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Ararat anomaly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ararat anomaly is an object appearing on photographs of the snowfields at the summit of Mount Ararat, Turkey, and advanced by some believers in Biblical literalism as the remains of Noah's Ark.
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The anomaly is located on the northwest corner of the Western Plateau of Mount Ararat (approximately ) at about 15,500 feet (4,724 meters), some 2.2 kilometers west of the 16,854 feet (5,137 metres) summit, on the edge of what appears from the photographs to be a steep downward slope. It was first filmed during a US Air Force aerial reconnaissance mission in 1949 - the Ararat massif sits on the Turkish/Soviet border, and was thus an area of military interest. The film was given a routine classification of "Secret" as were subsequent photographs taken in 1956, 1973, 1976, 1990 and 1992, by aircraft and satellites. Six frames from the 1949 footage were released under the Freedom of Information Act to Porcher Taylor, a scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies specializing in satellite intelligence and diplomacy, in 1995.
A joint research project was later established between Insight Magazine and Space Imaging (now GeoEye), using the IKONOS satellite. IKONOS, on its maiden voyage, captured the anomaly on August 5 and September 13, 2000. The Mount Ararat area also has been imaged by France's SPOT satellite in September 1989, Landsat in the 1970s and NASA's Space shuttle in 1994, as well as military satellite images captured by the CIA's KH-9 (Keyhole 9) in 1973 and KH-11 (Keyhole 11) in 1976 and 1990–1992.
The Ararat anomaly is sometimes confused with the Durupinar site, a feature some 18 miles from the mountain claimed by adventurer Ron Wyatt and his associate David Fasold to be the genuine original Noah's Ark.[1]
