NARRATOR: Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...
RICK: We're following the trail of the gold.
MARTY: There's a highly unusual source of gold here.
-Hey, look at this. -Nice.
If you can get a date off of that, you could date this wall.
We're talking about 1650 to about 1690.
RICK: Come on in, Bill.
We're digging up a hidden well.
-(beeping) -Oh, look at that. That's fantastic!
There's definitely higher counts of gold here.
-That's exciting. -Yeah. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: There is an island in the North Atlantic
where people have been looking for
an incredible treasure for more than 200 years.
So far, they have found a stone slab
with strange symbols carved into it...
...man-made workings that date to medieval times,
and a lead cross whose origin may be connected
to the Knights Templar.
To date, six men have died
trying to solve the mystery.
And according to legend, one more will have to die
before the treasure can be found.
♪ ♪
-MARTY: Hey, guys. -RODNEY: Hello, Marty.
NARRATOR: As a new day begins
on Oak Island for brothers
Rick and Marty Lagina and their team...
MARTY: Okay, Rod, Paul,
I see you have us set up with camera. That's great.
NARRATOR: ...the belief that they are close
to a groundbreaking discovery
in the Money Pit area has never been stronger.
Rod, where are we currently with the dig?
-We're just putting in our set now at 50... roughly 56 feet. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Working with representatives
from Dumas Contracting Limited,
they have reached a depth of nearly 60 feet
with the reconstruction of the so-called Garden Shaft,
a dilapidated, 80-foot-deep structure
that may not only be related to the original Money Pit,
but might also hold the keys
to solving a 228-year-old treasure mystery.
We want you to do something here, Rod.
Uh, when you were drilling your holes,
Rick had you hand over some of those wood samples.
Well, it turns out that we had those tested,
and there's gold in those.
RICK: Drill's going in now.
-All right, bud. We're in business. -Yup.
NARRATOR: One week ago...
ALEX: If we get lucky, this'll tell us.
NARRATOR: ...after conducting exploratory probe-drilling
from within the shaft at a depth of 55 feet,
the team had archaeometallurgist
Emma Culligan test a sample of wood,
taken from the original feature, for signs of precious metals.
From this one, I detected gold.
-Wow. -0.11%
Isn't that like a big number?
This is huge.
MARTY: We're gonna want to take more samples.
And while your guys are down there, can they cut a section
of that tight lining and get us a piece?
Yeah. Yeah.
NARRATOR: Now, while Dumas
completes the final eight-foot sections,
or sets, of the Garden Shaft...
Hello, Dan. Do you got a copy?
NARRATOR: ...down to a total depth of 80 feet...
MACKENZIE: What's going on?
Can you take out a piece
of the tight lining and send it up?
-No problem at all. -Thank you.
NARRATOR: ...the Oak Island team will continue
testing samples of the original structure
in an effort to pinpoint just where the ultimate source
of the gold may be located.
I bet you wouldn't have thought there'd be gold in that wood.
I would never have thought there'd be gold in that wood.
Well, there is. I don't know what to make of it.
-We're trying to figure it out. -RODNEY: Okay.
-There's our sample. I'll go grab it. Yeah. -Good deal.
MARTY: If we find gold at this 50-foot depth,
then we have two alternatives.
The source of the gold either went deeper,
or it was actually emanating
from the Garden Shaft and is much closer.
So, there could be something like an offset chamber,
shallower than we realized, and that would be great.
Well, those ought to do.
Those are some pretty good chunks.
Should be good enough for a sample size off of that.
-Oh, I think so, yeah. -PAUL: We have all those gold areas
that are in the water over here on the corner.
So there must be some communication somewhere.
Whether it's further below, in deeper caverns and tunnels
that extend out into the Money Pit.
-But somewhere there's a contact point. -Yeah.
Okay, well, look, these are the samples from 58 feet, right?
-Yeah. -We're gonna want more, I guarantee it.
So, stay tuned, all right?
Especially after we get the results of this.
-Perfect. -MARTY: Yup, okay. Thank you, guys.
-RODNEY: Thank you. -PAUL: All right.
NARRATOR: While the reconstruction
of the Garden Shaft continues in the Money Pit area...
RICK: Gentlemen, I'm glad we're here.
I was speaking with Tom the other day,
and he's come up with an idea:
developing a new search agenda
based on your father's work, of course.
NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina, along with fellow
Oak Island landowner Tom Nolan,
gather in the war room with members of the team
for an important meeting regarding the decades
of documented search activity
conducted by Tom's late father, Fred Nolan.
I think we're all going to find it very interesting.
So, Tom, I'm going to turn it over to you.
Well, in the early '80s,
my dad started to compose a book of his work on the island.
And it was never published.
But it does give, you know, a really good read,
of his work over the years on the island.
NARRATOR: From the early 1960s
until his passing in 2016, Fred Nolan,
a professional surveyor from Halifax, Nova Scotia,
made some of the most important discoveries
in the history of the Oak Island treasure hunt
on the six lots that he owned.
These include numerous parts of a large sailing vessel
that he found in the triangle-shaped swamp,
as well as the megalithic formation of six boulders
that came to be known as "Nolan's Cross."
Back in the 1970s,
we were working around the outer edge of the swamp,
and we got into a well.
It had been filled in and buried.
As I recall, I'm going to say it was ten feet deep.
But one of the odd things was,
when we got to the... what we assumed was the bottom of it,
we came across a tremendous amount of broken pottery.
-Wow. -Like somebody had just taken everything they had
and smashed it and thrown it to the bottom of this well.
We didn't know what to make of it.
Filled it back in.
But it's interesting where you guys have found this well on 26.
-You just might want to have a look at that. -Yeah.
-I'd be happy to go out there and take a look at it. -Yeah.
-TOM: We can come up with some answers
as to why this thing was put there.
I mean, I-I think
it's certainly worth our time to investigate it.
RICK: Well, I mean, I see no reason not to dig it.
-Uh, me personally. -Yeah. -Yes.
TOM: So, there is another thing. My dad discovered,
in the early '90s, something that we refer to
as "the quadrilateral."
He found it using some sort of an offset sightline
of the cross.
It's within, oh,
a couple hundred feet of the top of the cross
on the north side of the swamp.
When they did get into the site, and they cleared it off,
they brought in a small backhoe,
and they did a little bit of light excavation work,
and what they found themselves in
was some sort of a boulder field.
And it definitely
didn't look natural once they started to uncover it.
This is the section in the book that was dedicated
to the quadrilateral.
As you can see what...
What are the diagrams?
So, here are his pictures
of how he sketched out the quadrilateral.
You can see it's...
On its long side, it's probably 32 feet long.
Runs about ten feet deep
with three layers of large boulders.
RICK: That's intriguing, right?
-Very intriguing. -TOM: No farmer
working the island would have done this.
It-it has another purpose.
-Mm-hmm. -Is the whole thing dug out?
Or are we able to do some sort of an excavation?
TOM: He partially back-filled it.
So, I mean, yeah, it could certainly be re-excavated.
Well, I'll tell you what. Here's what we'll do.
And I think this is exceedingly interesting.
And we need to explore this further.
But I would advocate to explore this well
that you're referencing first
because the well is in the northern end of the swamp,
-and we know the swamp was manipulated. -Yup.
RICK: The well on Tom's property--
it's interesting for two reasons.
One, it's a hidden well. That's how Fred described it.
There are other wells on the island.
They're all open. They weren't filled in.
The quadrilateral is a unique geometric figure,
and we will look into it further.
First, let's dig the well out properly.
Well, I think we all want answers here.
So, we better get at it and get out there.
-Right? -Yeah. -Let's do it.
RICK: Let's try to figure this out.
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...
-RICK: Come on in, Bill. -(mechanical beeping)
ALEX: Probably about here.
BILLY: All right.
NARRATOR: ...Rick and Alex Lagina,
along with Billy Gerhardt, arrive on Lot 11,
near the northern edge of the triangle-shaped swamp.
I'd work from the outside in,
-so we don't tear it up. -BILLY: All right.
NARRATOR: Having been given the location
of a reported buried well by Tom Nolan,
they are eager to excavate the feature and look for clues
that might help solve the 228-year-old mystery.
Another little mini treasure hunt for you, Gary.
Ooh, wow.
As you well know, Fred did not have a metal detector.
-No. -He wasn't, you know, a proponent of that.
So, we may find something here.
-Okay. -First, let's figure out
the extent of the well and then go from there.
-ALEX: Yup. -BILLY: Yup.
NARRATOR: As Billy Gerhardt
removes muck and earth in an effort to uncover the well,
Gary will scan the spoils for signs of artifacts
and potential valuables.
