NARRATOR: Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island
Oh!
Could be more pieces of a ship.
Holy smokes. What do you make of that, Rick?
The swamp is yielding things.
- (beeping) - Wow, that sounds fantastic.
What the bloody hell is this?
CARMEN: It's a typical strap
- for a heavy chest. - Really?
- That's a nice surprise. - (chuckles)
I have always thought the way to figure out the Money Pit
was finding Shaft Six.
TERRY: Okay! Look at that.
If it's Shaft Six, how far are we from the Money Pit?
18 feet.
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.
♪ ♪
It is the beginning of another potentially historic day
on Oak Island as brothers Rick and Marty Lagina
and their team
continue their quest to locate
the fabled Money Pit treasure vault,
a treasure vault that people have been trying to recover
since 1795.
TERRY: Today could be the day, Charles.
- A day that could literally rewrite history. - Yeah.
NARRATOR: Today,
under the supervision
of geologist Terry Matheson
and Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse,
the team have begun drilling a new borehole
known as DE-1.5.
TERRY: DE-1.5.
We're looking to intersect perhaps
- a tunnel from the C-1 cluster. - Yep.
NARRATOR: Located within their strategic grid
and just 11 feet from the C-1 shaft,
DE-1.5 falls within the area
that has been dubbed the C-1 cluster,
where the team has already recovered metal fragments
that contain significant traces of gold,
water samples that not only tested positive for gold
but also silver,
and evidence of wooden tunnels
between 75 and 90 feet deep
that date back to as early as the late 15th century.
MARTY: If this wood really was placed underground in the 1400s,
then it has something to do with the original deposition.
Terry, we basically have no information,
no historical record of anything up in that area.
- No. - Nothing.
TERRY: This man-made tunnel
could be put there by the people who left the treasure.
Yep. We're sure to hit it.
- This is it. Yeah. - If it's there. Yeah.
MARTY: Plus, we found gold deep in the Money Pit area.
So, to me, that's the most potentially significant thing.
It makes you redouble your efforts
to keep looking for this treasure.
TERRY: Normally, we're hitting these tunnels in and around
90 feet below grade,
so we still got to chew up some ground between us
- and where we think the tunnel might pass. - Yeah.
So I think this bodes well
- for this hole. - Yeah.
NARRATOR: Once the team completes their core-drilling program
one month from now,
they intend to dig up to four ten-foot-wide steel-cased shafts
to recover the source of the silver and gold
they have detected
and hopefully solve the Oak Island mystery.
CHARLES: We got a core.
- What you got, Adam? - 69.
69.
Pushed a rock for the first three feet, Terry.
Okay, thanks.
Okay, well, let's see what we got.
What does it look like, Charles? Anything?
- Any broken beams? - No.
So, that's interesting right there, Charles.
And we've got a few splinters.
Quite a few splinters.
And maybe a chunk of a beam.
And that is exactly at 69 feet.
And he must've pushed into the side
of some man-made structure,
whether it be a shaft or a tunnel.
Yeah.
When we were looking at the core,
there's a section at 69 feet down
where we're finding splinters of wood,
and that's pretty exciting.
So we could be just on the edge of something--
Tunnel,
offset chamber, a shaft.
Who knows?
83.
- 83. - 79 to 83
- on DE-1.5. - Yeah.
Let's see what we got here.
♪ ♪
- Whoa, Terry. - 79 to 83.
And right at the bottom, at 83,
that's an interesting looking chunk of timber there, Charles.
That looks like stacked timber.
All right. Well, that's what we're looking for.
So, the major question,
if that's stacked timbers,
that's a good indication you're into...
a structure.
What is that structure?
We're not sure.
We hope it aligns with a shaft
or a tunnel from a previous hole.
That's all we can do.
CHARLES: Here's Rick now.
- Hey, Rick. - Good morning. - Hi, Rick. How you doing?
Good. How are you guys?
- CHARLES: Good. - Not too bad.
Got something to show you.
- RICK: Okay. - TERRY: DE-1.5.
- RICK: Yeah. - Down 69 feet,
there were some chips and chunks.
Then, at 83 feet, we hit this.
Looks like possibly two planks on top of one another
or maybe a split beam.
