Noah's ark legend may have happened in the Black Sea

ISTANBUL

Johan Huibers, bottom right, poses, after being asked by a photographer to go outside, with a stuffed tiger in front of the full scale replica of Noah?s Ark in Dordrecht, Netherlands, Monday Dec. 10, 2012. AP photo

Noah's flood could have occurred in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey, according to an interview conducted by Christiane Amanpour for ABC news with Robert Ballard, one of the world's best-known underwater archaeologists.

Ballard's research suggests that an enormous flood, considered "the mother of all floods," took place in the Black Sea around 5000 BC. Noah's legendary flood possibly happened around that time, according to some experts.  

"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," Ballard told ABC news.

The religious legend says that God told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species after he decided to flood the corrupted Earth.
 
The ark came to rest on a mountain, after the flood waters receded. Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in Turkey's east, is where the ark and its inhabitants settled after the flood.