Going in.
Ooh!
GARY: Ooh. Look what I see.
I see something old.
I just about sweep over it with my metal detector.
ALEX: Oh, yeah.
NARRATOR: Just north of the Oak Island swamp...
It's an old spike.
NARRATOR: ...while helping Rick Lagina and members
of the team uncover a mysterious
stone well, Gary Drayton has just found
a potentially important clue.
GARY: Ooh! It's our friend, the rose head.
It's a beauty, as well. Look!
-These are old. -ALEX: Yeah.
Look at that. Look at the head on it.
Mm-hmm, yeah, it's a rose head for sure.
GARY: Imagine the last person to touch that before us.
It might have been the person who dug that well.
-GARY: Yeah. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: A rose head spike, meaning
that it was hand-forged some time prior to the discovery
of the Money Pit in 1795?
But if so, how might it be related to the buried well
that Fred Nolan discovered here more than four decades ago?
GARY: Brilliant. Oh, my God,
that's a thing of beauty, isn't it?
-ALEX: And in the top couple feet, too. -GARY: Yeah.
Question is, what would you be doing here
-to necessitate using that? -Yeah. -Yeah.
It is a really old iron fastener.
BILLY: It's not only is it a fastener.
-It's a big fastener, right? -GARY: Yeah. No.
It's-it's... You'd think tunneling or shafts.
Yeah. Yeah.
A beautiful find. I'm gonna bag it,
and I'll recheck the spoils here,
-see if we got anymore. -Perfect.
RICK: I don't know what to make of the rose head spike
that's in close proximity to the hidden well.
We have found those in the Money Pit.
We have found those in Smith's Cove.
We know for certain have been highly manipulated
by the hand of man.
So, that's interesting and intriguing in and of itself.
Nothing yet.
So are there other structures in proximity?
There may be.
To what end, we don't know quite yet.
(beeping)
GARY: I think there's a piece of iron here.
Looks like it could be modern, though.
-(rapid beeping) -Oh, maybe I am wrong about that.
It's singing.
Oh-ho! Look what we got.
Look at this!
A hook.
An old hook, as well, by the look of it.
Maybe it was a hook connected
when they were bringing the water out the well.
ALEX: Yeah.
-Yeah, that could be. -GARY: Yeah. -Yeah.
GARY: That looks really old.
That's an hand-forged hook.
-Yeah, you can kind of see the striations on the tip. -Yeah.
ALEX: The point.
We have found a... another hook on the island.
-Remember that bunk hook? -Mm-hmm.
That Carmen ID'd as from 1600s?
Same date range would be nice or even older.
Mm-hmm.
MARTY: Oh, my goodness. What the hell is that?
NARRATOR: Earlier this year,
while investigating Lot 8,
less than a quarter mile to the west,
Gary and Marty Lagina unearthed a 17th-century bunk hook--
a tool specifically designed for lifting heavy cargo.
-Another good candidate for the lab. -Yeah. Yup.
NARRATOR: Is it possible
that Gary has found a similar artifact
near the reported buried well?
And of course, we'll show it to Carmen Legge,
-and hopefully, he'll know... -Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
GARY: ...what this was used for.
-All right. I'm gonna bag it. -RICK: Absolutely.
-Yeah. Yup. -I say keep digging, Bill.
(mechanical squeaking)
RICK: I just don't understand.
Tom said, "You'll see the stones."
The problem is there's no rock.
-ALEX: Yeah. -There's just... there's no rock.
-There doesn't seem to be a well. -(laughing): No.
ALEX: To me, this looks like backfill stuff.
RICK: There's not a stone to be found.
No.
-Nothing on this side at all. -Okay.
We're done.
So, I think what we'll do is
bring Tom in and see what he says.
-Mm-hmm. -BILLY: If there's a well, I think, unfortunately,
it might be... It could be deeper.
But we're-we're below Tom's two feet now.
All the more reason to stand down
and see if Tom has some answers.
We have to get more information from Tom.
-Yup. -Yup.
-Back at it when Tom gets here. -RICK: Yup. -GARY: Yup.
RICK: You got to be patient in this place.
GARY: Yup.
NARRATOR: The following morning...
AL COUTURE: All right, Rods, going down.
NARRATOR: ...as the team from Dumas Contracting Limited
continues to reconstruct the Garden Shaft...
MACKENZIE: Good.
MARTY: Peter Romkey is here.