It does appear stacked.
We were waiting to open this when you got here.
- Okay. Let's do it. - Let's just have a look at it.
- Okay. - Okay, there we go.
So, quite a bit of wood there.
We seem to be clipping or chipping
along the side of something.
We could be sliding down
along the side of a shaft with buckled beams.
Obviously, there, we've intersected something.
But we've got it for almost 20 feet now.
It's less likely that it's a tunnel.
More likely that we're skipping down along the side of a shaft.
RICK: When you encounter
wood at a distinct horizon,
you can infer that it is a shaft or a tunnel,
and that's exciting.
The problem with it is, we don't know
are we in the middle? Are we at the end?
Are we at the beginning?
Which way does it go?
Those are questions that remain to be answered.
What we need to keep in our minds right now
is that there's only so many drill days left.
- That's right. - And...
at some point, we have to switch from...
discovery and exploration to confirming
four possible locations for large cans.
- Right. - And I think
we need to meet and discuss
- where to drill next. - CHARLES: Okay.
I wouldn't want to jump around.
- Yeah. - Right.
RICK: Pressure's on,
because we've got big gear coming in.
I don't want to guess. None of us want to guess.
It's not just me. None of us.
The whole fellowship, the whole team,
we want a very targeted approach.
All we're really looking for at this point
is areas of significant interest that would say to us,
"This is a candidate for a caisson."
Every hole now becomes more and more important.
- Yeah. - Like I said, at this point,
it has to kind of shift from exploration to confirmation.
Yeah.
RICK: Okay. Keep looking.
- CHARLES: Will do. Yeah. - Thank you, guys.
NARRATOR: Later that morning...
CHARLES: Well, Jack, back in the swamp again.
- Right? - Yeah.
Charles Barkhouse has arrived
at the southern edge of the triangle-shaped swamp
to continue searching for important clues
with Jack Begley
and Billy Gerhardt.
You know, Marty's all about
putting Xs through things, right?
Cross a thing off so that you can move on to something else.
But, you know, we've never been able to put an "X"
through the swamp.
Certainly found the railing,
which is suspected of being part of a ship.
Who knows what else we might find hidden in here?
CHARLES: Yeah.
Get the water moving.
NARRATOR: One week ago, Rick,
Marty and the team
began excavating this area of the swamp,
which is now believed to have once been open to the ocean
and is also just west
of the potentially 500-year-old stone ship's wharf
that the team first uncovered one year ago.
Does that look flat?
- RICK: I guess it does. - Yeah, it does, doesn't it?
NARRATOR: They quickly began recovering large pieces
of hand-hewn wooden boards...
This is the same log.
Which were more than compelling,
considering the other discoveries
the team has made in this area
over the last several years.
These finds include a possible section of deck planking,
a piece of believed ship's railing
that was carbon-dated to as early as 660 AD,
and a massive 200-foot-long anomaly
detected in 2018 by seismic scanning.
That looks kind of interesting.
- What do you see? - Well, right there.
- Right on top. - Good eye, Charles.
Is that a plank?
It looks like a plank.
JACK: Ooh!
That's a nice cut plank.
If you look at it, Jack,
like, the edges are rounded, but, you know,
it could be just from age.
JACK: Is that the right width for a plank?
CHARLES: Yeah.
It could be more, more pieces of a ship.
Yeah. That's definitely where we found that piece of railing.
- Right? - Yeah.
Who knows what this could date to.
CHARLES: Yeah. But we're definitely gonna save it,
and we'll hopefully find something else.
Yeah. You know, you have a rail, you have planks.
CHARLES: That's right.
It's becoming a little bit more
than just coincidence now, it seems.
- JACK: Exactly. - CHARLES: Yeah.
You got something?
No. (grunts)
It's really quiet.
NARRATOR: While the investigation along the southern border
of the swamp continues...
STEVE G.: So, we're just finishing off the C-1 cluster
drill program, and we need to move on.
In the research center,
Rick Lagina is meeting with surveyor Steve Guptill,
Oak Island historian Doug Crowell
and project manager Scott Barlow
regarding their drilling operation in the Money Pit area.
