Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...

-MARTY: So it begins! -VANESSA: Shaft number two.

MARTY: Come on, be something good.

-Oh, wow. -That's incredible that that's down there.

Oh, wow. Wow.

It looks like parchment, but it's got something shiny on it.

JON: You can see those very, very bright spots?

-Mm-hmm. -That could actually be some of the writing.

Some of the older inks were made of iron-based ink.

That is pre-1840s iron and has been known

-since the 1500s. -Well, how about that.

(laughs)

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.

♪ ♪

MARTY: Here we are, Dan.

NARRATOR: A morning full of renewed hope has arrived

on Oak Island for brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,

their partner Craig Tester and the rest of their team

as they continue a quest

to solve a 227-year-old treasure mystery.

Front and center, young man.

-DAN: Uh-oh. -Gentlemen!

Quite a crowd here.

-Hey! -Welcome!

GARY: Dan, the man. Today is the day.

MARTY: Today's always the day.

-Vanessa! -Hello!

Ready for shaft number two?

-Are you ready? -I'm ready.

You know, we're here.

We're gonna find some answers for you.

So, we just want you to know

that this is the elder statesman of Oak Island at this point.

So, we all thought it was appropriate

that not only should Dan press the button,

but Dan should name the can.

-All right, Dan. -DAN H.: That was the problem.

I'm not much at naming. However, uh,

I figured something optimistic might go.

It's Early Christmas One.

(cheering)

NARRATOR: Today,

the team will begin excavating

their second 10-foot-wide shaft

in an area where they have already made

incredible discoveries this year.

These include evidence of man-made wooden tunnels

some 90 feet deep that were carbon-dated

to between 1488 and 1650,

as well as traces of both silver and gold.

I think we are in the bedrock.

I think this is gonna be as close to getting down there

-as we're gonna get. -RICK: We're done.

NARRATOR: One week ago,

the team concluded their dig of a shaft, known as TF-1,

after reaching bedrock at a depth of 152 feet.

Despite the fact that they had also detected precious metals

in that location earlier this year

during their core-drilling program,

they did not recover any valuables.

All of this broken stuff,

-we know it's a shaft. -Yeah.

However, they did find evidence of a shaft

that was constructed in 1909 by the Old Gold Salvage Company,

which was financed by future U.S. president,

Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Look at that. Look at that.

They also found possible evidence

of the fabled Chappell Vault.

-I'm liking more of that concrete stuff. -Yeah.

That looks like concrete to me.

JACK: We could be close to the actual vault.

VANESSA: Okay, we're ready to slam some can.

-MARTY: Make hole. -VANESSA: Let's do it.

NARRATOR: Now, based on those discoveries,

they are about to excavate EC-1 just eight feet to the east.

-DAN: Okay. -VANESSA: All right. Go ahead and turn

-the oscillator on right there. -DAN: All right.

-Here we go. Yep. -Turn it to the right.

(whirring)

NARRATOR: With this effort,

they are hoping to reach two potential targets,

one being a tunnel some 118 feet deep

containing a reported debris field of timbers

and scattered treasure from a collapse

of the original Money Pit in 1861,

and the other the legendary Chappell Vault itself,

which is believed to lie buried

at even greater depth of approximately 150 feet.

So, you're gonna go ahead and move the cylinders.

Pull it straight back to you. Keep pulling.

-MARTY: There it goes. -DOUG: Yeah!

RICK: With TF-1, we thought we were close to the original Money Pit.

But we don't want to be close, we want to be on it.

It's tantalizing to think

that we were... missed it by that much.

Okay, fine. You missed it. Keep going.

So, this area suggests gold and silver

in close proximity to TF-1.

So, this is going to be a location

of significant interest.

There you go. I've got another oscillator operator.

-Let's have a round of applause. -ALEX: Yeah!

-All right. Early Christmas. It's happening. -(laughter)

MARTY: Dan hits the button, and the canister starts to move,

and we're off to the races.

This is it, this is the best spot,

and we're hopeful that it is the spot.

-Well done, Dan. -VANESSA: Nice job.

-Great job. -CHARLES: Yep.

MARTY: That was great, Dan.

DAN: I'm getting better at it, I guess.

-MARTY: Yeah, you are. -(Dan laughs)

NARRATOR: As the excavation of the EC-1 shaft proceeds

in the Money Pit area,

later that morning...