He is an expert in trees and forestry.
NARRATOR: ...at the research center,
Rick and Marty Lagina, along with other members of the team,
meet with forestry technician Peter Romkey.
-We went out to the wall where we excavated. -Yes.
-Let's bore a tree. -MARTY: Okay.
NARRATOR: One week ago, Peter took a core sample
from an adult oak tree that had grown up
through the mysterious rock wall on Lot 26.
A wall that sets less than 50 feet
from a 900-year-old stone well
where the team has recently found
high-trace evidence of silver.
Now, Peter has returned
to report the age of the oak tree,
which, if it pre-dates the discovery of the Money Pit,
will prove that the stone wall's construction did, as well.
So, what did you find out?
We can look at the numbers here.
So, if we talk about the second bore first,
based on the number of rings that we could count,
it ended up coming out at, uh, 240 years old.
What's your plus and minus on that?
My plus and minus could be 20 or 30 years.
So, 260 years. But you have to remember,
what's difficult with these
were that once we get in a certain distance,
the wood went rotten, in which case, there's no rings to count.
The missing rings could be a lot older, a lot tighter, right?
-A lot tighter, yeah. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Because the oak tree dates back
240 years or more,
could that possibly mean that the stone wall might be related
to the nearby 900-year-old stone well?
If so, what other clues or potential valuables
does the wall contain that could help the team determine
just who built them and why?
So, it could be much older.
-Right. -Yeah. -BILLY: Right.
You'd have to add quite a number of years, in my opinion.
So, the question is, what were they using the wall for?
RICK: If the wall was constructed
for a specific purpose, other than a boundary,
which it just to me does not appear to be a boundary.
It was used for some reason, in some capacity.
Absolutely.
RICK: It's now at this point, you have to look at it
as an island-wide story, not just a Money Pit story.
Something happened here long ago,
and I continue to be intrigued.
MARTY: It is pretty cool
and interesting to look at those and think
that that tree, at least, was growing in that wall
when the Money Pit was first discovered.
Anyway, great data, Peter. Thank you.
-Thank you, Peter. -Appreciate it.
ROMKEY: No problem.
LAIRD: It's just odd. No artifacts.
ALEX: Yeah. Nothing.
We have to find artifacts.
-Okay, get on that. -(laughs)
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon,
following Peter Romkey's report, Alex Lagina,
along with archaeologists Laird Niven and Miriam Amirault
return to Lot 26
to continue investigating the stone wall.
(Laird laughs)
LAIRD: I think we'll get a good profile.
-MIRIAM: Mm-hmm. -ALEX: Okay.
MIRIAM: It's looking good.
LAIRD: I think we're getting down to these bottom stones.
ALEX: Mm-hmm.
So I guess just, like, the question is, is this
the bottom, or is this on top of something else?
ALEX: Mm-hmm.
LAIRD: That's a good question.
I don't remember us encountering these base rocks.
Yeah. Those rocks are different.
-LAIRD: Yeah. -ALEX: These are bigger.
LAIRD: Yeah.
LAIRD: Nice.
-Wow. See that? -Oh, yeah.
-This is exactly what Craig wants us to find. -All right!
LAIRD: That's certainly intriguing.
-MIRIAM: Yeah. -ALEX: Cool.
-LAIRD: That's charcoal. -MIRIAM: That's a cool find.
ALEX: That's pretty interesting.
-We got a nice, uh, burnt twig basically. -ALEX: Nice.
NARRATOR: While investigating
the mysterious stone wall on Lot 26...
-This is exactly what Craig wants us to find. -ALEX: Right.
NARRATOR: ...archaeologist Laird Niven has just discovered
an important clue.
You think we can get, you know, a good date off of that?
Well, I mean, if you can get a date off of that, you can
-sort of try and date this wall. -Right.
At least say, like, it was not here before this time.
-Right. -Finding at the bottom here.
-LAIRD: Yeah. -So, this is the bottom of the wall.
Yup.
ALEX: The great thing about charcoal is,
it's not a root that grew under the wall.
With charcoal,
the only way for a piece of charcoal to be under the wall is
if it was burned before the wall was built.
Hey.
-How's it going? -Good. -RICK: Hey, guys.
-MIRIAM: Hi. -I see they brought in the heavy hitter.
-Yeah. -So, have you figured it out?
LAIRD: In this area, they had more of a...
they're more... well, almost a series of flat rocks.
