Original subtitles

AARON: What's exciting is it's like some sort of cribbing.

-Oh, yeah. -And it keeps going.

Good find, Mike. Look at that head.

LAIRD: It could, in theory,

go back to the early 1700s.

GARY: Whoo-wee!

-You sound excited. -It's an old coin.

-(Gary whoops) -JACK: All right.

DOUG: To me, the Money Pit is related to the mound.

MARTY: Maybe you're looking at spoils

from the original Money Pit.

There you go.

NARRATOR: There is an island in the North Atlantic

where people have been looking for an incredible treasure

for more than 200 years.

So far, they have found a stone slab

with strange symbols carved into it,

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.

♪ ♪

-RICK: Hey, guys. -BILLY: Hey, Rick.

So, we formulated a-a general plan.

You'll track in

and then start pulling off the mud on top of that feature.

BILLY: Yep.

NARRATOR: Another hopeful day

has just begun on Oak Island

as brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,

along with members of their team,

continue an investigation

of one of the most perplexing and compelling structures

ever discovered in the 225-year-old treasure mystery:

a stone-paved pathway, or possibly a ship's wharf,

found beneath the brackish water and muck

in the southeastern corner of the triangle-shaped swamp.

My thought is we dig the trench,

creating that distinction

between the feature itself and the land proper.

And you may want to follow that up

if, indeed, it does go into the upland

to gain some sort of sense

-of the orientation of the feature. -Direction.

Yeah. For sure.

RICK: So, track in

-and dig this side. -Yep.

-All right? -BILLY: Yep.

-(engine starts) -RICK: Heads up!

There's the feature right there.

-That's the edge. -Perfect.

This is the edge of it, Bill! Right here.

-BILLY: Okay. -NARRATOR: In order to ensure

that the feature is not damaged while being fully uncovered,

heavy equipment operator

Billy Gerhardt will carefully dig

along each side of it

while archaeologists Dr. Aaron Taylor and Laird Niven

supervise the operation,

cleaning off the rocky surface while searching

for any valuable clues or artifacts

that may be found either on or around it.

JACK: Aw, I know there's something good

just laying under the muck somewhere in here.

AARON: Wow. Look at that.

-We have more of this timber. -GARY: Yeah.

AARON: I can see there's a wood right there.

-See? We got... -JACK: Oh, yeah!

AARON: And we got this right here.

-JACK: There is some sort of a structure. -Yeah.

JACK (chuckles): That's awesome!

NARRATOR: A wood structure?

Could it be connected to the stone pathway?

Or has the team uncovered a different

and completely separate man-made feature?

-(metal detector beeping) -Ooh! Come on.

Be something good.

NARRATOR: One week ago, while investigating

-the stone feature... -GARY: Oh!

-A nice old pin. Look at that. -Oh!

...metal detection expert Gary Drayton and Jack Begley

discovered a potentially important find

dating back to what Gary believes

could be as early as the 17th century.

GARY: That is some kind of speciality tool.

-JACK: A plumb bob. -GARY: Yeah,

-it's like a plumb bob. -JACK: Yeah.

You'd have something like that if you were digging shafts.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that Billy Gerhardt

has just found the part of this structure

connected to the plumb bob discovered by Gary and Jack?

AARON: Oh, is there another one going the other way?

JACK: Let's see if it extends a little bit more this way.

Yeah. It comes back to over here.

What's exciting is it's like it's cribbing.

You've got a-a post or beam going this way.

Then you've got one, looks like it's coming the perpendicular.

And then you've got another one under it

parallel to the top one.

So, sort of... Some sort of cribbing or something

underneath the feature.

They would've cribbed it, and then they would've

put the stones on top of the wood.

They're definitely stacked.

Like, they're intentionally placed.

-RICK: It's no small feat. -AARON: Yeah. So, I'd like

to keep doing what we're doing.

Find out what those, uh, logs are doing.

Billy, do you want to just keep trenching this along?

Yeah.

RICK: It's a lot of work logistically

just to gather the quantities of material

needed for the construct.

And then there had to be someone

who made some sort of engineering analysis

that the peat and some sort of cribbing

would carry the weight.

So, is it bigger than what we see?

Does it extend under the road?

It makes you rethink what your understanding is.

