Sightings of Noah's Ark

History of accounts of visual record and sightings of the Ark of Noah upon  Ararat, especially a Russian Aviator and two engineering companies dispatched by Czar Nicolas to take measurements:

"In the summer of 1916, during the thaw, Lieutenant Roskovitsky of the Russian Imperial Air Force noticed a half-frozen lake on the shelf or gully on the side of Mount Ararat while flying high-altitude test to observe Turkish troop movements. As they flew nearer to the lake, he saw a half submerged hull of some sort of ship. He noticed two stubby masts and a flat catwalk along the top. The following excerpts were taken from Berlitz. In Roskovitsky's words (from the New Eden Magazine, California, 1939): "We flew down as close as safety permitted and took several circles around it. We were surprised when we got close to it, at the immense size of the thing, for it was as long as a city block, and would compare very favorably in size to the modern battleships of today. ...The captain forwarded a report back to St. Petersburg resulting in orders from the Tsar to send two engineering companies up the mountain. One group of fifty men attacked one side, and the other group of one hundred men attacked the big mountain from the other side. Two weeks of hard work were required to chop out a trail along the cliffs of the lower part of the mountain, and it was nearly a month before the Ark was reached. Complete measurements were taken, and plans drawn of it, as well as many photographs, all of which were sent to the Tsar. ...sent photographs and reports by courier back to Petrograd, to the personal attention of the Tsar. ...breakdown..February and October Revolutions of 1917. ..came to the attention of Leon Trotsky, who either destroyed them or placed them in a file destined to be kept permanently secret...courier who delivered the news, his silence was sealed with his execution."