Original subtitles

[Narrator] Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...

[Gary] Here we go.

-[Rick] Whoa! -[Jack] What was that?

[Alex] The caisson just hit something solid.

[Terry] Something really hard right there.

[Gary] Let's see what we've got. [laughs]

This might have been around a treasure chest.

-[Katya] Oh, my gosh. -[Rick] What is it?

[Tom] It's perfectly on the line of the cross.

It's what we've been looking for.

[Fiona] Ha-ha! This is cool, Rick.

This is bigger than what we think.

-Wow. -[Fiona] There could be treasure down there.

[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.

♪ ♪

[Rick] Hey, Jack. Fiona.

-Hey, Rick. -[Fiona] Hi.

-Hi. -Look at the progress we've made.

[Rick] I see that.

[Narrator] The quest for answers, and treasure, continues

on Oak Island as Rick Lagina begins

his day on Lot 8 with

Fiona Steele and Jack Begley.

I think it's interesting the way that the rocks are

structured on this side, on the right side.

-[Rick] Yeah. -[Fiona] And we're not getting

the same thing on the other side at all.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that was

the only side that was actually

-holding up the boulder. -Mm. Mm-hmm.

-[Scott] Here it goes. -[Gary] Here we go.

[Narrator] After removing

a 40,000-pound boulder

from an artificially placed ring

of small stones one week ago...

-[Marty] Look at that. -...the team

was surprised to find new evidence that

the boulder was covering a backfilled, man-made feature,

or possible shaft.

[Craig] Yeah, that looks like a filled hole.

Exactly. Yeah.

[Narrator] And when geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner

scanned the soils

with a handheld X-ray fluorescence device,

he discovered evidence of possible treasure

buried somewhere deeper below.

[Ian] It's showing

something that I didn't see in the other sample...

Oh.

-...which is some silver. -Yeah.

[laughter]

We will remove the rest of the top layer of the soil.

We'll go through the second layer

and then, the plan is really to start removing

some of these rocks, as well, to really see

what's underneath here.

-Hm. -Because there could still very well

be something underneath here

-that we just haven't seen yet. -Yeah.

You just have to be patient, right?

I mean, that's all you can do.

The two completely different sides

of the hole is really quite interesting.

-Yep. -[Rick] Why that side

-and not this side? -[Fiona] I know.

I can certainly say that I think it was done a long time ago.

What's your "long time ago"?

Well, I would say before the 1700s.

So, we have to

just keep going forward in gathering

the information and have

-a proper analysis of everything. -[Rick] Yeah.

There's got to be something under that boulder.

-Yeah. -[Rick] But the only way to know

is to continue to do the work you're doing, so...

-Alrighty. Thank you. -[Fiona] All right. See you later.

-See you, Rick. -See you.

[Fiona] With the Lot 8 feature, I feel absolutely intrigued.

It's not like anything we see on Oak Island

or-or anything in Nova Scotia, period.

This is motivating us to look through the rocks,

look through the structures. We've got to look

at everything and make sure that we're not

missing anything in this.

There could be treasure down there.

Look. Check this out, Jack.

-What is that? -Well, it's the first

flattish rock that I'm seeing,

and it seems to be at the bottom.

And if you look at all the other rocks,

they're a little rounded and little,

and other than those

big ones sticking out, but

that could be hiding something.

-Oh. -We're gonna find out.

Look, it keeps going.

-Hmm. -Oh.

[Fiona] Hmm.

It's a good thing we are going below this soil.

It's the flattest rock that we've seen so far.

As we've been

uncovering some of the soil,

I'm starting to see a face of these flat rocks.

It just looks a little odd because

it's so perfectly smooth and flat that I'm wondering

if this is part of the feature itself.

The fact that we're uncovering

all of these rocks in a pattern,

I wasn't expecting to see that at all.

-Yeah. -And I don't think it would hurt to have Dr. Spooner

take a look at this, once it's all uncovered, as well.

He may be more familiar with-with this type of deposit.

It seems not normal.

-Mm-hmm. -So...

[Jack] Can this island get any stranger?

[Fiona] It's the strangest island

with the strangest things that are so unexplainable.

[Narrator] As Fiona continues uncovering clues on Lot 8,

later that morning...

