[Narrator] Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...
-[horn honking] -[Marty] SBC and ROC are here.
We want something found today.
-Find some treasure, boys! -[cheering]
-[grinding] -That thing looks unstoppable.
-[rapid beeping] -[Katya] Ooh!
-I think this is a key. -A key?
Want to get this one to the lab.
-Hundred percent. -[Craig] It's very interesting.
It's saying super early time period.
-No way. -[Tom] We're finally moving in a direction
that could give us some answers.
[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.
♪ ♪
[horn honking]
A critical day has arrived on Oak Island
for Rick and Marty Lagina,
Craig Tester, and their team...
-Yep! -...as a dig operation
that has been months in the making
is about to begin in the Money Pit area.
[Marty] Hey, guys.
SBC and ROC are here, personnel and equipment.
They've been rolling in pretty steady
and they brought all their toys.
[Craig] We've got some good locations this year. And, uh,
we get down to that solution channel,
hopefully we bring up not only that one thing
-but-but all of it. -[chuckling]
You mean actual treasure?
-Treasure. The T-word. -[Rick] Yep.
[Narrator] This year, the team has drilled
more than a dozen new boreholes over 200 feet deep
into the solution channel,
where the legendary treasure is believed to have fallen
after the collapse of the original Money Pit.
After testing soil samples from the bottom of the boreholes,
so far, two of them, known as I-9.5 and K-9.5,
have yielded unusually high traces of silver.
Now the team will begin excavating
a seven-foot-diameter steel shaft in this area
to find the source of the silver.
It is a location the team previously excavated in 2019
down to a depth of some 150 feet,
which never reached the solution channel
and was backfilled with tons of loose gravel
known as surge rock.
[Marty] Of those 500 boreholes we've drilled out here,
I'll bet you no more than five percent of 'em went to the depth
that I now suspect where the treasure lies.
We're going to have to partially go over other caissons
that were pulled and then filled with surge rock
to keep everything from collapsing
and drill down deeper. And that's what we plan to do.
[Narrator] It is their hope that the high traces of silver
may be related to a 14th-century silver coin
that was reportedly found in the Money Pit back in 1849,
which is connected to the Portuguese sect
of the Knights Templar.
-Hey, guys. -[Craig] Gentlemen. -[Jared] How you doing?
-Good to see you. -Good to see you, too.
[Rick] It's exciting, because
we've spent exhaustive hours
trying to come up with an area of significant interest.
And we believe we have.
How does it feel to be back on Oak Island?
-It's pretty nice. -It feels great to be back.
-I love it here. -[chuckles] -Perfect. I like that attitude.
[Rick] This mystery has resisted solution for 230-plus years.
I want answers. We all do.
Definitely brought some big toys this year.
We were told we got to go pretty deep, so...
-That looks really serious. -Yeah.
That's the new LB 45 we brought down.
The big torque can run big depths,
and she'll be able to chew through whatever we need to
and help us see what's down there.
-Are you using just an auger to drill through the rock? -Yeah.
We're gonna probably maybe break a new record with this,
just from how fast these drills come in and out of the hole
versus us grabbing. I know grabbing's efficient as well,
but this is gonna be a lot faster, material-wise.
[Marty] I would think
-especially at depth, actually. -Yeah.
Because the trip time on a hammer grab is a long time.
-Yeah. Yeah. -This just telescopes in and out, right?
And it'll be a lot quicker coming in and out of the hole.
-Pretty exciting. -Yeah. -It is. It's very interesting.
-That vault doesn't stand a chance. -[chuckling]
[Narrator] In order to reach the solution channel,
the teams from Soletanche Bachy Canada and ROC Equipment
will mount a seven-foot-diameter auger bit
onto a 135-ton telescoping drill rig.
After placing the auger inside massive steel caissons,
it will rapidly drive down through soil,
hard clay, and other debris...
...bringing spoils to the surface
while a steel shaft is installed more than 200 feet deep.
Once the solution channel is reached,
a giant dig bucket will replace the auger bit
to safely remove additional spoils
and the potential treasure.
We're looking at the location right there, right?
-Yeah. Yeah. -The orange dot?
