Original subtitles

Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island.

There's your artifact.

We did some tests on it. I think it has an interesting story to tell.

We're going to try one more diver, and if he can't do it, we're done with

divers. I'm telling you, zero visibility.

We will get to Bob.

This is Laverne's model, where he thinks the money is, is right here.

You put an X, we'll punch a hole.

Let's get Steel Don Hall, figure this thing out.

I hit something.

Uncle Wood.

there is an island in the north atlantic where people have been looking for an

incredible treasure for more than two hundred years so far they have found

bits of gold chain a stone slab with strange symbols carved into it even a

seventeenth-century spanish coin 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.

As a new week begins in the search to find treasure on Oak Island, Rick and

Marty Lagina, along with Marty's son Alex, Craig Tester and Dave Blankenship

have traveled 50 miles northeast of Oak Island to St. Mary's University in

Halifax.

Here we are. After you, you have the goodies.

Here's what you've been waiting for, gentlemen. They are eager to determine

if an object resembling an ancient Roman sword, which was reportedly found in the

waters just off the coast of Oak Island, is real holy crap what the hell is this

the sword a roman sword that is phenomenal today the team has arranged

to meet with professor miles mccallum an expert on roman archaeology hi miles

they are hoping he can determine if the sword they've acquired could be an

important piece of evidence one which connects the oak island mystery to the

ancient roman empire

In the lab here, we're going to have to ask you guys to put on some safety

glasses and some lab coats here.

I'll hold that for you. There it is. Oh, that's it. Nice.

Oh, look at that.

Bronze sword.

Although it may seem unlikely that a Roman sword, dating from the reign of

the Emperor Commodus in the 2nd century AD, could find itself in the waters off

Nova Scotia, there are many oak island theorists who believe it is more than

possible in recent decades several ancient coins identified as being

carthaginian in origin were found in the coastal regions just north of oak island

the carthaginians were a seafaring people who dominated the trade routes of

the mediterranean during the period from six hundred to two hundred b c it has

long been speculated that their knowledge of navigation along with their

shipbuilding and sailing prowess would have made it possible for them to

successfully navigate the rugged waters of the north atlantic if it plays out

that it is an eighteen hundred year old roman sword that's significant does it

provide a certain historical context if it is real yes it does as far as you

know iconographically if it is obviously a representation of the demigod hercules

who's a really important figure among the romans religiously as far as you

know how it's made that's a bit odd normally you'd expect this to be a

single cast piece does this one not done in one piece then uh with respect to

this i mean looking at it if we look down the side here you can see where

there's There's a line that goes right up through there. This suggests to me

that it's a bivalve mold instead of a single lost wax mold. So something again

like this, this was never a functional sword. It's simply a work of art.

In the year 70 AD, future Roman Emperor Titus led the siege that conquered

Jerusalem. In the process, his armies burned and destroyed the so-called

Second Temple.

where the original temple of king solomon once stood when 12 years later

the arch of titus was erected in rome to celebrate the victory it depicted a

large golden menorah one of the sacred objects taken from the temple which like

the ark of the covenant and the holy grail many researchers believe were

later buried on oak island

Is it possible that the Romans, like the Carthaginians before them, could have

traveled to Nova Scotia nearly 2,000 years ago?

And if so, would a Roman sword found in the waters off Oak Island provide the

proof?

Give us a percent. Percent chance that this is something Roman.

I'm not really in a position to tell you at this point.

Just looking at it as we have it here, I'm highly skeptical just based on the

construction technique that it's actually ancient too.

Who would fake that?

I don't know.

It could even be a fake that's not a modern fake. It could be a fake from the

19th or 18th century.

From an Oak Island standpoint, it would probably be more significant if it was a

1700s copy of a Roman.

It could be something. It could actually be an antiquity that was in the

possession of somebody who came over long after that, right? And had lost it.

And so that's probably, if this is something that's old, that's a much more

likely explanation.

Why does somebody go to the effort to duplicate or fake something that almost

no one in the world has seen?

I mean, I haven't ruled it out yet. It still could have significance to what

we're doing here. It's an intriguing object.