[Terry] It's a new day. Here we are in the Karma.

[Gary] Oh, yeah.

It's a hell of a thing.

[Narrator] ...Jack joins Craig Tester

and other members of the team in the Money Pit area,

where digging proceeds in the seven-foot-diameter shaft

known as Karma-1.

Did he say it went down real easy?

He said it's going down like a hot knife through butter.

[Narrator] The excavation is fast approaching

a depth of 150 feet...

Here we go, Terry.

...meaning it could soon breach the solution channel

where the team hopes to find a massive source

of precious metals that have previously

been detected in this area

through soil and water testing.

[Alex] Here we go.

Let's find some gold and silver.

[Gary chortles] It's sloppy.

[Marty] I believe we're proving

that the solution channel gobbled up

a bunch of stuff from the Money Pit.

The karma would be that we can finally,

in the end, solve the whole thing.

That would be the karma I like.

-Morning, guys. -[Alex] Morning, Adam.

-[Gary] Morning, Adam. -I see y'all kind of watching the show.

-Yeah. -[Alex] Yeah. What's the update?

Uh, we're just starting to touch the 150 range

-on the dig. -[Alex] Okay.

At 160, we'll probably hit the bedrock plateau

on top of the solution channel, at which point,

we'll see how well we're cutting through it, right?

Yeah. Absolutely.

So, we're gonna get almost to the top of the bedrock plateau

-with this one. -[Adam E.] Yeah. We're ready to go at it.

-[Alex] Cool. -[Craig] Okay. -All right, guys.

-We'll keep you updated. -Thanks.

-Thanks. -Thank you.

[Craig] Once we get to 155,

we should let the, uh, the guys

at the wash plant know we got a lot of stuff

that they could be looking for there.

They may have already found

a really cool, interesting find.

Yeah. Definitely.

[Narrator] As the digging operation continues

in the Karma-1 shaft...

...some 500 feet to the east, near Smith's Cove...

[Charles] That'd be limestone.

It's a piece of pottery.

[Narrator] ...Charles Barkhouse

and other members of the team sift through

the excavated spoils that are being

processed at the wash plant.

Installed by Billy Gerhardt and his team,

the industrial-grade machine

moves truckloads of spoils through metal grates,

known as "grizzly bars," to remove larger rocks.

The spoils then pass through a tool known as a chopper

to break up and remove the thick clay.

From there, they drop onto a shaker deck,

where they are sprayed clean with water

and then separated by size onto three conveyor belts,

allowing the team to examine them

by hand for important clues.

Hey, Charles.

Look at that.

That's really cool.

That's a great find, Bailey.

Let's put it in the bag and I'm gonna take it

-and show the guys. -Awesome.

[Rick] In the wash plant, you're looking for

anything out of the ordinary.

Anything that catches your eye, you literally

pull it off the belt, because you don't know what it may mean.

[Charles] Hey, Jack. What do you think of that?

Oh...

Well, first glance, I see the smaller loops

and they're not uniform...

-No, they're not. -...and you can see--

I bet this could be quite old.

Well, Jack, if that is handwrought,

then it could be 1850s and earlier.

-Wow. -And it is pretty cool.

Whenever I see links of chain, I often wonder

what was it attached to?

-Yeah. -Right?

-[Jack] This could be a clue to the mystery. -Yeah.

-I'll go take it back to the lab. -Okay.

-[Charles] We'll keep looking. -Yeah.

[Narrator] Meanwhile, back in the Money Pit area...

[Gary whoops]

I like this new piece of equipment.

We're getting down there.

That's some pretty good progress.

-Josh, is it feeling hard now? -There's something-- I'm in...

[Terry] Something's going on here.

-[Gary] Hello, mate. -[Alex] How's it going?

-Hey guys. -Hey, Quinton. How you doing?

[Quinton] So, we're hitting something hard again.

We're not sure exactly what it is, if it's metal

or if it's something else down there.

[Terry] Oh, wow.

[Narrator] In the Money Pit area, the Karma-1 shaft

has encountered a strangely hard material

or possible object

at a depth of nearly 160 feet.

-Great stuff. -[Quinton] All right,

-I'll keep you updated. -Thanks a lot, Quinton.

-Thank you very much. -Appreciate it.

