Full transcript
0:00turkey
0:041959. Army Captain ilhan durupanar flies
0:08an aerial reconnaissance mission for
0:10NATO Captain to rubenar is there to take
0:13photographs from his plane in order to
0:14map a remote area in the Turkish
0:16Highlands
0:17a few years prior there had been three
0:19large earthquakes that altered the
0:21terrain so the government wants updated
0:24images
0:25the flight is routine until he spots
0:28something strange
0:30he's flying over basically the middle of
0:32nowhere when he sees a startling and
0:34unusual formation amongst the Rocks
0:36below which of course he photographs
0:39when the film is developed the captain
0:41is surprised to see what appears to be
0:43the remains of a large ship far inland
0:47and 6 500 feet above sea level
0:51what in the world would a boat be doing
0:55way up there
0:57he doesn't know it yet but he may just
1:01have stumbled onto the answer some
1:03people think of a great biblical mystery
1:06that has been out there for thousands of
1:07years
1:08the mystery of Noah's Ark
1:12the story of Noah's Ark is told in the
1:14biblical Book of Genesis after God
1:17creates the universe and Mankind begins
1:19with Adam and Eve they go on to populate
1:21the Earth ten Generations later Noah's
1:24born according to Genesis during Noah's
1:27time God loses faith in humanity
1:31humankind become evil and sinful and God
1:35sees all this and is very very
1:37displeased by it and he essentially
1:40decides to sort of hit the reset button
1:42he's going to wipe out all living things
1:45that he has created and start afresh
1:49God spares Noah and his family on one
1:53condition
1:54he must build an ark and stock it with
1:57pairs of every animal on earth so the
2:01ark is a giant ship that's designed to
2:03survive this cataclysmic flood that's
2:05about to cover the Earth God gives Noah
2:07extremely detailed instructions on how
2:09to build this Ark how many floors it
2:11should have how many rooms what type of
2:14wood to use and even its exact
2:16dimensions 515 feet long 86 feet wide
2:20and 51 feet tall according to the Book
2:22of Genesis the flood lasted for 40 days
2:26and 40 nights eventually as the waters
2:30receded back into the Earth the ark came
2:33to rest on the Mountains of Ararat
2:37and actually there is a mountain today
2:39called Mount Ararat it's a huge peak in
2:42turkey and drupanar's aerial photo is
2:44taken just a few miles south of them for
2:47centuries religious Scholars and
2:48historians view the story of the great
2:51flood as a metaphor a warning that God
2:55punishes sin but curiously the flood is
2:58also mentioned in both the Torah and the
3:01Quran could these photos be proof that
3:04Noah's tale is in fact true
3:07photos create real kind of Firestorm of
3:11controversy and
3:13Explorer super excited because if these
3:16photos actually show Noah's Ark then
3:20they can prove that everything was
3:21written in Bible about this whole event
3:23is actually true right this is a
3:25historical event that actually happened
3:27see there are two things researchers can
3:29look for now the boat itself is one of
3:31them but another Avenue to explore is
3:33looking for evidence of a giant flood
3:35large-scale natural disasters leave
3:37traces behind that can last thousands of
3:40years and interestingly enough research
3:43has found that a massive flood May
3:45indeed have taken place and it happened
3:47right near where duropanar's photograph
3:49was taken in Turkey
3:52in 1997 a team of geologists
3:55geophysicists and oceanographers led by
3:58a couple of Americans William Ryan and
4:00Walter Pittman analyzed the area around
4:03the Black Sea and they find evidence for
4:06what they call the black seed Deluge and
4:09at the bottom of the salt water Black
4:11Sea they find remains of freshwater
4:14animals dating back to around five or
4:17six thousand BC and soil samples and
4:19Bedrock tests also proved that this once
4:21was a freshwater lake and then it
4:23changed very quickly
4:25so the theory runs that about 8 000
4:28years ago there was a huge Glacier and
4:31suddenly that Glacier collapses it
4:35causes this massive upsurge of the
4:38Mediterranean Sea that floods all the
4:40surrounding areas including what's now
4:42the Black Sea every day the equivalent
4:45of 200 Niagara Falls worth of water
4:48floods in and this goes on for 300 days
4:51straight Madness the existing freshwater
4:54lake that will become the Black Sea it
