Original subtitles

Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island.

Go find us something. After decades of planning.

Whoa. Three years of testing. Predates the money pit by at least 150 years. And

one year of digging.

Holy, there's a wall here.

The wait to find out what really lies at the bottom of 10X is over.

We're going to get down there.

Are brothers Rick and Marty Lagina about to solve the Oak Island mystery?

Or will the answers they have worked so hard to get on down simply serve as a

gateway? Okay, stand by Leading them to even more incredible discoveries

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 bits of gold chain

a stone slab with strange symbols carved into it even a 17th 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

Not so bad. Everybody's like mouth open, amazed.

Yeah.

It is one of the most important days in the history of Oak Island.

Copy that. Hose and pressure are both good.

As brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and Craig Tester, along with their partners,

are just moments away from finding out what lies at the bottom of the infamous

man-made borehole known as 10X.

I'm working my way around the chamber here.

You're working your way around the chamber? Copy.

Oh, yeah.

After months of clearing the shaft of obstructions and an exhaustive search

for someone who could manage the difficult and dangerous final descent

through a narrow 27-inch wide hole, world-renowned diver john chatterton is

now in a mysterious underwater chamber 235 feet below ground

if he does find something it blows the whole thing wide open if he comes up

even with a piece of wood from a post that he says is 14 by 14 or 12 by 12 and

it's from floor to ceiling yahoo i just sit back and you know i told you all

right fine i'd be happy for you to do that

Can you see anything?

Grounded in Michigan due to the threat of a possible hurricane, Marty and Craig

Tester are not able to be on the island in person for this exciting day.

Nevertheless, they have arranged to witness the dive via video conference.

How long has he been at bottom now?

He's been 25 minutes in the water.

Since veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship dug 10X in the 1970s, only a

handful of men have successfully made it to the bottom.

And none of them, including Dan, have been able to prove his claim that a

wooden post, man-made tunnels, treasure chests, and even human remains

really do lie inside the chamber.

What is it?

Careful with all that stuff.

It's metal.

A metal object protruding from the floor of the chamber?

Yes,

sir. We can see it.

copy that it's standing up about six foot off the bottom there's still no

post though

so could

that be the object that that he found on the sun could be could be

earlier this year after running scanning sonar in the bottom of 10x

underwater imaging expert brian abbott believed there were not one, but two

large vertical posts, possibly made of wood, located in the chamber.

Percent, confidence, 90%. Could John Chatterdon have

just discovered that one of the post-like objects is actually a metal

drill pipe?

When John describes what he's feeling down there about the drill bar, this six

-foot-tall piece of pipe with a gap in between,

I'm shaking my head like, what?

That can't be.

As I walk my way around here, looking

in a counterclockwise direction, it seems very stepped.

It's very stepped, like we saw in the sonar.

What is that, John?

Clay, affirmative.

The bottom is clay?

Although sending a human diver down to the bottom of 10X

has proven to be both expensive and extremely dangerous, the Laginas and

their partners believe that only human intelligence can verify if the

underground chamber is man-made.

They are also eager to know if it contains tunnels or passageways that

could prove to be a shortcut into the original Oak Island money pit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we can kind of see it.

I'll stop.

I'll stop.

Oh, no.

The silt-covered bottom of 10X has suddenly become disturbed by John

Chatterton's movements.

Visibility is now virtually at zero.

How you doing there, John?

Give diver one five foot. Diver one five feet.

So what are you doing now, John?

According to Oak Island legend, when the money pit was dug several hundred years

ago, a slave was left behind to die so that his spirit would guard the

treasure.

Could John Chatterton be close to proving that the legend was true?

In the area of the body, it's like a depression.

It's a depression.

Sinkholes at the bottom of 10X?

Could this be an indication that below the layers of silt lies an entrance to

another, even lower chamber?

Copy that, John. You're saying there's moving water in there.

All I'd really like to reiterate to John, the importance of the tunnel. Rick

would really like for you to be able to verify the tunnel's existence and

whether or not they're natural or silted in or whatever.