What is the definitive test to see whether... The definitive test, you can

do a chemical analysis of the bronze or brass.

I can put you in touch with Dr. Christa Brasseau, who's in the chemistry

department, and she and her graduate students can do the testing for you.

Great. If you're interested. Oh, yeah, we are.

All right, well, let's do the other testing. That sounds great. Thank you

very much. No problem. Very informative. Thanks for coming. Nice to meet you.

Yeah, same.

While Rick, Marty, and their partners wait for the results of the tests on the

sword.

Back on Oak Island, Jack Begley, Peter Fernetti, and veteran treasure hunter

Dan Henske are about to begin an investigation of their own at Smith's

Cove.

So this time we're on an eelgrass hunt, right? Yeah, good luck.

How about we go back to that same spot we found the coconut fiber?

In 1849,

While looking for the source of the ocean water that flooded the money pit,

members of the recently formed Truro Syndicate discovered an elaborate and

ingenious system of man-made box drains originating at Smith's Cove.

Made up of flat stones, supported by smaller ones, and then densely packed

with other stones, the box drains appeared to be similar in construction

to the roads that were built in ancient Rome.

To hide the box drains from view, they were covered by a layer of gravel and

sand, under which there were layers of both coconut fiber and eelgrass.

The coconut fiber was used to prevent debris from clogging the drains, while

the eelgrass helped to soak up the excess water.

Two years ago, Dan Henske, along with Peter Fernetti, Alex Lagina, and Jack

Begley, found coconut fiber.

Yeah, there it is. Which, when tested, was estimated to be between 600 and 800

years old.

They're dating it between 1260 and 1400 AD.

So it's old, old, old stuff.

Did they give you, like, a degree of accuracy?

A 95 percentile. 95 percent.

Do you think that there's any eelgrass that's left in its fibrous form? Not

sure about the longevity. The coconut fiber lasts halfway forever, but

eelgrass, I think, decays a lot faster.

Because eelgrass decomposes at a faster rate than coconut fiber, finding a

sample at Smith's Cove and then carbon dating it might provide the Oak Island

team a significant breakthrough.

It would give them a more accurate date.

as to when the box drains and possibly the money pit were constructed.

It might also tell them whether or not the eelgrass was harvested locally or,

based on its species, if it was brought to Oak Island from another region much

farther away.

But this is pretty close to the area, so... That's what I'm guessing. I'll

stand back and watch out for the flying sand and we'll see what's there.

We're getting pretty good at digging holes, huh?

Yeah.

Shouldn't we have already seen it by now?

I have dug a bit on the shore in this place.

I'd believe that.

Oh, good job, Dan.

Oh, what's that?

Did you find it?

Oh, what's that?

Did you find it?

While searching for eelgrass at Smith's Cove, veteran treasure hunter Dan Henske

may have just made an important discovery.

Wait, that is coconut fiber right here. Well, there might be a little in there.

but mostly it's just some odd vegetation.

I won't say it's not eelgrass.

I think this is the old coconut fiber. It looks like horse hair.

Well, they wash it off, but I didn't find that much, but I might have missed

some. Yeah.

Because coconut fiber is known to be one of the materials used in the

construction of the booby-trapped flood tunnels at Smith's Cove, if the team has

found it, they should also be able to find eelgrass in the same vicinity.

There's certainly a lot of fibers in it, whatever kind they are.

What is that brown?

That looks like it might be a decayed material or something.

What if this is the eelgrass? Because it's kind of, it's in layers.

Yeah, actually, maybe you actually found some eelgrass.

We should bag this.

If Dan, Jack, and Peter have found eelgrass, and it can be accurately dated

to sometime before 1795,

Then the team may be able to figure out not only when the money pit was

constructed, but also who built it and what it was that needed to be so

ingeniously hidden.

I'd say we completed our job as well as we could today. And quick, too, thanks

to Dan.

Very good. Thank you.

Who gets to carry the shovels here? Oh, you do. Oh, great.

Nothing like being the old guy.

Before the sun sets on another day at Oak Island,

Rick Lagina, Craig Tester, and Dave

Blankenship convene in the war room to make a very important call.

