Original subtitles

Tonight, on the Curse of Oak Island.

We'll find it. It should be in this area.

Start recording.

We're recording.

That thing might be man-made. It almost looks like an anchor.

We're going to find out, scientifically, how old these bits of paper are. Is that

red diamond? It does seem to have something printed on it. This is from a

medieval book.

Oh, hell no.

See how the ground's gone?

It's caving. This is a very dangerous place. The whole money picket collapsed.

Oh, baby.

Be careful.

Oh, hell no. No, no, Rick!

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 a

stone slab with strange symbols carved into it mysterious fragments of human

bone and a lead cross whose origin may stretch back to the days of 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.

As a new day begins on Oak Island, And as the excavation of borehole H-8

continues at the Money Pit site... Gentlemen!

Good morning!

...Brothers Marty and Rick Lagina check in on their extensive search operations

at Smith's Cove.

Have you figured this out yet?

It's a lot to figure. We're closing in on a few points. Good morning, Laird.

How are you, buddy? Good, Marty. How are you? Good.

Terry?

Well, you guys have made a hell of a mess here, I'll tell you.

You just got down to where you can see things, that's all.

A lot of people thought that this was a very significant place to do something.

Put a lot of effort into it. Put a lot of effort.

Wow, that's a heck of a wall, isn't it? It's very strange.

Shortly after the excavation of Smith's Cove began six weeks ago, the Oak Island

team quickly made a series of incredible and often baffling discoveries.

Among them, a number of massive wooden structures, one featuring large notched

beams marked with Roman numerals, and another in the shape of an L.

The team also uncovered the remains of what appears to be an ancient slipway,

used for hauling ships into and out of the water, and a mysterious concrete

wall.

We don't understand some of these structures. We've found all kinds of

crazy things, walls and slipways and concrete walls that we didn't even know

existed. And all of it massive and all of it looking like it took an enormous

effort to do, and all of it underwater.

Very, very puzzling.

Right there, see the opening?

Yeah.

Two flat rocks laid together like a triangle.

But perhaps the most significant discovery so far is what Rick and Marty

believe. could be the remains of one of what were reported to be five stone box

drains designed as a means of booby trapping the money pit with sea water

the odd thing from the spillway we found really nice ceramics from down at the

east end slaughter or searcher yeah searcher early searcher so could they

possibly have done all this without Really concrete proof of the box drains?

It seems hard to believe, doesn't it? I mean, could they have done this on

conjecture?

Where's the so-called convergence point?

We don't know where it comes in. I thought we would find something here

with some sort of alignment coming in.

Although Rick and Marty are excited by all their other discoveries at Smith's

Cove, unearthing one of the stone box drains has given them hope.

of finding what they refer to as the convergence point, the place where each

of the five box drains joined together.

If it is located, it could lead the team directly to the original Money Pit

treasure vault.

If it were the box drains, if we can actually prove that it was a way to get

water from Smith's Cove to the Money Pit, it's a huge discovery.

Well, one thing's extremely consistent.

Nothing makes sense.

Not at all.

As the excavation continues at Smith's Cove, just across the bay from Oak

Island in the town of Western Shore, Nova Scotia. Good morning. Good morning.

How are you today?

Craig Tester and Jack Begley arrive at the Oak Island Marina.

They have arranged to meet with an oceanic survey team from the Center of

Geographic Sciences, also known.

as cogs.

I'm looking forward to being able to scan on the south end of the island.

Some of the theories are that that was kind of an old flood system that went

out there.

Although it has long been believed that the origin of the booby-trapped flood

tunnel system could be found at Smith's Cove, Craig Tester is equally

intrigued by a theory held by journalist and author Randall Sullivan, which

suggests that a second set of flood tunnels might be found on the island's

southern shore, just east of the triangle-shaped swamp.

I'm certain that the real origins of the flood tunnel is, you know, way offshore,

you know, on the south side.

So what are we running today?

Well, so what we have up here is a LiDAR scanner.