-MARTY: Hello, Dr. Brosseau! -ALEX: Hi, Dr. Brosseau!

CHRISTA: Hi, everyone. How's it going?

-Very fine, thank you. -Good, good.

...Rick, Marty, Craig, and members of the team

gather in the war room for a meeting via video conference

with Dr. Christa Brosseau, a professor of chemistry

at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Gentlemen, we have a few artifacts here,

which we had sent to Dr. Brosseau.

What can you tell us?

These are some objects from, uh, what you call Lot 15.

-Yep. -So, the first object was a spike,

so, a wrought spike.

-You think here? -Yeah, that's good.

NARRATOR: Over the past two weeks,

the team has been investigating a possible buried stone pathway

running eastward from the swamp that was detected

approximately five feet deep using ground penetrating radar.

-Go ahead and stop. -ALEX: Okay.

MARTY: Yeah, see what it says.

NARRATOR: However,

because of a current government mandate

restricting any large-scale digging

outside the Money Pit area,

the team needs to locate evidence of human activity

predating 1795

before they can obtain a permit to expose and track

the feature to its final destination.

There she blows. Wow, look at that!

-Is that a spike? -Yeah, that's a big spike.

NARRATOR: One week ago, while searching for important clues

along the suspected path between the swamp

-and the Money Pit on Lot 15... -GARY: Look at that!

...metal detection expert Gary Drayton,

and Rick and Marty's nephew Peter Fornetti

made two promising finds-- an iron spike

and the head of a potentially ancient claw hammer.

CHRISTA: The spike, it has a rose head at the top.

It has a square shank. Um, it's well made.

It does appear to be broken in half.

So, when I did the analysis on-on this spike,

the iron is coming back clean.

The only thing I was able to detect--

other than iron, obviously-- was some phosphorous,

so around 0.3 percent.

And, so, this looks like it is a pre-1840s wrought iron.

Any way to, you know, put brackets

around how much before 1840?

It's really hard to say. Um...

The rose-head nature of it

does mean that it's been handmade,

so, likely, that can push the date back

-to before 1790. -Perfect.

-Yeah. -ALEX: That's good, because...

to the best of our knowledge the treasure hunt started

-in 1795. -Yep.

NARRATOR: If Dr. Brosseau is correct

that the iron spike predates 1790

and the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795,

could it offer evidence

that the buried pathway does as well?

All right. What do you have next for us?

All right. Um, coming up next is the claw hammer head.

So, when I looked at the claw hammer head,

um, what I see is

that the iron is clean.

Again, I'm not detecting any manganese.

Small amount of phosphorous is present,

so very-- quite similar to the last object.

So this is, again, a pre-1840s iron.

-Okay. -Claw hammer heads have been known

for many hundreds of years.

So, this type of hammer head has been known

since the 1500s.

-Great. There you go. -Well, that's a good thing.

-CRAIG: Yeah. -MARTY: Mm hmm. Cool.

Why is it so tiny?

What was it used for?

I'm not sure. Some of them can be

-quite small. -MARTY: Very interesting.

Yeah, this time period is what we see all the time

for the stakes and all the wood that we're finding...

-Yeah. -...associated with the stone road

-and the stone path. -Right.

NARRATOR: The claw hammer dating back

as early as the 16th century?

Along with the potentially ancient iron spike,

could Dr. Brosseau's analysis of these two artifacts

help the team obtain the permit they need

to unearth the stone path

and find out just where it is leading?

The fact that they're finding these, uh, artifacts

in the upland in close proximity

to the so-called stone path is an interesting connection.

What we have to do now is get a proper permit

to do a hands-on investigation of any anomalous feature.

So, the hope is that

these artifacts can tell us something about the stone path

and where, ultimately, does it lead us.

Hopefully to an "X" marks the spot.

All right. Well, thank you very much.

Informative as always and always right on the money

from a scientific standpoint.

So, thank you, Christa.

I'm sure we'll be in contact again.

Sure, you're welcome. Good luck.

-Thank you. -Thank you. -Until the next time.

RICK: There's more things yet to find so we better get at it.

MARTY: Yes.

-GARY: Fingers crossed. -NARRATOR: Following the meeting

-in the war room... -Full bucket.

...as the excavation of the EC-1 shaft continues

in the Money Pit area...