During our sonic drill program this spring,
we-we've been analyzing our cores
and we've got silver in the soils.
That's very interesting.
[Rick] And then, of course, there's what we call
the Pitblado coin,
a Portuguese coin possibly found in this general area.
-Wow. -Wow. -If that's what's down there,
then your toys, as you describe them, will find more of them.
-And that's the hope. -Yeah.
[Marty] I try not to get too excited about what-ifs.
But I can tell you this--
it could be hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.
That's exciting.
All right, I'm happy. When are you gonna dig?
-Break ground tomorrow. That's the plan. -Yeah.
I like that. The only thing
I'd like to have heard better is "today."
-[laughter] -But tomorrow's acceptable. -Yeah.
All right.
[Rick] Thanks, guys.
[Narrator] As the teams from ROC and SB Canada
prepare for the dig in the Money Pit area...
All right, mate.
Getting stuck back in again.
...Rick and Craig join Gary Drayton and Tom Nolan
to continue searching for clues on Tom's property
in the northern region of the swamp.
[Gary] We've got a lot of history
that's been uncovered recently.
The mystery vault.
We got a row of stakes
leading us to that vault and we're digging
-right on the line. -Yep.
[Narrator] They are following a cobblestone path
that is lined with eight-sided wooden survey stakes.
A path that, one year ago,
led them to a mysterious but unfortunately empty vault
some 50 yards to the south.
Now they are eager to see
if more hidden structures that contain valuables
are waiting to be found in this area.
[Alan] That deep enough?
Yeah. That's good over there, Al. Take another one here.
Whoa-ho!
Rick, I got a find here.
Look at that.
That's leather.
[Rick] Oh, yeah.
[Gary] That's a boot or a shoe.
-That's not a modern piece of shoe. It's... -No.
More than likely, it's a sole.
And look at all the little holes.
So you know it's not stitched.
Yeah, that's like the old little hobnails.
-It's got an old feel about it for sure. -Hmm.
-You start slipping, you lose your shoe. -Mm.
Next thing you know, you're losing your coins.
Aside from the bits of leather we found in the Money Pit,
the majority of the finds have been in the swamp.
That leather down there in the southeast corner
was very, very old.
-Oh, yeah. -You know what?
There might be more in here.
[Narrator] In 2023,
while searching for clues
near the possibly Portuguese stone road
in the southeast corner of the swamp...
[Rick] Check that out.
What the heck is that? Ooh!
...Rick and Gary found part of a boot,
which was of European origin
and could date back to the 17th century.
Could Rick and Gary have found a related clue?
And if so, might it help identify
just who built the cobble road?
Mm.
Look at that, Gary.
[Gary] Oh-ho.
With big, uh,
-nail holes in it. -Yeah. They're-they're hobnails.
-[Rick] That's not stitching. -Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
That's not a modern piece of shoe.
Hell of a great eyeball find, Rick.
Leather is where you say to yourself, "You know what,
-there's a real story here." -Yeah.
If these pieces of leather are from shoes or boots
from the people who did the original work in this area...
-That'd be something. -Yeah.
We have the lab here on the island
to really-- no pun intended--
-to nail down where that leather came from. -Yeah.
This is how it's gonna go--
leather, coins, and champagne.
-There you go. -Yeah.
[Rick] I think there's a lot of information
that might reside within this shoe leather.
The platforms, the paved area,
the suspected paths, roads,
all of the constructions in the bog.
There's so much we don't know
about the reason why it was constructed.
But everything you find could be the clue you're looking for.
Probably get a scoop out of there, Craig.
That's strange.
The excavator bucket just went straight down.
Hmm.
There's some sort of void here.
Yep.
[Tom] As you can see, the excavator bucket
went straight down.
-[Gary] Oh, yeah. -You know, I'm gonna say
five feet into this void.
-Down she went. -Mm.
[Narrator] In the northern region of the Oak Island swamp,
the team has made what could be an important discovery.
[Alan] It's solid
-all the way around it. -Mm.
So somebody's dug it.
-Yeah. -[Rick] People were in here.
-People were in here doing something. -Yeah.
[Narrator] A five-foot-deep man-made hole?
