it's gotta be wood.

- 1:00 breakfast,
2-2:30 departure?

- Yeah, 2:30, or so, departure.

That seems to usually work.

Now, my biggest concern is,

I'm not too worried about
what's happening up top,

but if you see a lot of
clouds come up from below,

that may cause us to delay.

But, if it's clear below,

but cloudy up top, I'm
not as worried about that.

'Cause it usually blows over.

But, if it's coming from below,

then that could be a less
than ideal day, to start.

- It's trending about
10 to 15 degrees colder

than I've ever seen it.

That little plaque up
there, that shiny thing,

that's actually a commemorative.

There was a Iranian
climber that disappeared

a couple years ago.

They never found him.

- Right before you make
your ascent up the mountain,

they have that plaque up there,
of all the people who died.

And that was terrifying for me.

I was like, "Is my name
gonna be on that plaque?

"What am I doing here?"

Those kind of emotions
run through you.

And then the fact that you think

you may just die
from the Kurd food

always crosses your mind.

Basically, whatever they put
in front of me, I'd eat it.

Who knows what it was.

- It's gonna be

and adventure, I think,
for me, at least.

I've been eating, drinking well.

I think going up is gonna be

a whole lot different

at that altitude.

I'm not used to it.

- We got up about 1 a.m.

We packed up, had
a light breakfast

that the Kurds prepared for us.

And, about 3 a.m. we started
to make for the summit.

It's dark, it's cold,

you got your headlamps on.

You want to be back
in your sleeping bag.

You know you're gonna have to
climb this trail in the dark.

You can't see.

These steps are steep.

The journey from 14,000
feet, to nearly 17,000 feet,

this is the steepest
part of the climb.

Somewhere between
15,000 and 16,000 feet,

altitude hit me.

And I was really fatigued.

I was tired, I was slowing down.

I was getting nauseous, and
actually stopped to throw up.

My hands are completely numb.

- Cold or just tired?

Or both?

- I think the lack of oxygen.

- Yeah.

- Look at the
mountain's shadow now.

- Oh, yeah,
that's gorgeous.

- It was about
six in the morning,

and the sun had just
started coming up,

and I turned around,

and I saw the shadow
of Ararat below me.

It really inspired me to say,

"Aaron, you can do this.

"Keep going.

"You just got a little
bit further to go.

We're up here at the

glacier,

putting on our crampons.

It was

a pretty miserable climb.

Got another hour
on the ice, here.

And, I'm freezing.

♪ God knows you
question your courage

♪ Some days I can't
walk for stumbling

♪ If we could only see
what we're becoming

- Boys,

we're almost to the top
of the first false summit.

- I really thought about

turning around and going down.

I just thought, "I don't
know that I can do this."

- To the left are some
pretty serious crevasses.

We were warned by the
Kurds to stay right.

Apparently it's
pretty dangerous.

♪ When you feel it

♪ Once you see it

♪ And you breathe it

♪ It's unforgettable.

♪ When you know it

♪ Once you know it

♪ And you hold it

♪ It's unforgettable.

- Well, this is it.

♪ God knows you
question your courage

♪ Some days I can't
walk for stumbling

♪ If we could only see
what we're becoming

♪ So, keep on keeping on

♪ Keeping on

♪ And sing along

♪ Sing along, sing along

- It's my turn.

♪ To the dreamers

♪ Wide-eyed believers

♪ Hanging on to hope by a thread

♪ To the soulful

♪ Heart open and hopeful

- This is it.

It's once in a lifetime.

♪ When you feel it

♪ Once you see it

♪ And you breathe it

♪ It's unforgettable.

♪ When you know it

♪ Once you know it

♪ And you hold it

♪ It's unforgettable.

♪ When you feel it

♪ Once you see it

♪ And you breathe it

♪ It's unforgettable.

- We're at the summit!

I never though I'd make it.

I have to give credit to
Bill and Will for pushing me.

I think the last

part of it was mental.

I just wasn't

really mentally
prepared to push myself.

to the summit, but,

I made it, and I'm
really glad I did.