The C-1 cluster--
We were really successful,
but I think we've done as much as we can do
and we need to move somewhere else.
So, you had an area
that you really liked, Rick, down here to the west.
- RICK: Yeah. - S-So, I think we're gonna focus on that,
if, uh... if that's what you'd still like to do.
I do. I've always thought
the way to figure out the Money Pit was
finding Shaft Six and the tunnel from Six.
NARRATOR: In the summer of 1861,
members of the Oak Island Association
drilled into what they believed to be
two stacked wooden treasure chests
at a depth of approximately 100 feet in the original Money Pit.
In an effort to retrieve them,
while avoiding the legendary flood tunnels,
the team dug an adjacent shaft 18 feet to the west
known as Shaft Six
to a depth of 118 feet.
As they tunneled their way toward what they hoped
would be the ultimate discovery,
seawater suddenly burst through the soil,
flooding the tunnel,
which resulted in a catastrophic collapse of the wood cribbing
in the Money Pit.
The disaster not only ended their efforts
but is believed to have left the contents of the two chests
scattered across a flooded debris field.
RICK: I have always believed that the way to find the Money Pit
is to find Shaft Six
and the tunnel associated with it
because of the collapse story.
There has to be a tunnel there,
and 18 feet away from that would be the Money Pit.
So, to that, you know, we-we're gonna set them up
on G-2 as of now.
And the math works that if this is Shaft Six,
C-I could potentially be the Money Pit.
RICK: Two things are achievable goals down there.
One is, can we find the orientation of the shaft?
And, two, can we discern where our tunnel may come off of it?
NARRATOR: If the team can successfully locate the tunnel
connected to Shaft Six,
they might not only find what is showing trace evidence
of silver and gold
in the various boreholes across the Money Pit area
but also whatever else may lie buried
in the original treasure shaft itself.
So, if C-1 is the original Money Pit,
the math works that this is-- I've calculated 17 feet away
but historical records say 18.
- Am I right, Doug? - 18 feet. - 18 feet.
Right. But what we need to ascertain
- is the orientation. - That's right.
Yes.
So let's let the drill program proceed.
Let's see what G-2 tells us and then move from there.
Fair enough?
- Sounds good. - All righty.
RICK: Thanks, guys. Thanks for all the work.
DOUG: See you later.
NARRATOR: The following morning...
- This is it, mate. - Okay.
Metal detection expert Gary Drayton,
along with treasure hunter Michael John,
arrive on Lot 22,
located near Lot 4,
on the western side of the island.
This is one of my favorite lots.
- Lot 22. - Why?
All this area here is on Zena's map.
There's, like, a hatch mentioned
- in this old French map. - Okay.
So, we've got loads of flags here,
and I'm ready to recover a bit of Oak Island history.
- I'm ready, too. - All right, mate.
- Let's get stuck in. - Let's go.
Right in through here. I'll lead the way.
NARRATOR: Three weeks ago,
the Oak Island team conducted
two different geophysical surveys
across the island,
looking for potential underground structures
and large metal objects.
It was their hope to obtain data
that might corroborate a reported 14th century map
of Oak Island believed to have been created
by members of the Knights Templar
that the late author and researcher Zena Halpern
gave them five years ago.
Back by the main road on the western side,
just up there on Lot 4.
NARRATOR: Incredibly, the preliminary survey data
revealed a large underground metal anomaly
near this area on Lot 4,
which corresponded with a feature on Zena's map
labeled as "the Hole under the Hatch."
Let's see what we got here, mate.
NARRATOR: Over the past two weeks,
in order to help Rick, Marty and Craig obtain a permit
to conduct large-scale excavations in this area,
Gary has been searching for evidence of human activity
predating the discovery of the Money Pit.
So far, he has found an 18th century gold-plated button,
a possible 17th century cutting and shaping tool
known as an adze,
and a metal fragment
of a potentially ancient Portuguese cannon.
MARTY: I always ask this question.
With these other islands--
And there are a bunch of 'em in Mahone Bay--
If they were searched as-as intensively as we're searching,
would you find these things? And the answer is always no.
No, there's something unique about this island.
(beeping)
- Good two-way repeatable signal. - Yeah.