-PETER: So, is this TF-1? -ALEX: Yep.

-ERIC: Still TF-1. -PETER: TF-1, okay.

...nearby, at the wash table next to Borehole 10-X

Alex Lagina, his cousin Peter Fornetti,

and surveyor Eric Valois

are sifting through the remaining spoils

excavated one week ago from the now completed TF-1 shaft.

How deep do you think this is?

Because of this limestone, I'm thinking fairly deep.

-Yeah. -I mean, it's got a chance

of having something from our depth of interest

at like 70 to 90 feet.

-Mm-hmm. -So, you know, basically we're looking for

-anything that can be tested. -PETER: Yeah.

-Let's get to it. -ALEX: Yep.

NARRATOR: Despite the fact that the team did not recover

the legendary treasure vault in TF-1,

earlier this year,

their core-drilling operation conducted in that same location

did unearth metal fragments containing gold

at a depth of approximately 90 feet.

We know from experience how hard it is

to find things in-in what we dig.

So, all these spoils are gonna go to the wash table

where we can really sift through in much greater detail

and try to find much older artifacts,

or maybe anything else that we might have missed.

ERIC: Oh.

ALEX: Oh, hey.

That's just like that leather we found.

-Yeah. You found that last one like that. -ALEX: Yeah.

More of the same strap.

We have any idea what it is?

Theorizing maybe a strap off of a bag

-or something, with a buckle. -Mm-hmm.

NARRATOR: A leather strap?

Found in the TF-1 spoils?

Over the past four years,

the Oak Island team has unearthed

a number of compelling leather artifacts

during their large-scale excavations

across the Money Pit area.

These include bits of leather bookbinding,

discovered along with pieces of parchment paper

in Borehole H-8 back in 2017,

and a leather bootheel recovered

from Borehole 8-B in 2019

that was carbon-dated back to as early as 1492.

Could this leather strap represent

another important piece to the Oak Island puzzle,

meaning that the team is getting closer

to the ultimate discovery?

The leather, I think, can be carbon-dated.

-Yep. -ALEX: It's all about just getting the dates,

and everything we learned this time's

-gonna help us. So... -PETER: Yep.

And if that is that connecting piece,

that changes the game

-for this next shaft that we're going. -ALEX: Yeah, I agree.

-Anyway, great find. I'll bag it. -PETER: Yeah.

-ERIC: Yeah. -Perfect.

ALEX: Okay. Let's see

if we can find anything else.

NARRATOR: The following morning in the Money Pit area...

-DANNY: Showtime. -Yeah.

DANNY: Here comes the gold.

NARRATOR: Craig Tester, along with members

of the team, continue monitoring

the dig of the EC-1 shaft.

You know, we're somewhere between 76 and, uh, like, 85.

Yeah. They're going down pretty quickly.

CHARLES: They are going down quick, so...

We're closing in.

(thudding)

CHARLES: We're hitting something.

CRAIG: Could be just boulders or something.

I don't know.

It'll be interesting to see.

Yep.

That could be wood.

That's what's slowing it down, yeah?

-DANNY: Yeah. -ANDREW: Makes sense,

'cause, I mean, we're at probably 74,

75 with the can.

That would explain why it's cutting hard.

DANNY: Exactly.

PETER: We're close to that 75-foot mark.

Excellent, mate.

We could all do with an early Christmas present.

Gold. Silver.

Gonna happen one day.

I'm gonna go in with these guys

-and take a look at it. -All right.

PETER: It's muddy.

Got to dig through the trash to get to the treasure, mate.

I don't see any wood in there.

Where's the wood?

PETER: Oh, I didn't see any in that.

GARY: We're good to go.

Let's find some good stuff.

Come on, I know you're hiding in here somewhere.

Just dirt.

Look at that.

What the heck is this?

Just there.

-CRAIG: Oh, wow. -PETER: What is it?

CRAIG: A piece of slate.

Tough call, Laird.

In place?

Big piece of slate.

LAIRD: That's certainly intriguing.

-Gentlemen. -LAIRD: How are you?

-Good. How are you? -LAIRD: Good.

Got a chunk of slate.

IAN: Oh, wow.

-Wonder what that would be doing down there. -CRAIG: Yeah.

IAN: It's out of place.

-Wouldn't expect that. -CRAIG: Yeah.