You know what I'm saying?

john did you say you were in the tunnel affirmative affirmative

I was looking at the monitor with my brother on it, and he sat up like, what?

Tunnel? Rectangular?

Can't he feel anything as though it were shaped or carved?

Nothing feels shaped or carved. Does it feel natural to you, or does it feel

like it could be possibly man-made?

Could he walk into that?

You had to crawl in, or could you walk into it?

I would definitely crawl in.

Rectangular would be great, but the crumbly thing, over time, wouldn't

anhydrate? You know, take away the traces of human pickaxe marks?

I have no idea. And the full water would just erode it like crazy, right?

Possible.

Is there anything else you want him to do?

Marty, anything else you want to have covered, looked at?

Talk with him when he gets to the surface.

I think so.

I think he's looked that thing over.

I am very impressed.

We'll get a full debriefing when he gets up here.

All right. All right. We'll call you.

Up on the cable.

Bring him up.

After months of back-breaking work and frustrating setbacks, Rick, Marty, and

their partners are about to realize this year's most important goal, to find out

once and for all if 10X really is an underground treasure chamber.

There will be no more guessing.

We'll get first-hand account from someone who is in that room what he

believes is in that room or not in that room.

Awesome.

Okay, here we are for the big debrief Yes, we're all ears and you know, we're

really glad to see John there in the flesh. That's very heartwarming We would

not have left him downhole no matter what he had to say Okay, well here's the

thing guys I think we all know why we're here and that is you know to get some

feedback I think I can put a lot of this into context drawing makes it a lot

easier Yeah, why don't you set up, like, you know, how you transition down the

hole. If we're talking, here's the 27-inch hole comes out. The ceiling is

pretty much solid rock, but it's somewhat irregular.

But the 6-inch drill pipe stops there, directly below it.

We've got 4-inch.

And the 4-inch goes kind of down into the bottom like that.

How high is it from floor to ceiling?

This is six foot in height from the bottom. I stood with my feet on either

side of this, which leads me to believe we're talking 10, 12 feet of elevation

from the top of the mound to the underside of the overhead rock.

Okay, here's a question for you, John. Are you 100% certain that the only post

-like object in that chamber is that four-inch pipe sticking up?

Absolutely. Okay.

When John describes what he's feeling down there about the drill bar, this six

-foot-tall piece of pipe, and the big question is, where's the post, the

mythical post, the post that was always there in the sonar imagery? Where is it?

I'm looking at David, and he's puzzled.

So that's not the drill rod, so I have no idea where in the f*** that came

from. The four-inch, you mean, right?

Right.

When treasure hunter Dan Blankenship dove to the bottom of 10X in the 1970s.

He was convinced he saw what appeared to be a large square wooden post running

straight up to the ceiling from the floor of the underground chamber.

Over the decades, various underwater cameras and even sonar data collected

earlier this year by underwater imaging expert Brian Abbott have verified the

presence of at least one and possibly two large vertical posts yes we were

able to definitively find two posts that are here is it possible that because of

the challenging dive conditions and poor visibility john chatterton simply missed

finding two large wooden posts one of the things that that you guys were

definitely interested in was was the box right about here

I had a rock that I would estimate was 10 inches to 12 inches.

It was very angular, had at least one 90-degree angle on it. I picked it up. I

moved it. It was heavy.

If you look at the Brian Abbott drawing and I look at where I found

that stone, to me, that was what gave you the sonar signal of the box.

When Brian did his sonar survey, this was the area right here where he had

the shadow, the possible human form, right?

Now, if I'm probing here, it just created a little sinkhole, and some of

the surrounding stuff started going down.

That'd be consistent with a scour. You know, a sunken part would look like a

darker spot, a shadow. It could look like a body, then a sonar, and then...

Is he correct? I don't know. Again, we don't have eyes on target. He's feeling

it with his feet, with his hands.

So, John, here's the ultimate question.

Odds from your exploration of that being man-made?

I think it looks like a natural formation.