But the good thing is,
under the layer of rocks in here,
we got a really nice charcoal sample.
CRAIG: Oh, great.
LAIRD: Like a little twig.
-Yeah. -RICK: Oh, okay. And you think
that context, the... perhaps the beginning of this wall.
-MIRIAM: Mm-hmm. -Oh, yeah. There's no doubt.
Yeah.
-I like that verbiage, no doubt. -Yes. Finally.
-RICK: But no other artifacts? -Nothing.
-But a good sample. -CRAID: Yet.
-Yet. -LAIRD: Yet.
What's your take on this?
I still find that it's too strongly built.
It was trying to support something higher.
I mean, to me, it's very baffling what they used it for.
And I'm curious what the date is on that... that charcoal.
-Like, I think that will tell us a lot. -Yes, absolutely.
I guess my-my brain is going to, "I hope it affirms my belief."
Because my belief means this went...
this is part of the original mystery.
-LAIRD: Yeah. -RICK: I think we should
send it off ASAP.
But what is the status here now then?
What do you want to do?
LAIRD: I think we have a little bit more to do.
-We're on the sea horizon here, now. -Mm-hmm.
We just need to follow that down.
We'll look for more artifacts, obviously.
-More would be better. -Sure. -Yeah.
And find a coin under the next rock that you turn over.
-LAIRD: Okay. I will. -Make it a lot easier.
-(Laird laughing) -Okay. -RICK: All righty.
-CRAIG: We'll let you finish up. -Yup. Take care. -LAIRD: Okay.
-ALEX: We'll keep looking. -CRAIG: Okay.
-LAIRD: See you later. -MIRIAM: See you guys. -RICK: Good luck.
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...
RICK: Bill, you ready?
-BILLY: I'm ready. -RICK: Okeydoke.
NARRATOR: ...Rick and Alex Lagina,
along with Billy Gerhardt, Gary Drayton and Tom Nolan
begin a second excavation on Lot 11,
just north of the swamp.
GARY: Excellent.
NARRATOR: Now with Tom's guidance,
they hope to pinpoint the exact location
of a mysterious stone well
that Tom's father, Fred Nolan,
first discovered more than four decades ago.
There's nothing there, that's for sure.
You want to go deeper here, or...?
Yeah, we're just gonna have to keep scraping to find it.
Yeah, that's what I think, and if we take a little more
-on the other side... -TOM: Yup.
...that will maybe help us narrow it down.
Okay, let's go.
NARRATOR: Having uncovered the steel casings
that Fred Nolan left behind when he conducted
a drilling operation in the well a number of years ago,
the team is now confident
that they will soon locate the stone feature,
and hopefully, determine
just how it may help them solve the Oak Island mystery.
Ooh. I see a nice bit of pottery there, peeking out.
Look at that.
-Ooh. -Oh, yeah.
That's nice.
-That blue-glazed pottery. -Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
That is really nice. It's got to be old.
It's thick, as well.
-Show it to the guys. -Show it to the guys.
-Okay. -RICK: What'd you find?
GARY: A piece of pottery out of the last bucket load.
You remember seeing anything like that, Tom?
Ah. That looks very familiar, Gary.
That is the type of thing that we were hauling out
of the bottom of the well.
-RICK: A plate, it looks like. -Mm.
TOM: Everything was about that size.
That's definitely the pottery.
RICK: The hope, of course, is to find artifacts.
How old it is
remains to be seen.
Okay, Bill.
And that's why the archaeologists are involved,
so I am hopeful that we will continue
to find these artifacts, and they will tell a story.
-Is there a stone there? -This is a stone.
Yeah, but is there more stone over there?
TOM: I think you're getting into it.
(laughs)
Not a stone to be found.
Keep digging. It's here.
I don't know, Gary. Why don't you come down
-and see what you can do? -Yeah, of course.
Come on, artifacts.
(beeping)
Seems to be in that area there. (sniffling)
Ooh.
-See if it's out. -Yup. See if it's in.
Yup. It's probably out.
(beeping)
Here we go. What have we got here?
Fantastic!
-GARY: Mm. Oh. -ALEX: What's that?
It's made of iron.
It's got a heck of a curve on it.
NARRATOR: Near the northern border
of the Oak Island swamp...
Almost kind of like, digging tool-ish.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
NARRATOR: ...while continuing their efforts to uncover
a mysterious buried well, members of the Oak Island team
have made another curious discovery.