Might it have been created by someone connected
to the shoe leather the team found nearby
and the sections of the cobblestone path
that the team has uncovered throughout the swamp?
-Okay, Al, let's see what's there. -Okay.
[whirring]
[clanking]
Let's find some treasure, boys.
What we got here?
Another stake.
It came out of that last load, wherever that last scoop
-came from. -One, two, three.
Hey, Tom!
-Can you come over? -Yep.
[turns off engine]
The stakes you found previously, are they lining up here?
It looks like it may be on one of the lines
projected from the stakes we have found
-this year. -And think of what was right over there.
And we've referenced it many times, right?
The vault.
Because if those stakes point to that,
it may point to another one here.
Those stakes might have something to tell us yet.
-To me, that's the puzzle here. -Yeah.
[Rick] This stake that comes out of the ground
might be delineating a path,
uh, from long ago.
Uh, Tom has iterated many times his father did not use stakes.
Maybe these new finds will tell us who did it,
when they did it, why they did it.
But we live to fight another day,
-so let's pack it up. -Yes.
-Yep. -Let's bring the things to the lab,
see what kind of results we can get.
Okay. Sounds good.
Off we go.
[Narrator] Later that afternoon...
Well, there she be, Corey. Right there.
-Yeah. -What do you think?
-That's a nice little rock. -[chuckling]
[Laird] We're proud of it.
[Narrator] ...on Lot 8,
Rick has joined Marty and other members of the team
to meet with crane operator Corey Robart
at the massive boulder feature.
We're currently at a stage where we're trying to find
where the-the original cuts were
-when they excavated down here, whatever they did. -Okay. Okay.
[Fiona] Um, we don't know how deep it goes down yet.
[Narrator] The team began investigating this boulder
several weeks ago,
which sits above a ring of evenly spaced stones
and covers a backfilled void.
-I'll show you. There's a really good spot. -All right.
[Narrator] After feeding a snake camera into a narrow space
that the team dug out below the boulder...
...they recorded images of possible tools...
-It's gold-looking. -[Doug] It certainly is.
...and even a gold-colored material.
And just one week ago,
soil testing on samples taken from beneath the boulder
contained unnatural levels of lead,
which the team believes
could be evidence of a centuries-old mining tunnel.
Now archaeologist Laird Niven
has given the team permission to remove the boulder
in order to find out just what might be buried underneath it.
So, I'm gonna say we'll put a chain around here.
We'll choke this around the bottom.
We'll bring four legs down,
which will be chained.
And we'll put two pins
on this side and two pins on the other side.
-Pins? Like, what do you mean? -A one-inch bar.
-Steel? Mm-hmm. -Drill a hole in. Yeah.
And then we'll bring the slings down
and hook into that chain.
And then that'll hold this rock on this side and that side,
squeeze it together as it's coming up.
[Fiona] Does that mean we may not necessarily have to dig
any area that could possibly compromise
what we're looking at?
-Yeah. -Okay.
-You know what, that's very encouraging. -[Laird] Yeah.
Corey, how big of a crane do you think you'll need?
I'm gonna bring 130-ton crane.
These two trees will go.
-I'm gonna set in here. -[Craig] They need to clear
all around yet, so that's gonna take a while.
Probably the biggest logistic, uh, issue is bringing in
the crane itself, 'cause it's a big-- it's a big machine.
This week, Billy and his workers will be working on the road
and-and the tree removal that's required.
There's absolutely no way to understand that boulder
without lifting it out of the way.
I think this is gonna go cleanly.
I-I really, really do.
I think we have the right technology and the people
who know what they're doing.
The rest of us can get back to it.
-[Billy] Yep. -[Craig] Okay.
[Narrator] As a new day breaks on Oak Island...
[cheering, applause]
-[Marty] All right! [chuckles] -[whooping]
Well, thank you!
What are you all standing around for?
[chuckling]
...Rick, Marty, Craig, and the rest of the team
gather in the Money Pit area.
Vanessa, welcome back
-to Oak Island. -Hey. -[Narrator] Now that the teams
from ROC and SB Canada
have finished setting up their equipment...
...it's finally time to begin a dig that will go deeper
than any previous searcher operation in Oak Island history.