What do you think?

What do you draw from all this?

Pretty sobering.

You know, I don't know. Can we put an X in 10X and move on to other places on

that island?

Not right now.

I need to go over the data.

Okay.

The only way to get definitive answers at the bottom of 10X is to drain it.

I've long held that opinion.

If there's any kind of confusion after this, we need to go down there in the

dry.

All right, look, from what I've seen, you did everything you promised and

more. Honest to God, I mean, I'm impressed.

No question about it. Fabulous expedition.

Fun project.

Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us. Okay, it was fun.

For Rick, Marty, and the Oak Island team, John Chatterdon's report has

proven to be something of a double-edged sword.

Okay. See you, big brother.

All right. Take care.

Okay. On the one hand, it contradicts the accounts of Dan Blackenship, who

spent most of his life and fortune trying to prove that 10X was a gateway

into the money pit.

On the other, it offers some badly needed answers at a time when the

Laginas and their partners have been trying to choose between putting more

money into 10X... Rick, look.

Or instead, focusing their resources over at the Money Pit. Where they have

recently made an incredible discovery.

One day, after John Chatterdon's historic dive to the bottom of 10X, Rick

and Marty Lagina are welcoming three special guests to Oak Island.

Welcome home. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Sisters Joan, Jean, and Joyce McGinnis are direct descendants of Daniel

McGinnis, one of the three teenage boys who first discovered the Money Pit back

in 1795.

After learning of the recent activities on Oak Island, they contacted Rick

Lagina in hopes of sharing what they believe is some important information.

What is your impression so far of coming back to Oak Island?

Oh, me, I'm amazed.

Amazed? This is magic. All the stories and things that to me were fairy tales

becoming real. Realty, yeah.

As this is their first visit to Oak Island, the McGinnis sisters are being

treated by Rick Lagina to a special tour by local historian and fellow treasure

hunter Charles Barkhouse.

This is in the money pit where your ancestors were standing probably right

in this area right here.

Wow.

It's a special place.

There's so much activity that went on here by so many different groups.

After finding what they believed to be a hiding place for pirate treasure under

an old oak tree, Daniel McGinnis and his two friends, John Smith and Anthony

Vaughn, spent the next several months digging in the place that would later be

known as the Oak Island Money Pit.

At 10-foot intervals, they found what appeared to be man-made workings,

including oak-timbered platforms and carefully fashioned layers of clay and

slate.

Eventually, each young man purchased property on the island in order to

secure their claim, and in 1803, formed a partnership with businessman Simeon

Lins so they could finance what was rapidly becoming a full-time operation.

In 1804, after successfully excavating the pit to a depth of 90 feet, McGinnis

and his partners unearthed a large stone slab with strange carved markings on it

but when they later removed it the hole filled with sea water as if some sort of

booby trap had been sprung so where's the oak tree

unfortunately many many years ago the oak tree was cut down it is

interesting too what you just asked is the tree still here people do come with

that sense of it that

It's almost like this little area, time has stood still, and all is as it once

was. Maybe in some ways it is. Maybe in some ways it is.

220 years ago, Daniel was walking on that very ground.

They know that story intimately, and they were enmeshed in it.

They were living it in that moment, and you could see their minds rolling, and I

think that was really, really wonderful.

Right up here, of course, is McGinnis Foundation.

Yes.

This is where they lived right here. Wow.

This

would have been the

root cellar. This would have been the entrance down into it. So you're

standing where your family walked 220 years ago.

I just got a shiver. You just got a shiver? Yeah.

In the 1970s, there were two workers here when the province was doing the

tours, and they reached in to the foundation, and they pulled out a gold

chain.

A gold chain found at the site of the McGinnis Foundation?

Could it be possible evidence that Daniel McGinnis found something of value

on Oak Island after all?

There's more questions than answers on Oak Island. And obviously with your

family, there's a lot of questions too that you don't have the answers to.

They're part of the history.

