Original subtitles

We have winkled that signal out, mate.

Fingers crossed.

-JACK: Yes! -GARY: Look at that roundness.

Zinc, lead, iron.

-GARY: Gold, Jack. -No way.

HELEN: There's a large piece of wood

that lines up with the road.

This is almost exactly what we were looking for.

It's more than we expected.

ALEX: Okay, look at this.

Bingo. This is Christmas.

That would apply to a chamber, wouldn't it?

It could apply to a chamber.

MARTY: Holy smokes.

NARRATOR: There is an island in the North Atlantic

where people have been looking for

an incredible treasure for more than 200 years.

So far, they have found a stone slab

with strange symbols carved into it...

...man-made workings that date to medieval times,

and a lead cross whose origin may be connected

to the Knights Templar.

To date, six men have died

trying to solve the mystery.

And according to legend, one more will have to die

before the treasure can be found.

♪ ♪

STEVE G.: All right, guys, the rigs moved off the last location.

Um, I think we're ready to pin D-1.5.

TERRY: Sounds good.

-CHARLES: Yep. -I got a good feeling.

NARRATOR: With the dawn of a new day on Oak Island,

brothers Rick and Marty Lagina

and their team are more hopeful than ever

that it could be the one in which they discover

what people have sought for 226 years:

a vast and potentially priceless treasure

buried deep in the fabled Money Pit.

As we know, that's a very successful--

we've been very successful in that area, at least.

-Yeah. -So, based on the evidence

and the data we've collected, I mean,

this is gonna be a successful hole.

-Every shot counts. -TERRY: Oh, yeah.

NARRATOR: Today, they are drilling Borehole D-1.5,

one of nearly 20 laid out across a strategic grid.

It is within this zone that they have already discovered

possible wooden tunnels between 75 and 90 feet deep

that could date back as far as the 15th century,

as well as mysterious metal objects and water samples

containing both silver and gold.

MARTY: The drill program, to date, has been very exciting.

We've found at least two separate pieces of iron

had gold flakes on them.

And the drill program brought up several pieces of wood

that dated well before any searcher

could possibly have been around the Money Pit.

Up till now it's been an information hunt this year.

Uh, now we're looking for treasure.

Now, there's a whole batch of evidence

that's going in the right direction for us.

-BRENNAN: That's great news. -Absolutely.

TERRY: So we've got to hope that this is the year.

BRENNAN: This is the hole.

This could be the hole.

CHARLES: We got a core coming.

-Right here. -ALEX: Oh, yeah.

This could be an interesting one.

What'd you get, Adam?

-ADAM: 84. -84.

ALEX: We're kind of on a roll this year,

more than any other year.

We have a lot of different signs

pointing in the same direction for where do we put the caisson.

-Let's hope it's wood. -We have actual hard evidence,

artifacts that we brought up that says,

"Yeah, we need to put a caisson down in this area."

But we also know from long experience

that we could miss it just by the smallest of margins.

And if you miss by an inch, you miss by a mile down there.

How's it looking so far?

CRAIG: We're at 84,

so we're right in the key areas, so...

Well, it could be something good.

Yeah.

-Well, we have wood. -ALEX: All right.

-BRENNAN: Good sign. -STEVE G.: Yeah, that is a good sign.

CHARLES: That is a good sign.

Is that a fairly substantial...

STEVE G.: It looks like it just grazed it.

TERRY: Yeah, it doesn't look like

-we hit it dead-on, does it? -No.

I say we grazed whatever structure that is.

-CRAIG: Just an edge of something? -Yeah.

That starts to give good indications

of tunnel, potentially, and that's what we're looking for:

a tunnel or a chamber right at about our sweet spot.

NARRATOR: More evidence of a tunnel

some 84 feet deep in Borehole D-1.5?

If so, could it be connected to the possible tunnel

encountered just two and a half feet away

at nearly the same depth one month ago in Borehole D-2?

Which not only contained evidence of gold

but was also carbon-dated to as early as 1488?

What were the depths of the previous targets?

Th-the wood samples that were, uh, 1488 to 1650...

-Yeah. Mm-hmm. -...which were within feet of this,

they were down to 88 to 91.

So this is shallow to anything we found

in the immediate area, that I recall.

-Yeah. -Now, it could be

that this is part of the tunnel system and this

is not collapsed here, where everything else

-has been collapsed... -STEVE G.: Oh, yes. -Exactly.

-That's an option. -...so we're seeing it down at the bottom.