Okay. So that is going to actually take a scan of the shoreline of Oak Island.

Good. And then we'll be running a side scan fish right from the port here on

the stern. So anything that looks man-made, it'll pick it out. Okay.

Sounds great.

Using state-of-the-art marine imaging equipment, the team from COGS will

employ both sound and laser-based technologies to scan the waters

surrounding Oak Island.

If successful, they might be able to find evidence of man-made formations.

up to 30 feet beneath the seabed.

Turning, turning.

Are we getting ready to do some lines?

Yeah.

We're lining up.

Okay. Are you going east-west lines or north-south?

Right now we're doing north-south lines, but we actually have east-west in there

as well. Oh, so you're going to do both.

Yeah. Great.

Start recording.

Start recording.

We're recording.

The team will scan.

along a total of some 30 lines arranged five meters apart in a systematic grid

pattern which will allow them to totally encompass the island's coastal area.

What depth do you have?

7.8.

Are you guys getting rocks?

I can't see anything.

What's your depth right now?

Two and a half. We've got some rocks, quite a bit of rocks.

There's like a line of rocks, but that's not necessarily what we're looking for.

That's interesting.

Yeah, we're finally seeing something.

Yeah, because it almost looks like there's a hole down through.

Stuff will come up.

There's definitely a distinctive line there.

Yeah.

Okay, turn it.

It almost looks like it could be a caved-in area or something that's filled

in. Wow.

Now that right there looks like some sort of shape, like it could be man

-made. Okay.

While scanning the waters off the south shore of Oak Island, Craig Tester and

Jack Begley, along with the team from the Center of Geographic Sciences, have

just made what could be an exciting discovery.

An offshore hole located in the same area where author and researcher Randall

Sullivan believes there could be a second booby-trapped flood tunnel system

that feeds ocean water to the money pit.

Now that right there looks like some very light material and the depression.

That's very interesting.

Oh, yeah.

So you don't know of anything that's in here, do you? Some of the ice holes

could be in this area.

Oh, okay.

During the winter of 1980, veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship was

conducting an operation in the Money Pit area, which involved pumping water out

of recently drilled boreholes into the ocean just off the island's southern

shore. But shortly after the operation began, Dan was astonished to notice four

of what he described as ice holes, circular depressions in the ice.

that he thought might have been caused by underground caves or man-made

tunnels.

Could the anomaly Craig and Jack are seeing on the ocean floor be further

evidence that a second flood tunnel system really exists?

On one line, we saw what could have been like an edge of an ice hole.

Really? But that's what I mean. There are supposedly four ice holes, yeah.

They should be right here, right?

They should be in this area, yeah.

We'll have to look at that after processing to see if it jumps out more.

We're getting real-time images coming back, but there's a lot of noise

associated with it.

It's just like you're turned into a radio station, and you kind of can hear

the music, but there's a lot of noise.

Well, she can take it back and process it and get rid of that noise and get a

nice, clear image.

What's the next line?

NS plus 85.

Recording. Recording.

Can't see anything.

What's that on the right-hand side there? Well, right there, you can see

there's clearly something there.

That doesn't look like it could be natural. It's very angular.

It almost looks like an anchor.

An anchor from a ship?

Although finding an anchor in the waters of Mahone Bay is not a surprising

discovery, if it can be successfully identified, and proves to be from an era

prior to the discovery of the money pit in 1795 it could offer important clues

that might help the team solve the oak island mystery so we're thinking that

that thing was probably what uh it's about yay long or something you know i

think that's the approximate size of what it's supposed to be yeah and then

once you guys go through the post processing you should have the exact

location of that object good you know on the scans today we definitely saw some

anomalies out there So I'm eager to see what they come up with once they start

processing this data.

I mean, if we come up with a shipwreck or we come up with one of these ice

holes, the next step is to get a diver out there and keep on searching this.

Keep on tying the ocean to the island itself.

Post-processing. Bring something out.

at the start of another day on Oak Island.

Good morning.

Rick Lagina has invited other members of the Oak Island team to join him in the

war room.

