NARRATOR: Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island
GARY: Fingers crossed on this one.
Oh, yeah. Look at the size of that.
- MARTY: Wow! - That is crazy.
This is a tool that you would use for moving items.
Bring your heavy stuff to shore,
- then you move it with that. - Yes.
JEREMY: This tunnel connects with this very square structure
- in the Money Pit. - Oh, baby. - (laughter)
- Whoa! - Whoa!
STEVE G.: We pierced something that hasn't been pierced
- in a long time. - The famous offset chamber.
Exactly.
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.
♪ ♪
CRAIG: Hello.
- Hey, guys. - Hey, guys.
- Hello. - Hi, guys.
NARRATOR: Morning has dawned on Oak Island for brothers
Rick and Marty Lagina, their partner Craig Tester,
and other members of their team.
So, we would like to welcome Jeremy back.
NARRATOR: But before they head back into the field
in an effort to solve a 227-year-old mystery,
they have gathered to meet via videoconference
with geophysicist Jeremy Church.
Jeremy's working with some new software,
and he has reinterpreted the previous seismic data.
He has come up with some new targets in the Money Pit.
So, Jeremy, I'm going to turn it over to you.
Excellent. Thanks, guys.
I think there's some exciting stuff that's
coming out of that existing data
that we acquired a couple years ago.
So this is kind of a method to kinda take it
- to the next level. - That'd be great.
NARRATOR: As Rick, Marty, Craig and the team prepare to
dig up to four ten-foot-wide, steel-cased shafts
in the coming weeks...
they have asked Jeremy to reassess the seismic survey
that his colleagues conducted in 2018
across the Eastern drumlin of Oak Island.
We've got a hard reflector on the top.
Hard reflector on the base.
So it is a competent structure, whatever it is.
NARRATOR: It is their hope that he will not only be able
to help them pinpoint the original Money Pit...
Is that consistent with a chamber?
- Yeah, it is. - Wow.
but also the source of the silver and gold
that was detected earlier this year
in several boreholes near the C-1 shaft.
I guess we can jump into the fun part here.
So, I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen.
Okey doke.
So here we go.
So what we've got here
on the screen,
this is the Money Pit data set.
Pinks and reds are the highest points.
The greens are the deepest points.
The orange is kind of in the middle.
So this is a very important one here.
This linear feature here, it almost, to me,
what this might be is some sort of a tunnel.
That's interesting.
And it extends all the way over to here.
Where's C-1, for reference?
- C-1's right there. - Okay.
And what I wanted to get at
is actually, go back to the bird's-eye view.
So you can see this point is right in
the middle of Shaft 12.
- Interesting. - It puts us right in our zone of interest for sure.
Yeah.
NARRATOR: In 1894,
treasure hunter Frederick Blair
and his team constructed Shaft 12,
30 feet east of the Money Pit,
down to a depth of 55 feet.
His plan was to intercept the legendary booby-trapped
flood tunnel believed to originate at Smith's Cove.
Unfortunately, the effort failed,
and Shaft 12 was abandoned.
Can you give us some depths on this anomaly?
Just a little bit north of 100 feet
of depth.
So, uh,
let's go take a look inside.
So if we go right in...
You have this tunnel-type system,
so that tells me right away that
it has to be from some sort of human activity,
- roughly around depths that you guys are expecting. - Yeah.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that in his failed bid to
locate a booby trap, Frederick Blair was actually
on a course to intercept a much deeper man-made tunnel?
And one in an area where the team has recently detected
both gold and silver through water sample testing?
One of the more interesting knowns in the Money Pit
is Shaft 12.
It was work conducted very early on
when the Money Pit location was known.
I think we need to prove or disprove, ground truth,
whether or not there really is a tunnel below Shaft 12.
That's impactful.
All right. Should we go deeper?
- Yes. - Yes.
Here we go.
I think this is the most significant
anomaly out of everything.
And it's a larger anomaly, but then there
are smaller details in it.
And this is down at about 160 feet.
What's really interesting about this, though,
is this low-density, cave-like feature right here.
I call it the Structure. Very square,
with this little tail off of it.
Let me zoom out here for you.
And what kind of got me most excited about it was that
tunnel from Shaft 12 goes all the way over here.
It connects up with this structure area over here.