Yep.

NARRATOR: Because of more than two centuries of digging

by previous searchers and devastating cave-ins

caused by one or more believed man-made flood tunnels,

unfortunately, the Oak Island team

can't be sure at this stage just what they are encountering

while drilling within their current grid system.

BRENNAN: Well, let's hope the next five feet

-gives us more. -CRAIG: Yeah.

Let's keep digging. See what else is there.

NARRATOR: While the drilling operation continues in the Money Pit area,

later that afternoon...

-JACK: Here's good. -STEVE G.: Yeah, this is where we want to be.

...Steve Guptill joins archaeologist Laird Niven,

metal detection expert Gary Drayton, Jack Begley

and Doug Crowell on Lot 4,

located on the western side of the island.

-Gentlemen. -So, what are the plans?

Steve's got a map of, uh, the magnetometer hits.

Okay.

So, Doug and I put a possible 11 targets together.

LAIRD: Okay.

So, for the hatch itself,

there's four that we really want to key in on.

The first map that, uh, we're gonna present

is the total field magnetic intensity.

Then you can really focus in on

what we like to call "anomalies."

NARRATOR: One week ago,

representatives from CSR GeoSurveys Limited

conducted a magnetometer scan of this area

and identified a number of buried iron objects.

This is a decent-size anomaly.

I mean, it's right next to the road.

That's near where the hatch

from Zena's map could be.

NARRATOR: Curiously, these targets lie in the same area on Lot 4

where a possible tunnel entrance, or hatch,

was labeled on a reported 14th century French map

of Oak Island that the late researcher Zena Halpern believed

to have been made by members of the Knights Templar.

-Let's go, navigator. -Lead on.

NARRATOR: Now the team is hoping Gary

can uncover compelling clues that might help them obtain

a special permit to conduct a much deeper dig

in search of the so-called hatch.

All right, the center of this location--

this is a large anomaly-- is about another ten feet in here,

but since this is open, we should start here.

-What do you think? -GARY: Yeah.

I should be able to winkle my way around there.

-I know it's overgrown, but... -LAIRD: You sure?

Yeah. I can get in there, mate.

No snipping of any trees.

-Okay. -STEVE G.: Okay.

-I'll get out of your way. -Okay, mate.

GARY: I want to know what the hatch is.

Is it a back entrance to the Money Pit,

or is it a possible vault

full of treasure?

But one thing for sure, if we can find the hatch location,

it would validate Zena Halpern's research and the French map.

(beeping)

Yep, good signal.

-JACK: Is it a hit? -That's a screamer.

JACK: That does sound great.

Yep, just here, mate.

Don't know what that is.

Good digging, mate.

(beeping)

You got it out.

Come on. Fingers crossed.

It's in my hand, whatever it is.

Ooh.

-Interesting piece of metal. -JACK: What is that?

GARY: Wow. What could that be?

NARRATOR: On Lot 4,

located on the western side of Oak Island...

I have no idea, but it's definitely interesting.

NARRATOR: ...Gary Drayton has made

a potentially important discovery

while searching for evidence of a hatch

or possible tunnel entrance.

JACK: I was thinking an old coin at first

that was just cut weird, but, yeah.

-It was awful deep. -Yeah, that was deep.

Any idea for the type of metal?

Can you see the patina on it?

-Or is that iron? -Let's see.

(beeping)

It sounds like a-a copper alloy,

so this could be very interesting

when it's cleaned up.

There might be some kind of decoration on there.

I have no idea what it is, but we should call Laird over.

Maybe Laird's seen something like this before.

Hey, Laird, mate.

-LAIRD: Yeah. -Can you come over here

and check this target out, please?

Sure thing.

LAIRD: What do you have?

-Uh, we got a-a deep target here, mate. -Okay.

I mean, you can see how deep we had to dig for that.

It's not iron.

It's some type of copper alloy, but unusual shape.

Maybe it's got some kind of decoration on it.

This is a very interesting artifact.

I don't know what it is.

It's potentially copper.

And this looks like it's got a design on it.

This is the type of find, uh, that tells a lot,

that someone else was out in this same area

possibly looking for the hatch.

-Well, it's too thin for a pot, like a cooking pot. -Yeah.

LAIRD: It definitely curves up.

-But definitely an interesting piece of metal. -Mm-hmm.

It could tell a story still when it's cleaned up.

It could.

GARY: All right, mate, let's tag it and bag it.

Fingers crossed that's old.

NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...

TERRY: Fresh core on the table?

CHARLES: Fresh core on the table.

...as the drilling operation continues in the Money Pit...

-ALEX: Hey, everybody. -MIRIAM: Hi.

-LAIRD: Hey, Alex. -You've been busy.

...Alex Lagina arrives

at the southeastern corner of the Oak Island swamp

to check in with archaeologists Laird Niven,

Helen Sheldon, Miriam Amirault

and Liz Michels as they continue investigating

the possibly 16th century stone road or ship's wharf.

We've done a lot of work. That's for sure.

-It looks like a ton of work, honestly. -Yeah.

And you've found some scraps of pottery but not here?

-Not here yet. -Mm-hmm.

LIZ: What you got?

LAIRD: I have a piece of pottery,

but I think it's really delicate.

-Okay. -This is definitely Mi'kmaq.

NARRATOR: Three weeks ago, while searching

near the recently unearthed stone pathway,

just adjacent to the believed stone wharf,

Laird discovered pieces of indigenous Mi'kmaq pottery

that he believes could be anywhere

between 500 and 2,500 years old.

Although how and when

these artifacts came to Oak Island is unknown,

their discovery resulted in the provincial Department

of Community, Culture and Heritage

imposing new regulations

on how the team is allowed to proceed

in their efforts to solve the Oak Island mystery.

So, this is for drilling.

We have free range inside of the green.

Any activity inside the green, we're allowed to pursue.

I see. And the red?

STEVE G.: Anything that falls outside of the green,

we need special permission to be inside of the red.

NARRATOR: While the new regulations do not apply to the Money Pit area,

they do require the team to seek special permission

to conduct any archaeological work

or large digging operations across the rest of the island.

But even more concerning is that they strictly prohibit

further investigation of the recently unearthed

stone pathway, which the team believes

may not only be connected to the stone wharf,

but is also heading directly toward the Money Pit.

Today, although they must stay away

from the restricted "buffer zone,"

Laird and the team have obtained permission

to search for clues on the far-west section

of the stone road, or wharf, to try and confirm

its possible date of construction.

ALEX: What have you found out?

What can you tell me?

So, this unit, we put in to try and see

what was happening with the stone road,

because it seemed to disappear here.

So, then, just before lunch,

we came down on a fairly level layer of stone,

-as you can see... -Mm-hmm.

...and there's a large piece of wood on the edge...

-ALEX: Oh, yeah, right there. -...that lines up

with the edge of the road

-going towards the north. -Wow.

-This is almost exactly what we were looking for. -LAIRD: Yeah.

ALEX: Is it not? I mean, a large piece of wood can be both carbon-dated

and dendrochronology, and it's part of the structure.

-LAIRD: Yes. -HELEN: Definitely.

LAIRD: It's actually

almost more than we expected.

-HELEN: It is more than we expected. -Yeah.

MIRIAM: All along that we've been working on the stone road,

the real question was, where is it going?

And it definitely continues out towards the beach.

And I think that's important, um,

in terms of kind of just understanding its purpose.

Anything on the other side, or...?

-Uh, we've only gone this far. -Okay.

If you look at our-our permit application,

that's what we're looking for.

-Right. -You know, artifacts or samples that we can date, so...

ALEX: We kind of have to take it,

find out what it is, and just cross our fingers

that it's not gonna shut us down.

Yeah, pretty much.

MARTY: The archaeologists have been a big part of our search

these last few years, and they're finding a lot,

but the elephant in the swamp

is, if we find First Nations stuff,

what are the rules gonna be?

And until we figure out a path forward

with this archaeological work, um, it's a little hazy

as to how much more gets done on this island.

LAIRD: So, we did a trench in the center,

and we got a nice large root under the stone road...

-Mm-hmm. -...so that's gone off for C-14.

-Mm-hmm. -That's gonna be the priority, I think.

Right. You know, this is kind of the biggest thing

from last year that we found.

-Yes. -And I really hope that that comes back...

-Yeah. -...dating to kind of our zone of interest,

-which is anything pre-1795. -Fingers crossed.

-HELEN: Yeah. -Well, I'll leave you to it.

-LAIRD: All right. Thanks, Alex. -Thanks again.

-HELEN: Thanks, Alex. -LAIRD: Okay, see you later.

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

TEDFORD: Oh, yeah.

ALEX: All right, guys, that's gonna be the one.