- Just there, mate. - Right there? Okay.
All right. Let's see
- what we're dealing with. - Yeah.
- (beeping) - Great.
Still in the hole. Love that.
(beeping)
It's in my hand.
- Hmm. - (beeping)
Ooh.
Big chunk of lead.
I always love it when we recover a piece of lead like this.
Because until it's cleaned up, we don't know, mate,
whether this is a decorated piece of lead
or it's just left over from making something made of lead
- in a mold. - Yeah.
Match it up to other pieces
of medieval lead
- that we've recovered on the island, mate. - Yeah.
And tell us who
- was here. - Yeah.
Can I take a look?
Yeah, sure, mate.
NARRATOR: A lead artifact found on Lot 22
and near the so-called hatch anomaly on Lot 4?
Could it have been merely dropped by a 19th century farmer
who lived on the island?
Or could it be another critical clue,
like the lead fragment Gary found three years ago
on Lot 21?
Or the lead cross that he found four years ago at Smith's Cove?
Both of which were scientifically proven
to date back to the 14th century
and from European regions once inhabited
by the Knights Templar.
- The mystery continues, eh? - Yep.
It does, mate. Uh, one artifact
- at a time. - That's right.
So, I'm gonna put it in a bag and move on to the next flag.
RICK: I think there's high hopes,
for me, that some of these artifacts will
enhance our ability to further decipher Zena's map.
- On to the next. The next flag's over there, mate. - Yep.
RICK: We may find some very specific locations that we can apply
some sort of dig
or some sort of drill program that may assist us
in figuring out if the things that were delineated on the map
are really real.
That's the hope.
See what this baby sounds like.
(beeping)
I'm just going for the good-sounding targets.
- Just there, mate. - Okay. Right there?
- All right. - Yeah.
That's it. Now we'll be able to get it.
(beeping)
- Wow, it sounds fantastic now. - Yeah.
(beeping)
Getting rapid vibration.
There it is.
Ooh. That could be interesting.
Looks like there was nails in it.
- MICHAEL J.: Sure is metal. - Yeah.
NARRATOR: While searching for clues on lot 22,
near Lot 4 on the western side of Oak Island,
Gary Drayton and Michael John
have just made a potentially important discovery.
GARY: Looks like it was a strap.
Uh, part of a cart wheel.
- MICHAEL J.: Yeah. - And that's what it reminds me of.
- We found a strap... - Mm.
And we took it to Carmen Legge
and he said it was a strap
- that went around... - Okay.
- On a wheel of a cart. - Yeah.
NARRATOR: A metal strap?
Could Gary be correct that he has found part
of a large cart or wagon wheel?
One similar to the iron strap that he found two months ago
on Lot 17 along a potentially ancient pathway
between the swamp and the Money Pit?
If so, could it be evidence of cargo being transported
to this area on the western side of the island long ago?
All right. Let's put it in the bag
- and-and mark this area. - There we go.
NARRATOR: And perhaps also connected
to the mysterious hatch or possible tunnel feature
labeled on Zena Halpern's map?
I find this artifact fascinating.
You can tell by the weight in your hand that you're
holding a really old piece of history.
I'm gonna recheck the hole first.
- Okay. - See if it was masking a nice little surprise.
(faint beeping)
Nope.
MARTY: The metal strap that Gary found,
it could be significant.
And it was found
adjacent to Lot 4.
So we need to look closely on Lot 4.
And we also have to explore, probably with Carmen Legge,
what this thing is.
All right, mate.
- There's that one done. - All right.
- Next target's over here, mate. - Yeah.
- Finding interesting stuff. - Yeah.
NARRATOR: While Gary and Michael John continue searching on Lot 22...
(thunder rumbling)
later that afternoon
in the Money Pit area...
TERRY: Here we go.
New hole, new promise.
If it's Shaft Six, how far are we from the Money Pit?
- 18 feet. - Thank you.
Charles Barkhouse and geologist Terry Matheson
are overseeing the core-drilling operation
of the team's latest borehole
on their strategic grid.
Labeled G-2,
it is Rick Lagina's hope
that it will produce evidence of a tunnel
nearly 120 feet deep
connected to the 19th century searcher shaft
known as Shaft Six.