That is very intriguing.
What size is that structure?
Just approximately.
You're looking at...
12 feet by 12 feet, tops.
Okay.
I-I guess I have to wonder, were they tunneling
there for a purpose, and then building
an expanded chamber, if you will, at the end of it?
Yeah.
NARRATOR: A possible 12-foot by 12-foot chamber
some 160 feet deep, and potentially connected to
a tunnel in the area where the team has already
detected traces of silver and gold?
It has become Marty Lagina's suspicion
that if treasure on Oak Island really does exist,
it may not be in the original Money Pit,
but rather in an offset chamber from the main shaft.
Is it possible that Jeremy Church has just
found evidence that Marty's theory is correct?
MARTY: What is interesting about the anomaly is
it's about the right size.
It appears to be
something that has almost, like, a little roof on it.
Well, that sounds good.
And it also appears to be
something less dense there.
So, you got a roof, a cap and something less dense.
That sounds like a possible chamber.
It's worth drilling, for sure.
STEVE G.: The anomaly we're chasing that you've presented,
it may help really zone in an area of interest for us because
soon we've got caissons coming, and we really need to
- start getting as much data as we can to pick caissons. - Yep.
CRAIG: If any of these anomalies
align up with where we might want to drill,
I-I'd drill for these anomalies, too.
Yeah, I'd like to put a hole over by Shaft 12
to see if you find a tunnel.
- Mm-hmm. - Put a couple holes there.
You find a tunnel, then it confirms this.
We might get lucky and actually
put a coin in your hand this year, Marty.
- Okay, good. - Well, I don't think
there's anything else to say, other than we have legitimate
targets, and now it's all about getting out there
and ground-truthing it, and keep going.
So, Jeremy, we thank you very much, and we very much look
forward to your continuing work with this process.
You're very welcome.
- RICK: All right. See you guys. - SCOTT: Bye, guys.
NARRATOR: While Rick, Marty and members of the team
finish their meeting in the war room...
near the southern edge of the swamp...
DAVID F.: Gary!
Hi, Dave! How you doing, mate?
- Good. How are you doing? - Good.
- Welcome back to the swamp. - Yeah.
I didn't want to feel left out.
NARRATOR: David Fornetti joins
metal detection expert Gary Drayton
and heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt
as they continue digging with an 80-foot-long armed excavator
in search of critical and hopefully valuable clues.
This is the area where we found that old ship's rail last year.
And the numbers, the data that came back on that was amazing.
Went all the way back to the 700s.
- Wow. - I mean, you can't get any better than that.
Wow. Yeah.
NARRATOR: In addition to a massive ship-shaped anomaly
that was detected near this area during the seismic survey
in 2018, over the past several years the team has made
numerous discoveries related to sailing vessels.
These finds include the massive stone ship's wharf
in the southeastern corner of the swamp.
- Does that look flat? - I guess it does.
NARRATOR: Potential deck planking.
Ship's pins, used for rigging sail lines.
And a finished piece of possible ship's railing
that dated back to as early as 660 AD.
BILLY: 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. - Yeah.
- Today's going to be a good day. - Perfect.
All right, mate, let's see if we're in business.
(detector beeping)
Wow, there's nothing in here, this is quiet.
- BILLY: Gary? - Yep.
It was a wet bucket, but right here
it looked like it might have been a little piece of wood.
Just a small piece.
Okay, mate, I'll see if I can find it.
Oh, I see it. I'm dying to know what it is.
Wow, look at this.
GARY: That's an unusual stick, isn't it?
NARRATOR: While searching for clues near the southern
- edge of the swamp... - Oh, yeah, that's been cut.
Check this out, David.
Billy Gerhardt, Gary Drayton and David Fornetti
have just made another potentially important discovery.
That's unusual, almost like bamboo.
I know it isn't, but you can see that
that's been cut with an axe.
I do remember the archaeologists finding
strips of this underneath the stone roadway.
It was, like, used as, like, packing.
And then the stones were put on top of it.
- It's too small for a fence post. - Yeah.
You think it's a survey stake, Billy?
Well, do you remember how the stakes were pointed
that went along the swamp road?
- The path? - Yeah.
So, this could be really interesting if we
could get this C-14 tested.
