The size and shape of the formation led to its promotion by some believers as the petrified ruins of the original Noah's Ark.

After two days of digging and dynamiting inside the "boat-shaped" formation, the expedition members found only soil and rocks.

Their official news release concluded that "there were no visible archaeological remains" and that this formation "was a freak of nature and not man-made".

[13][14] Fasold believed the team found the fossilized remains of the upper deck and that the original reed substructure had disappeared.

In the nearby village of Kazan (formerly Arzap), they examined so-called drogue (anchor) stones that they believed were once attached to the ark.

Supposed metal-braced walls are natural concentrations of limonite and magnetite in steeply inclined sedimentary layers in the limbs of a doubly plunging syncline.

[16]In April 1997, in sworn testimony at an Australian court case, Fasold repeated his doubts and noted that he regarded the claim that Noah's ark had been found as "absolute BS".

[20] His close Australian friend and biographer June Dawes wrote: He [Fasold] kept repeating that no matter what the experts said, there was too much going for the Durupınar site for it to be dismissed.

[22][23] In 2014 and 2019, ground penetrating radar surveys discovered that walls made of limonite stones form several right angles.