Almost time. Give them a call? Yeah.

I hope we hear all the right things is what I hope. I want to hear from him

that, look, the idea is to get in the chamber and get you answers.

So far...

two previous attempts to place a diver at the bottom of borehole 10x have ended

unsuccessfully nevertheless

the team remains more convinced than ever that not

only is such a difficult dive possible but it is essential if they are ever to

find out once and for all if the mysterious cavern that exists

235 feet below ground really is a man-made gateway into the money pit

complete with antique tools a wooden chest

and possibly human remains we're going to try

one more diver the most qualified diver we could possibly have found john

chatterton and if he can't do it we're done with divers We're agreed on that,

right? Question about that.

John Chatterton is a world-renowned deep sea and wreck diver with more than 30

years of experience diving in some of the most dangerous and difficult

environments, from shipwrecks to underwater structures.

His desire to explore and solve underwater mysteries has taken him to

such famed sunken vessels as the Britannic, the Lusitania,

the Andrea Doria, and the Titanic.

Let's ring them up, see what happens.

Hey, guys.

John, Howard, how are you?

Good, good. How are you guys doing today?

We'll be better when you get here.

How are our preps going?

Things are looking good. We're pretty much all lined up.

Good, good.

I'll tell you, from a dive perspective, this is a challenging and interesting

dive.

Okay. It was an awkward entry and exit for our previous dive team.

Well, they had tanks on.

This is going to be a little bit different.

We're going to use umbilicals. We've got the right technology. We've got the

right experience to do this kind of dive.

And, you know, I mean, we're going to be thoroughly prepared.

You're going to be relying on your top man to tell you how deep you are because

you can't see.

I'm telling you, zero visibility.

To tell you the truth, we don't need visibility to determine what you guys

want from this dive. You want to know whether this compartment is natural or

man-made and does anything land on the bottom? What is it? That's of paramount

interest to us. Okay.

My concern is get him safely from surface to cavity and back to surface.

And for me, the troubling aspect of course would be the drill bar.

That drill bar would be down.

you know 20 25 feet below the top of that 27 inch hole okay maybe that's a

that's a worthwhile endeavor just to see how much of that obstructs into the 27

inch shaft so we don't really know how far into the hole that encroaches we

dropped a field finder in there a well more casing uh instrument and it seemed

to indicate that the top of the bar was at 204 feet which would put it 23 feet

below the anhydrite. Well, you know what? That might be a good thing to take

a quick run down there and just kind of inspect that so there's no surprises.

I think that would be relatively easy.

You know, I mean, we can't possibly tell you what we're going to find, but we

will get to the bottom, or at least as far as is humanly possible.

Okay. We got high hopes for John Chatterton. He is the best. Based on all

our research, he's the best. I'm not dissing anybody who's already been in

there. They did what they could. If anyone can get down in that cavity and

come up with proof, if it is in the cavity, he can.

So I'm excited about that, obviously.

Well, guys, I think you've covered everything.

Look, we very much look forward to and appreciate all your efforts.

We can't wait to get this started.

Awesome. good talking to you guys okay you take care that was a good day yeah

it sure was okay let's go do something now

while

waiting for diver john chatterton to come to oak island rick lagina and

members of his team have arranged to meet with father and son engineers Mike

and Sean Harold. Nice to meet you. Yeah, thanks for inviting us out. The Harolds

have traveled all the way from British Columbia in hopes of sharing information

that they believe will help the Laginas and their partners solve the 220-year

-old mystery.

This is what we affectionately call the war room.

Hey, guys.

The heralds are distant relatives of the now deceased Oak Island treasure hunter

and author Laverne Johnson.

From 1959 to 1963, Johnson believed he could solve the mystery

by focusing on an area never explored before.

Very much look forward to what's in the box. I love Christmas.

Yeah. Okay, so I wonder where we start.

First of all...

This is the book that Laverne wrote before he passed away.

He paid for it himself, and he simply wanted to get his theory out there.

So it's all in here. He revealed how he figured everything out.