That thing looks unstoppable.
-Quite impressive. -Yeah.
[Rick] You know, when I'm standing here in the Money Pit,
I-I always think of 230-plus years of activity,
230-plus years of search,
of commitment...
...intellect, passion,
belief.
But this year, it's about finding treasure.
And there are two people here
who are emblematic of finding things,
especially the one thing.
So I would ask Gary and Katya to come up
and get this kicked off.
Because you find things,
and we want something found in this Money Pit today.
Do you accept that challenge?
-Challenge accepted! Let's go, Katya. -[applause]
No pressure.
Be careful climbing up the track there.
-How are you? -Good.
-Wow. -[Marty] Gary!
I've taken the liberty of naming this hole.
Okay.
Top Pocket Find!
-[Alex] All right! -Yeah! That's what we want it to be.
Good choice!
-TPF. -TPF.
You getting in here, Katya?
[laughter]
All right. Start her up.
-Find some treasure, boys! -[whoops]
-[chuckling] -Whoa, baby.
-[applause] -[Jack] Yeah!
[Rick] There's high hopes and great anticipation.
It's been a long slog.
And it's, you know, 12, 13 years in the making.
[Marty] You're not gonna get him out of that seat.
No, you're not.
[Gary] Wow.
-I want one! -[laughter]
[Rick] We are, what Marty long ago called,
the Fellowship of the Dig. I am
incredibly grateful for their presence,
for their contributions, for their passion
to solve this incredibly complex mystery.
I draw inspiration from them.
So let's find the treasure.
[Gary] What a thrill!
-Ha-hey! -[chuckling]
Started drilling.
-Now let's find some gold. -[Rick] Come on!
-Absolutely. -Let's do it.
-Well done, Gary. -That was awesome.
[Marty] There we go! We're gonna find some treasure here!
Hey, team! Thank you for being here.
I love you all.
Now get back to work, okay?
-[Gary] Yay! -[cheering, applause]
[Alex] Dang. It's moving.
-[chuckles] -[Peter] Holy crap is it moving.
[Narrator] As the excavation of the TPF shaft
continues in the Money Pit area...
-[Craig] Carmen. -[Katya] Hi. -[Marty] Hey, Carmen.
-[Carmen] How you doing today? -You're center stage, man.
-Welcome back. -Wonderful.
...Marty, Craig, and other members of the team are meeting
in the Oak Island lab
with blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge.
-[Katya] I found this with Rick on Lot 8. -[Carmen] Okay.
[Narrator] Six weeks ago, while searching for clues
several yards south of the boulder feature on Lot 8,
Rick and Katya found a possible knife handle.
And, curiously, it was unearthed in the same area
where the pieces of potentially 16th-century chain
were also recently discovered.
[Katya] It immediately looked to me
-like a knife handle. -I'll have a look.
[Narrator] Now the team is eager
to get Carmen's assessment on this find
to confirm just what it is and when it may have been created.
Wow. This is certainly an interesting piece.
It's not a knife, no. It has
-a lot of features on it. -[Emma] Yeah.
-[Marty] So what is it? [laughs] -That's a good question.
I think it was a tool that was either used like this,
to swing in a certain notch or...
this way, you pick it up to swing it over.
This is a tool made for a specific part
of some larger tool that has some sort of mechanism to it.
[Katya] Oh, yeah. Levers,
pulleys-- could that possibly be
part of one of those systems?
That's what I'm seeing, is, uh, some type
-of ratcheting tool. -Mm.
It's not far from the Lot 8 boulder,
so it's interesting.
[Narrator] A tool that could have been part
of a pulley system?
Might it be related to the heavy chain
that the team found in this area?
And if so, could both have been used
in order to lift the massive boulder into place?
Or perhaps to lower something in the ground beneath it?
[Marty] What about the metallurgy?
What's that telling you?
[Emma] So, the metallurgy's actually really--
It's a nice, clean iron.
It is more reminiscent of, like, the European iron
that we commonly see within the 1700s.
-Is it possible to be older? -Yeah. It's possible.
[Jack] There's been a bunch
of different things on Lot 8
that we've dug up over the years.
