Noah's Ark?
Or elaborate fraud?
Tennessee adventurers document astonishing find

Despite all the hoopla and questions on the Ark's location, a possible finding of the Ark inspires hope for many.

Four east Tennessee men have felt that hope on the trip of a lifetime that led them on a dangerous adventure to Turkey to view what many claim is the final resting spot of Noah's Ark.

Attorney Ron Leadbetter, private investigator Barry Rice, physician Jerry Lemler and his son -- currently a West Point cadet, then high school senior -- Russell Lemler, are not explorers.

They are ordinary men who set off with intrigue in their eyes and hope in their hearts to the mountains of Turkey; traveling to a region explored by few before them. Recently they have chronicled their difficult journey in a book entitled simply "Journey to Noah's Ark, " which contains some of the only known photographs of the Noah's Ark site.

A long-time adventurer, Leadbetter has taken many tumultuous trips in the past, usually traveling with whatever vagabond party of friends he can cajole into going with him. He is known for taking the kind of trips that most vacationers would want no part of, not only because many of them are in regions of the world not overly explored by the human species, but many have been extremely exotic and dangerous.

"He has never been one to do the standard golfing in Saint Andrews or touring the Vineyards of France," said traveling companion Lemler.

Leadbetter's interest in the Noah's Ark site began after he met an amateur archeologist from Nashville, Tenn., Ron Wyatt. Wyatt, who traveled through the mountains of Turkey many times in the '70s and '80s was convinced he had found Noah's Ark and was instrumental in helping to set up the visitors center presently located at the site.

The meeting between Leadbetter and Wyatt further fueled Leadbetter's desire to see the alleged ark site for himself; thus began a trip that took three years to plan out.

In the past the exact location of where the Ark landed has caused a huge controversy among explorers and archeologists alike. Many believe the ark landed at Mount Ararat, while others argue that the Bible spoke of the "mountains of Ararat." Lemler and others believe that in this case the word "mountains" is the clue.

"The plural mountains is the key, which does not necessarily mean Ararat itself," said Lemler.

Wyatt's discovery was indeed several miles southwest of Mount Ararat, on what is known as the "Duripinar site."

According to Lemler, several samples taken in the '70s and '80s and analyzed in the U.S. proved inconclusive.

"They did not find rock, they found living matter; carbon, so there was something actively living in that structure at one time," he said.

Many people in the past have written the site off as being only a rock formation when tests have proven otherwise.

The formation was identified as a boat by a number of skilled photogrammetry experts, and samples taken from around the Ark by Wyatt were identified as organic matter by Galbraith Labs in Knoxville, Tenn.

The formation also meets the size and height as identified in the Bible. In an American perspective that is approximately the size of one and one half football fields.

The site was not easily reached, down 10 miles of dirt roads and over the mountain from Iran. It is a site Americans have been discouraged from visiting, and in recent years the visitors center has been closed.

"Right now because of the even further escalation of hostilities in the area, the site has been closed and we as far as we know are the last westerners to have visited the site," Lemler said.

Lemler's group was fortunate; they not only were able to see the site, but the guard Hassan, also known as the "guardian of the Ark," allowed them to walk out on the site exploring it firsthand.

This walk is what convinced them; they found hundreds of seashells on a site that was located 50 miles away from the nearest body of water and that was a freshwater lake.

"It was not like someone took a truckload of seashells and spread them out for our pleasure, they were there on the boat and in the immediate vicinity, but no where else in that region," Lemler said.

He believes, as do the others that if it is not Noah's Ark, it is an amazing engineering feat by someone.

"We are not talking about someone out in a desert who sees a flying saucer landing; we are talking about a physician, a West Point cadet, an attorney and a private investigator, four people who generally have a fair level of smarts, are inquisitive and are not four nuts who absolutely had to find something," he said.

All four of the men are convinced not necessarily that it is Noah's Ark -- though it certainly appears to be -- but that there is a boat on a mountain with no other explanation of how it arrived there.

Once returning to the U.S., the men began to talk to various civic and religious groups telling of their experiences, showing the video, the pictures, the shells and the ballast brought home with them. Each group was curious and wanted more; that is when the idea and the writing of the book came about.

Lemler describes the experience in Eastern Turkey as awe inspiring: "It is like when I was a kid and touched the Liberty Bell for the first time, only on a much larger scale," he said.

Journey to Noah's Ark is available at Barnes and Noble and from the group's website.