Unlike most other Oak Island treasure hunters, Laverne Johnson believed the

money pit was constructed and booby-trapped not to protect the

treasure, but to mislead and thwart would-be searchers.

from finding the treasure's real location.

This was Laverne's model that he made up, albeit very crude.

We actually have a picture of Laverne with this model.

Oh, do you? Yeah.

Here you go. Yeah, that's Laverne.

Using a survey.

commissioned by Oak Island treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden in 1937.

Laverne Johnson believed that if he drew a line between two mysteriously drilled

stones, one found at Smith's Cove and another found north of the Money Pit,

and another drawn from the point of the stone triangle on the south shore, the

actual treasure shaft would be located above sea level and at a depth of

approximately 30 feet.

But after several attempts to prove his theory correct, Johnson ran out of

money. And like so many treasure hunters before him, left Oak Island empty

-handed.

Laverne's theory is simply 14 degrees west of True North is where he thought

whoever deposited something there dug down here and simply tunneled up to high

ground and deposited whatever it was they were burying.

Okay, if you can see that, that's the money pit coming down and the flood

tunnel coming out to Smith's Cove, flooding this tunnel.

I think it shows the high water mark on there. Yep, sure does, this dashed line.

And that's Laverne's treasure cache right there.

Which puts it above sea level. Yeah, it was about...

two to three hundred feet north of the money pit okay that was a very simple

theory perhaps but maybe not i mean look we'd love to go out there uh actually i

think jack and charles could assist you in some way yeah okay you put an x we'll

punch a hole that would be great laverne would like that i say we go out there

today yeah let's go find the site let's do it

With another new theory to explore, the Oak Island team arrives at the Money

Pit. But unfortunately, one of the key reference points they'll need in order

to test Laverne Johnson's theory no longer exists.

The Stone Triangle, which used to be located due south of the Money Pit.

Well, this is the famous Money Pit. Okay.

Based on the work that Laverne Johnson did, he came up with an X marks the

spot. You know, one little problem we have is based on the stone triangle.

Where's that at? Well, that's been moved. So we're going to try to recreate

what he did and come find X marks the spot.

Hopefully redrill that and find the vault, find the treasure.

Because the apex of the triangle pointed north, directly toward the money pit, it

was considered an important clue.

Unfortunately, during an extensive excavation by Robert Dunfield in 1965,

the stone triangle and all evidence of its precise location was destroyed.

If Sean and Mike Harold are going to find the area where Laverne Johnson

believed the treasure was buried, they will need to lay out a grid over a wide

area and then drill a series of 50-foot deep exploratory holes.

I'm just trying to find true north, which, based on Laverne's theory, ran

directly through the centre of the money pit.

So 346 is about up in that direction.

So we need to head uphill 280 feet at this heading, and I'd like to see what's

up there. Okay, let's get started.

Can you call out the distances, Jack, if you can?

Sure. Here's 346. So maybe you guys can keep an eye on him to make sure he's

keeping his bearing.

Okay. What's your mark now, Jack?

90 feet.

That's going to be interesting to see where he ends up.

121.

121. Can you see him? I can't see him.

171.

What the?

Hey, Charles.

What? Come here. Look at this.

What do you got?

It's a drilled rock, I think.

What? Let me see.

A drilled rock?

In the area where Laverne Johnson believed the original Oak Island

treasure site is located, could this be the same rock that Laverne Johnson used

to develop his incredible theory?

That's got to be eight inches across, right? Yeah.

It's just really weird, Charles, that this is right along the Laverne Johnson

line. I mean, it doesn't look natural. Obviously, this is man-made, because you

look, we're in flat areas all around here, and then you've got this bump,

right?

So let's continue on. You're very close to the 200-foot level, and then we got

80 feet beyond that, so let's see where we land. All right.

As Jack and Charles continue to measure out a distance of 280 feet for the

team's drilling grid, Craig Tester, along with Oak Island theorists Mike and

Sean Harold, join them.

Okay, so this is about 270 feet, so we need 280.

Why don't you go use the GPS and get us our...

Our final spot. All right.

About right here.

Okay.

