Radar Scans Beneath Turkey’s Boat-Shaped Formation Reveal Structures Inconsistent with Natural Rock

An international research team says new subsurface imaging of a 515-foot formation near Mount Ararat has detected layered, right-angled structures deep underground, findings they argue match the biblical dimensions of Noah’s Ark.

The Durupınar Formation, a boat-shaped  geological feature roughly 18 miles south of Turkey’s highest peak in the country’s far east, has drawn curiosity and skepticism in nearly equal measure since a Kurdish shepherd stumbled across it after heavy rains and earthquakes stripped away surrounding mud in May 1948. For most of the decades since, mainstream geologists dismissed it as a solidified mudflow, an oddly shaped but entirely natural mass of rock. Now a team led by Dr. Khosrow Bakhtar and organized through the research group Noah’s Ark Scans says a specialized radar system has picked up anomalies that solid rock alone cannot explain.

The system, called BakhtarRadar, was developed through U.S. Air Force research, according to the team. It detected what researchers describe as distinct subsurface layers and strong anomalies beneath the formation’s surface. Andrew Jones, the founder of Noah’s Ark Scans who has investigated the site since 2016, said the radar revealed a series of right angles approximately 20 feet below ground, angular structures he says are inconsistent with random geological processes.

Jones put the stakes in plain terms in an interview with The Christian Broadcasting Network:

“This is not what you’d expect to see if the site were simply a solid block of rock or the result of random mudflow debris. But it is exactly what you’d expect to find if this were a man-made boat, consistent with the biblical specifications of Noah’s Ark.”

The radar data arrived on top of soil analysis that the team collected in 2024, when Jones and his colleagues gathered 88 samples from inside and outside the formation. Those results, as Fox News reported, showed organic matter three times higher inside the boat-shaped boundary than in the soil just beyond it. Potassium levels, a  chemical marker associated with wood ash, ran 38 percent higher inside the formation. The pH difference between interior and exterior samples was eightfold.

Jones described the chemical gap as far beyond what chance variation would produce.

“The differences between the inside and outside samples are statistically staggering. Organic matter was three times more inside the boat shape versus the soil just right outside.”

The formation stretches 515 feet, a measurement that aligns closely with the biblical description of the Ark at 300 cubits long, which converts to approximately 515 feet. Scripture places the vessel’s width at 50 cubits, or about 86 feet, and its height at 30 cubits, roughly 52 feet. The Book of Genesis specifies construction from “gopher wood” sealed with pitch, and some biblical chronologies date the 150-day flood to more than 4,300 years ago.

That convergence between the formation’s length and the biblical measurement is one reason the site continues to draw investigation. Researchers working with historical maps and modern radar scans have noted the overlap between ancient cartographic references to the Ararat region and the physical location of the Durupınar site.

Beyond the chemical data, the team’s ground-penetrating radar work has identified what Jones calls subsurface tunnels, voids running beneath the formation that he says are not random. William Crabtree, a member of Noah’s Ark Scans, stated that one tunnel appears to run from the tip of the formation toward its center and is large enough for a person to walk through.