One which is believed to possibly contain
a debris field of treasure
that resulted from a collapse of the Money Pit
in 1861.
CHARLES: We got a core coming.
Oh, yeah.
CHARLES: What you got, Adam?
75.
- Wood. - What do you got?
- You got wood. - We got wood.
We are in blue-gray till as well.
So we're kind of in situ. That's important.
- Okay. Well, we were in blue-gray till. - Oh.
And what do we got? Hmm, smell that.
That smells...
We got a lot here, too.
Yeah, we've got some stacked timbers there, it looks like.
NARRATOR: Wood found at a depth of just 75 feet in Borehole G-2?
Could it be connected to Shaft Six?
Or is it a completely different man-made structure?
So, that's really quite an important development.
So that says to me probably the shaft.
Yeah.
We're probably in the shaft that we're looking for.
I would say.
I'm gonna want to take, uh, samples of this.
TERRY: Yeah, absolutely.
NARRATOR: Could Terry be correct
that the wood he and the team have just found
might actually be evidence of Shaft Six itself?
If so, it means that they could be within just 18 feet
of the original Money Pit.
Look at this, Charles.
I'm seeing vertical pitsaw-type of marks.
Definitely not circular saw.
This is relatively old.
CHARLES: Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
- ADAM: 79. - 79. Got it, Adam. Thank you.
Okay.
Things are looking up for this hole.
Yeah.
We got more wood, Terry.
TERRY: Oh, that's cool.
Would you say stacked timbers?
- Definitely stacked. - Looks...
Oh, yeah, that's stacked timbers for sure. Look at that.
Stacked and split apart.
Terry, I'm gonna text Rick and just let him know
that we're hitting wood at these two levels.
- Yeah. - Just give him a heads-up.
Here we go.
What's the good word, Adam?
89.
TERRY: Okay. Thank you.
Let's operate on this bad boy.
(grunts)
- CHARLES: Oh, yeah. (chuckling) - Look at that.
That is
- a good old-fashioned shaft right there. - Absolutely.
Totally agree.
TERRY: 84 to 89,
we got five foot of stacked timbers.
So, if this is Shaft Six,
we're gonna be able to place this
- fairly well. - That's right.
We're starting to see some wood.
That can tell us that we're actually in the right spot.
So, if this is the shaft,
then, from that, we'll look for the tunnel.
We can determine the orientation of that tunnel.
Bingo. We've nailed where the Money Pit is.
And we can finally put an "X" on the ground.
CHARLES: Hey, Rick.
- TERRY: Hi, Rick. - Hi.
We've got some wood.
But how much? Are you in a wall?
We've got a substantial intersection.
- Are you in a wall? - Yes.
Oh, definitely we're in a wall. Right here.
Oh, yeah.
Started about ten feet above that.
Yeah.
I was very interested in the results at G-2.
Because my hope is that
it will encounter the tunnel from Shaft Six.
It's my white whale.
It's something I've pursued since the beginning.
My hope is that this location will yield some answer.
No metal?
I haven't run the pinpointer over it.
We have it opened up. We wanted you to see if first.
No, do it. It confirms that wall.
But where is it, you know?
Yeah, exactly.
- It's got to be a shaft wall. - Oh, yeah.
- We're over ten feet so far. - Has to be.
With this and the hits we've hit
previously, we hopefully will be able
to get some kind of orientation.
And we have a chunk of wood up here
that shows beautiful, uh, parallel saw marks.
- Oh, really? - Yeah.
That's what I was looking for.
- Yep. For sure. - Great.
- Okay. - So we're pretty happy.
Go, Charles.
Very happy.
(beeping)
That's good.
Should be right there.
CHARLES: Whatever it is, it's right in here.
RICK: Is it here?
There it is right there.
Right there.
CHARLES: What's in that thing?
Looks like a nail, doesn't it?
NARRATOR: While drilling in an effort to locate a 19th century
searcher shaft that may not only be connected
to the original Money Pit but also might contain
something of great value...
Oh, look at that.
- Square head on it. - It is a square nail, yeah.
Rick Lagina and members of the team
have just recovered a potentially important clue.