- Yeah. - See how old it is.
- Look at that. - That's cut.
Oh, yeah, that's definitely cut.
NARRATOR: One year ago, while investigating the cobblestone
pathway along the eastern side of the swamp,
the team discovered a number of survey stakes bordering
the feature that dated back as much as 400 years.
Could this stake be just as old, or older?
And could they be connected in some way
to the evidence of a ship the team
has found in the swamp?
This is really, really cool, mate.
This might turn in to be a significant piece of wood.
Yeah. Instead of just leaving it here,
why don't I take it now and bring it to
the research center and have somebody look at it?
Okay, mate. Yeah. Take that to your uncle
and say, "Gary's a stick in the mud".
- (chuckles) Will do. - All right, mate.
All right, I'll let you get back to work.
Okay, mate. I'll see you when you get back.
- Beat, dig and repeat. - Yeah.
NARRATOR: As Gary and Billy continue
searching in the swamp...
- in the Money Pit area... - TERRY: Hey, Marty.
- Partner. - Here we go.
AB-13 is being cued up right now as we speak.
NARRATOR: Rick, Marty and Craig
join geologist Terry Matheson
and members of the team to begin drilling Borehole AB-13.
A borehole that they hope will intercept a possible
treasure tunnel at a depth of some 100 feet.
STEVE G.: Jeremy found two coordinates. He supplied me with both.
One of these coordinates is really close to the center
of the projected tunnel that comes off of Shaft 12,
and this was the closest.
Okay, all right.
So this is the highest probability
to hit a high-density target and a tunnel.
-At what depth?
- Uh, 95 feet. - Okay.
SCOTT: We're hoping that drilling in this location
will give us some information on potentially both things.
A tunnel coming from Shaft 12, as well as what
this high-density target may be.
How is a target high-density?
She's chock full of gold, obviously.
- (laughs) - Has to be.
- Otherwise, it would be low density.
Well, I'd argue with you, but you're right.
- I like high-density targets. - Yes.
- Let's see how fast they go down. - Yeah.
I think at the end of today, we have to find something
- very, very significant. - Mm-hmm.
RICK: Truthfully, I think every borehole we put down,
there is an expectation of treasure.
Either at the depths that have been predetermined,
i.e. based on earlier searcher activity.
Right around the hundred-foot level
and then, of course, certainly Marty's belief
that there were offset chambers above tidal level.
- All right. We have a plan. - Yep.
All righty.
- Let's keep going. - TERRY: Okay.
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon,
while the drilling operation continues in the Money Pit...
- All right, Gary, let's have at it. - Yep.
Marty Lagina and Gary Drayton head
just west of the swamp to Lot 32.
It was in this area that, one year ago,
Gary not only found an iron wharf pin
but also a potentially ancient cargo bag seal that the team has
speculated may be connected to the Knights Templar.
- You always go back to where you found stuff. - Yeah.
And there's got to be more in this area.
I've got lots of flags on this side of the track.
- All right, start right up over there. - Okay, mate.
NARRATOR: Now, after the numerous ship-related discoveries
that the team has recently made
at the southern edge of the swamp,
Marty and Gary are hoping that even more clues
might be found on Lot 32
that could help explain what may have happened long ago
on Oak Island, and who was behind the activity.
- It's a little chirpy, isn't it? - Yeah, a little bit jumpy.
- Well, you never know. - You want to dig it?
Yep. Just here, mate.
MARTY: The thing about Lot 32 that might be different is that
the sort of merchant's bag seal was found there.
Maybe there was yet another wharf there
at Lot 32-- a place for trade.
So, does that raise the expectation that there'd
be parts of a ship? Of course.
(device beeping)
Wow, that had been down there a while.
- Look at that. - What is it?
It's an ox shoe.
That's in really good condition as well.
- I mean, that'd been down there a heck of a long time. - Yeah, it has.
NARRATOR: An ox shoe,
found just west of the swamp on Lot 32?
And in an area where the team discovered the lead
bag seal and evidence of a wharf one year ago?
It was also last year that they unearthed a number
of identical objects, as well as pieces of
15th century cargo barrels and iron ring bolts
along a believed pathway between the stone wharf
in the southeastern corner of the swamp, and the Money Pit.