If we clear this face

and see this whole thing exposed, I mean, that's gonna...

That's a wealth of information right there.

-Yeah, yeah. -AARON: Yeah, we can go a little deeper.

Give us a-a bigger profile.

Just keep slowly following

this sort of angle,

and, uh, hopefully, we'll uncover it

all the way up to the upland.

We really want to see the interface

between the feature and the uplands.

Is there a road leading up the slope?

This feature was built

in order to help them take something somewhere.

So, we're just gonna keep following the feature

and see where it leads us.

LAIRD: Aaron?

-Aaron? -(scraping)

JACK: Oh!

(grunts)

Yeah, I'm getting more of the cribbing going...

-JACK: Really? -AARON: Yeah.

We're coming up onto the upland right there.

Perfect. So, you know what? Maybe just...

Even just five more feet that way uphill

-if you can do that. -Yep.

AARON: So, I'm gonna go up and check

-on the, uh, Serpent Mound. -Okay.

And, um, yeah, let me...

Let me know if anything else pops up.

-Yep. I'll give you a call. -All right.

AARON: All right. See you guys later.

-LAIRD: See you later. -JACK: See you, Aaron.

NARRATOR: While Rick Lagina and the team

continue their investigation in the swamp...

TERRY: So, this is turning into kind of an interesting hole.

Potentially, we're into a vertical debris field.

NARRATOR: Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse,

geologist Terry Matheson

and project manager Scott Barlow are supervising

the sonic core-drilling operation

in the Money Pit area,

an operation

designed to look for evidence

of what people have been searching for since 1795:

the fabled Money Pit treasure vault.

We're certainly hoping to find more loose material

and pieces of a chest,

pieces of something that would indicate

we had a collapse from the vault.

-Yeah. -That would be nice. -So, let's...

-Yeah. -Let's go see what we can see.

-Okay? -Okay. Go get it.

NARRATOR: Currently, the team is drilling a borehole

known as F.25-9.75,

one of more than 20 across the Money Pit area

that they will be extracting core samples from

down to depths of as much as 200 feet

in search of a massive void

where the treasure is believed to have fallen

after more than two centuries of digging by previous searchers

followed by cave-ins caused by an elaborate system

of believed man-made flood tunnels.

That's a lot of material.

Go over and manhandle that anaconda.

(grunts)

What do we got here, gentlemen?

TEDFORD: So, the bottom is

-208 and a half. -Thank you.

And right there is 178.

TERRY: This is the kind of loose material

we'd hope to see if something were sitting stably...

relatively stable above it.

Eventually, it could wash out,

and things could descend or fall.

But you're getting into more consistent material here.

Nothing's gonna drop down through that, and that's cakey.

Why we would have

slushy material like there or to the left or right of this

and bedded material there, I mean, that's...

that's hard to say.

So, here we are touching down on bottom at 209.

Into solid bedrock beneath this relatively loose material,

but unfortunately, probably not loose enough

to, uh, have a descending column of debris

-that we're looking for. -SCOTT: I guess

she's gonna keep her secret one more day.

One more day.

NARRATOR: While Charles, Terry and Scott

assess their next move at the Money Pit...

near the 10-X drill site,

Jack Begley has joined

Gerhardt Property Improvement representatives

Michael John and John Winters

at the wash table,

where they are sorting through spoils

that were excavated last year

from Borehole OC-1 in the Money Pit area,

a borehole where the team encountered

what they believe to be a wooden tunnel

at a depth of some 150 feet

and which was dated to 1706,

nearly a century before the discovery

of the original treasure shaft.

JACK: If we tapped into an old tunnel,

maybe we'll be able to recover more than just wood.

Maybe there's some other indications

of-of tools or who knows what

in this old structure that we brought up.

Keep your eyes peeled for anything that's man-made.

♪ ♪

Hey, Jack. Check this out.

Whoa.

Good find, Mike.

-It's square. -Yeah.

And look at that head!

Do you see that?

It looks like it, uh,

it might be pounded into an old rosehead.

-MICHAEL JOHN: Exactly. Yeah. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: While searching through the spoils

excavated one year ago from Borehole OC-1,

Jack Begley and members of the Oak Island team

have just found what could be a potentially important clue.

Yeah, that's been around awhile.