- Once you summit,

and you realize that you've
actually accomplished

something that is
very hard to do,

it stirs the soul.

And I was stirred.

- This is a place that very
few people have ever been.

This is a place where
civilization started again.

And, it was, you know,

just chills were all over me.

- I couldn't say a
word, I was like,

"I'm really here.

"This is awesome".

♪ And you breathe it

♪ It's unforgettable

♪ When you know it

♪ Once you know it

♪ And you hold it

♪ It's unforgettable.

- The ark has a very,
very strong pull to it.

I think, if one is not careful,
it can become an obsession.

- Part of you wants
to fold the dream up,

just put it away, and think,
"Why am I wasting my time?"

But there's still a part of you,

that's always looking
for this sliver of hope.

Well, we look for
more information,

and we take the leads
that we're given,

and we work with them.

- I'm not religious,
and that sense that

I'm gonna have my emotions
put me somewhere there,

I do it strictly
technical and scientific.

And, if I say there's
something there,

it's there.

Period.

- Based on the GPS coordinates
given to us by Mr X

in 2009, and then in 2010,

what we did, was
we set up a grid,

and started surveying with
the ground penetrating radar.

Knowing this is in ice
area, in a locked glacier,

we concluded GPR was the
go-to investigation tool.

What ground
penetrating radar does,

it sends continuous bursts
of short wave length

electromagnetic energy
into the ground.

It basically penetrates the ice,

and when it bounces off
something that's either harder,

or of a different material,

it will reflect.

This is the bedrock, down here.

This is the ice, up in here.

And, as you see,
this green circles

around a very unique-looking
straight line,

that's at an angle of
approximately 30 degrees

to the horizontal.

These two anomalies
were symmetric,

in other words, almost
like they would be,

this shape in the ice.

So, the results of
2010 were promising.

In 2011 we did
all the red lines.

This data we collected
in order to get

more of a three dimensional
diagram of what was there.

The bedrock is gonna be blue.

This is all filled
with ice above it,

where the grey is.

And then, the pink things
are basically the anomalies

that are in the ice, itself.

If you take three
dimensional data,

you get a little bit better idea

of how that would
look in reality.

- I felt like we had a fairly

strong expedition in 2011.

We had good support
from the Kurdistine.

We had the ground
penetrating radar,

and we were prepared to dig,

and made an attempt at
one of the dig locations

that we were told, "This
is where you need to go".

We spent another 10
days trying to dig down

to this location,

but we were inexperienced
in how to make that happen.

So, we didn't have the right
kind of hoists, and so forth,

to help us in the process,

and so we failed,
during our permit time,

to get down deep, to where
we thought we needed to be.

- We would go back and
talk to Mr. X, and say,

"Okay, where were we?

"Were we close, were we not?"

In this 2011 work, he said
"You're right next to it".

- 2012 we came back,
more prepared than ever.

We had a great plan.

Assembled, I think,
a rock star team.

- 2012, we found more anomalies,

in this case, because we did
three dimensional techniques,

it was easier to take slices,

both horizontally
and vertically,

so we could see
more information.

I was looking, initially,
at these red zones,

as being the areas
to go concentrate on.

And, we see this, sort of,
red and yellow square area,

and we're thinking
that is interesting,

because it keeps showing up

at the 30 to 40 foot range.

And we say,

"Okay, we have satellite
imagery saying it's there.

"We have an anomaly there.

"we have all this information."

So, we're thinking
that's probably

the best place to excavate.

- Anomaly here, here, and here,

at the depths that
the satellite said.

We've got two for two
confirmations, so far.

Let's go ahead and
drill for the first one,

the closest one to the surface.

So, we get the drill out,

and we start going down,

and right at the
32 foot mark, we --

I'm on one side of
the drill, we felt it,

and we hit something hard.

- And then, John Bryant
came down, and said,

"Okay, hold.

"We think we're at it.

"All you gotta do is
take a dig team up there,

"and put the tent
over the drill bit,

"and you guys will work
your way down to it.