We're sure then that either there was intensive farming,
which doesn't seem to be the case,
or there was a lot of cargo moved around here.
Yeah, and, I mean,
this is the area where you really want to find
- an ox shoe, as well, because... - If there was a wharf, yeah.
There's a wharf. We got that bag seal.
And David and I found an ox shoe on the beach there.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that Marty and Gary have just
found evidence of another operation to unload
cargo from a ship onto Oak Island?
If so, what kind of cargo was it?
And where did it end up?
An ox shoe is intriguing because if you have a big wharf,
where goods are being moved in and out,
you might need beasts of burden to carry them.
- All right. Well, now let's find the cargo, shall we? - Okay, mate.
I'll put this in the bag and we'll collect it later.
Okay. I like it. Good system.
NARRATOR: As Marty and Gary continue searching on Lot 32,
back in the Money Pit area...
Do you know how deep they are now?
They are closing in on about 50 feet.
the drilling operation continues in Borehole AB-13,
where the team hopes to encounter
a mysterious man-made tunnel
at a depth of some 100 feet.
Craig, what depth is the seismic target?
- Do we have a depth? - 95, wasn't it?
Something like about 90, plus or minus 20.
Because, you know, seismic signals.
- Yeah. - Because that's our true zone of interest
where we're going to encounter shafts or tunnels.
In this case, hopefully a tunnel off of
what we think might be Shaft 12.
I do want to go to probably 160 feet
on this first one, get below that
150-foot tunnel depth.
I think it's great. Let's get it in
the geological context as well.
- That is weird. - What happened?
- It went down really fast. - Yeah.
♪ ♪
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa!
Holy cow! We've never seen that before.
- Blowing water up. - That's unusual.
- BRENNAN: Oh, boy. - ALEX: Wow.
Is that something collapsing?
TEDFORD: Right there. Look at that.
It's weird. I've never seen that
in all the drilling
that I've seen on this pad.
NARRATOR: While drilling in an effort
to find a believed tunnel
some 100 feet deep in the Money Pit area...
(laughs) Oh, boy.
the Oak Island team has just encountered
something very strange and unexpected.
It's got to have air in it, don't you think?
Yeah.
Let's-let's go see what Mike thinks.
That's a good idea.
That might be gas.
BRENNAN: Well, that's what I was just wondering.
Is there any smell to it, or...
I haven't smelled anything yet.
Maybe we should just idle it down.
CRAIG: When we first drilled into it, and it's blowing out,
you're concerned it's natural gas, right away.
If it starts leaking up where you're not expecting it to,
and it catches fire,
it can be a significant disaster.
What-What's your depth right now?
That's, uh, 68.
So, it's a bit of gas or...
something causing the water to-- air to kind of spray out.
Checked all the way up the drill string.
Or there could have been a void.
NARRATOR: A void?
Nearly 70 feet deep in Borehole AB-13?
Although the seismic data presented by geophysicist
Jeremy Church indicated that a tunnel might be found
some 30 feet deeper, is it possible
that the team has encountered a different man-made structure?
If so, what could it be?
And might it be related to the traces of silver and gold
that the team detected through water testing earlier this year?
If there's a tunnel here that had air in it,
and you drilled into it, up she comes.
- Yeah. - Yeah, exactly. And then the pressure behind it
would force all the water up and out.
- Do we think this is a good omen? - It could be.
Well, just in case it is some gas, let's step back.
Don't fire up any smokes.
NARRATOR: Although Craig, Alex and members of the team are
hopeful that they have just made an exciting discovery,
- before continuing the operation... - Looks very peculiar.
the crew from Choice Sonic Drilling
will assess the hole to ensure the void
does not contain a potentially dangerous
amount of natural gas.
Meanwhile...
All it takes is one good find out here.
We saved the best till last.
- That does sound different to me, too. - It does.
just west of the swamp, on Lot 32, Marty Lagina
and Gary Drayton continue their search for important clues.
MARTY: Gonna have to get the rocks out here.
There you go, mate.
This one could be tough.
- Boy, that is just buried in the rocks, Gary. - Yeah.
It can hide, but it can't run.
- Just get that out of there. - Yeah, I'm gonna take that out.
All right.
(device beeping)
Oh, yeah, it's been trapped there a while.
