Daniel McGivern, president of Shamrock -- The Trinity Corp., spoke yesterday at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. An expedition is being planned for this summer to the upper reaches of Turkey's Mount Ararat where organizers hope to find Noah's ark.
In search of
Noah’s arkA Honolulu man has a team
to scale Turkey's Mount Ararat
A Honolulu businessman will finance a summer expedition to Turkey's Mount Ararat in hopes of proving that an object photographed from satellites is the wreckage of Noah's ark.
Ark Expedition
When: July 15-Aug. 15
Where: Mount Ararat, 17,820 feet
Team: 10 American and Turkish members
Cost: $900,000
Daniel McGivern unveiled the plan yesterday at a news conference in the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He said the team that will climb the 17,000-foot mountain from July 15 to Aug. 15 will include archaeologists, scientists and forensic experts competent to investigate the object and confirm its identity as the vessel described in the Bible's book of Genesis.
"We have no intention of excavating it," said McGivern, who expects the effort to cost $900,000. "We will photograph it, enter it, examine as much as possible but not disturb anything. It's going to be left where it is."
McGivern identified himself to international news agencies yesterday as president of Shamrock -- The Trinity Corp. in Hawaii. He is best known here as a Catholic activist who most recently testified at the Legislature as president of Pro Family Hawaii against doctor-assisted suicide.
He said the joint U.S.-Turkish expedition will be led by Ahmet Ali Arslan, an English professor at Seljuk University in Konya, Turkey.
"He has been on the mountain 50 times in 40 years and is the only man alive who photographed the ark," McGivern said. He said the mountaineer saw the object from 220 yards away in 1989, but his investigation was cut short by an ice avalanche.
The Honolulu man said he and Arslan met with the Turkish ambassador to the United States after the news conference.
McGivern said the heat wave that devastated Europe last summer "had one good result: It melted tons of ice from the top of Mount Ararat. Satellite images taken last summer by Digital Globe give an 80 percent chance that it is a man-made image."
What was revealed, McGivern said, was an object about 50 feet by 70 feet, which researchers estimate is one of three pieces from a structure 45 feet high and 450 feet long. "Arslan said we are looking into the roof. The image we have is three vertical beams, a horizontal beam, circles, an organized pattern. Science can conclude it is man-made."
McGivern commissioned satellite imagery from three agencies in recent years. "The only way to make this work is to go with satellite imagery. If we find it that way, everyone will believe."
In the biblical account, Noah's ark came to rest "in the mountains of Ararat." Since the Middle Ages, this particular mountain has been believed to be the site. In 1957, Turkish air force pilots spotted a boat-shaped formation in the mountainous Agri province. The entire area, including Mount Ararat, was off limits to foreigners because of Soviet Union fears that explorers were U.S. spies. Since that ban ended in 1982, several teams of explorers have visited the area but have been unable to substantiate any claim of an ark.
The Honolulu resident said the project is a spiritual one for him. "Twenty years ago, I wrote in my Bible 10 great projects I'd like to accomplish. I did nothing until in 1995 I read 'The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark.'" He said he has talked with Americans who explored on the mountain and has read widely about other expeditions and theories about the site. A theory is that the ark is in at least three pieces, probably broken up in a June 1840 earthquake that destroyed a village high on the mountain.
"God said Noah should put pitch on the inside and the outside," said McGivern. "I've read that the pitch on the outside was to preserve the ark from sinking. Pitch on inside is to preserve it for the future. We believe God wants it discovered.
"All three of the monotheistic religions believe that we are all descended from Noah and his three sons," he said. "In these times it is good to have something that Jews, Christians and Muslims all agree about."
In the Genesis account, before God sent the flood to destroy mankind for its wickedness, he instructed the faithful Noah to build an ark and bring along his sons and their wives, as well as pairs of all living creatures.
McGivern is a believer and also a believer of science. "Anybody who thinks the entire world was flooded by 40 days of rain is totally unscientific," he said, and referred queries to research by the Japan Institute of Technology about the massive volume of water that exists beneath the earth's surface.
He was a partner in a Honolulu public relations firm that published the first Hawaiian-language scenic calendars in the 1960s, a financially successful venture that expanded into greeting cards and stationery. Shamrock -- The Trinity Corp. was formed in 1996.