"You'll find it 34 meters down."

- We got a team
of Kurds cutting,

we got a team of
Americans cutting.

We're switching because
communication is important

with chainsaws in small spaces.

- So, for ten days, we
chopped away at this.

Taking this thing apart, one
core drill bit at a time,

which is very to meter long.

- So the hole is growing,

because we were going
one meter a day,

which is the length
of each auger bit.

So, taking off a meter is
like our victory trophy.

We have achieved our goal.

- Randall Price was with us,

and we were doing core
samples out of this

eight foot by eight foot hole.

- With every meter, we
got more and more excited.

- Hopes were just really high.

We knew all we have to do
was get down to this object.

- We knew we
were on the brink of,

what could be, the greatest
archaeology discovery so far,

or of all time, for that matter.

- So, we decided,
since the sun was going down,

let's wait 'til tomorrow,

it'll be better for the cameras.

Let's just make this
big reveal tomorrow.

I remember going
to bed that night,

and just laying in the
tent, and just thinking

how this is gonna
change my life,

and change, really,
so many things.

- And, the night
before, thinking, "This
is gonna be great!"

- The next morning, we got up.

We all went over
to the meal tent,

just pumped up,

patting each other on the back.

Talking abut this great moment

that we were gonna be a part of.

So, I got down
into the hole and,

cut away the last meter.

And, just as we were working
that last block out --

- The last auger, with
the bit on the end,

fell over.

- Just fell over, on the ice.

- But, it's supposed to be
stuck into something, right?

I was on the drill, I
remember feeling it.

We all looked at each other,
like "Nothing happened".

Oh!

What now?

- I remember picking it
up, and looking inside it,

and it was chock full of ice.

And, just, disappointment,
just, all over me.

I wanted just to set it
back down in the hole again.

I didn't wanna be a
part of this bad moment,

where, of course,
everybody's wondering

what is going on.

We didn't really say much,

we just set it over to
the side, and we thought,

well maybe we were
off, obviously,

that's not stuck
in the object but,

ground penetrating radar seems
to think it's this far deep,

so maybe we're just
off a couple feet,

so we dug another
couple layers out.

- We dug down past it, and
there was nothing there.

- Then we had them drop the
drill bits down into the hole.

We began to just punch holes

all around the bottom,

just thinking, "Maybe
we'll pull up something."

- I remember drilling
five meters --

Three meters?

I know there were meters in
every possible direction.

- Nothing, nothing,
nothing, nothing.

- Everybody's heart
just plummeted.

We went from the night before,

giving testimonies on how
we really felt the Lord

directing us all here,

and how everything
had gone so well,

and this was the biggest
expedition to date.

And we had all the right
people, and the right equipment.

It had gone so well.

- From being, what I
thought, just hours before,

was gonna be just a big
highlight of my life,

to this huge disappointment.

In this case, three years prior

of freezing cold temperatures,

unbelievable
weather, devastation,

people being hurt.

And, you're so ready,

and it just, it wasn't there.

- We got full grown men crying.

They've staked a lot,

emotionally, in their
fields of study.

- I climbed out of the hole,

I grabbed my pack,

and I just walked down
the mountain that day.

- Had it been there,
we would have found it,

but it wasn't.

And that led to an emotional --

and down they went.

And, after we cleaned
things up, down we went.

- We're not done yet.

We're just taking
a bit of a break.

- I'm excited.

This new, special ground
penetrating radar,

that is supposed to
be specific for ice.

- We're gonna put all
the lessons we've learned,

from these five years,

be more prepared,
better technology.

We have, basically,
secret GPS coordinates,

- Just downloaded the GPS data,

that's a good sign.

- We're gonna finally
hit, what we have missed

in previous years.

- This excites me.

We've built special
drills, this year.

And special corers to be
able to pull this stuff out.

I know how to drill.

My people know how to drill.

I want to find organic matter.

- Every year that I go up
to the Eastern Plateau,

I walk down Shok-mok Peak, and
look down at the Ahora Gorge,

and think, "This is
where you need to go".