[Alex] It's kind of exciting to think there's some

stronger obstacle down there

that's stopping the equipment.

Even the teeth and the tools that we brought out

this year on this equipment

is designed to chew through bedrock, and the fact that it is

having a hard time going through it

suggests maybe there's something else down there.

-Hey, Marty. -[Marty] How's it going?

Hey. They did say that the caisson

just hit something solid. According to ROC,

caisson's at 155, dig's a little bit past it.

Uh, they felt the ground solidify.

[Marty] What's it looking like, hard clay?

-[Terry] Possibly metal. -[Marty] Good.

I hope we get lucky.

We well could. Absolutely.

[Alex] Here comes the bucket.

-Another bucket, another chance, guys. Here it comes. -Yep.

[Alex] That looks like solid material

right at the bottom of the bucket.

[Gary] Okay, mate.

Let's see if there's anything in this load.

[beeping]

-We've got a signal, Terry. -Yep.

[detector whines]

[Gary] Yeah, just there.

[whines]

Think it's in the deck, Terry.

No, it isn't.

It's a piece of metal plate.

Or it could be part of

a shoe from an old shaft.

[Terry] Interesting. Yep.

There's something here.

-[Gary] Careful, it looks sharp. -[Terry] Yeah.

[Narrator] Metal pieces,

possibly from the bottom brace,

or shoe, of an old shaft?

[Gary] I think I found a piece of shoe.

[Alex] Could be off the bottom of the Chappell Shaft.

So we may be at the bottom.

-Yeah. -Getting close to the bottom of the Chappell for sure.

[Narrator] In 1897, treasure hunters Frederick Blair

and William Chappell drilled into a believed seven-foot-high

concrete-encased vault at a depth of 153 feet.

In 1931, with the help of William's son Melbourne,

the three men constructed a nearly 160-foot-deep shaft

in an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve it.

Is it possible

that the team has recovered a clue suggesting

they may be close to rediscovering

the so-called Chappell Vault?

[Terry] We're thinking that treasure fell to the bottom

of the solution channel. Hopefully, today

or maybe early tomorrow, we'll be down there.

-We're gonna find out. -Yeah, and this is the moment of truth.

[Gary] Oh. Another load coming up.

-Here it comes. -Yep.

[Terry] Look at that.

That, my friends, is gypsum, right there.

[Gary] Yeah.

[Alex] Yeah, that would mean we are

-probably into the bedrock plateau a little bit. -Yeah.

[Narrator] The bedrock plateau is the thick layer of gypsum

some 160 to 170 feet deep

that the team has previously encountered

just above the solution channel.

This means they have just a few more feet of digging

before reaching their target zone

where silver has been detected.

We're getting to the heart of the matter now, guys.

Here we go.

We're gonna be boring through the edge

of the solution channel on the bedrock plateau,

crunching down through.

That's gonna be tough cutting from here on in.

We have done a lot of caissons

around here, but very few of them

have extended beyond the bedrock plateau.

That is very difficult to drill through, and that causes

an immense amount of difficulty for the drillers

to try and carry on that hole

and down into the actual solution channel itself.

Oh.

[Jared] I think I'm on the rock.

[Marty] Hey, guys, looks like a report coming in.

We're in that kinda bad material to drill that we've seen.

-Oh, yeah. -[Adam E.] So we're going

a little bit slower right now 'cause we're pushing

through some hard stuff.

We're happy to report we're down

to 171 feet with the casing.

[Marty] The quicker you break into the solution channel,

I think, the more likely we are to find what we seek.

It's about time, right?

[Marty] That's right, Gary. Wouldn't that be karma?

[Terry] Karmic, yes. Absolutely. Very good.

[Marty] Thanks, guys.

[Narrator] As the dig pushes deeper

in the Money Pit area...

[Tom] Well, this is a pretty exciting spot.

This is Cone D.

We know it's part of the alignment for the cross.

[Narrator] ...in the northwestern region

of the swamp, Tom Nolan is leading a search

on his property near Cone D,

one of six massive boulders

that make up the megalithic feature

known as Nolan's Cross.

We're gonna stay in the line of the cross and we're gonna move

towards the headstone.

Gaspani has a theory about the cross.

We could find some artifacts

on this and maybe something even bigger than that.

