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Top image: A Dutchman recently launched a life-size replica of Noah's Ark.SALT LAKE CITY — The man who discovered the remains of the Titanic is at it again, but this time with something of biblical proportions.
Robert Ballard, one of the world's most well-known underwater archaeologists, claims to have found evidence of the Great Flood of Old Testament times. His team is currently in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey in search of a civilization hidden underwater since Noah's time.
Ballard told ABC News
Ballard thinks there was. His crew unearthed an ancient shoreline 400 feet below the surface of the Black Sea. Based on carbon dating of shells found along the shoreline, the crew believes the land was flooded — and remained flooded — in about 5,000 B.C., which is when some experts believe the Great Flood occurred.
"It probably was a bad day," Ballard said. "At some magic moment, it broke through and flooded this place violently, and a lot of real estate, 150,000 square kilometers of land, went under."
The questions is, was there a mother of all floods.
–Robert Ballard
The theory is that the story of the catastrophe was passed down from generation to generation and eventually became the story of Noah in the Bible.
Believers of the Old Testament consider the account of Noah and the Great Flood to be scripture. Noah is said to have been instructed by God to build an ark to save himself, his family and two of every living creature from a flood that would destroy every living thing on Earth due to the wickedness of man.
Ballard said he knows not everyone agrees with his interpretation of what happened, but that he believes he is on his way to discovering something from biblical times.
The archaeologist is not unaccustomed to searching for the impossible: he and a crew uncovered the remains of the Titanic in 1985.