Look at that. I'm going to pull it out, mate.
- What do we got here? - What the hell is that?
Look at the size of that. That is one big spike.
Look at the size of that!
- I mean, that's crazy. - That looks like a railroad spike, no?
No. I think it's too big to be a railroad spike.
I mean, it's very, very heavy as well.
It's like an old wharf pin or something like that.
I don't know what the heck it's doing out here.
Well, you know what? We think there's a wharf,
and we think it was over there, but we don't really know that.
It could have been right here.
More possible evidence
of a ship's wharf on Lot 32?
And in the same area where the team found
a potentially ancient cargo bag seal one year ago?
The burning question then becomes:
what happened to the cargo?
Could the Money Pit or the swamp
soon provide the answer?
- Is it iron? - Yeah, it's iron,
and more than likely wrought iron.
MARTY: I don't really want to find more spikes on this island.
But, but this particular one is incredibly massive,
and it was way deep in the soil.
So it's been there a long, long time.
We'll put it in the XRF.
We'll have Carmen Legge look at it,
probably Christa Brosseau. We'll see what they all say.
- GARY: Okay, mate. - All right.
GARY: Dang! That is a big spike.
NARRATOR: As Marty and Gary continue their search on Lot 32,
back at the Money Pit...
BRENNAN: It's a void.
We drilled through a void.
NARRATOR: after completing a safety check
for a possible gas leak in Borehole AB-13,
the team is now confident
that it is safe to continue investigating
a mysterious void at a depth of nearly 70 feet.
For air to come out, I mean,
it would have to be a dry cavity.
Yeah, an open cavity of some sort. Definitely.
A chamber to put things in could hold a lot of air,
and it could hold it there for centuries.
Whether it happened in 2017 or a century ago, we're not sure.
I think it's bubbling again or something.
I could see it when you were drilling.
- Got some bubbles? - TEDFORD: Bubbles.
BRENNAN: Why don't you turn the rig off for a second?
Let's see how much airflow we can hear.
- CRAIG: Bubbling on the outside of the casing. - Yeah.
- BRENNAN: It's a pretty good flow. - CRAIG: Yeah, it is.
That's interesting that we're still having that.
CRAIG: Very unusual. We've never seen this on the Money Pit,
you know, so we're trying to figure out
the volume of the air in it.
So it's an exciting find in this area.
It's at a depth of about 68 feet.
You know, it's an unknown depth to us.
You know, there's no records of anything in that depth.
So, something very positive and something we have to pursue.
It's exciting. I think we should go tell the guys.
To me, there's only one explanation for
an air cavity, and that's a man-made tunnel.
- I agree. - At this depth.
CRAIG: I agree. I'm encouraged.
It's encouraging that we got it.
It's encouraging where it's at because why is it
at such a shallow depth? I mean, it's nothing that--
Nothing searchers would have apparently done,
so hopefully the original people would have.
Yeah. Let's go see what my dad and Rick think.
- CRAIG: Okay. Okay. - ALEX: See you, guys.
- STEVE G.: See you, guys. - TERRY: See you later.
MARTY: So, guys, weird stuff yesterday, huh?
- At the latest well. - ALEX: Yeah, very.
NARRATOR: One day after the team drilled into a mysterious,
air-filled void in the Money Pit area...
Give us the numbers again.
We drilled with the casing down to 68 feet, too.
brothers Rick and Marty Lagina are heading there
to continue the operation, along with their partner
Craig Tester and Marty's son Alex.
CRAIG: As it's coming out of the hole and all of the sudden,
the water starts squirting out, obviously being pushed by air
between the casing and the core barrel.
So, below 68 feet, you would guess?
- Yes. - Yeah.
CRAIG: Then he moved the core barrel down to 88 feet.
All of a sudden the air started coming out of
the outside of the casing.
I see. Okay.
Was there any smell associated with it?
That's a great question.
No, we were worried it might be natural gas,
which, if it's just methane, does not smell.
MARTY: Craig tells me that
in the construction of Shaft 12, the-the searchers had to quit
at 55 feet because they were flooded out.
I don't know anywhere else on Oak Island where 55 feet
encounters significant water.
(indistinct chatter)
Hey, guys. How are you?
What are today's mysteries?
Well, there's a few.