-Okay. -Let's do it.

[Rick] I'm very enthusiastic

about what we will learn today.

[Narrator] One week ago, archaeoastronomy expert

Professor Adriano Gaspani

presented his analysis

that the eight-sided wooden survey stakes found in the swamp

may have been put in place,

along with the boulders of Nolan's Cross,

in the 13th century by members of the Knights Templar.

[Marzia] The two sets

of stakes were dated...

[Narrator] Now, because Cone D sets in the swamp

near the stakes,

Tom hopes to find more clues in the area

that might help prove this incredible theory.

[Al] I think I'm good for now.

Lots of rocks.

Now, what is this?

[Tom] What is this? Hmm.

-This looks, I mean... split. -Yeah,

it looks split and then it doesn't look

-natural, does it? -No.

But it's perfectly

on the line of the cross.

And the one leaning up here looks almost like

it's been perfectly cut, doesn't it?

Maybe we should give Rick a call

just to have a look at it, see what he thinks.

-Yeah, that's an idea. -Okay. Yeah, I'll-I'll text him

to come down, have a look at this.

[Narrator] Could Tom be correct that they have found

an artificially split stone near Cone D?

If so, who split it in two? And for what purpose?

-Hey, Tom. -Hey, Rick. Might get you to have a look at this.

The reason this stands out

is because it is right on the line of the cross.

Pretty substantial, too.

An unnatural look to it, for sure.

You know, every time my dad found

a stone formation that fit with the line of the stakes,

you know, he assumed that the original creators

of this placed these stones.

I mean, we know the boulders of the cross were placed,

but to me this might be part of the works.

[Rick] Maybe Al can just do a little dig here

-and see, see, see what's what. -Oh, absolutely.

[Tom] That's weird.

Just a sec, Al.

Look at this, Rick.

Almost the coloration has totally changed

in this one area.

Oh, yeah. Very gray-looking, eh?

[Tom] Yeah, the rocks are kind of grayish.

The soil even looks grayish.

[Rick] That's almost blue clay-looking.

Maybe it matches

-the Lot 5 clay. -Yeah.

[Katya] Lot 5 and the Money Pit as well.

[Rick] Maybe it matches the Lot 5 clay.

-[Tom] Yeah. -[Katya] Lot 5 and the Money Pit

as well.

[Rick] That would be quite something.

[Narrator] While digging near the Cone D boulder

of Nolan's Cross, Rick

and other members of the team

have just discovered a possible clue.

Potentially hand-worked blue clay

that has previously been uncovered

in the rounded feature on Lot 5

as well as during 19th century digging operations

in the original Money Pit.

It's concentrated right in this one spot.

[Rick] That's definitely different, though.

You haven't seen that

-anywhere in that dig, have you? -No. No.

It follows that rock split.

[Rick] Well, we should bag more samples of that stuff.

[Tom] Yeah.

[Rick] We know that blue clay, when used correctly,

will seal a box, a treasure chest,

a chamber from the penetration of water.

We know it because they used blue clay on the shafts.

And I hope this is the connection to the Money Pit,

and I find that exceedingly interesting.

I think what we might do, Al,

is just do a side profile.

Just to see if we see that continuation

-going that way. -Okay.

Hey, Al!

What is it?

I don't know.

Stake.

[Katya] Oh, my gosh.

[Tom] It was pounded right in alongside the rock,

right on the line of the cross.

If this is the line, as you say,

then somebody wanted to make sure it was laid out perfectly.

[Tom] This stake definitely ties to the line of the cross.

Yeah. Let's see it, Tom, if I can.

And your dad never used these, right?

No. He just used the factory-cut ones.

-[Katya] Axe-cut. -[Rick] Yeah.

Finding that here, that-that's...

-that's quite something. -[Katya] Mm-hmm.

75, 100 feet from Cone D.

Oh, it can only be in association with

the layout of the cross. What else could it be?

It makes sense to find

one here because if they were laying out the cross,

they're staring right across the bog.

You'd want to set a post here

-to make sure you were on the right line. -Yep.

[Narrator] Given that the team has now found

another survey stake located some 25 yards

from one of the boulders of Nolan's Cross,

could it be connected to the others previously found

nearby in the swamp

and support Professor Gaspani's theory that the wooden stakes

and Nolan's Cross are directly related?