Perhaps they will have recollections. Perhaps they will have remembrances. I

mean, they've indicated to us that they grew up with stories of Oak Island.

Maybe there's some import that they bring back.

Well, here we are at the Oak Island Visitor Center. Do you have any

questions at all?

I would like to thank you.

for inviting us here and for everything you've done.

And I believe we collectively thank you. Now we have something to show you.

The reason why we're here is you ladies made a...

A unique offer that you had brought something to Oak Island, brought

something back, which we're always fascinated with and we're anticipating

that greatly. I couldn't sleep last night. I was wondering what it is you're

going to bring to the table, literally.

Well, it's my pleasure to show you.

While visiting Oak Island, sisters Joan, Jean, and Joyce McGinnis, the direct

descendants of the young man, who first discovered the money pit back in 1795,

are about to share something incredible with Rick, Marty, and the Oak Island

team. See everyone start leaning in. Yeah, right, exactly. What do we got

here? I'm sitting there thinking, well, could it be this? Could it be that? Is

it a story?

Is it an artifact?

What is it? It was like Christmas morning.

Just the box is very nice.

If it ends up that what they brought helped solve the whole thing, then you

have the deal we used to see, Rick.

Men will write songs of this day.

You know, the McGinnis sisters come back after 220 years, and they bring the

object that breaks the whole mystery into pieces, you know?

Starts with a McGinnis. Fittingly, it might end with a McGinnis and a Lagina.

This is one of the stories we were told as children.

Grandpa Daniel, five generations ago, he noticed the marks on the tree.

And being from a family of carpenters and masons, he recognized the marks

as the marks made by a pulley system, and he noticed the depression in the

ground. So he and his two friends started digging.

They found some planks, and they kept digging.

Now, I've been told they found three treasure chests.

Really? Really.

I never heard that.

No, I never heard that either.

Three treasure chests found by Daniel McGinnis and his two friends, John Smith

and Anthony Vaughn, while digging in the money pit more than 200 years ago.

Daniel took one, Smith took one, and Vaughn took one.

And what is in this box is one of the things that came from that chest.

Really? The one that McGinnis took.

Let's have a look. Yeah, I got goosebumps.

Wow.

May I?

You may.

Oh, my goodness.

Well, that is quite extraordinary.

A gold cross found in the original money pit in 1795?

Daniel McGinnis finds this in the money pit. I mean, that's singularly

impressive. There's never been a find associated with the money pit. There are

stories of the little link of three links of gold chain coming up with the

pod auger, but we're holding this in our hand, and it's been passed down through

multigenerationally. I mean, it's incredible when you think about it.

So I got about a million questions.

Where did it come from? I mean, who had it? Who gave it to who?

Do you know how it passed down through 220 years?

It passed down to the McGinnis men.

They passed it down to their sons.

And so my father had it. And when my brother James was 15, my father passed

it on to him. And my brother, the night before he died, he said, never let this

out of your sight.

Wow.

Alex, open your hand.

Wow, that is extraordinary.

I mean, have you tried to date it, analyze it, find out where it's from?

Has any experts, have any experts looked at it?

I have taken it to several jewelers, and I'm told that it could be as old

as 500 years old.

Doesn't 500 years ago fit within our carbon dating?

That'd even be earlier than some of those things we've seen. So, yeah, that

would definitely fit in any kind of theory if it's 500 or earlier.

Mm-hmm. If we can demonstrate that that came from Oak Island, that's probably

the most... Well, it is. It is the most valuable thing to ever turn up out of

this island, right?

I mean, that might be a huge clue.

I think so. I truly believe.

My grandma would say, the treasure... Don't worry about the treasure. The

treasure will take care of itself.

But it will never be found until a McGuinness is back on the island.

Wow.

You're back on the island. Here we are.

For the Laginas and their partners, the gold cross represents what could very

well be the first tangible evidence that objects of great value were buried at

the money pit.

But were the three wooden treasure chests all that existed? Or were they

placed there to discourage would-be treasure hunters digging?

I just want to say on behalf of all of us that we want to thank you for coming

to Oak Island.