JACK: This is a pretty large fastener.

That could be something that dates

-with the old wood we found. -Yeah.

-That could be very early 1700s. -Wow.

NARRATOR: Could this rosehead spike

be connected to the wooden structure

found some 150 feet deep in this same borehole last year,

and which was dated to 1706?

If so, could it be more evidence

that the Oak Island team is close

to locating the original Money Pit?

This is the type of thing that we're looking for.

I mean, that's another indication that

humans were doing something a long time ago,

-deep in the Money Pit. -That's right. Yeah.

JACK: It'd be interesting to see exactly what dating

-we do get off this. -MICHAEL JOHN: Yeah.

And see how it compares.

Yeah. To other spikes.

Let me text Laird

-and get him to come over here. -Sure.

JACK: You know, we've encountered something here

that predates the Money Pit,

back to the early 1700s, maybe?

You know, associated with that wood?

So, it's definitely worth taking seriously.

Hello, hello.

Hey, Laird. Look at this. Here, pass that over to Laird.

Tell us what you think about that

and let's see if you point out the same thing I-I did.

Okay.

Well, it's a big spike.

Iron, obviously.

It's got kind of a classic rosehead.

JACK: This doesn't resemble any of the searcher nails

that I've seen before.

Do you have any idea

of the date that that would've been made?

You know, it could, in theory, go back to the early 1700s.

JACK: That's great. That fits right in with the 1706 date

that we got from the piece of timber down there.

LAIRD: I mean, we can clean it up

and take a look at it, for sure.

I mean, you can take it to Christa Brosseau as well.

That's pretty cool.

JACK: I think we have to see

if we can clarify that date,

because this could be an old deposit

or maybe an old unknown

shaft or tunnel.

I think we could be into some really old works.

-Well, thanks, Laird. -LAIRD: All right. Okay.

Find anything else, let me know.

JACK: Definitely.

-Thanks for the opinion, Laird. -All right. Okay. See ya later.

JACK: Really nice find, Mike.

NARRATOR: The following morning,

Rick and Marty Lagina's friend

and business partner Craig Tester

has arrived on Oak Island for the first time this year,

after a 14-day quarantine

mandated for his entry into Nova Scotia

amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Hey, guys.

-Hey, Craig. -Hey. Welcome back.

-IAN: How are you? -Thank you. Thank you.

Unfortunately, no handshakes, eh?

-RICK: No. -DOUG: Not in this day and age.

-Welcome back. -Thank you.

Question is: is it good to be back?

It's very good to be back.

You know, it's kind of different being gone for so long.

And usually, I'm a type of person that...

I don't get excited until I'm there,

wherever I'm going, whether it's vacation or coming here.

-Mm-hmm. -And this time I was more excited

to get here... and then I get here

and you go into two weeks of quarantine.

(Rick chuckles)

-You survived. -I survived. Yeah.

I got a lot done. So, you know,

I started reviewing what we found

and eager to get drilling

and, uh, really eager to look at the swamp and stuff.

Well, Doug-- Doug was just filling us in,

the status of the drilling.

-Mm-hmm. -DOUG: So, we've done

21 holes around RF-1

and we haven't had any success in finding

the original Money Pit. And I think it had to be

between RF-1 and OC-1.

So, I mean, I guess that's why I'm excited

about the spot you're interested in, over by OC-1.

CRAIG: Yeah. And you know,

I'm encouraged to keep on looking in this area.

And I looked at a lot of the wells in the area

and there's a lot of weird stuff going on

at the 150- to 165-foot level.

-So, do you have a grid set up? -Uh, yeah.

And what's on this map was kind of the, uh...

the original ones that we talked about early in the year.

And I asked them to jump on this one first.

It's, uh, E-12.

And we picked that location

because of a little bit of wood we brought up from OC-1.

You know, we hit it right at 150 feet,

which should've been about where the vault was.

NARRATOR: In the summer of 1897,

treasure hunter Frederick Blair

and his drill operator William Chappell

were stunned when their drill rod penetrated

a seven-foot-tall wooden box

that was encased in concrete

at a depth of some 150 feet in the Money Pit.

Upon extracting their drill rod,

they were shocked to discover traces of gold on the bit,

as well as a scrap of parchment

bearing the letters "VI."