It's stunning.

It's what five

highly accredited astronomers

and archaeoastronomers said.

They agree with the professor's calculations and conclusions.

-It's what we've been looking for. -Yep.

[Rick] The stakes found in close proximity to Nolan's Cross,

which was possibly built in the 1200s,

might be more concrete evidence that

it was done at the same moment in time.

That needs to go

-to the lab. -And we've got more to dig.

[Rick] Okey doke.

[Narrator] Later that afternoon...

[Ian] Hey, Peter.

-Hi, Fiona. -[Fiona] Hi.

-What do you think of this? -Wow.

[Narrator] ...Dr. Ian Spooner arrives

on Lot 8, where Fiona has now uncovered

a tightly packed layer of stones

that were hidden beneath backfilled soil

and the massive boulder.

Now, I would like to know if you think I'm crazy

because I don't feel like this is natural at all.

It's not natural, first of all.

It just can't be 'cause of the organic matter

-all around those stones. -Mm-hmm.

I've never seen anything like this here.

And you can also see the cradle of rocks

around the top quite nicely now.

-Yes. -It's wild. I'm blown away.

Well, you can even see a circular formation of rocks

-right around the base here. -Yeah.

[Fiona] I'm gonna be removing this soil shortly

and I would like to see if that pattern continues.

Right.

We're just wondering if there's something underneath.

-Right. -You know, was there something intentionally buried?

[Ian] Yes. You know, we did some XRF, a portable XRF.

We got high lead, and that's interesting to me.

-Why the high lead? -Yeah.

[Narrator] Three weeks ago, after taking soil samples

beneath the large boulder,

Dr. Spooner found high traces

of lead in the material.

This suggested evidence of burning fire underground,

which is a mining practice that was used centuries ago

to circulate air in shafts and tunnels.

So, what do you think it is?

The stone is either a marker or something

-to protect something. -Yeah, I agree.

[Narrator] Is it possible that the team

has revealed an artificial covering

for a shaft or some kind of structure hidden below?

There's something about this, makes me feel like it's ancient.

Yeah. And this, it'd take

an extraordinary amount of effort.

It would be with incredible purpose and intent. That's why,

to me, there should be something more...

-Mm-hmm. -...here.

-Maybe there is. -Yeah. Yeah.

-Got to go deeper. Yeah. -Yeah.

Anyway, I'd love to come back when it's further developed.

Great. Thank you for your set of eyes on this.

I think it's really cool, you're involved in

one of the coolest things I've seen.

-It is very cool. -Yeah. Yeah.

[Peter] Uncle Rick needs to take a look at this.

[Fiona] I agree.

[Narrator] As a new morning dawns on Oak Island...

[Fiona] This is cool, Rick.

[Rick] Wow.

-So, they did make a cradle. -Yeah.

[Narrator] ...Rick arrives on Lot 8

with other members of the team

for his first look at the stone formation

that was covered by the 40,000-pound boulder.

-It's like a mosaic. -Yeah.

-It's really quite well done. -Yeah.

[Rick] My mind's racing with a number of questions.

Who did it? Why was it done? What does it mean?

Is it a totally different story than the-the treasure story?

It exhibits a mosaic-like appearance

which is really quite unique to support a 40,000-pound boulder.

There is a reason why this was done.

So, what do we think?

I think this is culturally significant.

-Yeah. -[Fiona] It's either here

to cover something or it's here to mark something,

and we can't rule out

a number of ideas for this at this point.

I mean, it could have been ceremonial.

[Laird] Standing alone, this doesn't make sense,

because for all intents

and purposes, it's in the middle of nowhere.

-Have you ever seen anything like this before? -No. No.

[Rick] I've worked with stone for a number of years.

I see it and I think how in the world would you do that?

Why would you do that if you're not going

to inter something underneath it?

And if there is something underneath it,

then it's got to be valuable to those persons.

This is done by somebody who has sufficient resources

that they can pour everything into it

in terms of manpower.

-It's almost certainly European. -[Fiona] Yeah,

that's what-- I would agree. I think it's European as well.

This could be changing

-Nova Scotian history. -Mm-hmm.

I've done a lot of research on different

megalithic structures and megaliths

across North America and even in Europe.