TOM: Could that be part of a pick?
-GARY: Yeah. -ALEX: Could be.
TOM: That's what it reminds me of.
Something you'd use to dig.
-GARY: Yeah. -ALEX: Well, I think we have one right up here.
-GARY: Yeah. -Right here.
-TOM: Yup. -GARY: See the way it fans out.
TOM: Well, if you're gonna dig a well, you need a pick.
-ALEX: Mm-hmm. -GARY: Yeah. That's cool.
You never know. It might be original people
who built the well.
RICK: I never anticipated
finding the kinds of artifacts that have been recovered.
We came here
simply for one purpose.
Excavate the well
and get a really good view of the construct.
Where are we at then?
Is there stone there?
TOM: I think you're getting into it.
If you can get down in there,
we'll dig a little bit and see what you think.
RICK: I'm interested and excited
to put eyes and boots on the target.
Who knows what we'll find.
-It's like being a little kid, playing in the mud. -(laughs)
TOM: But just,
everywhere I hit this shovel, all I hit's rock.
RICK: There's certainly enough water being generated, right?
-TOM: Well, you'd make a well here, no problem. -Mm-hmm.
RICK: I need to probe it.
Rock around there.
I think the diameter is...
I think it's like this.
It goes around, around, around
to that side, and then, it comes around here like this,
and comes back to there.
And that's about the size I remember it as being.
RICK: Look at the amount of water coming in.
I don't think you're gonna expose it, like I'd like to.
Really, what this would demand is a hydro-vac truck.
I think you're right-- a hydro-vac truck.
RICK: The next thing to do with the well is to hydro-vac it,
and you literally vacuum up the material.
And that will clean up the area.
So, tomorrow, we'll be back at it,
and then, continue the excavation.
That's all we can do. So, you know what?
-It's a good day. -It's a good day.
-Now let's get out in one piece. -Yes.
Let's get out of this hole.
NARRATOR: The following morning...
ROB HATFIELD: Now the fun.
NARRATOR: ...as representatives
from Clean Earth Industrial Services
arrive with a hydro-vac truck...
I'll vac up some of this water first.
NARRATOR: ...and begin clearing water and mud
away from the buried stone well on Lot 11...
GARY: Carmen, mate,
-thanks for coming out. -No problem.
NARRATOR: ...Gary Drayton and Billy Gerhardt
meet with blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge
at the research center to get his analysis of the iron hook
that was recovered from the area two days ago.
We were excavating, uh,
this area where there's an old well at the side of the swamp.
This is one of the artifacts we found. It's a hook.
But it's, like, unusual, the way it's long and closed in.
And, hopefully, you can shed some like on that, mate.
BILLY: It kind of reminded me of a block and tackle.
-You know, it's a long... -Yes. Yes, that's right.
You can see how it has a fairly long shank here.
You're right, Billy-- this is from a block and tackle.
The reason why they had a long shank is 'cause
-it would hang naturally down from a block and tackle. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Originally invented
by the Greek scientist Archimedes in 250 B.C.,
a block and tackle is a pulley device
used to manually raise and lower large, heavy objects.
This was made in such a way that it would come off easy
and go on easy so it was a fast operation happening here.
-Lowering and raising something. -GARY: Well, it is a well.
Would it have been a hook for lowering a bucket into the well?
-Up and down? -No, this was for something heavier.
-This is much heavier. -GARY: Oh.
No, yeah, you wouldn't use something like this.
And I could sort of see how thin it is down at the bottom here,
so that indicates it had a lot of use.
-Yeah. -A lot of use.
It might have drug something
over the ground and then raised it and lowered it.
Any idea on an age of this artifact?
Ah, it-it is very old, Gary.
Hooks in the later time period
were more rounder, not elongated like that.
-Yeah. -So a hook like that used
in a block and tackle, we're talking about
uh, 1650 to about 1690, no later than 1690.
Wow, that's brilliant.
NARRATOR: A hook used for lifting heavy cargo?
And dating to more than a century prior
to the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795?
GARY: Wow. That is massive.
That's a big boulder.
NARRATOR: Three years ago,
while investigating a curious formation
of boulders at the so-called "Eye of the Swamp,"
which is located less than 100 yards
from the site of the reported buried well,
the team uncovered back-filled organic materials
that Dr. Ian Spooner dated to 1680.