...Alex Lagina returns to the Money Pit

to join Craig Tester and members of the team

as they continue the core-drilling operation

in Borehole D-1.5.

TERRY: All right.

So this could be it, gentlemen.

-What you got, Adam? -ADAM: 88.5.

-88.5. -Thank you.

TERRY: Open her up, gentlemen.

This is Christmas.

I don't want to be holding off. Open up the presents.

CRAIG: D-1.5 i-is very close to D-2,

and D-2 is our go-to well at this point in time.

You know, to me, this is a big-can area.

I mean, what is down there?

We don't know, you know? Is there coins there?

Is there gold nuggets or whatever?

So, if we can-can bring up exactly what's there

and aid us in putting the big can down, uh, it'll be great.

Yeah, we got wood at the bottom again.

-Yep. -And here.

STEVE G.: I'm no pro,

but I'd say we're scraping down the side of something.

Interestingly, we have wood close to the bottom again.

It scrapes along the side of something.

Yeah, wh-what you said, Steve, you've got to start thinking,

maybe you're, uh, close to a vertical structure

and you're bumping down along the side of it.

-BRENNAN: A lot of chips. -STEVE G. Yeah.

TERRY: A lot of chips, yeah.

-That's almost round, isn't it? -STEVE G.: Yeah.

-BRENNAN: Could be just a knot or... -CRAIG: A round piece?

It-it has the appearance of being round.

ALEX: Yeah, I think it's ax-cut.

So, out of the core, we find a wood chip.

And this wood chip has kind of angled edges to it,

which indicates ax-cut.

An ax-cut,

to me, indicates the greater potential that it's very old.

CRAIG: It's pretty amazing.

Yeah, that's very interesting.

Any hit of wood below in situ material,

that generally says chamber

-or tunnel to me. -Yeah.

It's possibly veered over into a chamber

with stacked timbers on the perimeter.

Oh, wow.

-ALEX: We should call my dad. -CHARLES: Yeah.

-ALEX: Here they are. -NARRATOR: After being alerted

to a potentially important discovery in Borehole D-1.5...

What in the hell is going on here?

-(laughter) -Hey, Marty.

...Rick and Marty Lagina arrive

at the Money Pit for a more in-depth report.

-Here we go. -What happened?

-We hit some interesting things. -Yes?

We went into some wood at about 83 feet below grade.

We might have found a dowel.

At the bottom of, uh, our interesting intersection

at 92 to 93 feet,

we hit a beam about six inches', I'd say, thickness.

But we hit about ten feet intersection of materials.

ALEX: The till above was pretty dense.

It wasn't loose. And then suddenly

we hit wood, then this stuff, and then

we hit wood and we're out of it and it's dense again.

What if the ten-foot sort of thing means

it's coming up to a great big chamber?

That could be your offset chamber.

That's your offset chamber.

ALEX: That's what we were thinking, too.

MARTY: My leading theory about the Money Pit

is that there's an offset chamber.

If the Money Pit was designed to go down

and distract somebody from a chamber

that was actually tunneled off to one side,

which is what this is kind of suggesting,

then what you have is the perfect hiding spot because,

in the thinking of 100 or 200 years ago,

no one else could possibly ever find that.

There would be no way.

There'd be no surface disturbance,

there would be, there would be nothing.

Well, there's this rectangle where we hit wood.

TERRY: It's about 18 by...

by 12 feet.

That would apply to a chamber, too, wouldn't it?

-It could apply to a chamber. -Yeah.

Here is a piece of wood that, uh, Charles found.

And it looks like it might be rounded.

Like it's the outer edge,

which would give us a good date of when the tree was cut down.

Perhaps if this dates to be old, maybe the-the original workings

were constructed with dowels

-instead of, like, spikes to put stuff together. -MARTY: Oh, yeah.

-You know? -MARTY: Yeah.

So that could be part of a dowel.

If this wood tests,

you know, to that same 1488, whatever,

-to 1650... -That was at 90.5 feet,

-so we're right in that area. -Right there, right?

-CRAIG: Yeah. -The sweet spot.

-Maybe you're coming up on something. -Yes.

RICK: Okay, the next step, I think what we need to do

is we'll take this to 150, 150-ish.

Unless you find confirmation of something on this hole,

we'll probably do another in this area.

MARTY: All right, we have a plan.

TERRY: Hear, hear.

NARRATOR: As the archaeological work on the possible stone wharf

in the swamp continues...

JACK: I love this rainy weather.