You know what? I'd like to bring it down to the XRF right now.
Okay. Let me... let me bag it and tag it.
Okay? But I'll save that.
I want to save that there.
Okay.
It could intersect the tunnel
from Shaft Six and the debris field.
Could be.
- Cross our fingers. - Could be.
RICK: I'm very excited about the find of the nail
in the stacked wood feature that has come out of the borehole.
It's a testable artifact.
The hope is that it will say something
about the time of the shaft construct.
It's another way to determine
whether or not it is indeed Shaft Six.
- Here you go. - Okay.
I will run down. I will XRF it.
- I will be back to tell you. - Great.
- Super. Thanks a lot. - That's cool. Thanks.
Thanks for all the hard work.
- CHARLES: My pleasure. - TERRY: We do what we can.
NARRATOR: While the drilling operation continues
in Borehole G-2...
- DOUG: Hey, Rick. - RICK: Hey, Doug.
I've just come from the Money Pit.
Rick Lagina heads to the archaeology trailer
to scan the square-shaped nail using
the team's X-ray fluorescence machine.
This is from G-2.
- Okay. - Started it.
The hope was to define a wall of the shaft.
Well, it turns out we're actually in a shaft.
Charles was metal-detecting...
and curiously...
this came out.
DOUG: An old nail.
RICK: My first thought was to bring it down and put it in the XRF.
But, specifically, what I was hoping is,
look for manganese and see
if that timeline, pre- or post-1840,
- fits with our suspicion... - Yes!
That it's Shaft Six.
If it's pre-1840,
it doesn't really fit into our understanding
of the construct of the Shaft Six.
Well, it should certainly suggest if it is
pre- or post-1840.
Let's find out.
So, if we pop this little window out here,
we can see how our alignment looks.
Looks like we're getting all of the nail right there,
so let's try that.
Yep.
NARRATOR: By emitting nondestructive radiation,
the XRF machine will identify the minerals
and metals that the nail is composed of.
We'll call it a bent nail.
NARRATOR: If manganese, which was commonly used to forge
iron and steel during the mid-19th century,
is found to be present, it would offer evidence
that the team has indeed found
Shaft Six.
DOUG: All right, here we go.
There.
Didn't take too long for it to finish.
No, it didn't.
- Ten seconds. - So, 96.6% iron.
It's got 3.36 manganese.
Wow.
That would be after 1840
by those numbers.
RICK: It's quite amazing.
DOUG: Oh, absolutely.
So it does indicate
- searcher work. - Yep.
Which it should.
Yeah. If it's Shaft Six.
If it's Shaft Six.
Laird, are you in?
LAIRD: Yes.
You want to render an opinion on an old nail?
Just come take a look.
I can try.
DOUG: Have a look at this.
LAIRD: I think it's hand-forged.
You can't really tell from the head.
It's been in the ground for a long time.
I wonder if it was something
that was on the ground, like they piled timber
on the ground, it got stuck on the timber,
- and then got... in between the stacks. - Yeah.
I mean, those nails tend to be associated with flooring.
So, they're holding something.
DOUG: I mean, it does seem to fit the-the period.
Yeah, I mean, it doesn't look like a machine-cut nail to me.
So that brings it into the, you know,
early-to-mid-1800s.
Right.
Which is exactly what we th-- Hoping it is.
- Right. - Yes.
NARRATOR: If the team has indeed found
Shaft Six, they're not only
less than 20 feet from the original Money Pit
but also a debris field some 120 feet deep
that is believed to be littered with treasure.
It does have a fair bit of manganese in it.
RICK: Because of the high manganese content,
it's post-1840.
One could make, certainly, an argument that this is
indeed Shaft Six.
To me, it's, that's exciting because I've always believed
that there was a collapse.
If there's anything to be found,
the proof, the one thing,
it's in that tunnel. It's in the debris field.
Look, we'll keep drilling, as long as
we're in the wall, we'll just keep going.
And see what happens.
DOUG: All righty.
LAIRD: All right, see you later.
NARRATOR: The following day...
as the search operations at the Money Pit
and at the southern border of the swamp continue...
- Hello! - MARTY: Hey, Carmen.