It's almost like bits and pieces were dropped
from a couple different timelines,
but something happened on Lot 8.
[Marty] Lot 8 is...
giant in our minds right now
because of this big boulder on it.
So, this tool, device, is from the 1700s,
and is evidence somebody was doing something on Lot 8.
It is kind of a "wow" thing.
So, in summation, we have an enigmatic,
interesting, perhaps one-of-a-kind tool...
...more to the saga of all kinds of stuff happening here
pre-1795.
I think, for sure,
someone was there doing some sort of type of work. Yeah.
I think there's something under this rock.
I think people actually did something here.
So, could these dates
be representative of those efforts?
It could be.
There's an air of excitement
to see what's underneath that boulder.
Carmen, thank you very much. A lot of information here.
-And everybody else, we can get back to it, right? -Sounds good.
[Carmen] Thank you.
[Narrator] Later that day...
[Rick] We're getting to the end of the north end
-of the bog. -Yeah.
[Narrator] ...Rick, Tom and other members of the team
continue the dig in the northern region of the swamp
to track the projected direction of the cobblestone pathway.
I'll start pulling down some of these sides.
I can watch everything that's coming out here.
-All right. Let's get going. -Sounds good.
[Tom] Let's spark 'er up, Al.
[beeping]
[Rick] There's a significant cobble road.
What story does that tell,
in terms of understanding what the swamp work
might represent?
I think that the work in the swamp,
as we currently understand it,
might have something to do with the efforts in the Money Pit.
But given the extensive amount of finds in the bog,
there's every hope that something
of significant value might be buried as well.
So, we need to make sure we cover all the bases here.
-[Tom] Hey, Rick. -Yeah?
We got some old boards down here
you might want to have a look at.
Just came out of the bank.
[Rick] What have you got?
[Tom] It's a pretty heavy plank
that just came out of this,
after Al took that last bucket out.
Three pieces here and it,
it's in good shape, but it's old.
-You can tell it's old wood. -[Rick] Yeah, it's thick. Yeah.
And there's a nail right there.
-[Rick] Can you tell? Round, square? -It's hard to tell.
It's-it's thick plank. Like, I think it's over
an inch thick, which--
Yeah, that would... Not modern, right?
No. No. That's old.
They don't happen to fit together, do they?
[Tom] We didn't really look.
Ah, you know what?
I think I do see how this might have gone together.
-[Rick] Yeah, look at that. -Yeah.
[Rick] That is a wide board.
You want to build a chest out of that,
there's your side, guys.
-[Tom] Yeah. -[Rick] But...
-I don't know, the key is that nail you found. -Yeah.
If that's square, it could be really, really old.
[Narrator] Could Rick be correct
that this thick wood planking
may have been part of a structure in the swamp,
and perhaps a chest of some kind?
If so, might it be related
to the empty brick-and-slate vault
they found several yards to the south one year ago?
Or could it be related to another one in this area
that might still contain something of value?
[Tom] I think we definitely want to get this one back to the lab
-to have-have a look at that. -Yep. Hundred percent.
-All right. -Well, let's hope there's more in here.
-[Tom] Yeah. -[Katya] Yeah. -Okay.
[Rick] The board is 12-plus inches in width.
It also is over an inch thick, which is not modern dimension.
So, could be very old.
With a nail in one of them,
it's a perfect candidate to bring to Emma.
From a metallurgical perspective,
she might be able to date them.
I hope it does have answers for the bog.
[detector beeping]
Ooh.
Think we've got something in there.
-Something there? -[sustained beep]
-Right there? -Right in there, yeah.
-[Tom] We got it. -[Katya] There we go.
Let's see.
-[rapid beeping] -[Tom] Ooh.
[sustained beep]
-[Katya] Ooh. -Look at that.
That is...
It doesn't look like a nail.
-I think this is a key. -What do you got?
[Katya] I think this is a key.
[Tom] A key?
Boy, I think you're right.
It certainly has the shape for it.
[Narrator] In the Oak Island swamp,
Katya Drayton has just made a potentially important find.
[Tom] It's not a nail, a spike or anything like that.
It's got the round head there.
-Have we just found the key to the swamp? -Maybe you found
the key to the swamp.
