Noah's box - broadcast via satellite

A new photography satellite that will be launched next month will try to solve the mystery of the "Mount Ararat anomaly"

By: Alex Doron

Photograph of the "Ikonos" satellite from August 2
, 2000 shows the "Arratt anomaly" (in the middle circle)

Even after researchers proved in the last year that Noah's Ark, if it existed, floated in the Black Sea following its flooding and its height increased by dozens of meters about 7,000 years ago, there are still people looking for it in the Hararet Mountains.
And not only that, but they waste a lot of public money on this legend.

According to the book of Genesis, the animals were gathered into Noah's ark in pairs, and the destination of the ark was Mount Ararat. There, at the end of 40 days and nights, the remains of all the creatures that lived on the earth before the flood came out of it.
Mount Ararat and the remains of the mythological ark, has been the destination of many researchers for centuries. Among them is the astronaut James Irwin, who walked on the surface of the moon with the "Apollo 15" crew. So far, he has organized six expeditions to Mount Ararat, funded by the religious organization he heads.

But all the searches done so far on Mount Ararat (above 5000 meters) have turned up nothing. Now the searches are focused on imaging from space, using satellites, or photographs from the space shuttle. Their interpretation raised questions about the possibility that the remains of the lost ark are, perhaps, near the top of the mountain.

Before and during World War II, the Mount Ararat area was photographed from the air and there were reports of a box-like object poking through the snow on the summit. An earthquake in 1840 exposed areas of the mountain that were previously covered in snow. The above report raised hopes that something special, discoverable, is there.

The searches, using aerial cameras, focused on what is known as the "Arrat anomaly". The "Iconus" 2 photographic satellite, which is capable of photographing details that are about 1 meter in size and whose performance, according to technological journals, is similar to the Israeli "Eros" satellite, was aimed at photographing an area of ​​the mountain, which was photographed from an American Air Force plane in 1949.

The "anomaly" is an object that is about 200 meters long and only part of it sticks out of the snow. The new photos were compared with the old ones, examined by seven experts - who did not reach a common conclusion. Some claimed that the photographed object moved between the time of the first photograph and the second - which indicates that we are not part of the mountain. Others saw in the photographs remains that fit the outline of a ship's skeleton. There were other assessments as well.

Next month, a new photography satellite, Quick-Bird 2, will be launched, capable of photographing details that are about half a meter in size. One of his goals: to focus on the Erratt anomaly. The researchers hope that the images, which will have a higher angular resolution, will help solve the puzzle.