So gentlemen, as you see before you, we have a number of items here, and they're

all from H-8.

H-8 certainly has rendered the most significant objects in the entire Money

Pit exploration.

Of all the exploratory boreholes drilled at the Money Pit site, the one that is

the most intriguing is the one simply known as H8.

Last year, while drilling at this site, Rick and his brother Marty, along with

other members of the Oak Island team, found evidence of parchment, leather

bookbinding, and two fragments of 17th century human bone.

one which was determined to be of European origin and another whose DNA

could be traced to the Middle East.

Paul, if you want to see if Dr. Brousseau is available.

Hello, Dr. Brousseau.

Hi there. How are you guys doing?

Dr. Brousseau, we're back.

Dr. Krista Brousseau is an analytical chemist in residence at St. Mary's

University in Halifax.

She has been invited by Rick and the team to evaluate several of the recent

finds made in H8 to see if any of them contain precious metal, human remains,

or other materials that can be proven to be older than the discovery of the money

pit.

You know, we're all very excited for you to render an opinion about these

objects, so if you'd be kind enough to let us know what you found out.

Sure. I can walk you through these objects. So when you sent me these

objects, they came with a number.

and also what you thought they might be, question mark.

So I guess we'll start with sample 15.

That was a sample that you were wondering if it was a bone and it had

some fibers on it.

So that came back as iron rich in sulfur. It has about 7% sulfur.

And so I would think of that as being a slag.

Sort of cast off from a ore refining process.

So it's sort of metal slag metal slag Created when metal is extracted

from raw ore slag is most often found near foundries or other places where

smelting is conducted Because it is made artificially it is rarely as in the case

of Oak Island found deep underground

Was there a blacksmith operation at some point? Not at 170 feet. The ground is

not. Yeah, I mean, the flag is not that strange, but I guess being found in

depth might be.

So the next sample, sample 13, you indicated that you thought it might be

leather.

That is definitely plant material.

I can clearly see the plant vasculature in the electron micrograph.

So that could be just tree bark.

Okay.

Okay. Sample 19, you had indicated you thought it might be leather.

It's not leather.

It's, again, a plant-based material.

This is likely to be a piece of tree bark.

I expected a whole lot more leather this year, and these were the best pieces

that we were able to find.

Okay.

Moving on, sample 17.

So I did infrared spectroscopy on it, and it is cellulose-based.

It came back as all organic.

It is very fibrous, so under the microscope looks like paper.

And so our indication at that point was that that wasn't parchment, but a cotton

rag paper, which would be an older form of paper.

Rag paper?

As early as the 12th century AD, the first paper produced throughout medieval

Europe was made entirely from linen and cotton scraps, known more commonly as

rags. By the mid-15th century, rag paper was much more commonly used in the

production of books and manuscripts, often bound together with more durable

parchment.

When treasure hunters William Chappell and Frederick Blair drilled into what

they believed to be a wooden vault in 1897, they discovered a tiny piece of

parchment that had the letters VI written on it.

Could this piece of rag paper, found more than 170 feet deep, be evidence

that books, or even original manuscripts, might have been buried in

the Money Pit centuries ago?

This is also paper. It's more contaminated.

This particular sample is certainly pre-1890.

Wow. What would we do? What further testing methodologies would we apply to

date it?

Probably what I would do is have it looked at by someone who works with

papers, historical papers.

Well, Dr.

Brousseau, thank you for your time. We really appreciate it. You're welcome.

We hope to send you some gold soon for testing.

Sounds good to me.

All righty, speaking of that, let's get back to work.

Following their informative meeting in the Oak Island War Room... All right,

Gary!

...Jack Bagley and Gary Drayton join Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, and dan

henske at the h8 drill site they are eager to examine the spoils recently

excavated from the shaft in search of any additional artifacts and hopefully

pieces of treasure like plastic

plastic maybe i don't know what the heck that is oh it's a pottery big

chunk of pottery it's a blue yeah

That sure is.