...Jack Begley and metal detection expert Gary Drayton

have returned to Lot 4.

They are hoping to find evidence of the so-called hatch,

or possible tunnel entrance.

Okay, mate. That's another section of the transect.

So, we'll just continue this one through, mate.

-JACK: Mm-hmm. -(beeping)

GARY: That's a heck of a good start to this section.

I'm getting iron grunts, but you never know, mate.

That's gonna be tough digging. It's right on top of the stump.

Pit bull on a T-bone whenever I get a signal, mate,

-aren't you? -No, that was a lot easier

digging than what I thought it was.

I think it might be out.

It's an old stump.

(beeping)

GARY: A little scratchy signal.

-My guess is iron. -(beeping)

Is it in the stump or under it?

Because it could be really old, then.

I think it was under the stump.

-What have we got here? Ooh, an old buckle. -What the heck is that?

A buckle on a leather strap, by the look of it.

-JACK: It still has the leather attached to it. -Yeah.

(clears throat) So, that will be interesting.

We don't find that much leather on the island, do we?

No, and that buckle does look kind of old.

Yeah, it does look old, mate.

NARRATOR: A leather strap and metal buckle?

Might they have belonged to someone who lived and farmed

on the island after the Money Pit's discovery in 1795?

Or could they prove to be much older

and provide important clues

connected to the treasure mystery?

What type of thing would a-a strap like this be used for,

based upon the size?

Normally, like a sling,

like a belt that goes over, and you would have had the pouch

if you-- say, if you was out here hunting...

-For musket balls. -Yeah, might have had musket balls

or flint for a flintlock.

But, also, uh, back in the day, they used to keep coins

in little money pouches, uh, kind of like, um, satchels.

(chuckles) I like to think it is,

because if their coin purse strap broke,

-maybe they dropped some coins around here. -Exactly.

I like the way you think, Jack.

JACK: Hopefully, there are some other finds around here

that help pin down the date, maybe a button or a coin.

Oh, that would be fantastic, mate.

We've recovered some really,

really interesting artifacts on this lot.

If we could find the hatch location, that would be huge.

Is it a back entrance to the Money Pit

or is it a possible vault full of treasure?

We will keep going.

So, it's gonna be interesting to see

what went on in this area.

(beeping)

That. We have winkled that signal out, mate.

That is interesting.

That stands out. Just there, mate.

Dig that sucker up.

We're overdue a coin, Jack.

I'd love to find a coin right now.

All right, let's see if I got it out.

(rapid beeping)

Good. Ah, mate, pinpointer time.

(beeping)

Oh, it's down there.

(beeps)

-It's in my hand. -(quietly): Yeah.

GARY: Come on, baby.

It is in my hand.

Give me a coin or a button.

[both gasp]

-JACK: Yes! -GARY: Look at that roundness.

GARY: It's a button.

I mean, look at that, mate.

That is a bobby-dazzler of a button.

Look at the patina on it.

It's an old button, for sure,

because, look, it's a single loop, by the look of it.

-JACK: Yeah? -GARY: It might have the manufacturer

or the maker's name on it.

-We might be able to pull a date or some info off this? -Yeah.

And that is an old jacket button.

Oh...

NARRATOR: Over the last several years,

Gary has discovered numerous buttons across the island

that have dated back to the 18th century

and prior to the discovery of the Money Pit.

However, could this button, found in the area

where a reported 14th century map of Oak Island

depicts a so-called hatch or possible tunnel entrance,

help verify that human activity took place here

much earlier than the 1700s?

GARY: That's gonna clean up really, really nice.

Could be copper alloy.

-Could be pewter. Could be silver. -Oh, yeah.

This is in such good condition.

I know Kelly is gonna do a really good job

-cleaning this up. -Yeah. Yeah.

Especially if we get some designs

off this and we can date it.

JACK: This is the type of thing we were hoping

-to find out here, Gary. -Yeah.

-JACK: Human activity. -Yep.

-All right. -Okay, let's bag it and tag it, mate.

I love saying that, bag it-- Oh.

See you later, little beauty.

That is so fantastic.

MARTY: So, gentlemen and ladies,

there are several reasons for assembling the crew here.

NARRATOR: One day after the discovery of a wooden beam

and a tree root, which might help identify

when the massive stone ship's wharf

in the swamp was constructed...

We're just here to kind of have an archaeology update.

...brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,

along with their partner Craig Tester,

have gathered in the war room for an important meeting

with archaeologists Laird Niven, Helen Sheldon,

Miriam Amirault, and other members of the team.