4:56gets bigger and deeper at the rate of
4:59one mile a day if you lived in this
5:01region in just a matter of hours your
5:04home could be at the bottom of the sea
5:06the flood was actually the size of
5:09Colorado before receding it could have
5:11affected thousands upon thousands of
5:14people
5:15according to the study's authors any
5:18survivors could possibly have passed the
5:20flood Story down through the generations
5:22in 1985 the long hunt for Noah's Ark
5:26takes a sudden turn when a 4 000 year
5:28old clay tablet is discovered in the
5:31Attic of a British Air Force veteran it
5:33takes many years to translate
5:36but some believe it could finally solve
5:38the mystery of where the Bible's great
5:40flood took place and where the ark
5:43itself landed
5:46in the 1980s in England a man by the
5:49name of Leonard Simmons passes away
5:52humans had led a really interesting life
5:54so he had been at Royal Air Force
5:56officer and as such he traveled a lot
5:59around the world around the
6:00Mediterranean Basin and he had collected
6:03on his travels a lot of different
6:05artifacts which he brought back to
6:07England with him
6:09Simmons son Douglas would like to know
6:11what some of these things are so every
6:13so often he'll take one and bring it to
6:15the British museum One Day in 1985 he
6:18arrives with a tiny clay tablet maybe
6:20four inches high not very big it's
6:23covered front and back in cuneiform
6:25script the writing of ancient
6:28Mesopotamia
6:30Simmons meets with Dr Irvin Finkel who
6:33is Chief curator for near Eastern
6:35artifacts at the British Museum and when
6:39Finkel starts working with this text he
6:42is apparently really amazed
6:45Finkel knows that every single scratch
6:48on this tablet is gold his eyes scan the
6:51first line and he's almost drowning in
6:52excitement at this point because here in
6:55this tiny tablet is an account of a
6:58devastating flood
6:59Finkel asks Simmons if he can keep the
7:02tablet to fully translated but Simmons
7:05declines
7:06Finkel really wants a crack at this
7:09tablet because he's devoted his life to
7:11the study of these cuneiform writings
7:12and he knows that this is something
7:14special finkel's department at the
7:17British museum includes over 130
7:20000 of these clay cuneiform tablets most
7:22of which were Unearthed in 1852 in Iraq
7:25ancient Mesopotamians used cuneiform
7:28essentially to kind of keep track of
7:30things like provisioning how many ducks
7:32were needed for a feast things like that
7:35but they also wrote down at least one
7:38exciting historical Tale one of my
7:41favorites the Epic of Gilgamesh
7:45the poem recounts The exploits of King
7:48Gilgamesh who ruled in ancient
7:50Mesopotamia an area near modern day Iraq
7:54The Story begins with a great flood that
7:58is sent by the gods that basically wipes
8:01out everything most scholars believe
8:04that the Epic of Gilgamesh was written
8:06between three and four thousand years
8:08ago and it plays out almost identically
8:12to the story of Noah's Ark but it's
8:14important to remember that this story
8:17was written a thousand if not more years
8:22before the story of Noah's Ark so the
8:25big question that we have is was there
8:28one original event or were there lots of
8:30different floods or different flood
8:32stories
8:34in the Epic Gilgamesh and Immortal Man
8:37by the name of utna pistim rounds up
8:39various animals and brings them with him
8:42into an ark together they survived this
8:45catastrophic flood
8:48utnapistem's boat comes to rest on a
8:52mountain called Mountain mush and this
8:54story is so similar to the story of
8:56Noah's Ark that many scholars believe
9:00that the story of Noah's Ark is a direct
9:03descendant of the story of utnapistam
9:06and the Epic of Gilgamesh ultimately we
9:09have to think what is the point of this
9:10story why do so many different cultures
9:13tell different variants of this kind of
9:15flood story because it makes the same
9:18point all of them it tells us that again
9:21as a species
9:23what we do best is survive
9:26I'm pretty sure that at many points in
9:28history a group of human beings put
9:30their heads together and figured out a
9:32way to endure a massive flood it
9:35happened in 2004 in Indonesia it
9:37happened in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina
9:39in New Orleans and it certainly happened
9:42five thousand years ago
9:44inspiring a story that we still tell to
9:47this day