Now, in light of both the wood found last year

dating to 1706

and the rosehead spike just discovered in the OC-1 spoils,

it is Craig's hope that his new grid

of proposed drill holes in this area

will yield more evidence of the so-called "Chappell Vault."

MARTY: The goals of the drilling program

are to find evidence of the Chappell Vault

and/or real treasure

and/or the collapse of the Money Pit.

But we're finding tunnels up there, too.

If these are searcher tunnels, why were they up there?

And if they're original tunnels,

well, that's more exciting.

I've looked through the historical record.

There is absolutely no mention I can find

of a searcher structure that deep.

And the dates on the wood, just coming well before

the start of the known hunt.

-You know, what is that there? -CRAIG: Yeah.

DOUG: I'm really hoping that your program is gonna bring

-something new to the table, for sure. -Hopefully.

Craig, I'm sure you're excited about getting up top.

-So... -Absolutely.

RICK: Okay. Well, we start today.

-CRAIG: Okay. -So, the rig's up there

and ready and running.

-I want to go to the swamp. -Yeah.

RICK: Okeydoke. We got a lot going on.

NARRATOR: While Rick, Craig and members of the team

finish their meeting in the war room...

LAIRD: This is pretty neat.

It's amazing.

...Jack Begley, Gary Drayton,

Laird Niven and Billy Gerhardt

continue efforts to uncover the mysterious stone pathway

in the southeast corner of the swamp.

You know, to speculate that it went upland,

and then to see it?

It's pretty cool.

GARY: Let's see what we got here.

We've got a good plan in place.

Billy is gonna be scraping the surface mud off the feature,

and he's gonna be dumping the spoils.

This should be the mother lode

of coins and artifacts

that we've been waiting for

in the swamp.

(beeping softly)

GARY: Got a good sounding target here, Billy.

Good.

If I can find the bugger.

Whoo-wee!

Hey, hey, hey!

GARY: Whoo-wee!

Hey, hey, hey! It's an old coin!

What?!

NARRATOR: While investigating

the spoils just removed

from atop the stone road

in the southeast corner of the swamp...

It looks like an old copper coin.

-Whoo-hoo! -All right!

...metal detection expert Gary Drayton

has just found what could be a telling clue.

You sound excited.

GARY: You got that right, mate!

Just pulled out a coin.

How old?

GARY: I would say late 1600s,

early 1700s.

And it came out of that fill.

-Here, Bill? -Yeah.

Yeah. Just right here in front of me.

That's kind of weird, because the 1652 maravedi

came out of a mound.

-Oh, (bleep). -RICK: What is it?

NARRATOR: Over the past decade,

during Rick, Marty and Craig's search operations...

Whoa!

...they and their team have found

a number of 17th-century coins in and near the swamp,

including a Spanish 8 Cob maravedi

that dated to 1652,

as well as two English coins

dating back to as early as 1673.

-Unbelievable. -I can't believe it, honestly.

That's pretty cool.

NARRATOR: And just last year

the team found a circular, man-made formation of boulders

at the so-called "Eye of the Swamp"

which geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner dated

to approximately 1680.

Is it possible that they have now found

more evidence of human activity in the Oak Island swamp

dating back to the 17th century?

If so, could it also help identify

who may have constructed this mysterious stone pathway?

And was it built by someone looking for treasure?

Or by someone who made a deposit?

A coin expert should be able

to get this cleaned up enough to get

some features off it.

To me, that looks like an old colonial copper.

Well, the hope would be that it was contemporaneous with this.

GARY: Yeah.

Well, it's a pretty cool find.

Yeah. That's a top-pocket find, Gary.

Oh, I believe it is a top-pocket find.

RICK: You know what? And there might be

-more in there. -Yeah. Okay, mate. -Yep.

-Okay. -You make more finds.

LAIRD: We'll try.

(beeping)

JACK: Another hit!

Yeah. That is an iron target just there.

I don't know. I-I...

-I think this is part of the stone structure. Yeah. -You're on the rock?

Yeah. Don't-don't dig into the rocks, if you can.

-(beeping) -Oh.

I think you got it out.

Yeah, it's a little piece of iron.

(beeping)

I think it might actually be a ox shoe nail,

by the look of it.

JACK: It's a good sign they were hauling things.