[Rick] What did you find?
Now tell me what you think of that.
-Oh. -It rung like iron.
[Rick] Very heavy, and it has a look about it.
[Katya] It is key-shaped.
-And it was deep. -Mm-hmm. -[Rick] A key?
This part would be the key?
It depends on how much is rust
and how much is the actual artifact.
You know how a key, the old keys,
had the, at the very end...
-A spade-like end? -Yeah.
I think this is the, like you said,
the spade-like end of the key.
And then, right here, that's where you would
unlock it and lock it.
[Rick] It's definitely unique.
[Katya] I want to see what
-the CT scan says about this. -Yeah.
-Yeah, I'd like to see that, too. -Mm-hmm.
You want to say it's a key.
That's as close as I can come to something.
Well,
we may have a key here,
and we are not far
from the vault structure.
Well, you've got a potential key,
you've got older wood,
you've got a reference to the vault.
And I wish we could find a piece of wood with a lock.
-Yeah. -[Narrator] A possible iron key?
If so, could Katya be correct
that it may have been connected to the brick-and-slate vault
that the team uncovered some 50 yards away in 2024?
Or could it be a critical clue that suggests
the cobblestone path may be leading them
to another one in this area of the swamp?
[Rick] The hope is that,
based on what has been found before,
that they will find more of the same types of structures.
You know, we talk about the vault in the swamp.
The probability of another one existing
in the near vicinity is probably rather high.
So, there's a lot of interest here,
and there's every hope and evidence
because of the previous work that we will find something.
We got to pay closer attention now, right?
You find wood, you find a potential key,
Lord knows what else is in here.
The first thing you conjure up about a treasure hunt
is there's a box with something inside with a key opening it up.
But the cautionary tale is,
you know, we don't want to jump to conclusions.
-Yep. -But it's-it's quite interesting.
-[Katya] Mm-hmm. -Mm.
That's probably the most unique find
in this end of the bog to date.
-[Tom] Yeah. -Cool find. -[Katya] Right?
-Well, let's find the lock that goes with it next. -Oh, yeah.
[Tom] Okay, Al, let's see what else we can find in here.
[Narrator] As work in the swamp continues...
...later that day,
in the Money Pit area,
Gary Drayton and Peter Fornetti are overseeing
the excavation of the TPF shaft.
-We need some spoils. -Yeah.
[metal squeaking]
[metal grinding]
[Gary] That doesn't sound very good.
I'm almost to my limit.
Come on.
It was coming down and then it stopped dead on 'em.
-[Paul] Really? -I'm digging about
a meter and then it's stopping me and packing me in, but...
What are your thoughts? Carry on? Keep pushing through?
[Josh] No, we're stuck. I can't go any further.
[Peter] I think it might be stopped.
You're right. Nothing's happening.
Unfortunately, we've hit a snag.
Maybe we've hit a boulder or an obstruction in the can.
-Hey, Adam. -[Adam] Hey.
It looks like it's been pretty stationary for a while.
-What's going on? -Yeah, we're back
to the same kind of layer we got into.
-Mm-hmm. -We're just locked up. Not advancing.
[Adam] Right now, we're kind of assessing what's going on.
We got to look into it.
Okay. I'll give my uncles a text and bring them up to speed,
-and then we can come up with a plan. -Yep.
-[Marty] Hello. All right. -[Adam] Marty.
Talk to me. How's it going?
Uh, we're kind of stalled right now.
Uh, hell.
[Narrator] In the Money Pit area, Marty, Craig and Scott
arrive after getting word that the excavation of TPF
has been halted at a depth of just 20 feet
by backfilled gravel from a previous dig operation.
[Adam] So, right now, we're into that
big cobble backfill.
We've locked up around the liner.
It's pretty tight.
So, that's where we're at right now.
So, it's actually locked right now? You can't turn it?
It locked up where we stopped. We just don't want to get
into breaking anything or overexerting anything.
Yeah.
[Rick] Every hole, every caisson
has been backfilled with surge rock.
That has created a problem for the-the SBC/ROC team.
My worry, of course, is if they just simply
can't find the way past this obstruction,
that we'll have to call the hole.