- GARY: Hey, mate. - MARTY: How are you, sir? - CARMEN: Hey, what you got?
Well, we were just discussing a find of Gary's, actually.
Oh, look at that.
NARRATOR: Blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge
has just arrived on the island
to meet with Marty Lagina, Doug Crowell
and Gary Drayton in the research center.
He has come to examine the metal artifact
that Gary found just one day ago on Lot 22.
Obviously, it's just an iron strap, mate.
But we're hoping that you, the...
iron expert, mate, will tell us what this is.
- (laughter) - Oh, nice one, mate.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Really?
(laughter)
GARY: That's very interesting.
- Oh, that's a little more exciting, Gary. - Yeah.
NARRATOR: In the Oak Island Research Center,
blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge has just given members
of the team an incredible assessment
of the iron strap found one day ago
on Lot 22.
MARTY: Was that to hold the box together?
Or...? Okay.
How old?
Um...
There we go.
- Yeah. - That's a hundred years
- before the Money Pit. - CARMEN: That's right.
NARRATOR: An iron strap?
From a box or chest
that not only dates back to as early
as the 17th century, but also found
near the area of the so-called "Hole under the Hatch,"
depicted on the map belonging to the late Zena Halpern?
It's not ornate, though.
MARTY: Mm-hmm, right.
MARTY: Right.
- Hmm. - That's a nice surprise.
Yeah, it is, actually.
Well, that's pretty cool, Gary.
Now go find the box.
Yeah, now I'm thinking what was
- in that box, as well. - Yes.
Mm-hmm, okay.
The most significant thing
about the metal strap, it's probably
a strap that held, uh, some sort of chest together.
And quite old.
Right here is the overlap of a weld.
MARTY: So we're gonna dig around that area
and see if we can find some corroborative pieces.
Well, that's pretty cool.
Sounds like it might be part of the puzzle.
GARY: Yeah.
MARTY: It's a part of the story
that might lead us to it.
Okay, Doug, make notes on it, please,
uh, Carmen's observations.
Okay. Back to work.
- GARY: Okay. - CARMEN: Very good.
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...
as the core-drilling operation
in Borehole G-2 continues at the Money Pit...
Oh, yeah.
JACK: Whoa!
Look at this, Charles!
CHARLES: Oh, my God.
Hard to say what it is.
NARRATOR: Billy Gerhardt, along
with Charles Barkhouse and Jack Begley,
continue making potentially
important discoveries at the southern edge
of the triangle-shaped swamp.
JACK: Is that cut?
Yeah! It's cut to a point!
BILLY: Yeah, there...
might be three good pieces in there.
JACK: Oh, yeah! Maybe even more.
BILLY: The little piece came out
of just where we were pumping out up here.
How deep, Billy?
Maybe three feet deep.
Yeah.
JACK: Look at this.
There's a smaller one there, too, though.
- See it, the short one? - Yeah.
That's pretty smooth, though, isn't it?
Yeah.
Wow.
- Want to grab those other ones, too? - Yeah.
BILLY: That's a little bit
like the survey stakes we found last year,
but I haven't seen any like the one that Jack has there.
CHARLES: No.
NARRATOR: Possible survey stakes?
Found just west of the believed stone wharf in the swamp?
MARTY: Look at that.
That's cut.
Oh, yeah. That's definitely cut.
NARRATOR: One year ago,
while searching along the stone pathway,
near the eastern border of the swamp,
the Oak Island team discovered a number
of wooden survey stakes which they believed
had been used in the construction of the feature.
So, that's staking it.
- Somebody would go through first. - Yep.
Say, between there and there. Right?
Yeah, that's beautiful.
NARRATOR: When the team submitted
the wooden stakes for carbon testing,
they were astonished by the results.
CRAIG: Sample 113,
from 1636 to 1684.
- Wow. - (laughter)
- Hey, Bill. - Hey, Charles.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that
the team has now found another ancient survey stake
near the southern border of the swamp?
If so, could it be evidence of another buried structure
in this area
that has yet to be uncovered?
If you look at the cuts here, the cuts are different.
That one on the right is a long, tapered cut.
This one on the left is a short, abrupt cut.