NARRATOR: Earlier this summer,

Gary and Jack Begley found numerous British ox shoes

along what appeared to be an ancient path.

GARY: Now you've got ox shoes

in an area where we know there hasn't been a lot of farming.

So, it could be an old track.

Yeah, and it lines right back towards the tar kiln.

NARRATOR: This would suggest that heavy cargo of some kind

had been transported between the swamp

and what archaeologist David MacInnes believes could be

a 16th-century British-made pine tar kiln on Lot 15,

a pine tar kiln that is also potentially connected

to the construction of the original Money Pit.

Even the smallest artifact can tell a story.

And this small ox shoe nail that we've just recovered

tells us that there's been hauling going on in this area.

Hey, I'd like to believe that,

along this trail, there was treasure.

That'll clean up nicely.

Okay, mate. I will continue scanning.

NARRATOR: While the excavation in the swamp continues...

...in the Money Pit area,

Craig Tester joins Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse

and geologist Terry Matheson

for a progress report on Borehole E-12,

the first borehole

in his strategically designed grid program

near OC-1,

where, last year, the team discovered evidence

of a man-made tunnel some 150 feet deep.

So, we're well above our target horizon.

What did you expect to see here?

I was mainly focusing on the-the tunnel area.

You know, I got thinking about this tunnel

-that we found and it being at, you know, 1706. -Yeah.

-Yeah. -I'm thinking, well,

if it's an original structure,

then is it a flood tunnel or is it a...

you know, leading off to the vault

-or something? So... -TERRY: Exactly.

CHARLES: Which might explain what this tunnel is,

because there's nothing in the historical record

-of a tunnel being over in that area. -No.

And that's too deep for the early searchers.

TERRY: The idea that there's a tunnel over there--

wow. Very interested to follow up on that.

There is just a-a lot of odd stuff going

-in this northeast corner. -TERRY: Absolutely.

Surely nice to see a...

few chunks of wood in this next one.

-What, would be 139 to 149 section? -Yeah, right at the bottom.

TERRY: Here's hoping.

I'm gonna give Brennan a hand.

It's awfully watery there when you're...

So, this is the bottom.

And this is the top of the run.

What's the depth, Brennan?

-149. -149?

-All right. -This is the sweet zone, Craig.

TERRY: Let's poke through it.

Look at this one very, very carefully.

Some dark areas here.

Could point to a disturbance.

It looks like it's a...

a little bit of limestone in it, a little bit of clastic,

cobbles.

Unfortunately, there's no...

wood interspersed among it.

♪ ♪

We have a number of holes yet to go, so...

-we'll look at the map and see where we're gonna go next. -Yeah.

This area's got a whole lot of things going for it.

So, we're here.

So we'll hit these three,

going on a circle around here.

TERRY: We'll just come off of this one, E-12,

and move about seven feet to the northwest.

So, the next one will be D-11.

Okay. I'm gonna be going a lot between here and the swamp.

Yeah. We'll give a call, uh, as we approach the target horizon.

Okay.

TERRY: Good. Take care.

CRAIG: Catch you later.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: While the core-drilling operation

gets underway at Borehole D-11

in the Money Pit area,

metal detection expert Gary Drayton

joins archaeologists Dr. Aaron Taylor,

Liz Michels and Miriam Amirault on Lot 15,

where they are continuing to investigate

a recently discovered

130-foot-long earth and stone feature

that has been dubbed the Serpent Mound

due to its curious snakelike shape.

Morning, guys!

-Hey, Gary. -Hi! -Hiya.

I'm looking forward to getting stuck in here.

NARRATOR: Two weeks ago...

Ooh. I got charcoal.

...Dr. Taylor discovered burned charcoal,

offering evidence of significant human activity within the mound.

But when Rick, Marty and Craig had it carbon-dated,

the results were nothing short of astonishing.

CRAIG: That one

had a date of 1320 to 1440.

-Period? -What?

-MARTY: Wow. -It might be the Knights Templar.

-Do you want to give it a little... -GARY: Yeah.

Course.

(metal detector beeping)

Not detecting anything.

Might be in that last bucket.

LIZ: All right.

(beep)

-There's something around here. -(beep)

(beeping)

You've definitely got something substantial there.