There's a little depression right in through here. Right in through here.

Yeah, there's certainly like a bowl-type geometry on this that sort of gives it

the appearance that something's settled or something potentially has collapsed

down below to give this shape here.

A possible collapse below the ground?

Could this mean that an underground cavern or possible treasure tunnel lies

buried somewhere below?

This is it.

It's just a little tough getting back in here right now. We might have to cut

down these trees.

Yep.

Could the Oak Island team really have found where an ancient treasure vault

lies buried some 280 feet north of the money pit?

Well, let's go talk to Rick.

let him know what what we found out here okay that's great talk him into drilling

here yeah good idea

she's

ready let's get steel don hall figure this thing out four days after oak

island theorists mike and sean harold pointed out the area where treasure

hunter laverne johnson believed a treasure might be found rick lagina and

members of his team have brought in a coring rig they are hoping that by

drilling a number of holes based on johnson's precise calculations they will

be able to confirm the presence of an underground cavern or possible treasure

tunnel we came into it with the idea of drilling holes throughout the grid we've

now drilled on the easterly side and the westerly side didn't find anything

unfortunately it's only logical now to drill in the middle of the shaft right

now oak island at this point needs a lot of luck yep not a lot of luck but luck

yeah be nice to get lucky today a tunnel a shaft the cavity is not going to stand

up without support i.e wood so we're looking for wood to come up out of the

returns

What do you think it is?

Well, I say it's something close to slate for me, but it's still not enough

to say it's bedrock. No. Right? This isn't the right deal, so let's pull up

and go to the other one.

After drilling down to a depth of 50 feet and only finding bedrock, Rick

Lagina decides to move on to one of the other targets marked in the grid.

Right here?

Yeah.

Yeah, as close as you can come to the shaft would be the best choice.

Although Laverne Johnson only dug his wood crib searcher shaft down to 30

feet, he regretted not digging the shaft deeper.

He often wondered if by doing so, he might have found the actual treasure

vault he spent a good deal of his life looking for.

I'm just ready to bring up a core now.

This is hole number three. This is hole number three. I hit something.

Oh.

That was stuck ahead of the cage when it came out.

Stuck where?

Stuck right here.

I hit restriction at about 31 feet.

Where are you now?

35.

Wood found at a depth of 35 feet?

Five feet deeper than the searcher shaft dug by Laverne Johnson in 1962?

Corb like that.

It could be in the side of the cribbing.

The grain should be running like that if it's stacked timbers. Yeah. But you

cored like that. That is straight up and down, whatever is there.

I don't know that it means anything, but this come up, but it... Holy crack of

hunk of wood. I know, but this is below the cribbing.

35 feet.

Looks old.

Okay, well, see what Charles thinks.

This came up from 31 to 35 feet. Right. From the records.

What do you know about the depth of this shaft?

Well, Rick, from the records, he dug this down to 30 feet. You're certain of

that? Yes.

Here's the weird thing.

The core came up like that.

That's interesting.

There's no reason to have any wood standing on end. Just like we did in

Valley 3. Right on the edge. Right on the edge of it, yeah. In the money pit.

you know, maybe the side of a box.

Then we come here and maybe, maybe we hit the side of a box.

Last year, while drilling in the money pit, the team found evidence of a

concrete-covered wooden vault first reported by searchers in 1897.

Concrete and then wood.

That's the description.

That's what they found in the top of the vault.

Because most searcher tunnels are made up of wooden boards stacked

horizontally, finding a piece of wood with the grain running vertically might

be significant.

It could mean that Rick and the team have found a structure similar to the

one found last year.

Can't walk away from this with that little clue. I mean, so Oak Island.

I'm so tired of little clues, but... Maybe we drill one and we get something

more than a little clue. Yeah. It's too enticing. I think we want to drill

another hole here.

If the next core sample turns up more wood and at an even lower depth, then

Rick Lagina and his partners may have found evidence of a tunnel and possibly

a treasure vault just a few yards north of the money pit, exactly where Laverne

Johnson predicted it would be.

We'll see what Harold thinks after we drive this corn.