You never feel like you've
finished the ark search,

if you don't get down
into the Ahora Gorge.

We've never had the
kind of permissions

that we've had,
to get this close.

- This year we
will either prove,

the "Yes, it is here",
or "No, it is not".

- Good morning from high camp.

It's about 5:45 in the morning.

On our first full day, here.

We slept pretty
well, last night.

We were able to put in a well,

and get the chainsaw, generator,

and several other things
started yesterday.

This morning, we're gonna try
and set up the big gear tent.

The wind is

not at all, which
is quite unusual,

so we want to take
advantage of that,

just to get somewhere
to have the equipment,

and a kitchen, and
get out of the wind,

when it starts back up again.

Looks like it's gonna
be a beautiful morning.

See you out there.

Right here?

I think that sounds good.

- We've organized most of
the expedition's equipment,

and, this afternoon,
after lunch,

which we're about to head up to,

we hope to start drilling.

Here we go.

- We won't be doing
that for about an hour.

Let's see, it's now 12:10.

- This will be the
real practical part
of the dissertation.

- Yep.

Let's see, it's now 12:10,

probably about 1:00 sir.

The would be the
time to get ready.

- A lot of people
were on the mountain

for different reasons,

my reason to be on the mountain,

was I wanted my
portion of it to be

as scientifically
accurate as possible,

so that when the
scientific community

looked at our expedition,

they could say this
was done according to

good science, and
not junk science.

Drill and hit wood.

That's what we're
gonna do today.

Speak it into existence,
that's what I always say.

- Okay.

- If the ark is truly intact,

it'll be approximately
45 foot high.

- "The ark
is to be 30 cubits high,

"300 cubits long,
and 50 cubits wide."

- What is a cubit?

A cubit, historically,
has been recognized,

generally, as the
length from the elbow,

to the end of the index finger
of the reigning monarch.

We've averaged the
historical values,

and come up with 20.5
inches for a cubit.

Which means that
the original ark

was 500 feet long,

86 feet wide, 52 feet high.

God said to Noah,

"Rooms are to be
placed in the ark".

There would be three levels.

Bulkheads were a vital
part of the structure,

these room dividers,

which encompass the
dimension and the hull,

and some of the floor levels.

And that gives it a
superior structure.

- "And build under our eyes,

"and according to
our inspiration,

"the ark that shall save thee,
and those who follow thee.

"And do not appeal to
me on behalf of those

"who are bent on evil doing.

"For, behold, they are
destined to be drowned."

- The guys are gonna start
drilling, Bill, Will, to Bruce.

And, Jose and I are gonna
start completing this grade,

and make sure this
is all in alignment.

We're just gonna hit
all though this area,

and see what we can
come up with today.

But, we got a good
work day today,

we're gonna take
advantage of it.

- Howdy friends from the U.S.A.

We've come to drill
with Bill and Will.

Woohoo!

- Got it.
- Lock it.

- The first thing you
gonna hit on Noah's Ark

is not gonna be wood.

It's gonna bituminous materials.

Bituminous, meaning
something black and gooey.

An oil based product.

The Bible's clear,

inside and out of Noah's
Ark was covered in pitch.

So, it'd probably
gonna be something

that's ingrained in the wood,

and so if you hit it,

it should show you some.

What I had decided to do,

is everything that
came out of the hole,

I was gonna put it
in a pan, heat it up,

and see if any of it melted.

All bituminous materials

are temperature susceptible,

meaning, at a very low
range, they'll melt,

or they'll become gooey.

Well, the foil is melting.

Looks like all rocks.

We did a quick field test,

just to verify, to make
sure that we weren't

looking at something
than just bedrock.

- So, it's just gravel.

- This was verification that

where we were last
year, is, in fact,

not where we wanna be.

- Now, we're moving
on th the next spot.

And, we'll keep doing
that, until time runs out,

and Lord willing, we'll find it

before our time runs out.

- Today is August 14,

and hopefully it's a day that
will be remembered in history

as a great day to commemorate

what was done, thousands
and thousands of years ago.