-GARY: Yeah, that's some history in that well. -CARMEN: Yep.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the well was built by
the same people who were digging at the Eye of the Swamp?
And if so, could this hook offer evidence
that the well may have been used
to hide cargo of great importance, or value?
CARMEN: There was some activity that involved that well.
And at one time, it was used in that well area.
GARY: That's brilliant, isn't it?
BILLY: Yeah, I know. That's great.
Yeah. Talking about hooked, that's got me hooked up, mate.
All right, mate.
Thanks for coming out. We really appreciate it.
CARMEN: Very good. See you later.
-GARY: All right, mate. Cheers. -BILLY: Thanks, Carmen.
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...
Oh, it's looking pretty good.
I think they moved quite a bit.
NARRATOR: ...while the reconstruction
of the Garden Shaft continues
in the Money Pit area...
-TOM: Isn't this a nice way to dig a hole? -MARTY: Yeah.
-Standing up here, yeah. -Yes.
NARRATOR: ...Rick and Marty Lagina along with Tom Nolan
and Billy Gerhardt arrive at the northern edge of the swamp
as the hydro-vac operation to clear mud and water
away from the mysterious stone well is nearly complete.
I think what you're looking at there
is definitely part of the well,
that's the way it was constructed.
You had big rocks
and then your little ones putting it together.
Almost every rock down there has a flat face.
TOM: Yeah, I do see that.
It seems like it's right there.
You can see by the amount of rock right here,
it's not natural.
RICK: But what that does look like,
it doesn't look like the other wells here.
The small stones. Irregular shape.
HATFIELD: Can you see it, right here?
It almost looks like it was stacked.
I'm confident that that well is like the Lot 26 well.
And those are the only two on the island like that.
Yeah. You can certainly see the stacked stones.
-There. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: On Lot 11, at the northern border
of the triangle-shaped swamp,
Rick Lagina and members of the team
have just made a potentially historic discovery.
-That's the side of it, right there. -RICK: Yeah.
NARRATOR: They have uncovered a stone well
that Tom Nolan's father first discovered in the 1970s.
However, it is Rick's belief
that it could match the design
of the well located on Lot 26.
A well, which has been dated
to as early as the 11th century
and has yielded high-trace evidence of silver.
There are enough remnants of it
to indicate that the construct
is exactly the same as the Lot 26 well.
It's the same smaller stones,
no large, round granite boulders.
TOM: I think that's as much...
No matter how much we suck out of this,
I don't know if you're ever going to see
a perfectly round well here.
Okay, so what are we gonna do?
Well, you can pull a foot off the top here with the excavator.
-Yep. -If you want to expose more, I'm fine with that.
We could take a little out of the center of it.
-Yep. -RICK: Right. -All right, let's do that.
-So, you guys can come on out. -Yep.
RICK: And just stand by, we're going to excavate.
-Perfect. -All right.
The eight other wells that we have found
across the width and breadth of the island
are 100% different.
TOM: If you were looking for a well,
to put it here, with the swamp right there,
-you know you're going to get water. -Oh, yeah.
RICK: The two wells that are of the same type of construct,
it can't be a coincidence.
It has to be relevant in some way, shape or form.
There's your well. Right there,
-you're on it. -MARTY: Yeah.
TOM: I'm thinking you're outside of it.
-MARTY: For sure. -TOM: Yeah.
And then you throw into that mix
that they are on opposite ends of the island,
one's on the north, one's in the south.
To me, they both are impactful
in terms of the body of the work that was done,
i.e., the treasure depositional work.
For me, I-I think, I've seen enough to recognize
the similarity between this construct and the one on 26.
There's flat stone in there. Small stone in there.
Irregular shaped stone.
Exactly like the Lot 26 well.
MARTY: Oh, yeah.
NARRATOR: Could Rick Lagina be correct
that this well at the northern border
of the swamp may be related
to the 900-year-old well
located over a quarter mile away on Lot 26?
If so, could it offer more physical evidence
that the origins of the Oak Island mystery
stretch further back in history than anyone ever knew?
Okay. What are we gonna do here?
I don't think you can get down there any more.
The problem is, you're getting to the depth
-where you're not allowed down there without permits. -Yep.
Okay.
NARRATOR: Although the team would like to continue excavating this area
to see just how deep the well extends underground,
and also determine just what it may contain,
because of its close proximity to the swamp,
additional permits will be required for them to proceed.