- (laughs) - Okay, guys.
This side of the table, explain the air to me.
Okay, so, one thing's for sure. There's a cavity.
And in this terrain, in that very dense till,
this isn't something that washed out glacially.
This has got to be a pick and shovel type of an opening.
So, you're saying
a dead-end tunnel looks like this.
Yeah, something like that, and we're close to that dead end.
It's a man-made hole.
NARRATOR: If the team did, in fact, drill into a tunnel,
could it be the legendary booby trap that is believed
to feed water into the Money Pit from Smith's Cove?
Or, because it was full of air, might it be
a very different kind of man-made structure?
Perhaps one connected to a vast cache of silver and gold?
MARTY: And this same phenomena would occur
for the famous offset chamber, wouldn't it?
- You'd have the same thing like this? - Exactly.
And you pierce it here and it's full of air?
Yep. No question.
Steve? Same thing?
We pierced something that hasn't been pierced in a long time.
I'm going to make a really quick point. I think we should
drill close to where we're at and we should investigate what
we hit yesterday, but I think we're really close
to a tunnel.
Okay, well, that's pretty cool.
Let's finish up this hole and go to the next one.
- Which way we going? - STEVE G.: I would move down
the seismic line three feet.
I think we should come closer than three.
Two and a half.
- Two and a half. - Compromise.
MARTY: Okay. I like that.
- Got that, Steve? - Two and a half feet west?
- CRAIG: Two and a half feet, rather than three. - Yep.
RICK: I would love for them
to be correct that there's
some sort of dry tunnel.
If there is a tunnel and we can
access it, I'd be the first one
in the tunnel, I can tell you that.
I would love for them to be correct.
- Okay, let's go. - Okay, guys.
NARRATOR: As the drilling operation continues in the Money Pit...
later that afternoon...
- (metal clanging) - ALEX: Hey, Carmen.
- Carmen, hello! - Hello!
- How you doing today? - Good.
Like that sound. Like that smell.
NARRATOR: Marty and Alex Lagina, along with Jack Begley,
have traveled some 50 miles north
to Northville Farm in Centerville, Nova Scotia
to meet with blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge.
Carmen, we have some more of our treasures
that we need identified here.
It was found on Lot 32 by my dad.
I find almost nothing, so I'm really quite proud of this.
ALEX: Lot 32 is on the south side of the island, close to the swamp,
uh, near where we think there may have been an old wharf.
ALEX: 'Cause you anchor your boat out in the ocean.
Bring your heavy stuff to shore,
and then you'd move it with that by...?
Yes. Yes.
How far away was it from the bag seal?
Not very far. I'd say maybe 50 feet.
It makes it kind of plausible, then,
that that was used for hauling.
NARRATOR: A ship's anchor spike?
Perhaps used in the unloading of cargo?
And dating between 1710 and 1740?
If so, could it help identify
just who may have been behind
the Oak Island mystery?
DOUG: What's really interesting is, it appears
to be a ship's log of
the French fleet that was coming over
in 1746 to take back Acadia.
NARRATOR: Three years ago,
Doug Crowell discovered
a ship's log dating back
to 1746 in the Nova Scotia Archives.
It recounted a failed French expedition
to reclaim Nova Scotia from the British
that was led by the Duc d'Anville,
a nobleman from Southern France
whose family lineage could be traced back
to the Order of the Knights Templar.
DOUG: They're actually talking about
the vast amount of treasure they have on board.
NARRATOR: But what made the ship's log
compelling to the Oak Island team
was that it reported a secondary mission
to hide a vast treasure on a wooded island.
DOUG: "The wind dying down, we anchored for the night.
"The great quantity of treasure on this vessel
"makes it unwise to jeopardize it
"in any engagement with the enemy.
"September 8th.
"It has been agreed that a deep pit be dug
"and treasure securely buried.
"The pit to have a secret entrance
by a tunnel from the shore."
MARTY: The Duc d'Anville theory
certainly fits with these tools.
So, made in 1740,
used in 1746 is entirely possible.
NARRATOR: Could this spike,
found in the same area as the potentially ancient
cargo bag seal, be connected
to an 18th century French mission
to bury treasure?
And if so, could these finds also help explain
the mysterious tunnel that the team
encountered one day ago in the Money Pit?