Wow.

That's interesting.

Yep.

It's game time, because every bucket that comes up might lead us to some

conclusions and help us with the hunt.

It might lead us to where we want to go, and where we want to go is to find the

original money pit.

Limestone.

Lots of it.

What's this, plastic?

Yeah.

This looks like pretty recent lumber, like within the last hundred years or

so. It's all planed and cut perfectly square.

That tends to be searcher's proving or something.

I'm not seeing anything, Jackie.

There we go.

This looks like organic material and it doesn't look like bark. I think this is

leather.

That's a really good piece of it.

Because you can see all the fibrous material.

Definitely bag that one.

Okay.

I will bag it.

Anyway, you have to look at everything.

Yep.

Look at that.

What is it?

That is an oldie. Beautiful square nail there. Yeah.

That's nice. Good find.

How does this compare to the other spikes we found in the money pit?

Different usage.

These were mainly used for planking.

If that was a maritime nail, that would be a decking nail.

A decking nail?

From a ship?

But how would a decking nail come to be found at a depth?

of some 170 feet.

In the years after Daniel McGuinness and two friends discovered the original

money pit in 1795, many began to speculate that the wood used to

construct the treasure shaft may have come from a large ship, possibly a

pirate ship or Spanish galleon.

According to this theory, it was done both to build the shaft and to hide all

evidence of the craft that transported the treasure to the island.

Could the discovery of a ship's nail found in the H8 spoils be evidence that

this incredible theory is true?

We haven't actually found this type before. This is the first one of this.

We could be in the original money pit, then. Yep. That might be a really good

sign. Yeah.

I'm going to tag and bag this square nail.

Really good find. Yep.

As the operation at H8 continues... We're here.

Alex Lagina and historian Doug Kroll travel some 50 miles to the nearby city

of Halifax, where they have arranged a meeting at the Nova Scotia School of Art

and Design.

Hey there, Joe.

Hey, Joe. Joe Landry is considered an expert in the study and restoration of

ancient manuscripts.

He has been invited to follow up on information recently received...

from Dr.

Christophe Rousseau at St. Mary's University, which indicated that the

small fragments of paper recently found in the HH spoils had been made of cotton

rags.

Well, thanks for taking the time to sit down with us again. No, no. We have a

few things that we'd love your expertise on.

We were a step ahead, and we already checked to see if it was parchment. We

got a negative.

Tell me what you think this is.

It certainly feels like paper.

We think this came from 160 feet below or a little deeper.

This was underground for, you know, maybe a couple hundred years. Is it

plausible that it would be in that state?

If it was deep underground and wet, there's probably very little oxygen

getting at it, and perhaps not so many microbes and insects to eat it

away. So, yeah. It could be. It could be very old. It could be original, is what

that sounds like. Yes.

Yes. That's great. Yeah.

It's very different from the other piece. So I think, to me, it seems to be

a different material.

So I'll just actually hand it to you because it might fall out.

Oh, well.

Some color here.

Right. Be interesting to see whether it's an ink or a paint or something.

I'm hoping that there's maybe some traces of writing on there.

Yeah, it's really impossible to say unless we open it up.

Right. I think that there's no reason not to do that, in my opinion. Yeah.

I would wet it again in order to unfold it. You don't want to do that dry

because you'll damage the paper. Right.

We'd love to have you take a closer look.

Certainly.

It's difficult to think of a reason for paper to be 160 feet down in the Money

Pit area.

If Joe is able to unfold this paper, and if it's got writing on it, it's going to

be a really, really important clue.

Working with his apprentice, Catherine Taylor, Joe Landry soaks both of the

paper fragments in water.

We've started the process of soaking it to make it pliable so we can open it up.

Right.

The sample.

is then carefully manipulated using surgical forceps in an effort to

determine if any possible writing or important clues could still be visible.

It looks like this is folded, but it's almost like there's something

adhering one side to another.

Definitely seems like there's...

A crease there, and then something binding it together.

Binding it?