- Mm-hmm. - I would say that
the same person didn't make that cut.
BILLY: Yeah, the quality of that one looks way better than that one.
- Oh, yeah. - So I don't know what that tells you.
Definitely the same person didn't do them both.
- No. - But you know any time you find
- something in the swamp is a good day. - Yeah.
I think we should have the rest of the guys look at it.
- CHARLES: That would be great. - JACK: Let's move out.
- JACK: Hey, guys. - MARTY: Hey, Jack.
Billy, what you got there, bud?
Yeah, right, so we found some really interesting pieces
of wood in the swamp and figured we'd come up here
and show both of you.
- LAIRD: Holy crap. - MARTY: Holy smokes.
What do you make of that, Rick?
- What does it look like? - RICK: I don't know
what it looks like. It looks different.
- Yeah. - Yep.
- You guys found it? - Yeah.
Billy, where'd you find it, roughly?
BILLY: In the swamp,
probably 30 feet towards the swamp road
from where we were digging towards the Money Pit.
These are more like
what the kind of survey stakes Fred found.
One long symmetrical cut.
NARRATOR: Like the potentially ancient survey stakes
that the team discovered one year ago,
lining the stone pathway along the eastern border of the swamp,
the late Fred Nolan found a number of them running
through the middle of the brackish bog
in 1969.
Is it possible that Billy and Jack
have found another stake connected to those
unearthed by Fred more than a half century ago?
If so, what were they lining?
And might they be related in some way to the 200-foot-long
anomaly detected in 2018 by seismic scanning?
One eerily resembling the length and size
of a massive ship?
The stakes that are there have been formed,
are clearly ax-cut.
So this is an interesting piece.
It's clearly wood for some sort of
very specific purpose.
It could be significant.
I knew there would be wood in the swamp.
Every time we dig we find some human-shaped wood,
but they're finding a lot.
I'm kind of surprised at what keeps coming out of that swamp.
This is pretty cool, too. I mean, it's clearly a plank.
It's about the same size as the barrel tops.
RICK: Same depth?
- JACK: Yeah. - BILLY: Yep.
What does it mean? What does it mean?
JACK: I think maybe both of these are actually...
- Markers of some sort? - Well, yeah.
RICK: The swamp work, of course, has provided some great finds,
areas of great interest.
The hope is that we can continue to make finds
that we can apply science to,
to maybe come up with an artifact
that is an aha moment.
I still believe there's answers there.
JACK: So, what tests can we have done
to these pieces, 'cause we can't have specific dendro
done to something like this.
No, but C-14 done to that.
But what about this piece of wood?
- MARTY: Maybe that, too. - Is it big enough for dendro?
MARTY: It matters how many rings are on there.
If it was an old growth, it could be.
NARRATOR: Dendrochronology is a cutting-edge dating method
that entails analyzing the tree rings present
on pieces of shaped wood.
It can determine not only the age of the artifact
but also the precise date that it was cut for use.
That one strikes me as older.
- This one. I think that's older. - Just visually, it seems.
MARTY: Yeah, all right, well, you know what I'm gonna say.
These are cool.
Go find something that explains what they are.
The swamp is yielding things.
- Oh, yeah. - All right, guys.
Let's go get some more stuff.
Let's get after it.
LAIRD: All right.
NARRATOR: For 226 years,
the Money Pit has been the focus of nearly
all those who attempted to solve the Oak Island mystery.
And while the traces of silver and gold that Rick,
Marty, Craig and their team have recovered
suggest that a major discovery
still awaits them there,
could the clues
that they are finding all across the island
mean that many more and valuable secrets
also lie in wait?
The drilling and digging will continue.
The rest is up to fate...
and perhaps the curse
of Oak Island.
Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...
The Portuguese found signs of gold here
and needed a place to hide it away.
- Wow. - If that is indeed Shaft Six,
we know there's a tunnel leading directly to the Money Pit.
You follow the tunnel, it's game on then.
GARY: All it takes is one good find.
What's that right there, Gary?
Oh, that's interesting.
It might be a lid.
There could be a chest in there.
That's pretty amazing.
RICK: You'll hold in your hand
the irrefutable proof that the story
of Oak Island is real.