Oh, yeah. That one's definitely there still.

(beeping)

In my hand.

Ooh!

That's interesting. I know it's away from the feature,

but it is another one of those old-looking spikes.

Wow.

That's a square one.

It looks quite old, and it had a specific use.

We don't find many that come down to a point like this.

That served a purpose.

Do you think that end might be broken?

-It's hard to say. -GARY: No. It was made that way, mate.

It's hand-forged though.

But it could fall into that timeframe

of the other artifacts we've recovered in this area.

I'd say, easily, 1700s.

You can just look at the size of the nail

and figure that maybe there was

some kind of decking around here,

because that looks like a deck nail to me.

NARRATOR: A hand-forged spike

discovered within the mysterious serpent-shaped mound

and potentially dating back

to before the discovery of the Money Pit?

Could it be another important clue

that could help explain this feature's purpose and origin?

That's a great find, Gary.

And the more work we do on this feature,

the more finds we're gonna recover.

AARON: I think you're right. All right, well, I'm gonna get back at it.

Okay, guys. I'm gonna let you do your jobs.

-All right. See you guys soon. -All right.

GARY: Cheers.

NARRATOR: While the investigation

of the serpent-shaped mound on Lot 15 continues,

and while Rick Lagina and members of the team

continue to carefully uncover

the massive stone-paved feature in the swamp...

CRAIG: Hey, Terry. How's it goin'?

Not too bad.

...Craig Tester arrives at the Money Pit,

having just been informed by geologist Terry Matheson

and surveyor Steve Guptill

of a potentially major development

in the core-drilling operation of Borehole D-11.

It was at that horizon where we've seen a lot of tunnels.

-Okay. -You know, 100 to 105-ish area,

where we're hoping to encounter

the tunnel we intersected in OC-1.

-Yeah. -The most important thing

from that horizon was, somewhere around 100 feet,

we seem to have encountered a tunnel.

NARRATOR: A tunnel?

Found some 100 feet deep

and right in the vicinity of OC-1?

Could it be evidence of one of the legendary flood tunnels

protecting whatever lies at the bottom of the Money Pit?

Or could it be a structure

that might lead to the treasure itself?

There was no real cribbing.

There was just dark material.

The-the clay and everything was stirred up and obliterated

and a few slivers of wood.

-Yeah. -Doesn't seem to have any known origin.

What type of tunnel, we're not sure.

Uh, searcher and placer, we're not sure.

But it's at that horizon where it's good digging for tunnels.

So, this is a mystery to us. We don't know what

-we're in right now. -TERRY: But, again, early days on this whole...

phase of the work.

So, time's gonna tell on that.

STEVE G.: Mm-hmm. Here we go.

(grunts)

-CRAIG: Good job! -Ooh! -(laughs)

What's the bottom?

TERRY: We got 144 to...?

-152.5. -CRAIG: Okay.

STEVE G.: Well, that's our target zone.

Just break it up a little bit here.

So, we're looking for, ideally, a sliver or two of wood.

There's some blackening. That's a little dark-ish.

-Yeah. That's what I was wondering about. -STEVE G.: What does that mean?

TERRY: Well, ofttimes when you're in and around wood,

you see that the wood imparts kind of a dark coloration.

Just like that sec-section from 97 to about 101,

102 above, where we saw that--

that was all darkened up, so...

It's possible-- Ofttimes,

it'll get that coloration from being around wood.

We might be close to something.

CRAIG: We get down

to about 150 feet again,

and... there's some odd things going on,

which is a good indicator.

We did decide to take it deeper,

and, uh, I'm eager

to see what answers it gives us.

-It's inconclusive. Yeah. -Inconclusive?

But, I mean, we're talking about a narrow tunnel here.

But we still, you know--

We could be plus or minus a foot or two.

So, we still got a little bit in the next core

that might be of interest.

You know, we're just a couple feet off of OC-1,

so I think that core is important.

I mean, they need to keep on going deeper.

We'll take the next 20 feet

and pull up and see what we get.

-STEVE G.: All right. -TERRY: All right.

Let's see what happens.

CHARLES: Hey, guys.

How you doing, chaps?

