NBC's "Today" Show Runs Credulous Report Claiming "Proof" of Noah's Ark

​Early this morning, NBC’s Today show broadcast a piece profiling “Christian researcher” Andrew Jones, who has long claimed that a natural formation in Turkey is Noah’s Ark. The “Today In-Depth” report, broadcast during the 7:30 ET half hour, saw international correspondent Keir Simmons deliver a one-sided live report from the Durupinar formation near Mount Ararat, claiming the site to be the Ark. “A group of American Christians believe they have new evidence that that is the wreckage of Noah's Ark here in these mountains,” Simmons told Today anchors Savannah Guthrie, Craig Melvin, and Carson Daly.

​“The book of Genesis says Noah landed here in the mountains of Ararat. So could this really be Noah’s ark?” Simmons asked. “New research shared with Today hints at that extraordinary conclusion.”
 
If this sounds familiar, it’s because the so-called “exclusive” NBC report is substantively the same as the episode of Forbidden History that profiled Jones’s efforts to claim Durupinar at Noah’s Ark back in 2020. As I mentioned at the time, anesthesiologist-turned-“amateur archaeologist” Ron Wyatt had made the same claim in the 1970s and 1980s, building on evangelical Christian speculation that dates back to a Life magazine photo of the site in 1960. But, sure, let’s call it an “exclusive” report on a “new” candidate for Noah’s Ark.
 
I have already critiqued Jones’s claims in my Forbidden History review, so please click the link above if you are interested in the history of the hunt for Noah’s Ark. The only “new” claim is Jones’s speculation that voids under the rock formation visible on geophysical scans are evidence of the “three decks” of the Ark (Genesis 6:16). Simmons showed “exclusive” animation of the site reconstructed as the ark, even though this animation, created by Jones, is an almost complete fantasy. Even the creationists at Answers in Genesis found the claim ridiculous—back in June, five months before NBC’s “exclusive” access to the claim: “Since the rock within the structure is a limestone, these geophysical features might ‘reflect’ jointing and layering within the limestone and even an elongated tunnel or cave due to the limestone being dissolved and excavated by surface and ground waters.” Answers in Genesis accused Jones of starting with a predetermined conclusion and working backward.
 
Simmons’s report gave the distinct impression that there was something serious to Jones’s claims, and no geologist or scientist with a conventional interpretation appeared in the piece. Simmons also made no mention of the 65-year history of failed efforts to prove Durupinar Noah’s Ark. The only sop to critics was a quick line that “Many may look at this and say it's simply a natural feature of the landscape.” Otherwise, Simmons repeatedly spoke of the “magical” feeling of being the presence of the pretended Ark. “Whether you believe this is Noah’s ark or not,” Simmons said, “these are indisputably biblical lands drawing believers to see for themselves.”
 
Technically, the mountain now named Ararat was not traditionally the one identified as the mountain of Genesis (which is never specified in the text, where “Ararat” is a region, not a peak). For most of history, Mt. Judi was the peak identified as Noah’s place of descent (and was also identified long before as the place where Xisuthrus landed his ark in the older Mesopotamian flood story), and the mountain now called “Ararat,” much farther north and beyond Lake Van, only gained that name until the Middle Ages. Therefore, it’s not strictly true that Ararat is “indisputably” a biblical land.
 
After the report ended with the implication that the Ark had been found, the Today anchors gasped in awe, appeared to endorse the idea that the well-known natural rock formation was a prehistoric wooden ship, and called for an excavation of the site to prove the Bible true.