Could it be that this tiny fragment of paper is not a piece from a single

document, but part of a page from an ancient book?

Any thoughts on the coloration of that?

Sometimes they deliberately colored paper in bookbinding for endpapers or

something of that nature.

What can you infer from what you've seen so far? Is it an older type of paper?

It appears so.

If you look through the lens, it looks very, very even.

Do you mind if I have a look here? What does that evenness indicate to you?

Well, it could indicate either a wove paper or a piece of thin cloth.

If it's a wove paper, then we know that it's post-1737 or maybe a bit earlier.

You can see the fibers, but you can't see anything else.

All the dates seem to be centered around the mid to late 1700s, and it fits

really nicely with the origin story of Oak Island, really.

You know, the 1795 discovery of depression in the ground fits really

well with a bunch of activity 20 to 30 years before.

We have this other piece as well, which in a way is even more interesting

because there's color involved.

Is that ink there?

It could be. There's a certain red spot here. We don't know what that is,

whether it's a matter that it picked up in the ground. It almost looks like a

speck of red ink.

Right. But that line there looks like a line to me.

Oh, yes, right here. Yes, yeah.

If you look through the loop here, it definitely looks like a mark, a line,

doesn't it?

Oh, for sure.

I'd like to investigate the ink.

Yeah. I don't know that we're seeing anything here that's going to be of a

lot of help.

No.

The ideal situation would be to get it hooked up to a microscope with a camera.

Do you have a microscope here?

No. Oh, okay. No, we don't. Okay. So maybe that's our next step. Hopefully

you'll be able to tell us maybe how old it might be or... Yes, or what its

purpose. Yeah.

Well, for now, I think we've packed this up. Very good.

Although Alex and Doug are disappointed that Joe Landry was not able to make a

more conclusive evaluation,

they are now more convinced than ever that the red markings on the paper are

ink and that both fragments could be hundreds of years old.

I can't thank you guys enough. Oh, you're welcome. Really appreciate it.

Thank you very much. You're welcome. Bye now.

As a new day dawns on Oak Island...

All kinds of wood just embedded in it.

Rick Lagina and Craig Tester continue to carefully examine the spoils being

retrieved from borehole H8.

It don't heal now.

What? The can is lower.

Can Phil?

I don't know.

Can you see in there?

Uh, no. What's going on?

There should be ground there, and there's not, man.

See how the ground's gone?

Yeah, it should keep doing that.

Got that light over here?

Yeah.

Can you see?

See right back there?

Looks crazy in there.

If they're worried, we should be worried. Absolutely.

It's caving.

Caving?

Is it possible that the HH shaft has started to collapse in on itself?

We just have some caving in around the shaft.

We're starting to get voids under the oscillator.

How far down is it?

It looks like it's about 18 inches-ish down all the way around, and then it's

kind of crawling out, so we've got to slow it down.

Nothing comforting about what you're seeing. Nothing comforting.

For Rick and Craig, a cave-in of the HH shaft is a potentially devastating

development. You want a flashlight? You want to look at it?

If the earth surrounding the drill site is severely compromised, it could be a

warning sign that a much larger and much more catastrophic collapse could happen

at any moment.

Yeah, there's no...

Huge collapse, but you can see that it's moved away from the deck.

Yeah. This has been Swiss cheese, right? So many people have drilled in here.

And that's not good.

For the past two centuries, more than 40 boreholes, shafts, and tunnels have been

dug throughout the Money Pit area by searchers hoping to avoid the booby

traps protecting the bottom of the Money Pit, as each excavation inevitably

failed due to flooding.

The holes were filled back in, leaving the ground compromised and unstable.

If the cave-in surrounding H-8 continues to expand, it could cause a collapse

through the entire Money Pit area, one that could end the team's search

operation.

There's definite subsidence there. There's no question about that.

Yeah, they're worried.

All this work, all the research, and it may come down to we can't continue.

Yeah.