NARRATOR: While search operations continue

in the Money Pit area and on Lot 15,

at the triangle-shaped swamp,

Rick Lagina and members of the team

have now made significant progress

in uncovering the massive

70-foot-long by 20-foot-wide stone road

in the southeastern corner.

Got a few answers to some questions,

so I'm pretty happy with how the day went.

RICK: When you're staring down

at this stone feature, it's amazing.

It's remarkable. It's out of place.

Why is this structure needed?

We have no idea.

It's almost impossible to put yourself back 300 or 400 years.

That begs answering.

But we've got to uncover more of the road

to find exactly where it's going.

Why don't we start...? Uh, when we head down, we'll start

at Miriam's-- I call it Miriam's segment.

-RICK: Mm-hmm. -Uh, right there.

We'll start there, and then,

we'll work our way this way.

The feature is exceedingly interesting.

I know that Marty hasn't been brought up to speed yet.

I think we should tell him what you see happening here.

-Sure. -And, uh, give him

a better understanding of-of what's going on here.

Let me give him a call.

(line ringing)

Hey, are you there?

-I'm here, yeah. -We are in the swamp.

You know a little bit about that feature

that was found-- that rock feature.

-You mean the road? The road that... -The road.

-Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. -Exactly.

So, the archeologists have been working away.

They've revealed quite a bit of the structure.

But this is certainly an ongoing project,

in terms of not only revealing

the structure, but understanding it.

So, anyway, we'll walk down there,

and we'll show you a little bit of what's been, uh, revealed.

And I'll turn the phone over to Aaron.

Thank you. I really appreciate this. I'm very interested.

Hi, Marty. Can you see, uh, the profile there?

Yes.

All right. So, we got huge stones.

Now moving up to the center of the feature,

we have these poles.

-MARTY: Wow. -So, we have these poles

on the eastern side, and they're running under the stone.

So, some sort of support, which probably makes sense,

because if you just put these big stones in the swamp,

they're just gonna keep sinking.

So, this road was built

in the swamp.

This is amazing, though,

'cause nobody... no searcher

even mentions this road.

-Yup. -RICK: It may turn

to the right and go to the Money Pit.

MARTY: That would mean it'd been there for a long time already.

So, then it's

super significant.

I was gobsmacked when I saw the road.

This pathway could either lead to where the treasure's buried

or lead to a very significant clue,

like a staging area or something like that.

Could be the biggest clue we've discovered this year.

So, yeah, we have to follow. We need to know where it goes.

SCOTT: This... It appears that we're the first ones

to have any hands on it since it was probably used.

So, hopefully, we can get some answers from it.

-Yup. -GARY: The more we uncover,

the more artifacts we're gonna find in this area,

and the more we'll know about who made this feature.

-Yeah. For sure. -RICK: I'm grateful

that we stayed the course because, you know,

I always thought the swamp was the keeper of secrets.

But without everybody believing that,

we would have perhaps left the area,

and this would have remained undiscovered.

-It really has. -MARTY: I remember

clearly when you wanted to quit on the swamp,

and I said, "Rick, no way!

-No way!" -(laughter)

MARTY: I'm surprised, 'cause I didn't think

there was anything in there but swamp stuff.

And I'm gratified that Rick's intuition was correct.

You guys are doing great.

I-I'm just super gratified, wish I could be there.

This is cool. Good stuff.

-RICK: Okay, take care. -AARON: Thanks, Marty.

MARTY: Yup. Bye-bye.

NARRATOR: Before another successful day

comes to an end on Oak Island...

RICK: I really appreciate everybody

-coming into the war room today. -NARRATOR: ...brothers Rick

and Marty Lagina, along with members

of their team, gather for a meeting

via videoconference with Dr. Christa Brosseau...

Hello, Dr. Brosseau.

NARRATOR: ...a professor of chemistry

at St. Mary's University,

to hear her analysis of the two spikes

recently found on the island.

One in the spoils of OC-1, and the other

discovered in the serpent-shaped mound on Lot 15.

So, Dr. Brosseau, we welcome you to the war room, and, uh,

if you'd be kind enough to present your analysis,

we look forward to it.

Yeah. So, I have the object here with me-- the spike.

GARY: There it is. Oh, it looks a little bit

better now it's cleaned up.

The spike does go directly perpendicular into the head

of the spike, which is an indication

that it's been man-made and not made by machine.

