On episode 005 we talked about the news that a team had been drilling at a boat-shaped formation in eastern Turkey that some people call Noah's Ark. We went off memory, argued a bit, and got a few details wrong. Here is the story with the reporting alongside it.
What the place is. It is the Durupinar formation near Dogubayazit, close to the Iranian border. It is not on the summit of Mount Ararat, though it is in the same region. A Turkish Army captain, Ilhan Durupinar, spotted the boat-shaped outline in a 1959 NATO mapping photo. The site was reportedly exposed by rains and earthquakes in 1948. A 1960 expedition dug and dynamited it and found only soil and rock. An American amateur explorer, Ron Wyatt, rediscovered and promoted the site starting in 1977 and led a 1985 expedition; other researchers were not convinced.
What happened in 2026. An international team of about 20 people spent more than three months at the site. Fieldwork ended on September 30. Outlets report different sample counts: more than 300 (Daily Sabah), more than 360 (earlier reports), more than 400 (Infovaticana, October 27), and about 1,000 (a second Daily Sabah report). The deepest hole reached about 18 meters. Radar scans showed possible voids a few meters down and some deeper, which team members say could be unnatural, though the radar report is not final.
What the team has and has not said. The team has not identified any material as wood. It reports organic-rich layers that it thinks could be decayed remains. Lab results have not been published. Newsweek says initial lab results are expected over the winter and a detailed scientific report in spring 2027; Daily Sabah says April or May 2027; one outlet floated November. The team plans a second field season in 2027 if it gets permits, though project founder Andrew Jones told Newsweek no large-scale excavation is planned. Jones also clarified that the organic layers that might be decayed remains are a hypothesis being tested, not a finding, and that in one hole the drill bit broke on a hard layer at about 4 to 5 meters. Jones cautioned against claims that the Ark has been confirmed and said the structure "could be a natural formation, or it could be a man-made structure." All of this has come through press statements, not peer-reviewed papers.
What geologists say. A 1996 paper by geologist Lorence Collins and David Fasold (who had worked with Wyatt) in the Journal of Geoscience Education concluded the formation is natural; they traced the supposed iron bracket to weathered volcanic minerals and the "anchor stones" to local andesite. A 2025 report from Turkey's mineral research agency also pointed to a landslide origin. No independent study has shown it is man-made.
What the sources say
We said it was "confirmed" and "proven". Nothing is confirmed either way yet. The team itself says it has not identified wood.
We said the core samples showed human and animal hair, carbon-dated to over 5,000 years. We found no report of that, and no dating exists yet because lab results are not out.
We said the Gilgamesh flood story "is in the Bible." It is a separate, older Mesopotamian text. The two stories have similarities, which is part of why people debate them.
Why we still find it interesting. Flood stories show up in many ancient cultures, and a boat-shaped formation with a good origin story is going to get attention. We are not scientists. We like the question, and we want to see the lab results in 2027.
Sources:
- Daily Sabah: Researchers conduct 1st core drilling at Türkiye's Noah's Ark site
- Daily Sabah: Noah's Ark site shows higher organic matter in soil tests
- Wikipedia: Durupinar site (source for the 1948/1959/1960/Wyatt/1996 history)
- Newsweek: Noah's Ark hunters say they haven't found ancient wood yet
- Newsweek: What a 1996 study said about the Noah's Ark site
- Fox News: Noah's Ark mystery enters new phase
- Infovaticana, Oct 27, 2026: researchers obtain more than 400 samples
- Snopes: Noah's Ark Discovery