As the team from Irving Equipment Limited continues to inspect the cave-in

around Borehole H8, some 50 miles northeast of Oak Island, in the city of

Halifax. Hello again, Joe. Nice to see you, sir. Good to see you. Marty Lagina

and researcher Doug Kroll have arranged to meet once again with medieval book

expert Joe Landry at St. Mary's University.

They are hoping that the high-powered microscopes and other sophisticated

equipment available at the university will give them valuable information

concerning the small piece of rag paper recently recovered from the HH shaft.

Well, gentlemen, Fergus, Joe, let's do it. All right. Working with lab

technician Fergus Twedale, the team will analyze the paper sample using a

polarized light microscope capable of magnifying objects up to 400 times their

actual size.

So we'll start with a 40 times magnification view of it.

So there's the top surface.

Can you go to the edge, Fergus?

Maybe you'll see something more there.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Is that the ink?

The red dye right there you can see? Yes.

That's what made this piece so interesting because it does seem to have

something printed on it.

That's the closest thing to fibers that we've seen so far.

That's for sure.

But, I mean, this is a ripped edge, so the...

Orientation probably isn't telling you anything that's really, you know, what

it looked like when it was made. That's true.

I think that if you could go to low magnification before we leave that one.

Yeah.

That's 100 times magnification.

Almost looks crystalline. Yeah, it does.

This crystalline substance that we're seeing here that you think might be

pigment.

Are there pigments made of material that would give this appearance?

Well, we certainly know it's an early ink, probably a medieval or Renaissance

ink. Red, for instance, would be cinnabar.

Cinnabar?

As early as the 9th century AD, the red-colored mineral known as cinnabar

was a key component in the manufacture of a type of ink that was used

throughout medieval Europe.

most notably in the production of important documents and religious

manuscripts.

Could this simple fragment of paper found in H8 be evidence that it, along

with the other pieces of leather bookbinding recovered from the shaft, is

of medieval origin?

So you're saying 1300s to... To maybe 1600 on the outside.

Wow.

When somebody like Joe Landry, who basically has been involved in paper

their whole lives, says that it could be medieval, an expert's opinion like that

has weight.

I find that highly significant.

All right. Well, thank you, guys. Really appreciate it. You're welcome.

Appreciate your time.

Fergus, a pleasure.

Nice meeting you.

John, if you were to guess, how deep would you say that is around the caving

part? 18 inches?

Definitely over there, because here's about a foot, and that looks way deeper

on this side.

Deep enough.

It'd scare me.

They're worried, because they think it's going to collapse.

Yeah, they're worried.

It is a tense and critical moment at the Oak Island Money Pit, as Rick Lagina and

Craig Tester await a report from representatives of Irving Equipment

Limited about the consequences of the caving.

that is developed around borehole h8 any

benefit in flying the oscillator off right now and he can just keep grabbing

we're not going to oscillate on that can anymore it's probably a good plan

so

what's your concern so we're going to need to stop oscillating on this we can

definitely continue to dig with the camera grab oh really Yes, we can. Oh,

okay. But we want to go forward with caution.

Yes. The worst case scenario would be to continue here, compromise the integrity

here in this general area.

It's concerning enough that I think we're doing the right thing, but it's

not concerning enough that we're evacuating and everyone's moving out of

here right this minute.

But as long as we're getting full buckets and we're still bringing up wood

and things, we want to keep going.

Okay. Hard to walk away right now.

Yeah.

Because continuing to oscillate the H8 shaft would risk a larger and

potentially more dangerous collapse underground, Rick and Craig are hoping

that by carefully excavating H8 with a three-ton hammer grab tool, they may

still be able to recover important clues or treasure without causing further

damage. The good news is the hole is not increasing, neither in depth nor

in width.

I'm thinking this is a very localized subsidence and we can deal with it. So

I'm quite happy about that.

Okay. Let's start hammer grabbing again.

Later that night, after receiving an urgent call from Charles Barkhouse, Rick

Lagina hurries to the Money Pit drill site.

Hey, Rick.

Yeah. It's still going.

What are we looking at?