I believe strongly that what we're seeing

is a European megalithic construction.

The Indigenous people,

I don't think, would have the technology to do it.

You'd need an intimate knowledge

of physics and geometry,

nor would they bother to move a boulder like that.

So it has to be a European construct.

That makes the most sense to me.

[Rick] Well, this is very interesting.

You all know

-that Marty had a keen interest in this. -Yeah.

We should show him what this feature

is beginning to develop.

I think he'd like to be brought up to speed on that,

so I'll give him a phone call.

[line ringing]

Hey.

Big brother, what's going on?

Well, we're about to show you.

You can guess where we are.

You got that exactly correct.

I'm gonna hand the phone to Fiona,

and she can give you a visual of the work they've done.

Oh, Marty, I can't wait to show you this. I'll turn it around.

Okay.

You're looking at the-- a rock-lined,

cradled area underneath the boulder.

It's entirely rock-lined,

absolutely man-placed

and extremely intentional.

-[Laird] Yeah. -[Fiona] Well, that idea-- I certainly think

it's absolutely intentional and purposeful.

[Narrator] Could Marty be correct

that the stone feature on Lot 8

might have the same design as the stone road

that was uncovered in the southeast corner

of the swamp back in 2020?

A road that may be at least 500 years old

and of Portuguese origin.

If so, could both be connected

to the 14th century silver Portuguese coin

believed to have been recovered from the Money Pit

back in 1849?

[Marty] The boulder on Lot 8 doesn't appear to have been

manipulated by any of the known earlier searchers.

There's nothing in the record, which means we might be

dealing with something that we know is untampered with.

We're the first people to look at this thing

in a modern sense.

We found what might be

the most significant thing.

It's just not anything you could make up.

I'm hoping there's a breakthrough.

[Fiona] Yeah, I mean, sometimes you'll have a rock-lined,

um, feature if you have a cache of something underneath.

It could be a marker

of some sort, but I think it's old.

I feel like it's probably European.

Yeah, I think we're, we're all feeling the same with it.

[chuckles] I know.

[Rick] Yeah, it-it's--

No artifacts yet.

That alone is also indicating

that either somebody was really

trying to hide what they did here

or they really didn't have things to lose,

which is also giving us

implications that this could be really, really old.

I'll give this back to Rick.

Well, once it's fully exposed,

we may have some more insight for you.

-[laughter] -[Rick] Bye.

Okay.

[Fiona] So, we just need to go around this

in a very, very careful way

and not miss anything.

What are the next steps here?

[Laird] We have to draw this cross section first

very quickly,

uh, and then take out the rest of the soil

because the, the rocks are quite dramatic.

[Rick] We all want answers, but I don't

want to accelerate the process in a destructive

or invasive way just to get an answer.

Let's keep at this work.

So let's see what comes of it.

There might be a secret right there.

-Please continue. -[Laird] All right. Thank you.

-[Rick] All righty. -[Fiona] Yeah.

[Narrator] Later that morning...

[Gary] I love the smell of Money Pit dirt

-in the morning. -[Terry] Smells like victory. Eh, Gary?

-Yeah. -[Narrator] ...in the Money Pit area,

members of the team are closely monitoring

the excavation of the Karma-1 caisson,

which has now reached the solution channel.

-How you doing, Rick? -Nothing yet?

We've broken through the bedrock plateau,

we're down into the solution channel.

I mean, exactly what we were looking for.

The teeth are only at about

175, 176.

We've still got about 40-ish feet before we hit

-the very dead bottom. -We're probably 215 here,

-I would say, so, yeah, another 35 feet. -35-ish. Yeah.

[Gary] All right, Terry.

Our time to shine.

Off we go.

[detector beeping]

Got a signal just there, mate.

Every metal detecting hit...

-it's exciting now. -Yeah.

Something really hard right there.

Let's see what we got.

Wow.

[Gary] There it is, it's in the clump.

-Oh, that's a pipe. -[Terry] Okay, very good.

[Narrator] After reaching a depth of some 180 feet

in the Karma-1 shaft,

the Oak Island team has made a potentially

significant discovery in the solution channel.

Just some pieces of pipe.

That's very deep.

Does that look very old to you, Rick?

-All I can tell you is, Dan never used that size. -Okay.