MARTY: Getting permits to dig deeper right here in this area,
that would be the next step.
Actually seeing things is always the best data
because the well on 26, which we think is very old,
by comparison, we might say
that this well is also of comparable age,
which would mean that somebody was working
right around the swamp a very, very long time ago.
At the end of the day, I think we met the objective of it.
Yeah.
We came looking for the well. We found it.
And we did find some pottery, which I thought we would.
-We've made progress. -MARTY: Yep.
TOM: So, I mean...
at this point, I think that's all we can do with it.
-All right. -Okay.
TOM: This is just our first peek into this.
RICK: Yep. First peek.
NARRATOR: Following his successful investigation on Lot 11...
CRAIG: So, Laird, what do you have for us?
We've got some results from wood
-from the Garden Shaft. -CRAIG: Okay.
NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina and Craig Tester
arrive at the Interpretive Center
where Laird Niven and Emma Culligan have just
completed new scientific tests on wood samples
that were collected from the Garden Shaft earlier this week.
It's from 58 feet down but on the crane side.
CRAIG: So, the opposite side of where
the piece with the gold was on it.
-LAIRD: Yep, yep. -Well, that'll be good to-to see.
-I-I mean, we need more data. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: The wood sample was scanned
with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, or XRF.
The device emits gamma rays in order to detect elements
or metal alloys that may be present on the wood's surface
resulting from sustained contact with metal objects.
One week ago, Emma performed an XRF scan on a wood sample
taken from 55 feet deep within the Garden Shaft
and detected high-trace evidence of gold.
EMMA: Yeah, so, I do have some values.
So, the... the first piece that I brought to you guys,
that was from the opposite side of the crane.
I was reading .13%.
So when I scanned the crane side,
the counts of gold are getting higher as you go deeper.
RICK: That is incredible.
EMMA: It's increasing, in quantities.
There's definitely a fluctuating amount,
or quantities, which is what we want to see.
-Yeah. That's good. -EMMA: Yeah.
NARRATOR: In the Oak Island Interpretive Center,
archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan
has just confirmed that a new wood sample,
taken from a depth of 58 feet in the Garden Shaft,
has yielded high-trace evidence of gold.
How did these values compare again
with the values from the 55-foot depth?
It's more.
-Great. -Oh, it's exciting.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
RICK: Here in front of us, this piece of wood
is exhibiting gold values substantially higher
as we go to a deeper depth.
On the wood of a shaft
in the location that we have high hopes and interest in.
It's fantastic.
This is highly informative, you know,
and we'll see at different elevations what it turns into.
We'll start comparing it to wells we've drilled
and see, you know, where in the entire
-Money Pit area, how the gold varies. -Mm-hmm. Yep.
Hopefully, it's rich in the Garden Shaft area
and-and minor in-in other areas.
-So we know where to focus. -Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so, Emma and I will work on a routine,
-so we can have consistent results. -Mm-hmm.
So we can have more rapid results.
-That would be great. -LAIRD: Yeah.
MARTY: The gold is the most encouraging thing, I think,
that has happened out here.
You know, scientists trained in this methodology
tell me it's highly unusual.
Well, that implies that there's a highly unusual
source of gold here still.
That's exciting.
So, I think, I think this is, uh,
perhaps an indication that
we're following the trail of the gold.
-Mm-hmm. -RICK: I mean, that-that's good news.
Right? But we need to do more work.
Yep. We've got lots to do.
Yeah.
-RICK: Okay. -CRAIG: Let's get going.
NARRATOR: As another week comes to an end on Oak Island,
the hope for Rick, Marty, Craig and their team
that they are closer than ever
to solving a 228-year-old mystery
has only grown stronger.
While they proceed to scour the island
for more critical clues that may soon reveal
the true story of what happened here long ago,
are they now also zeroing in on a treasure
that will rewrite the history of the world?
One thing is for sure.
They will dig however deep it takes to find out.
Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...
The gold concentration is getting higher as we go down.
-SCOTT: Oh, wow! -RODNEY: X marks the spot.
RICK: We're going to dig the great quadrilateral.
This clay should not be here.
There's something at the bottom of that clay.
-That's a big something. -GARY: Oh, wow! -ALEX: What is that?
-GARY: That is sweet. -ALEX: Whoa.
This is Portuguese.
It's 1474 to 1638.
-RICK: Wow. It's incredible. -No way.
(laughter)
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