I'm gonna share my screen with you here

so you can see the data.

In terms of the elemental analysis--

and this is really where the...

you know, the take-home message is--

no manganese, um, contains phosphorus.

Point five percent.

So, pre-1840 wrought iron.

Consistent with a pre-1790 style of spike, and

almost identical to the spike that you found

in OC-1 or the-the Money Pit.

Phosphorus is a fairly rare find for floor objects

on Oak Island. We found a few,

but at exactly the same phosphorus content,

I would say that it's possible

that these two spikes, um,

were made at the same time.

GARY: Wow.

-GARY: Wow. -DOUG: Wow.

NARRATOR: In the Oak Island war room...

They look very similar.

Could be the same blacksmith that made both of 'em.

NARRATOR: ...chemist Dr. Christa Brosseau

has just informed Rick, Marty and the team

that the hand-forged spike found deep in OC-1

and another found within the serpent-shaped mound on Lot 15

are identical, and also date back prior

to the discovery of the original Money Pit.

Based upon the ox shoes and the other work we've found,

people were doing work for several years here.

DOUG: Let's say that whatever operation

was going on here on the island--

let's say depositor operation--

they must have prepared for it in some way.

-You would think. -So, if they had a blacksmith

make up a bunch of spikes for a purpose, can we tell if

these two spikes are related to each other?

Yeah. It's possible by looking at the slag inclusion

and the concentration of the elements in the slag,

um, to see whether or not, for example,

the same recipe might have been

-used to produce these two spikes. -There you go.

It's sort of like a window into the metal

and also sometimes the process used to make it.

That would be very telling,

because that would almost definitively

connect the two spots together.

The Money Pit is absolutely related

to the mound feature on-on 15.

-If that was the case. -MARTY: Maybe you're looking at

spoils from, let's say, the original Money Pit.

Because how is this nail

the exact same as found in OC-1?

Yeah.

NARRATOR: Could Marty Lagina be correct

that the serpent-shaped mound is simply the spoils left behind

as a result of a previous excavation of the Money Pit?

If so, was it by someone looking for treasure,

or by someone who made a deposit?

RICK: It's significant that a rosehead spike found

at the base of this feature resembles closely,

metallurgically, the spike found in OC-1.

If you can connect the artifact from one locale to another,

it provides insight as to the work,

perhaps, was contemporaneous.

That's an important clue.

Let's at least do the analysis

and see if it adds up to anything.

-That's a good idea. -Yeah.

The important thing that we need to-to keep,

uh, focused on: is it pre-searcher?

And if it's pre-searcher, then it's depositor.

Yeah.

And if these artifacts are tying in

with depositor, and we've got a swamp road that's

a stone's throw away,

I think this is getting very compelling

that there might be an association there.

So, we need to find more artifacts.

And can we use Billy's trowel?

-No. -(laughter)

Absolutely not.

Well, all I can say is, uh, thank you for the insight.

There'll be no lack of future finds.

-I guarantee you that. -Sounds good.

-Well, careful what you wish for. -(laughter)

GARY: We've got you on speed dial.

But again, thank you very much.

We-we certainly all appreciate it.

Absolutely. Bye-bye.

-RICK: Thank you. -DOUG: Bye.

NARRATOR: For Rick, Marty, Craig and their fellowship,

the answers to the 225-year-old

Oak Island treasure mystery appear closer than ever.

Is it possible that with the discovery

of a massive road in the triangle-shaped swamp,

they have found a pathway

that will lead them directly to a buried vault

containing gold, jewels

and even priceless relics in the Money Pit?

Or might it be pointing them to a different location

where the long-sought treasure deposit was first brought

to the island?

One thing is certain.

This team will not give up

until every clue is run to ground

and every stone is carefully overturned.

NARRATOR: Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

-(loud beeping) -I've got a hit here!

(gasps) It might be gold.

-That's gold, isn't it? -Wow! Hey-hey!

This is more high-end. Somebody with money.

It could've been for a secret box.

We're getting remnants of maybe the Money Pit.

-(grunts) -Wow! Okay. That's wood

-well below any expected depth. -Wow. That is an "Aha."

-Yeah. -MARTY: We got to keep drilling

because that could be the Money Pit itself.

-Yes, it could. -Drill!

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