That God flooded the earth,

preserved eight people,

so that the earth
could be repopulated.

I hope and pray that
today is the day.

- Because, now time
is of the essence,

we have to get this right.

We can't just be pock-marking
around on this ice.

We need to know
precisely where to go,

and we're gonna see
if we can hit wood.

- This is the RB-1 hole.

Good news, we didn't get stuck.

So, another hole accomplished.

So far, negative
results, we'll see,

collecting samples, labeling it,

and then we'll move
on the the next hole.

- We drill, we drill.

It breaks my heart
to see these guys --

We get our hopes
up, and we drill,

and then, to miss, every time.

Because I feel like
I'm letting them down.

I tell them, "Drill
here, we see something".

And, when we don't hit it,

they're going down 17 meters and

19 1/2 meters, and they're
not hitting anything.

We keep seeing anomalies,

but for some reason,
every time we drill,

we don't hit anything.

With all the ice, we get
a lot of false readings.

It's like I'm making them
do all that extra work,

and I do feel like all that
weight is on my shoulders.

I know, deep down in my heart,

the ark is laying
up here somewhere.

- One thing I've learned,

the weather can change
very quickly here,

from sunny to freezing rain.

Socked in by fog and clouds.

- Our energy
is pretty low.

We've been up here a long time.

- We were able to get
three more holes in today.

They were between
13 and 14 meters.

Unfortunately, we didn't come
up with anything exciting.

- That's a
big disappointment,
but I understand.

Just proceed with the drilling,

and extending it per Dr. Bryant.

That's about all that
can be done, right now.

- Will do.

- We appreciate it.

- Alright, thank you.

Bye.

- Today we've
drilled three bores,

and in those three, we went
all the way to bedrock.

The drilling went great,

but, unfortunately, we
didn't have positive results,

what we're looking for.

- The air
is much thinner.

Breathing is hard.

That takes its toll.

- I do have a
hard time breathing.

Working conditions
yesterday was,

miserable for me.

I'm still not
acclimated up here.

- We're able to get
the three holes in today,

and then a storm came in,

we just got pounded with about

six inches of 1/4 to
1/2 inch hail, snow,

with lightening.

- We put a lot of effort into
working earlier in the day,

so we got our three
holes drilled,

which was our goal.

- Yeah, we'll see what happens.

Probably some cards tonight.

- Probably so.

- I'm real excited
that Dr. Bryant's here.

he already got
here before we did.

- How you doing?

Good to see you, Adam.

- Adam.

- How you doing man?

- Come here to eat breakfast.

- Alright.

- Hey Bryant.

Good to see you.

- Can I get this pack for you?

- How you doing?

I couldn't wait to get here.

- Having other people
around boosts the morale.

I like that.

- The perspective of where you
are, here, is unbelievable.

- I could show
you the 3-D data.

There it is.

- Okay.

- A lot of noisy data,

but it seems to ...

- This is a very
interesting shape.

- So what's
the possibility that
that could be wood?

- Well, based upon the
knowledge that we have

of what was here,
an ancient ship,

and knowing that trees
don't grow at 17,000 feet,

nor even at above 11,000,

the tree line's
usually 11,000 feet,

would dictate, and say
to me, that was a boat.

But, it doesn't say
boat on the GPS,

it says reflection of a pattern
of interesting material.

That's why we're
gonna go drill it.

- And I see those layers.

- Yeah.

- Ice lays down flat.

And, as it lays down flat,

it will take the
contour of the ground.

But, anything that's oblique,
or got an angle to it,

from my experience,
can't be ice.

- So, Bruce was
examining this piece

that came out of
the boring, RB-7.

And, what he has found,

he was using his
fire sample test,

the ASTM test,

and, go ahead and tell
them what you found, Bruce.

- Well, I was heating
everything up,

and I noticed that this
thing was starting to melt,

which indicates a
bituminous material,

or an asphalt or
petroleum based material.

So, with discretion, I
said, "Whoa, wait a minute."