Time is running away from us,
and, uh, we want to get down to depth.
Right now, we're gonna rejig,
hopefully get the oscillator up there to help us
lift up a little bit and loosen up.
Yeah. Okay.
I guess, what I'd like to know is, the mission,
you know, is the mission stalled?
We-we had high hopes just yesterday.
Is this gonna be a fixable issue?
-Because we want to dig that. -Yep.
[Adam] I'm confident that
we can go through there.
And you're gonna have to put your machine on, Vanessa.
It-It's sounding like that.
-[Adam] Yeah. -Yeah. -The oscillator is here.
[Marty] With that, you have a lot more lifting power,
-so that's the big difference. -Yeah.
We're just waiting for reduction inserts.
-Reduction inserts. Yeah. -Yeah.
[Narrator] One possible solution
for grinding the TPF-1 caissons
down through the gravel-filled ground
is to rotate them using ROC Equipment's
massive hydraulic oscillator.
However, in order for the oscillator
to hold the eight-and-a-half- foot canisters in place,
it will require specialized braces
known as reduction inserts.
[Craig] When's it look like those parts
are gonna arrive?
[Adam] We have a bit of logistics issues
with some parts, so we're waiting on those.
-Okay. -[Vanessa] So, the reduction inserts,
the trucker broke down and it's on a different truck.
I think it will be here tomorrow night, late.
All right, so,
a two-day delay, right?
-Yes. -[Craig] Can you put
the oscillator on and then wait for those parts?
Or do those parts have to be assembled
before you can put the oscillator on?
No, I can't.
They do have to go in the oscillator.
What if you put your oscillator on and it still doesn't work?
I'm still confident between the equipment we have here
that we can get this done.
Well, I mean, to me, I mean, depending on how long
it would take, one possibility would be
just move over to the second location.
Because there's no cobble there.
I don't have the same concerns going to where
we're not so much into that big, the big cobble that locks up.
-Hmm. -[Narrator] Rather than waiting
at least two days for the oscillator parts
to arrive on the island,
an immediate alternative strategy
would be for the team to pick
a second target location in this area
and begin excavating a new shaft
in the hopes that SB Canada's presently available equipment
won't encounter gravel backfill from a previous excavation.
I was in the drilling business for many years
and you have setbacks.
Things happen. Particularly,
uh, on a complex job like this with all the unknowns.
I know we'll get past it,
but the bigger problem is time.
That is precious.
At this point, we're making zero progress
at the Money Pit with all this equipment,
so we have to make a decision.
Really, when we're done here, it's a simple summary, right?
-We're looking at a delay, for sure. -Yeah.
[Craig] Can you check in on the status
-for those parts? -Yep.
Well, Oak Island strikes again, bottom line.
Okay.
-You guys do your thing. -[Adam] Okay.
-Okay. -Thank you. -[Craig] Thanks, guys.
[Narrator] While the team awaits an update
from ROC Equipment and SB Canada...
[Rick] In front of us, we have
leather finds, and I actually found one myself.
[Narrator] ...Rick, Marty, Craig and other members of the team
gather in the war room to receive
a preliminary scientific report
on the leather shoe pieces found in the swamp.
These are, you felt, when you looked at them,
they're bits of shoe or boot leather, right?
[Gary] Yeah.
Uh, it looked to me like an old design.
And one piece, it was really elongated,
and I know that's an older style.
And if you remember when we found these, Rick,
they were in the deeper material,
the black stuff, the peat.
-So, they were way down there. -Mm-hmm.
[Marty] Okay, let's do this. Let's see what the science says,
because we did run C-14 on it, correct, Craig?
And you have the results. So, let's see what that says.
[Craig] Yep. Sure do.
Um, it's very interesting.
It's saying "super early."
The biggest time period which is 1148 to 1216.
-Oh, geez. -No way. -There you go, Rick!
Yep.
[Marty] Wow.
[Craig] The biggest, uh, time period
-is 1148 to 1216. -[Marty] Oh, geez.
-No way. -There you go, Rick.
-Yep. -[Doug] Wouldn't that be amazing?