MARTY: That's a good data point.
- All right, Carmen. - Good.
We-We're going home with some answers.
MARTY: We'll be back.
Yeah, baby.
NARRATOR: While the drilling operation in the Money Pit area continues...
GARY: Just be nice to pull out a big ship's timber.
NARRATOR: members of the team
search for more potentially important
and valuable clues
at the southern edge of the swamp.
GARY: You seeing something, Billy?
BILLY: There's a piece on this side of the bucket,
right in the front there, ready to fall off, I think.
GARY: Whereabouts, mate? Direct me.
- To the other side. - GARY: Oh, to the other side.
BILLY: Right there. Right there. Yeah.
This piece?
What is that?
It's just split, maybe.
JACK: Looks natural.
I thought it might've been cut, but it's split.
- That's all right. - Like a tree trunk, wasn't it?
That's right in the area that we're looking
for more ship pieces, though.
GARY: It isn't too hard to imagine
a ship pulling into the swamp,
unloading treasure,
and hauling it up towards the Money Pit.
Come on, treasure, where are you?
GARY: We have found ship's timbers
or wharf timbers
in the swamp and Smith's Cove.
That tells me that there could potentially
still be a treasure ship
waiting to be discovered in the swamp.
BILLY: It's deeper in here
- than what it is over there. - CHARLES: That's odd.
BILLY: It kind of makes you think it was laying in open,
and then something or somebody closed it in, right?
Towards the berm it's deeper?
Yeah.
(metal detector beeping)
I got a signal. It's in the sand.
Just there. Thanks. You never know,
it might be an old spike. We did find some here.
Oh, I see it. Sticking out there.
See it?
Oh, yeah.
Rebar.
Sorry, mate, false alarm.
Good digging, Jack.
You dig on Oak Island, you find things, so...
That you do.
Keep our eyes open.
MARTY: Honestly, the swamp, every time we've dug in it,
it's been a surprise.
Any cuts on that?
- Just looks natural. - JACK: Okay.
MARTY: I've tried to give up on the swamp...
(chuckles) I don't know, I've lost count.
A dozen times? Uh, and Rick was persistent.
And, my goodness, it keeps
yielding up interesting things.
And-and there we've probably dug, I don't know,
maybe 15% of it, so
there could be all kinds of interesting things in the swamp.
BILLY: Piece just beyond my bucket,
just looks... kind of flat-ish.
- Can one of you guys get it? - Oh, is that a board?
I don't know, mate. Let me see if I can get it.
We'll keep it to one side.
- It looks like a board. - It's dimensional enough, yeah.
Yeah, it looks like a board.
One side's pretty smooth.
Oh, they got something.
Look at that, mate. Looks like a ship's timber.
Probably a piece of decking, by the look of it.
Good eye, Billy.
Yeah, when you see a flat piece, it really sticks out.
Yeah. That's cool, mate. Look at that.
NARRATOR: Another potential piece of decking from a ship?
Since the team has found a number of similar
wooden artifacts in this area,
which dated as far back as the 17th century,
could this find represent more evidence
that the swamp is hiding the wreck
of a massive sailing vessel?
Any markings on it, Jack?
Uh... No, not that I can see yet.
RICK: We have some disparate odds and ends
and bits and pieces
of what we believe are a sailing ship, and
those items should not be down there,
unless we're close to something,
and that really, certainly, piques all of our interests.
This is definitely man-made.
It's badly deteriorated, but if
there's an old ship in the swamp, it would be.
Exactly. We're only picking up the pieces, right?
Yeah.
JACK: We'll get it cleaned up, though.
Definitely a candidate for C-14.
Great find, Billy.
GARY: We've got another wooden plank.
Well, the last time we found a wooden plank,
the data came back amazing.
And now,
with the C-14
and the dendro that we can do on this wood,
we don't know what we're holding in our hand at the moment,
but it could be very significant.
People had to get here somehow, and...
Look at all the findings that we have from the 1600s, right?
GARY: Yeah.
They didn't, they didn't fly here or take a taxi, right?
- They had to come by ship. - GARY: No, mate.
We're on an island, mate.
I think this date on this is gonna be a shocker.
MARTY: Hey, big brother.
