David Fasold

David Franklin Fasold was a former United States Merchant Marine officer and salvage expert who is best known for his book The Ark of Noah, chronicling his early expeditions to the Durupnar Noahs Ark site in eastern Turkey. Repudiating and then changing his views about the site, Fasold was a participant in a suit with Australian geologist and skeptic Ian Plimer against an Australian creationist group. The suit, dubbed the Monkey Trial II, was an important case in the debate between science and religion and its role in society.

Fasold was born in Chicago in 1939 and grew up in Wheaton, Illinois, son of Frank, an architect, and Ruth Fasold, who raised him as strict Plymouth Brethren. In 1957 he joined the United States Merchant Marine becoming an officer and traveling the world. He met his wife Anna Elizabeth Avila, from El Salvador, in San Jose, California, in the 1950s. After beginning a family he moved to Key West, Florida, where Fasold built up a respectable marine salvage company. In the 1970s and 1980s he assisted various marine treasure hunters, including Mel Fisher. He raised two sons, Nathan and Michael, before dying of cancer in Corvallis, Oregon, on April 26, 1998, financially broken from years of expeditions and research.1011, 184185

Source: Wikipedia