So as the steel hits the dirt, I mean, I'm hopeful. Whether we dig, whether we

drill, whether we measure, basically, I guess I'm just hopeful.

Something in it. Well, that's 45 feet there.

No wood, no nothing.

Real hoverboard.

Beach gravel.

If it were in a box or something, there should have been a top and a bottom to

it. Good thing.

There's no boulders there.

If there was a boulder, I'd have it in the tube for sure.

Right, right.

No boulder, but no wood either. Yeah.

The fact that no wood came out of the coring barrel offers both a surprise and

a disappointment to Rick Lagina and members of his team.

It appears the piece of wood they found was not part of a larger structure.

You know, the wood's intriguing.

We'll grab a sample. You grab the sample. We'll send it off to get tested.

But I think for right now, at least temporarily, we need to step away from

here because we need to do other things at this point in time.

Yeah.

Although today's drilling operation ended disappointingly, Rick Lagina and

the Oak Island team are determined not to give up, if anything.

It has only renewed their determination to focus their energy on getting to the

bottom of 10X, as well as getting answers concerning the other evidence

the team has gathered during the last several days.

We can't have three, four, and five things going on at once. It's not

practical. So we need to focus on the agenda we laid out earlier in the

summer. We need to finish 10X. We've got other things we need to work on as well.

And, you know, you start to get unfocused if you have too many things

going on. Thanks.

Yep. Thank you.

All that for a little piece of wood.

What if it's like 1625, you know, English collectible replica?

I think that's important.

My opinion it has now been a full week since Rick Marty and their partners

submitted the mysterious Roman sword for testing and They are hoping that the

scientific analysis conducted on the sword will lead to a breakthrough in

solving the Oak Island mystery And we are here again. Yep. Here we are st.

Mary's Let's find out about that sword. Shall we?

They did a light reflection test which will help determine whether it's bronze

or brass.

And then they're doing Raman spectroscopy examination on it, and

that's the one that will get down to the tiny little details of it. It's kind of

like a fingerprint.

It's got, you know, all the different elements, what percent of each element.

Hello. Hi.

Hello. How are you? Craig.

Nice to meet you. I'm Marty. Dr. Krista Brousseau is an associate professor of

chemistry. at St. Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

She is considered one of the leading experts in the field of electrochemistry

and the study of the chemical composition of metals.

Welcome to St. Mary's. Thank you. Thank you. There's our artifact.

There's your artifact.

Yep. So you left it with me. Yep. And so we did... That was made in 1950.

We did some tests on it.

If it's a replica from a certain time period in British history, say, or

French history, it might mean something, too.

Okay. So, you know, if it's a replica, as David said, made in 1950, well, it

doesn't mean too much. I guess we can use it to open really big letters.

I think it has an interesting story to tell, so I'll walk you through it. So

before we start, if you can put the lab coats in. Okay.

You know, we're optimists. We're optimists, aren't we, optimists, Rick?

We're optimists in general.

So we're hoping the sword might be a clue.

so when people are dealing with a what is a copper alloy artifact usually the

first question they're interested in is this a bronze or is this a brass right

right and so based on whether it's a bronze or a brass is really helpful in

terms of dating the object so what we did is on the back down here at the

polished tip we removed some shavings filings of the base metal and that

allows us to do basically look at the composition of the alloy, determine

percent amount of each of the different metal components.

The base metal in this case is, it's a copper zinc alloy.

So that tells us right away that this is a brass.

And the higher the zinc content, the more modern the brass.

So, you know, modern day brass is you can get 40, 50, 60% zinc.

What did you find out about it?

Here's a percent composition of the main elemental components. And so what you

see is the zinc content is fairly high.

And so that suggests a modern brass. Yeah, we're getting close to my 1950s.

So I think you're looking at a post-1880, 1890 date for this, for sure.

She was basically...

putting pins in the balloon we had constructed for ourselves.

But at the end of the day, Dr.

Brousseau, I think we both came to the understanding that it was not what we

thought it would be or wanted it to be.

Yeah, I didn't really think they were little pins going into balloons. I

thought she was hitting the balloon each time with a bazooka.