You can hear the pieces still caving there.

That ain't good.

Nope.

The caving that occurred around the HH shaft earlier today has suddenly become

a much larger sinkhole, a sinkhole that is now growing at an alarming rate.

You can hear rumblings underground, and I have no idea what's about to happen.

Let's go take a look.

Let's do this.

Eyes and boots.

I agree. We know the integrity of the Earth, if you will, is, you know, it's

compromised.

Oh, baby.

Be careful.

Oh.

That is huge.

Rick! Hang on one second.

Okay, everybody, that's enough curiosity. Let's go.

I'm worried, I'll be honest with you.

My thoughts run to we may be done.

After a harrowing and near sleepless night on Oak Island, brothers Rick and

Marty Lagina, along with their partner Craig Tester and Dave Blankenship, make

their way back to the Money Pit area.

They have come to see if the sinkhole that opened up at the H-8 drill site has

gotten any worse.

How bad?

Last night, when I got there, it was about six feet across.

I called Mike Jardine. He arranged to have two of his crew come.

They moved the crane. I moved the excavator and the backhoe because there

was some thought that it was going to continue to subside. You know, when

Danny came this morning, he had ideas that the caisson was going to be like

this, that the power pack would be hanging by the hoses off of the

oscillator.

Well, let's go have a look.

What did you do to our hole?

Gentlemen.

Everything is your fault. You realize that, right?

Hey, guys. Hey. All right, let's have a look. All right.

How bad?

Eight feet deep, about 11 feet across.

This fell in last night.

Piece just fell right in.

It's undermined already.

Careful. It is a little dicey on the lip.

Yeah, and I'm glad nobody got hurt.

Void definitely found its way to the top. Yeah, good thing nobody was

standing over there when I went in.

This is no good.

The further collapse of the ground surrounding the HH shaft is deeply

concerning for Rick, Marty, and their partners.

It could mean that the entire area is now too unstable for the 220-ton crane

and oscillator to continue working, and that a catastrophic collapse could be

imminent.

I'll be honest, it was of some concern that we were in jeopardy.

I'm worried if we can't get to that work and get it done, completed, we're going

to be in trouble.

There are voids underneath here. There are. Yeah.

If you put a bunch of shafts in the same area and be pulling them and moving them

and all that stuff, you're going to get some water and you're going to get

settling. Yes, we're eroding it away underneath there. Yes. There still is a

danger at any time. There always is. There always is. Yes, that's right.

Well, I hate to say it, but one of these days we're all going to be standing here

and just disappear.

It's a decent possibility at any point that the whole money pit area could

collapse. It's not just lip service when we say safety is paramount out here. I

mean, this is a very dangerous place. It's a very dangerous undertaking, and

we have to minimize it.

We're all about safety. Rick has said it a million times. We're not going to do

anything foolish.

Okay, well, then the key is to wait for the engineer to come, render an opinion,

and hopefully proceed.

So that's the plan.

See you guys. Take care. See you guys.

For Rick, Marty, and the Oak Island team, a week that began with great

promise now ends with the most devastating setback they've ever

experienced. But is the Money Pit area collapsing as the result of more than

two centuries of searchers digging here?

Or is something more mysterious and perilous happening?

Like the flood tunnels, could Rick and Marty... have encountered yet another

ingeniously designed booby trap, one that was said to be triggered if anyone

got too close.

If so, perhaps it is a sign that the brothers are closer than they think to

solving this 223-year-old mystery, a mystery whose origins might be linked to

a simple piece of paper placed there for safekeeping centuries ago.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island.

It's time to redo the dye test.

We're going to get everybody lined out here real quick, see if that red dye

comes out and where. We're ready to begin.

Let's do this.

Here comes the water.

Whoa! Cut! Cut! Kill it!

Kill it!

There's no treasure in the world worth anyone getting hurt. There's some weird

anomaly in the water. We're on our way. What is that? If we get red dye in

Smithsville, I might become a believer. There it is, look. Oh, I think I see it.

That's the red guy.