This could be something that
we could get to a real lab,

and get some real data on.

- What I see, as well,

is there's some fibrous
edges along the side,

which means that, to me,
it's not a mineral material.

- Like you're
looking at a piece of

asphalt felt paper.

- They did hit something,
at about 50 feet.

- Send it
to a laboratory.

They'll be able
to break it down,

and tell us what kind
of material it is.

- Okay.

Thank you.

- It'll be quite
rare for an organic material

to be this high up
on this mountain.

- Strange.

It almost looks like a crystal.

- When you're looking
at in a microscope,

and here's this vitreous,
refractive material

that's not a rock.

It looks like a piece
of amber, almost.

It's not wood fiber,

but it would fit
resin, perfectly.

It's something translucent,

almost crystalline,

exactly what I
thought pitch was.

If I had imagined
something exciting,

it would be hard
to do it better.

It's very encouraging.

We need more, and I'm ready.

I want the big piece.

- It's very encouraging.

I'm excited about it,

but it's not enough.

We need to have more of this.

We need to find more samples.

We just have to keep pushing
forward, and hope for the best.

- It's all over the mountain.

I don't believe you're going
to find a gigantic ark,

you're going to
find chunks of it.

Some will be in
the Abba Glacier,

some may be in the Ahora Gorge.

- I've always been curios
about the Ahora Gorge.

And the stories of, there's
an object in the Ahora Gorge.

- Portions of the
Ahora Gorge, itself,

are not accessible.

- The Ahora Gorge is
just riddled with crevasses,

which are areas of the glacier
that have collapsed away.

- The void, basically,

where the ice is sliding
off the mountain.

- For a crevasse to form,
you do have to have movement.

You are exceeding the
strength of the ice,

and that could be
exceeding that,

either in shear, or in
tension, or in compression.

When we see crevasses,

it is evidence that some
motion has occurred.

And it's occurred in a way

that imposed stresses that
exceeded the strength.

- Always moving.

With some, hundreds
of feet deep.

Entering the crevasses offer
some of the team a unique,

but dangerous perspective
to the bedrock below.

With time running out,

others prepare for an
equally perilous descent

into the Ahora Gorge.

- It's a very dangerous place,

Ahora Gorge.

- Here we are at
the western plateau.

We're about to go exploring,

and try to get in the
gorge as far as we can.

We plan to go down,
as best we can,

and route-find.

And then, up and out of
the way of any rock fall,

or any danger, and still
keep some stable snow.

Here we go.

Belay me!

Getting some crevasses here!

I think if we go left,
it we'll be better.

- We're not going down
any further, are we?

We went down what we did
yesterday on the anomaly,

I hit something hard,

but it wasn't gravel,

and the bit got stuck.

- We're hitting something.

We're hitting resistance.

What we don't know, is
what it is we're hitting.

The scans and satellite says
there's something there.

And the people from that are
saying there's something there.

And we say, we're drilling,
we're hitting something hard.

- Is there wood, is it rock,
what is it that we're hitting

when we drill?

Because we're hitting something,

but we don't know what it is.

- Until we get the
core, we don't know.

But, we're not giving up yet.

We'll be able to identify
with the diamond cores

that we've got
coming from China.

- What we're trying to do is,

based on the information,

drill core, so that
we can retrieve,

a far more substantial sample

with the drill coring
tool that we have.

What we have here, is the drill.

This is it.

It's a coring bit,

diamond tipped,

goes on the auger,

hopefully we can
get some samples.

There's a lip on each side.

And, as it goes down,

the material is pulled down,
inside here, 'til it stops.

And, they pull it out,

and then they take this off,

and they pop it through
the hollow part.

And they get a nice,
kinda like this,

they get a nice core of
whatever we're trying to core.

- Let's go!

Let's go find an ark.

- We need him up there.

- As the
days get shorter,

the climbing window on
Ararat begins to close.

The permit from the
Turkish government

is for a clearly defined time,

to protect lives
from the unexpected,

that comes with the
change of seasons.