You know, we're a little confused

about what we can and can't do on the island.

-Yeah. -We felt like,

to date, we've done everything right.

-Yep. -But if you get back and look down at the island,

you know, there are these spots where, to me,

it's getting bigger and bigger and what we can do

becomes less and less.

Yep.

MARTY: So, we have internally

made a decision...

...to back down on archaeological methods

for the time being...

Mm-hmm.

...and let the dust settle on this.

With the regulations being unclear,

and what's gonna happen to us being unclear

when we discover things, we have a very large disincentive

to find any more artifacts that might cause us

to lose the right to explore on our island.

We have to think twice before we send the archaeologists

into another area, because if they find something

that could lead that area to become off-limits,

it's a scary thought to us.

This is a treasure hunt.

It's trying to unravel a mystery.

It is not solely dedicated

to an archaeological understanding

of what has transpired on Oak Island over centuries.

And there are other methodologies

that can be applied that are much less restrictive.

MARTY: We think it's best to not do archaeological work

at this point, to shut it down,

because until we understand the rules

and what we might be giving up,

uh, that seems to be most prudent.

There's absolute recognition of the skill set that you brought.

I mean, there are all kinds of things discovered

that we wouldn't have discovered.

-Yeah, sorry about that. -No, no.

-(laughter) -Well, if-if-- You know what?

If the unintended consequences weren't there,

we'd be delighted about that.

-You know? I mean... -Absolutely. Yes, and we should be.

Yes. Yeah, that's the weird thing.

-Yeah. -In the meantime,

we're gonna stay with the search,

but we don't want to do...

(laughs): we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Yeah. I think you're doing the right thing.

For sure.

When I came on five years ago,

to make sure that someone was here, uh, to protect, uh, sites

and to identify artifacts.

And every year we've been improving that process.

And through that, we're discovering more and more.

And the problem in the owners' minds

is that it seems like the more we do to comply,

the stricter things get and the more things change

and more control they have over their resources, uh,

is being lost.

NARRATOR: Although Laird Niven will remain full-time on the island

to aid and advise the team as they continue their quest

to solve the mystery, archaeologists Helen Sheldon,

Miriam Amirault and Liz Michels

will be departing the island at the end of the week.

For all of the archaeologists,

I think we're a little disappointed

that we can't get a lot more done,

but I completely understand

Marty and Rick and Craig's decision

to kind of focus more on the treasure story

and less so about just the general archaeology

of the island.

So, I think they need to do what's best for them,

um, for their goals.

You know, h-here's my thoughts: number one,

we have, uh, gratitude for all of your hard work,

your efforts, your commitment, and it's only through discourse

and dialogue that you problem-solve,

and my hope is that we can continue on that agenda.

-Mm-hmm. Absolutely. -MARTY: Okay.

-I think we're all on the same page. -Yep. We are.

Uh, much appreciation all around the table.

Um, I-I say we get back at it.

-I say yes. -Okay. -All right.

MARTY: Let's get after it.

-LAIRD: Yeah. -HELEN: Yeah.

NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...

-JACK: Hey, Kelly. -KELLY: Hi, guys.

Looks like you're working on our finds, mate.

Yeah, I've got, uh, an ox shoe I'm just finishing off here.

...Jack Begley and Gary Drayton arrive

at the archaeology trailer

to meet with professional conservator Kelly Bourassa

regarding one of the discoveries they made one day ago.

Well, we're really interested in that button

that we recovered on Lot 4.

Have you had a chance to look at that yet?

I haven't had a chance yet.

It's right here, but let's have a look at it.

Sweet.

-It's an interesting button. -Yeah.

-Look at the condition of that. That's nice. -Yeah, that's not bad.

-GARY: Hmm. -Yeah.

The most interesting thing about this find

is it comes from Lot 4, where potentially the hatch could be.

JACK: It's an area that, historically, we really don't

have any recorded work over there.

KELLY: Sure. Well under those conditions, Gary,

I think probably what we should do

is do an XRF test on it first--

before we clean it-- because if there's any,

you know, precious metals in the soil itself,

then that's when you want to test it.

-GARY: You never know, mate. -You never know.

So let's give it a try. Okay?

Okay, mate. Looking forward to this.

NARRATOR: In order to conduct

preliminary elemental analysis on the button,

Kelly is utilizing the X-ray fluorescence, or XRF, device.