- Hey, everybody. - Hey, Rick.
You know, it seems really strange not to be there,
but I-I'm doing a little bit of paperwork here.
Yeah, that's what I was just saying, Rick.
It's very weird not to have you,
well, sitting right here. (chuckles)
NARRATOR: Three days after a curious
wooden artifact was found
near the southern border of the swamp,
Rick Lagina joins an important meeting in the war room,
via videoconference,
with his brother Marty,
their partner Craig Tester,
and other members of the team.
I'll just hand it over to Craig,
who has some C-14 data for us from the swamp.
- Okey doke. - Take it away.
It's a plank that came out of the swamp.
It's about two feet long, six inches wide,
and maybe two inch thick board.
Hmm.
MARTY: Just only a nominal inch thick, I'd say.
ALEX: It's flat.
RICK: But it's made by human being, or...
MARTY: Oh, I'd say so.
That looks like a shaped piece of wood.
It looks like a plank, Rick, I mean...
- Yeah, you've pegged it, didn't you? - STEVE G.: I did.
- Where was that? - Yeah, I would say it's about 20 feet
northwest of where we found what we're gonna call
the ship's railing of last year.
- CRAIG: Mm-hmm. - Uh, and I would say it came out about five feet
down in the swamp, five to six feet.
Okay.
Makes sense.
The, uh, range of possibility was from
1516 to 1674.
- (chuckles) - Wow. (chuckles)
That's what I was hoping to hear.
I think the C-14 dates,
they have been
somewhat all over the board.
There's, of course, the typical
bell-shaped curve to these dates.
But it seems
to be rounding to,
I'd say, early to mid-1600s,
when something was done.
And when you get one of the Ws--
The who, what, when, where, why--
It's easier to fill in the others.
- SCOTT: Those are very early dates. - ALEX: Yeah.
Yeah, very early dates.
That's real consistent
- with all kinds of dates. - CRAIG: Yeah.
That's pretty,
pretty powerful testament to something happened.
Absolutely.
- CHARLES: Is it a coin? - MARTY: I believe this is a coin.
- No. - Are you serious?
What?
NARRATOR: Ever since the team discovered
a 1652 Spanish maravedi coin nine years ago,
the triangle-shaped swamp has produced
a number of corroborating clues
that something extraordinary happened on Oak Island
long before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795.
Many of them, from potential fragments of ships
to wharfs
and even a man-made rock feature
at the so-called Eye of the Swamp,
have all scientifically tested
to a period between the 16th and 17th centuries.
Could that mean that the team is finally
zeroing in on when the Oak Island mystery
actually began?
Anyway, we have another piece of wood that
absolutely suggests
something happening here long before
- the discovery of the Money Pit. - Yeah.
So, maybe, just maybe,
we're coming closer to a "when," but
the "why" still escapes us.
- Mm-hmm. - MARTY: Yeah. "Who" is a bit
of a problem, and "what" is, uh, plaguing us, too. (chuckles)
All the Ws are, but the "when,"
that open circle seems to be closing.
Yeah, there's a whole coalescing of data around
1650 to 1750.
And then there's some of these outlier,
really old things that are really inexplicable.
But we will stay with it until we find out.
- Right, gentlemen? - Yes.
- We're not giving up. - MARTY: All right, Rick,
well, we'll let you get back to your work.
All righty. You guys take care.
I'll be there as soon as possible.
- MARTY: All right. See you. - OTHERS: See you.
NARRATOR: With every clue that Rick, Marty, Craig,
and their team unearth,
one by one, Oak Island secrets
are finally being revealed.
Although the questions of who,
what, when, where, and why persist,
at least for now,
as the team continues searching across the island,
digging in the swamp,
and drilling in the Money Pit,
just how much longer
can those questions remain
unanswered?
Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...
Are you ready to put some coil to the soil, mate?
- I'm ready. - Let's go for it.
Woo-hoo-hoo! What we got here?
Oh, yeah.
GARY: Ooh! Look at that, mate.
Is that something?
Wow. That is spectacular.
Why does it have these angles? Does it cry ship?
It could easily be part of a ship.
Well, how about that. (laughs)
- Hey, Craig! - I think they might have it.
- There it is. - Oh!
What the...? Check that out!
That's a phenomena right there.