Finishing up the uh..

- Finishing up
our time, up here.

- Yeah, we're supposed to
have another three days

before this starts up.

We'll see about that.

Hopefully the guys who are
trying to head up to help us,

are doing okay at 4200.

- It's Wednesday the 28th.

Getting ready to start
a new day of drilling.

First thing off, is we're
gonna get the generator going.

Get our stuff charging.

We had quite a snow
yesterday evening.

We've got good weather.

And, hopefully,
it should go well.

- We've been sent
up a reinforcement

with a fancy drill bit,

out of China, or somewhere.

We're hoping to get down.

We've re-dug RB-7,

which is where we
pulled the flake out

of whatever that was.

They've asked us to
penetrate through

the fluvial flow or rock,
or whatever it is on top,

try and get a better sample.

We will lower down into place,

hook up the motor,

grind on it a little bit,

and get something done.

- We did running belays,

trying to find a good
vantage point into the gorge.

Finally we did.

After five years,

I'm finally standing on the
western edge of Ahora Gorge,

here on Mount Ararat.

Let me give you a shot
of what that looks like.

As you can see, it's
full of crevasses.

It's a fast moving glacier.

This is really crazy crevasse

in the center of this gorge.

And, if the ark had come to rest

anywhere near the lip
of the Ahora Gorge,

It would be chewed up

You stare right into
those huge crevasses,

and you say, "There's
just no way".

If it is anywhere in the gorge,

it's got to be lower down.

- My primary goal,
at the summit,

was to get two drill cores.

And, we were able to get two
cores within three hours.

But, they were
covered in, of course,

all the mud from the coring.

I just said to the boys,

"Let's not tamper
with the samples.

"Let's let the scientists
look at the samples.

"What it is, it is.

"We'll find out
when we get down."

- The got the core,
he came back down.

That was his purpose,

and he did exactly what
he was supposed to do.

- I had one task.

I believe that I
accomplished it,

and I'm happy for that.

- This is the core.

This is obviously basalt.

What were we hitting?

We were hitting basalt.

Now we know.

What we were looking
for is not there.

- Thomas
Edison once said,

"I have not failed,

"I have just found 10,000
ways that won't work."

Failure is a teacher.

Just a stepping stone

on the road to success.

- Okay.

Dr. Bryant and I

has agreed that

it's done.

We have to call it finished.

Doesn't mean it's the final
chapter in search for the ark.

- Just because we
don't find something,

doesn't mean it's not here.

It means it's more
difficult to find.

Today is not the
chapter closing day,

it's just another day that
we can add more information

to the components that we have,

and build upon that.

- We drilled, we got cores,

and the evidence
was very negative.

We don't understand why.

- We've exhausted
all of our options

at this particular time,

with the technology
that we have available,

and the time that
we have available.

- We're off.

- Yes, disappointment,

but that's not the
important thing.

The important thing is finding
out what the facts are.

And if we've accomplished that,

then that's good.

- Few
things are as universal

as man's need for exploration.

Something ingrained in our DNA

calls us to search.

To find.

To discover things
unknown about our past,

which then become our
guide for the future.

It's a long walk.

It is a long walk.

For thousands of years,

man has embarked on
this incredible journey

of discovery.

And in doing so,

ultimately finds himself.

- We may
find it one day.

We may find it next year.

But, us being together,

and our journey up
there, and back,

and how that changed our
lives is really the story.

- So, for me, it's
really been a journey of

trying to discover what's in
my heart, what motivates me.

I feel very happy without
even discovering the ark.

- When you're coming
down the mountain,

a lot of things are
rolling through your mind.

Were we successful?

Did we come up with anything

to take us further
down the road?

In my mind, scientifically,

did we just waste
a lot of money?

Did we waste a lot of time,
and risk people's lives?

But, there were times
I just felt like,

"Wow, I'm as closest to
heaven I can be on Earth.

I do feel like

I had a mountain top
experience with the Lord.

- When you come back down,
and you didn't find it,

it's kinda like going to
the Superbowl and losing.