So it's probably older.

[Rick] Back in the 1960s, when Dan Blankenship

was drilling in the Money Pit,

he was able to get down

to 190 feet,

deeper than previous searcher efforts.

He used six-inch pipe, but

this appears to be much thinner than that.

-I'm just curious why they went so deep. -[Gary] Yeah.

[Rick] The question is: who was here?

There was another big chunk of pipe come up.

-Terry's got it. -Big old chunk there.

-Very heavy pipe. -Boy, she tore off, though.

-Look at that. -[Terry] She broke away, yeah.

It's a little bit of searcher history, that's what that is.

This seam up the side, you see this seam in all of it.

And the threads really don't look finely machined.

I'm thinking that could be

-relatively old. -[Steve] Good.

The last time we found a drill bit, you'll remember,

we were not far from this location.

Emma dated it to mid-1800s.

That actually could have been the drill rod

that found the Pitblado coin.

Yeah. Possibly. Yeah.

There was a reason they were drilling here, same reason

we're drilling here. We have enough evidence

to believe that this is a prime location.

-Somebody before us thought the same thing. -Yep.

-What is that? -That looks like

-some steel to me. -[Narrator] Earlier this year,

while core drilling in this area,

the team recovered pieces of an iron drill rod

that were dated to the same period that the Truro Company

drilled into the original Money Pit back in 1849.

It was during that operation

that drilling foreman James Pitblado

reportedly found a silver 14th century Portuguese coin

on the end of his drill bit.

Is it possible that the team has recovered

another clue to suggest

they are digging in the location

of the original Money Pit?

And perhaps also mean

they could be closing in

on many more 14th century silver coins?

It's filled full of material.

-Yeah. -[Steve] Well, we can test all of that material.

[Terry] And see if it has

any precious metals or associated base metals.

Yeah, we'll set this aside.

We'll get it back to the lab.

[Steve] Well, guys, I'm gonna head down to the wash plant.

-[Terry] See you later, Steve. -Yep.

[Rick] If the treasure's found right here,

it would be good karma.

I mean, after all this time and all the efforts

by so many people over literally two centuries.

Until that can gets down

to the bottom of the solution channel,

you've got to cross your fingers a little bit.

-So we're in a good space. -Yeah.

We'll just keep pushing till you get to the very bottom.

I'm hoping it's a medieval treasure we're gonna be finding.

And it might be religious artifacts.

[Rick] I think we've proven,

and we will continue to prove,

that the Old World was in the New World

-long before Columbus. -Yeah, for sure.

[Rick] And maybe they worked hard for a special reason,

a special purpose to safeguard

something special.

We have found some very interesting artifacts.

Some of them were very old.

You know, Roman coins, Venetian glass beads,

a hand cannon.

And then you have the so-called Pitblado coin,

and you have to wonder, is there a connection?

I think something very early was undertaken here.

My hope is that as the work continues in Karma-1,

we will find artifacts that will

solve the Oak Island mystery at large.

Now,

if you find one of those coins,

one of those so-called Pitblado coins,

-we're off to the races, right? -Yeah.

-Maybe it'll be right over there. -Yeah.

[Gary] That's what we're here for. Coins, mate.

[Rick] There you go.

[Narrator] Meanwhile, at the wash plant near Smith's Cove,

Steve and other members of the team

search for clues in the cleaned and sorted spoils

from the Karma-1 shaft.

[Aaron] Well, look there.

What you got?

Check that out.

-Well, that's an old chain. -Wow.

[Steve] This is now the second chain we've found.

[Aaron] Cool.

-That's a good find at this depth. -Yeah.

[Narrator] A second piece of chain

found in the spoils of the Karma-1 shaft?

How old could it be?

And just what was its purpose?

So what I'd like to do is I'm gonna give Gary a text

and have him come down and take a look at it.

-You want to hold that for a second? -Sure.

Wow.

[Gary] When Steve called me to go down

to the wash plant, that could only mean one thing:

they made a great find.

-Hey, Gary. -Hello, mate.

-Thanks for texting. -Yeah.

So we had a cool find. Aaron found this.

Another chain.

What do you think of that?

Oh-ho, that's sweet.

Oh, look at that.

-Yeah, this is old. -[Steve] Yeah, it looks really old.