[Narrator] In the Oak Island war room,
Craig has just shared
an astonishing preliminary scientific report
which indicates the pieces of a leather shoe
found in the swamp could be more than 800 years old.
All the other ones are earlier,
going back to maybe even, uh, 1047.
So, showing very, very early here.
Darn it, I've got to get a medieval shoe dance now.
[laughter]
What's that top date? What was that bracket?
1148 to 1216.
[Marty] Holy smokes. I mean,
for what it's worth, that's the Gaspani era, isn't it?
-Yeah, it is. Absolutely is. -It really is.
[Rick] They align perfectly with what
Professor Gaspani has articulated to us.
That the construction of Nolan's Cross
-happened in the 13th century. -Yeah.
[Narrator] In 2023,
Italian archeoastronomy professor Adriano Gaspani
presented peer-reviewed research
about the megalithic formation of boulders
known as Nolan's Cross.
According to the boulders' historical alignments
with certain stars in the night sky,
Professor Gaspani calculated that the formation
was likely created in the early 13th century
by members of the Knights Templar.
Remember, one of the first things we ever found
-in the swamp was the paved area. -[Rick] Mm-hmm.
I mean, that date is almost perfect. 1200s.
-[Rick] Mm-hmm. -And so, we're starting to accumulate
dates in the swamp.
[Doug] You can't ignore the growing data points
-that are in the 13th century. -[Marty] Yeah. -[Rick] Mm-hmm.
We're definitely looking at a time period in which
-the Templars were at the height of their power. -Yeah.
[Narrator] Based on this preliminary carbon-14 report,
could the team have found a clue that may help identify
just who created Nolan's Cross,
as well as the vast paved area in the swamp,
which was uncovered in 2019,
and also scientifically dated to approximately 1200 AD?
[Rick] There seems to be a growing body of evidence
that the large work effort
was initiated
roughly at the beginning of the 13th century.
Now we have artifacts
that reference that timeline as well.
And that might have been the point of beginning of some
large-scale, long-term effort to do something here on Oak Island.
Once we found this early date,
uh, we've notified Beta Analytical.
They're gonna run, uh, extra cleaning methods,
um, and once that process is done, then they'll go ahead
-and retest it again. -[Gary] Oh, yeah.
[Alex] Yeah, it's an incredible date,
so I think we would want to confirm that by any way we can.
-Yeah. -[Rick] We have to,
as your father said, duplicate the results.
As Craig has said, let's make sure that the data is correct.
But right now, as I sit here,
I couldn't be happier about those dates.
Yeah, based on what we're seeing here,
we're finally moving in a direction
that could give us some answers.
So, it sure seems like we're on the right track.
I never argue with a reason to dig.
Ever. Let's dig.
We have the machinery, we have the time.
And a treasure's never gonna find itself.
So, let's dig. We got the guy who can go through the soils.
We got everything we need. Let's dig.
Let's use your theories and dig. Let's use this data and dig more
-in the swamp. -I think we're all in.
[Marty] It sounds like we're doing the right thing,
and I hope we get good news in the Money Pit.
[Rick] Yeah. And get back on track.
-On that. -Let's go.
-Okay.
[Narrator] Just like the devoted searchers
who came before them,
Rick, Marty, Craig and the team
must deal with another frustrating setback
in the Money Pit area.
However, as they uncover new,
surprising clues across the island
and explore for answers,
no matter what obstructions stand in their way,
the Fellowship of the Dig
will never be deterred by any challenge they face.
Because what they may soon find, whether deep below
or much closer to the surface, could forever change
the history of North America.
Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...
-[Charles] I'd say we're getting started. -[Peter] Oh, yeah,
-we're spinning off. -We're due
-for a little good karma. -We are.
We just have to find that one thing.
-[Gary] We got a signal. -[Alex] Hey-hey.
[Gary] I should be able to pinpoint it. Ooh, look at that.
-See if you recognize this. -[Marty] Wow.
That might have been an individual with Masonic ties.
[Marty] Yes. Well, that is
extraordinarily cool.
All right, here we go. It's time to lift that rock.
-[whooping, laughter] -Absolutely. -There it goes.
-[Rick] Wow. -[Marty] Look at that.
-Yeah! -[chuckles]
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