And for me personally, you know, it's not what you brought.

It's the fact that a piece of the storied history of Oak Island has now

come back. The McGinnis family, we started all of this. So from our hearts,

we're very, very grateful. And it was wonderful to meet you.

We appreciate it greatly.

Put it this way, this is energizing and it makes me want to keep going. I mean,

we've had a bit of a dry spell here, haven't we? We have. We have.

So, thank you.

You're very welcome.

Let's go. Let's go forth and conquer.

Maybe just park over here and then he can go in.

Shortly after their incredible meeting with the three McGinnis sisters and

seeing the antique gold cross that was reportedly found by their ancestor more

than 200 years ago, Rick Lagina, along with Dave Blankenship and Charles

Barkhouse, return to the Money Pit site.

If anything,

Rick is more convinced than ever that he and the team are finally on the verge of

a major breakthrough.

It's that far hole, Glenn.

Right over there? Yep, right by the pipes. OK, good.

She really just fell?

Yeah, like nothing's there.

Last week, while drilling just north of the area where they had found evidence

of a mysterious wooden vault, Rick Lagina, Charles Markhouse, and well

driller Jordan Rogers discovered an incredible 21-foot tall void deep

beneath the ground.

171 to 192, 21 feet.

Then, while using an evacuation system to pump sediment out of the recently

discovered void, Jack Begley found a mysterious, albeit tiny, metal object.

Hey, look what I found over there.

see the sheen there yeah and then they're very curious because the

presence of a 21 foot deep void is unusual even by oak island standards

rick lagina has hired pipe inspection specialist glenn cornell to conduct a

more thorough investigation of the hole that's what 200 192 is the bottom okay

there you go Glenn is using the P340

Flexiprobe, a camera specifically designed for use in pipe inspection.

With a maneuverable head, the probe will be able to see in every direction to

hopefully confirm if any man-made structures, such as a vault, lie in the

large void below.

Glenn has also fashioned a dive light to the camera head in order to maximize

visibility.

Perfect. Okay, here we go.

See how nice that is?

Yeah, that's nice.

Let's see what it looks like in the water. Yeah.

We're just about in the water here.

Let's see what we got here.

It's looking pretty milky.

Wow. That does not look good.

That's silty, yeah.

Whenever you're running equipment like that, you know, you run a visual camera,

a sonar device, anything, what you're hoping for every time is that.

Wow, look at that.

It's a doubloon.

Or it's a, you know, it's... The aha moment. Yeah.

It's definitely clear right now.

Yeah, but it's not clear enough to see my gold bar, though.

If there's a shiny gold bar, we'll find it.

I'm approaching 50 meters right now.

That's a cavity right there. I'm thinking I'm in a cavity there now.

We're about six feet in.

Suddenly... Rick and the team discover something strange embedded in the wall

of the underground cavern.

What's that?

I have no idea. That curved thing. Is that not the casing? What is it?

That right there. Yeah, exactly. Looks like it might be. What is that?

It's shiny like metal. Yeah, it looks metallic.

A shiny metallic object embedded in the wall of a void 171 feet

deep below the ground?

The hell is that?

No, there's another piece of it there, too.

Yeah, another piece.

How yellow that is.

It's your gold color. Yeah, there it is, David.

You can almost see a little bit of gold.

You know, that shouldn't be in the anhydrite.

Could Rick and the team really be looking at a piece of treasure inside

the actual money pit?

Here's my thought.

It confirms, in my mind, several things. One is there is indeed a cavity there.

And it's 21 feet of open hole. I mean, there's something going on down there.

We did get that other piece of metal out of here, too, which is extremely

curious.

You know, the metal thing, the shiny thing, we'll call it? Yeah. That's

curious. There's no other way to describe it because we don't know what

it is, but it's definitely there.