By emitting nondestructive radiation,

the machine will identify the types of metals and elements

on and within the artifact.

I'm just gonna plug in some information here.

A whole lot of copper, tin,

zinc, lead, iron, bismuth.

GARY: Au. We got some gold.

JACK: What?

-Yep. -No way. Yeah.

KELLY: Definitely. And silver, Gary.

-GARY: Yeah. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: The button discovered on Lot 4 near the believed hatch feature

containing traces of both silver and gold?

You know, how does that happen?

KELLY: If it's a gold-plated button, for instance,

that would be the gold, perhaps, on it.

Or it comes from the soil

or part of the composition of the, of the metal itself.

This is, to me, is pretty unique, what we see here.

And you've seen a lot of things on the island.

For you to say it's unique, that's fantastic.

This is different.

This is quite different, yeah.

What type of person would wear a gold and silver gilded button?

It's an officer, perhaps.

-If it's a military button. -Yeah, uh, British military,

for instance. Sure.

So, what's an officer doing all the way over on Lot 4?

Probably looking for the same thing

that we're looking for, the hatch.

You're gonna find some more.

-Oh, we will. -Find some more.

-We're not done yet. -No.

No, we will find more, mate.

Well, this is brilliant news, Kelly.

But Jack and I, we've got to get back out there.

-Thanks again, Kelly. -Go for it.

GARY: We'll bring you some more gold and silver, Kelly.

KELLY: I hope so.

NARRATOR: Before another productive day

comes to an end on Oak Island...

-MIRIAM: Hi. -LIZ: The whole gang's here.

Sort of a bittersweet day, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is. -It is.

...Marty Lagina, along with his son Alex,

Jack Begley and Gary Drayton

meet with archaeologists Miriam Amirault,

Liz Michels and Helen Sheldon one final time

before they end their investigation

of the stone wharf in the triangle-shaped swamp.

LIZ: We've been doing a lot of work, you know?

Despite a couple of stumbling blocks,

I think we made a lot of progress.

MIRIAM: Yeah, quite a bit of progress,

and were able to give you guys some of the answers

you may have wanted.

Well, we appreciate what you did.

I mean, when I stand here and I look at that...

I mean, look at that.

Not only is that really cool

and possibly incredibly significant

to what we're doing, it was a lot of hard work.

And today, to top it off, like an hour before lunch,

we actually came down on the stone road.

So, it is coming this way.

-MARTY: Really? Wow. -Yeah.

And you're leaving today.

Yes, it always happens that way.

MIRIAM: It's always the last day.

Hey, you know what? It is always the last day.

It leaves you hanging, doesn't it?

RICK: Communities, Culture and Heritage

have weighed in and they have asked

that all activities in the perimeter,

the eastern perimeter of the swamp, cease.

And now, as far as the archaeological process,

we are at complete stand-down.

So it's frustrating for me, personally,

because any type of archaeologically-driven work

across the island could have a negative impact on the search.

And many of the discoveries that we have made

were driven by the archaeological process

and would not have been found

had we done a different approach.

But you take what the island gives you, and you move forward.

ALEX: I mean, I've learned a lot

from you over the past year and change, and, um,

I think everybody is a little frustrated

that the process that got us to this point

is the same thing that basically precluded us from continuing.

We got some answers,

not all of the answers, but we appreciate the work

that you put in and the answers that we do have.

GARY: And I saw the look in your guys' faces

when you was pulling artifacts up--

the love that you guys have got.

It's a treasure hunt even for archaeologists, too.

Well, what does Rick say? The treasure

-and the story. -GARY: Yeah. -MARTY: There you go.

Exactly.

I've been on Oak Island for two years now,

and I guess just my knowledge

of the island has progressed so much,

and as well as kind of my appreciation

for everything that's happened here has grown.

Getting to be a part

of something really meaningful meant a lot.

MARTY: Please, if you have those

sort of late-night "aha" thoughts,

-would you please let us know? -MIRIAM: "Oh, I know

where the treasure is!" That? Yeah. I'll let you know.

Well, that would do. Yeah, that would do.

-Yes. Yeah. -(laughter)

Many thanks. Um, we really appreciate all the work.

-Absolutely. Perfect. -Yup.

-And safe travels. -Yup. We'll see you, then.

-LIZ: Thank you guys so much. -MIRIAM: Bye, guys.

ALEX: See ya.

NARRATOR: Three days after ending

all archaeological search activities

on the eastern side of the swamp...