[Gary] Yeah, this is an old piece of chain.

I've found old chain like this in England.

Maybe 1700s, 1600s,

but I'm hoping this could be older.

-Oh, good. -Yeah.

And you can see, it looks like every link

was individually made.

This is hand-forged, and, look,

-you can see the striations. -Mm-hmm.

What I like about this chain

is the size.

Because this isn't for hauling anything.

-The size of it is small. -Yeah.

Look at that big link there.

Why would you need a big link here?

-Yeah. -I think

this was the end

-of a securing chain. -Okay.

I mean, we're searching for treasure, mate.

This is the type of chain that might have been

around a treasure chest.

That's really, really sweet.

[Gary] I've found old chain like this in England.

-Yeah. -This is the type of chain

that might have been around a treasure chest.

-Yep. -That's really, really sweet.

[Narrator] At the wash plant,

members of the team examine a discovery

that was unearthed nearly 180 feet deep

in the Karma-1 shaft.

[Gary] The chain could have gone around a chest and been attached

-to there with a lock on it. -Mm-hmm.

To stop somebody from opening it.

[Steve] This shows hope that there's treasure below.

-That's a good find, then, by Aaron. -Yeah, really cool.

Yeah, that's got a lot of potential.

Especially in the area where we're drilling.

-Yeah. -That's a really, really nice find, mate.

Well done.

-I appreciate it, Gary. -All right, mate.

[Narrator] Meanwhile, back in the Money Pit area...

[loud clanking]

[Jack] What was that?

[Narrator] ...the excavation in Karma-1

has now reached a depth below 200 feet

in the solution channel.

[Adam E.] I think we hit that hard bedrock.

[Jared] Yeah.

-[Adam E.] Hey, guys. -[Rick] Hey.

So, where are we?

[Quinton] So, we are down to 212 feet

and we think we've hit the bottom.

-Okay. -We're gonna have Jared pick up

the can a foot or two for the night and let things settle.

-[Rick] 100%. -[Quinton] That auger's going all day,

spinning stuff up. It suspends a lot of material.

If we let this settle overnight,

there's a good chance we could see ten feet,

15 feet of sediment. There could be anything in there.

[Narrator] The massive auger has ground through sediment

and hard clays, causing the caisson

that now sits on the bottom of the solution channel

to become full of spoils and possible valuables.

Now the team from SB Canada will lift the caisson

several feet to let the materials settle overnight

into a pile on the bedrock.

Then they will use the dig bucket to remove

the accumulated spoils and any possible treasure

that may be contained within them.

[Rick] Think of it as a giant Mixmaster.

Things get stirred around.

Things might, you know, be held up higher

in some of that clay.

And if we let it settle out overnight,

we can now actually search for what we believe

has fallen to those depths,

whether it be one coin or a whole chest full of coins.

[Gary] We know

materials move around at the bottom.

And just letting it settle

-will be good karma. -[chuckles]

[Rick] We want to know that we got

-every last bit of it. -Yeah. Yeah.

[Rick] So, that's a good plan, and we'll clean the bottom

and then let's let it settle out, see what happens tomorrow.

And then we'll count the coins, right?

-[laughter] -This could be monumental.

100%. So, if you guys are good, we're good.

Yeah, we're good. We'll start it back up in the morning.

-Yep. Okey doke. -That's great.

-All right, guys. -Thank you.

-See you, guys. -Thank you.

[Narrator] After digging deeper

than any previous searcher on Oak Island,

could Rick, Marty, Craig and the team

finally be within reach of the precious metals

they detected in the solution channel?

And if so, does a discovery await them

that will link the Money Pit,

the triangle-shaped swamp,

and the boulder feature on Lot 8

to priceless, sacred treasures?

One thing is certain.

They will settle for nothing less

than the truth

behind this 231-year-old mystery.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

[Aaron] Oh, wow.

-Check that out. -[Charles] That's a great find.

That could be really, really old.

[Carmen] This was used to build a wooden vault

or some sort of structure down below for safekeeping.

[Laird] You've got something big on your hands.

-It's absolutely intentional. -[Laird] It matches

Lot 5 and the Money Pit.

-And they were trying to conceal it. -[Rick] Which makes it

even more spectacular.

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