Having now discovered compelling evidence that something of great value

really could be buried deep inside the money pit, Rick Lagina.

knows there is only one way to be sure he and his partners will have to dig an

enormous hole some 18 stories underground but such a project will

present both an engineering challenge and a financial one costing in the

millions of dollars okay well here's the thing there's no way we can walk away

from this now we've got the little piece of metal we've got this strange

mysterious object We cannot write this hole off. There's no way to put an X in

this hole. No, no, no.

I mean, at this point, I think we're all puzzling what to do next.

It's an engineer's dilemma is really what it is. It's not that simple.

Glenn, I want to thank you. I think we've seen about as much as we're going

to see.

Although Rick Lagina must soon leave Oak Island due to the certainty of another

harsh North Atlantic winter.

He has found the evidence he needs to justify a major excavation in the money

pit But now another question still remains Will he be able to persuade his

brother Marty and their partners to agree with him?

After an incredible year that has been full of both setbacks and breakthroughs

rick marty and their partners have gathered to meet in the war room before

they must head back home to wait out another oak island winter okay guys

let's talk about this year let's talk about what we did where we're going how

everybody feels about the quest we're all here we were energized by the cross

and the mcginnis sisters coming here that was really kind of cool You know,

seeing an item pulled from the money pit is exciting, it's invigorating.

The cross is just fantastic. That's really cool. And it's been in the family

all these years.

Yeah, there's something kind of epic and Shakespearean and destiny-ish about them

coming back here 220 years later and bringing the only significant thing of

value, perhaps, that was, I guess, found here.

So where do we go next?

What do you think about the money pit? No question about it. I want to

continue, period. We now have access to new information, and I want to find out

definitively, is there something in there or not?

And there's discovery processes that remain to be done.

Well, and also, to have a success and know once and for all there is man-made

stuff down there, it kind of comes down to us proving it and really do the

archaeological dig and go foot by foot, uncover what the money pit, so we can

solve the mystery for good.

Okay, I don't hear a lot of enthusiasm for quitting from that sector. No, not

at all. Okay, what else?

For me, a big disappointment was John Chatterton's not being able to find

anything in the cavity.

I'm not writing it off, though, because, you know, there's still two or three

feet of silt on quite a bit of the cavity that, you know, he can't just dig

his arms in there and find, you know, a shovel, a chest, or whatever.

So I think next year we've got to come back and clean that cavity out.

Well, you know, I'm all for 10X.

Now it's time to get down there in the dry. So let's pump it out, and we'll get

down there, and we can see what's there.

David?

We did make progress. It's not the progress that I hoped for. It's not the

progress I had anticipated, but it is progress.

It has taken 220 years to get to this point.

but it's been a good year because there is a year to come.

It'll be the 221st year.

Well said.

You know, it comes down to a vote. It's the fellowship of the dig. Everyone has

a singular vote, and I'd like to see hands in the air.

Do we continue or do we not?

I vote yes.

Yes. Yes.

I got to say. And I vote yes.

That leaves you.

I vote yes.

We move forward, big brother.

Let's go.

Crown time. Crown time is right.

Another search for answers on Oak Island has come to a temporary end.

After a year that saw a series of incredible discoveries.

That, Rick, is amazing.

We have found it. The formation of strategic partnerships.

Welcome to the team.

And several important questions being asked.

Is this accomplishable? Is it doable?

And answered.

It looks metallic.

Your gold color. Yeah, there it is, David. It's definitely there.

Rick, Marty, and their partners realize they have come too close and gone too

far to stop now.

If anything, they are leaving the island with a greater commitment to return than

ever before.

It's perseverance that often solves something like this.

It's perseverance that often carries the day in all kinds of human endeavors.

It's like Edison said, when they asked him if he thought he'd failed, he said,

no, I've not failed. I've found 462 things that don't work.

And he's right, that matters.

Next year will come, the sun will rise, spring will arrive, and we'll be back on

Oak Island. You know, we'll finish what we set out to do.

If it's going to be done, I put odds on him.

We're not giving up.

Together.

Who else are you going to bet on?

Go ahead, try.

Yeah.

We'll persevere on this, and we'll find out what this island has to say.