MARTY: Okay. Today, we will get Craig,

uh, up on the screen because he has the C-14 results for this.

-All right. -...in the war room,

Rick and Marty Lagina gather

with archaeologist Laird Niven

and other members of the Oak Island team

for a video conference with Craig Tester.

Hey, guys.

NARRATOR: Craig has just received

a carbon 14 report on a tree root

that was recently discovered

by Laird and his fellow archaeologists

outside of the restricted zone

beneath the stone wharf in the swamp.

I'm gonna turn it over to Laird, who will put in context

the results you're about to give us.

LAIRD: So, one of our projects

this year was to have a crosscut,

bisecting the stone road.

And the aim of the crosscut was

to get, preferably, datable artifacts

or datable samples that we could

-either do dendro on or C-14 on. -Right.

And luckily, we found a nice root, a large root

growing directly under the stone road,

and so that's what this is.

We sent, uh, carbon 14 samples,

and that's the data that, uh, Craig's gonna present.

Okay. Let's see what we got. Go ahead, Craig.

CRAIG: Okay. We tested both the outside of the root

and the inner portion of it.

They came back the same-- one time period.

1474 to 1638.

ALEX: Wow.

CRAIG: We tested both the outside of

the root and the inner portion of it.

They came back the same-- one time period.

1474 to 1638.

-Wow. -(laughter)

NARRATOR: In the Oak Island war room,

Craig Tester has just presented the team

with an astonishing scientific report

regarding a tree root

discovered below the believed stone wharf.

STEVE G.: That lines up almost perfectly with the wood

we just had tested in D-2 and CD-2.5:

-the 1488 to 1650. -Yup.

Okay, but what does that mean to the road?

To us, it meant that the root was there

when the road was built on top of it.

The root wasn't intrusive.

-Is that your interpretation? -Yeah, yeah, I-I agree.

It-it was there beforehand

but probably fairly, uh, shortly beforehand.

Could I say contemporaneous almost

with original construction?

Add a few... 40 or 50 years maybe.

It actually fits in very, very well with the dates

that we got for some of the stakes along the cobble path.

MARTY: The bulk of the evidence supports quite a ways

prior to conventional discovery of the Money Pit.

Right.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that with the discovery

of this tree root beneath the stone wharf in the swamp,

that the team has now found hard evidence

that this feature, along with the cobblestone path

leading out of the swamp and the Money Pit itself,

were all constructed at the same time?

IAN: There is a narrative here of people depositing things,

and we have the threads

that tie, you know, a massive undertaking at the Money Pit

and the stone road construction, so, to me, that's...

that's a big deal.

Yeah.

MARTY: We have lots of dates

that seem to be focusing on mid-1600s,

going back to the 1400s.

You know, timbers used back in the day were probably

hundred-year-old trees anyway.

That brings us to maybe 1750 as a maximum.

That's good stuff.

This road seems to be... have intrigued everybody.

-Yup. -RICK: I'd like to hope that

the powers that be, the regulatory powers,

will accede to our wishes,

and we can perhaps do a little more investigation.

There's a lot of hope to figuring this one out.

I've always believed

that what happened here was long ago.

And by long ago, I mean 1400s, 1500s.

So my thought is that the swamp work,

with similar dates as in the Money Pit--

it's hard to say that they're not connected in some way.

Based on the data presented today,

this road looks to be quite old indeed, and that is exciting.

So, upon that, I think we disperse back to our jobs

and, uh, see what other data we can bring to the table.

And we got a whole Money Pit to dig. Right, Billy?

-Mm-hmm. -Let's go.

NARRATOR: Rick, Marty, Craig and their team

operate by a simple mantra: sempre avanti.

"Always forward."

Even though valuable clues may lie hidden

where they are currently not allowed to search,

their will to keep scanning,

digging and drilling across the island

suggests that the answers to a 226-year-old mystery

are still within their reach.

And as they continue working toward a potential discovery

that has eluded determined men and women since 1795,

one thing is for sure.

Nothing can break their will.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

-(horn tooting) -ALEX: Look at that! That's really something.

-(laughs) -That excavator looks really big.

RICK: If there is a ship there, then I want to see the evidence.

That piece of bell metal might be associated

-with Portuguese. -CHRISTA: The tin--

it's been used in the production of cannons.

Ooh! Look at that. That is bloody cool, mate.

You would use a tool like this for smoothing timbers.

To sync a shaft.

Wow! Seems to me, it's a shaft wall.

I can't explain it.

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