Noah's Ark Found In North Korea

NOAH'S ARK FOUND IN NORTH KOREA

... But Kim Jong won't let the world near it!


NOAH'S Ark has been found in North Korea -- but demented dictator Kim Jong Il won't let Americans near it.

Scientists and theologians are banned from approaching the greatest archaeological find of modern times, now guarded by a full armored division.

Kim has bizarre plans for the ancient artifact, which surfaced last month in a village on the northeastern corner of the Korean peninsula some 50 miles south of the Yalu River.

Scientists say the wacko strongman will use the Ark as a bargaining chip to wring trade concessions and financial aid from the United States.

According to archaeologist Martin Bemis, reports reaching the West reveal that the 5,000-year-old Ark, resting on a barren mountainside, is largely intact, though roofless.

"Genesis 6:14 tells us that the Ark was made of gopher wood," Bemis says. "This probably means cypress, a wood that stands up well to both water and the elements.

"South Korean sources tell me that a recent defector from the North who saw the Ark said it's about 450 feet long, 45 feet high and more than 75 feet wide. This is very close to the dimensions mentioned in Genesis 6:14, 16."

Bemis, the leader of an international coalition that has spent years searching for the Ark, believes the biblical account that Noah and his family, to escape a cataclysmic global flood, built the huge vessel.

Noah took with him male and female pairs of clean animals to repopulate Earth after the waters receded.

Historians believed for centuries that after the flood the Ark landed on Mt. Ararat in what is now Turkey. But other expeditions revealed evidence the Ark landed far from that traditional site, though North Korea was never named as a possibility.

When word of the Ark's appearance on the Korean peninsula reached Bemis, the archaeologist rushed to Pyongyang, the capital of the North, only to be told that Kim had placed the Ark under around-the-clock armored guard.

Bemis was then given 24 hours to get out of the country.

Reports already reaching Washington warn that Kim Jong Il, desperate and deranged, is threatening to blow up the Ark unless his demands are met.

"He wants money and trade concessions from the U.S. and Europe," says one highly placed diplomatic source, "and now he believes that in the Ark he has his trump card.

"Kim hoped to strong-arm this country with his nuclear program, but so far that has not succeeded. But the Ark is a powerful symbol to Christians and this new blackmail could succeed where nuclear bombs have failed."

Dr. Bemis says that so far the Ark has not been harmed.

"But that could change at any time," he warns. "We're dealing with Kim Jong Il, a man whose sanity is very much in doubt. He could destroy the Ark in a moment, and not give it another thought.

"The U.S. must move quickly to save this priceless treasure."