“My grandfather knows where the ark is and has gone up there,” Badi says matter-of-factly.One day in July, his grandfather, Abas-Abas, visits our base and tells Badi the ice on Ararat is melting to where you can see part of the Ark. So I go to my commanding officer and ask for a leave. We get up early and Badi Abas and I drive down along the border as far as Qasbin until we get to a his little village. At dawn the next day, we reach the foothills of Ararat. Abas tells me the name of the village means "Where Noah Planted The Vine." Abas says they have a cave filled with artifacts that came from the ark. They find them strewn in a canyon below the ark, collect them to keep from outsiders who they think would profane them. That night, they show me the artifacts including oil lamps, clay vats, old style tools, things like that. I see a cage-like door, maybe thirty by forty inches, made of woven branches. It's hard as stone, looks petrified. It has a hand-carved lock or latch on it. Finally we come to a hidden cave deep in the foothills of Greater Ararat. I don't know how the horses are able to follow the route with the high cliffs rain, and fog. Someone from the Abas family is waiting for us, takes our horses and we are roped together and climb on foot much higher to another cave. I can't tell where we are and the rain never lets up. After three days of climbing we come to the last cave. Inside, there's strange writing. The rain lets up and we walk along a narrow trail behind a dangerous outcropping called “Doomsday Rock.” My Moslem friends pray to Allah. They speak quietly and are very subdued. Then Badi Abas points down into a kind of horseshoe crevasse and says, “That's Noah's Ark.” Then I see it -- a huge, rectangular, man-made structure partly covered by a talas of ice and rock, lying on its side. At least a hundred feet are clearly visible. I can even see inside it, into the end where it's been broken off, timbers are sticking out, kind of twisted and gnarled, water's cascading out from under it. Abas points down the canyon and I can make out another portion of it. I can see how the two pieces were once joined as the torn timbers kind of match. Inside the broken end of the biggest piece, I can see at least three floors and Abas says there's a living space near the top with forty-eight rooms. He says there are cages inside as small as my hand, others big enough to hold a family of elephants. I can see what looks like remains of partitions and walkways inside the bigger piece. Abas says we can go down on ropes in the morning. It begins to snow and we are forced back down the mountain.. I smell so bad when I get back, they burn my clothes. And no one seems interested in what I saw, so I quit talking about it. But I dream about it every night for twenty years.

1943 - Ed Davis Testimony