You're still a player,
you still gave it all,

you left it all on the field,

but you just didn't win.

- The expedition
was not a disappointment.

We scientifically ruled
out the eastern plateau.

And we got our team down safely.

- We did it together.

I could not have made it

without the guys
that I climbed with.

- The men I've been
on this expedition,

you can get deep with them,

and that's what you
look for in life.

- Very glad to be
back down here,

I need to get my strength back.

- Eat!

- The ark, to me,
represents a dream.

If you want it,

and you feel called to it,

go do it.

- The most emotional
experience for me

was the summoning.

I was overwhelmed with it.

I'm gonna get
emotional right now,

because it was a
goal I set out to do.

And God blessed me
to be able to do it.

And I knew, even if we
didn't find the ark,

just climbing a mountain
of that magnitude

is something I'm gonna remember,

and my family's gonna remember

for the rest of our lives.

- I may not have
found Noah's Ark,

but, I found, I think,
something much more important,

and much more
lasting, and that is,

I believe that,

in the process of trying
to discover the ark,

I've discovered
more about myself,

and I discovered more about God.

- There will be a time

that structure will be revealed.

It's there.

It's been there for a purpose,
and for a certain time.

It will be revealed.

- Why would
God want you to find the ark?

- I don't know that
he wants us to find the ark,

but I am fairly convinced
that he wants us to look.

And in that sense, yeah,

it's very much more about
the journey, than discovery.

- With the Kurdish men,

it's some of the closest
friendships I've got.

I mean, when you go through

what we've gone
through together,

it does something to
you to make you close.

- As the shepherds
return with their flocks,

and families prepare
for the winter ahead,

the beliefs they hold

remain unchallenged.

- I'll never regret
being able to say,

"I've been there,
I've done that.

"I stood up there
on the mountain.

"I've looked for Noah's Ark."

- The hunger's still there.

It's still something that
needs to be searched for.

- Will we find it?

I don't know.

Will it be found?

I don't know that it's
there to be found.

Does it exist?

Yes, I believe that.

Does that change whether or not
we should be looking for it?

Not at all.

♪ Inside your head

♪ You got a voice that says

♪ You won't get past this one

♪ You won't win your freedom

♪ It's like a constant war

♪ And you want to
settle that score

♪ But, you're bruised and beaten

♪ And you feel defeated

♪ This goes out to
the heaviest hearts.

♪ Oh, to everyone
that's hit their limit

♪ It's not over yet,
it's not over yet

♪ And even when you
think you're finished

♪ It's not over yet,
it's not over yet

♪ Keep on fighting

♪ Out of the dark,
into the light

♪ Hope is rising

♪ Never give in, never
give up, it's not over

♪ Yea-et-et, whoah

♪ Yeah-et-et, whoah

♪ Yeah-et-et, whoah

♪ Yeah-et-et, whoah

- I don't think it matters

whether or not you
could ever find the ark.

I think the value today is,

what could it teach us about

our responsibility
to safeguard creation

the way Noah in the story
safeguarded creation.

Brought all the animals
through the flood.

You look at what's happening
to the earth today,

in terms of the
massive extinction
event that's going on,

on our watch,

and we're not doing the job
that Noah was tasked with doing.

So, to me, the resonance and
value of the story today,

is that it's a powerful message

about what our responsibilities
are to safeguard creation.

♪ Life is a race we run

♪ So run 'til the race is won

♪ Don't you ever give up

♪ We will never give up

♪ To everyone who's
hit their limit

♪ And even when you
think you're finished

♪ To everyone who's
hit their limit

♪ It's not over yet,
it's not over yet.

♪ And even when you
think you're finished

♪ It's not over yet,
it's not over yet.

♪ Keep on fighting

♪ Out of the dark,
into the light.

♪ Hope is rising

♪ Never give in, never give up

♪ It's not over

♪ Yea-et-et, whoah

♪ Yea-et-et, whoah

♪ Yea-et-et, whoah

♪ Yea-et-et, whoah

- The search will continue.