This thing is dead.

It's certainly an interesting piece.

Just not worth anything.

It depends who you ask, right? To a collector, it might be, you know, of

reproductions. Look, you did a great job,

Krista, and we appreciate it. It's very illuminating. I hope it answers some

questions that you have about the piece. Oh, it does.

And even though this is disappointing, I mean, it also eliminates, you know, one

idea, so we can narrow in on what's truly...

comes from oak island pretty much puts it to bed you know so i think i think so

many weird things have happened on oak island that that this would have just

you know doubled the weirdness so that made us think it might be real because

because it just seems to happen there yeah okay great wonderful thank you very

much as rick marty craig and dave leave the laboratory at

saint mary's university they are content to have received some definitive answers

Although the mysterious Roman sword discovered in the waters up the shores

of Oak Island some 60 years ago turned out to be a replica and of recent

origin, they know that only by testing and then eliminating theories, no matter

how wild or far-fetched they may seem, will they be able to concentrate on

evidence that refuses to be ruled out.

And one such piece of evidence involving the mysterious box drains at Smith's

Cove, is about to provide them with an answer that could put the entire Oak

Island treasure hunt into sharper focus than ever before.

After a week that saw the testing of both new evidence and old theories,

Rick, Marty, Craig, and members of their team gather in the war room to find out

if the recent discovery of eelgrass made at Smith's Cove might finally produce

some badly needed information in their quest to solve the Oak Island mystery.

Well, guys, I got some data in from Smith's Cove. I think it's pretty

interesting results.

The eelgrass, and this was the 95%.

probability is from 1470 to 1650.

And I think it ties into some of the people's theories that are around here.

Oh, absolutely, Craig. There's a number of possibilities that fall into that

time frame.

You think Templars could fit into that time frame?

This surely doesn't exclude them. That's for sure. This also ties into the, you

know, more recent Portuguese possibility that we've heard of recently, the late

1500s.

It's interesting that it comes around to the five credible theories, one of which

is Dan's Spanish.

Yeah, Dan has always been a believer in 1550, right?

So that's a pretty intriguing piece of information.

Because the eelgrass is probably not more than 545 years old, it seems to

challenge many of the more elaborate theories involving everyone from the

ancient Romans.

to the Carthaginians, and the Aztecs.

But it has also long been theorized that Oak Island serves as the hiding place,

not just for one treasure, but several, and that the ground far beneath the

surface of the island is a maze of booby-trapped tunnels and treasure

chambers.

Perhaps finding the eelgrass does not invalidate some of the more incredible

theories, so much as it helps to validate some of the more common ones.

Well, that's great. At least it's old. It's pre-1795 by a long shot. I see it

as only a really big indication that people were here and did build Smith's

Grove, especially prior to the original finding of the money pit.

This is good definitive proof.

Who would have laid this down for no reason?

I agree. No question.

Well done, Jack. You know, it's important data, and you are the bearer

of it. Well done. We appreciate it. Well, thanks. Peter and Dan helped a

lot, too.

The fellowship thanks you.

You're welcome.

Absolutely. Another good piece of the puzzle.

That's what it was. Yep. Thusly energized, we go forth and conquer.

We ready?

After a week of setbacks and dead ends, brothers Rick and Marty Lagina have

finally gotten one of the most hopeful pieces of information they have received

to date.

It validates many of the more persistent theories concerning Oak Island.

It also encourages them to stay positive and remain focused on their goal to

reach the bottom of the money pit once and for all.

But how will they do it?

By draining the mysterious triangle-shaped swamp?

By digging an enormous hole?

Or will they reach it by means of a man-made tunnel?

A tunnel which reportedly lies 235 feet beneath the island's surface,

at the bottom of the dark and mysterious borehole known as 10X.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island.

We're back in the money pit. We hit a cabin.

And it dropped from 171 to 178, and it's still dropping.

Hey, look what I found. It's a piece of metal.

Any idea what it is? It looks like a little tiny oak island.

John Chatterton is confident he's going to go down to the bottom. It's not if we

can do it, it's how do we do it. Are you at the bottom of the South?