NARRATOR: A curious geological fact about Oak Island

is that it is composed

of two very different types of bedrock.

The western drumlin is made up of hard slate,

a very hard, fine-grained metamorphic solid.

However, the eastern drumlin where the Money Pit is located

features much softer anhydrite limestone.

The question is

just what would explain a large piece of slate

being found more than 70 feet deep

in this area of Oak Island?

There shouldn't be slate at this level, though.

-CRAIG: 400 feet, maybe, on this side. -CHARLES: Yeah.

Not at this depth.

IAN: It's not real common in the till, either,

so it was brought here

by somebody and ended up down there.

That's weird.

Can't think of any reason to specifically get

-this rock and bring it over here. -I know.

If somebody was building something,

they'd have little flagstones around

and got knocked down, and...

CRAIG: Well, the story on the original Money Pit

was the boys dug down, and they came upon

-flagstone that covered the entire Money Pit itself. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: In 1795,

Daniel McGinnis and his two friends

Anthony Vaughan and John Smith

noticed a 13-foot-wide depression

in the ground that proved to be the original Money Pit shaft.

As they began to dig, their first discovery,

at a depth of just two feet,

was a uniform layer of slate flagstones.

The three men dug through them,

ultimately reaching a depth of some 90 feet

before a believed man-made flood tunnel

thwarted their efforts.

Is it possible that Craig and the others

have just found a piece of slate rock connected

to the first excavation ever conducted

in the Money Pit?

If so, could it also mean that they are on course

to find what McGinnis and his associates

were unable to reach?

That should be much deeper.

Much deeper. That should be 400 feet down, not at...

not at 80 feet or so.

So, I don't know what it means. I mean,

maybe it-it fell from, uh, part of the original Money Pit.

-Right. -CRAIG: To really know

-if we're in the right spot, we need to hit wood. -Yeah.

-We shall see. -CHARLES: Yeah.

CRAIG: So, I think we're gonna start

getting a lot of wood.

CHARLES: And maybe something else.

CRAIG: Yes. Hopefully a treasure.

CHARLES: That's right.

GARY: All right, mate. We're all ready to rock and roll.

-Still no wood. -PETER: No.

NARRATOR: While the excavation of the EC-1 shaft continues...

-ALEX: Hey, guys. -RICK: Gentlemen.

-JON: Hello! -How are you? -Welcome to Oak Island.

NARRATOR: ...at the Interpretive Centre,

Rick Lagina and his nephew Alex

are meeting with Jon Giencke,

David Sampson

and Sid Pharasi of Bruker Corporation...

-Let's head on in. -...a science and research technology company

located in Billerica, Massachusetts.

-RICK: Gentlemen. -NARRATOR: They are here

to install a SkyScan 1273 CT

or computer tomography scanner.

RICK: The CT scanner will be important

because we wouldn't have to make inferences.

Because some of these items we're finding

have a lot of conglomerate or concretions on them,

and you just can't tell what these things might be.

So, we have reached out to Bruker Instruments

to show us how to use the equipment.

There's the machine.

I'm ecstatic that you're here,

and I can't wait to put the first object in that machine.

-JON: Great. -ALEX: Well, I'm really excited

to see what this device can do.

-Right. -ALEX: So, we can put an artifact in there,

and we can image it in what way?

Well, Alex, what we call this

is actually a 3D X-ray microscope.

So, just like a normal microscope,

what we're doing is we're actually inspecting

the sample itself.

But unlike that conventional optical imaging

where you're limited to just seeing the surface,

we're using X-rays

so we can actually see inside of the sample.

So, if you had something like a coin

that's heavily corroded, we're able

to kind of digitally remove that corrosion,

remove all the dirt and such

and then leave that pristine artifact.

SID: And the salient point is you can do this for your artifacts

and objects in a nondestructive way.

Oh, wow.

NARRATOR: The SkyScan 1273 device

emits nondestructive X-ray radiation

that can penetrate heavily encrusted artifacts

to produce a high-definition three-dimensional image

of their original form.

This process can not only help the team

identify the true shapes of artifacts

but also help determine the materials

that make up their composition.

MARTY: The CT scanner is an amazing device.

It could allow us to be able to see

what these things look like under the corrosion.

And the ability to do it right here

in our own lab, so to speak,

uh, in a matter of hours and not have to wait

for, you know, turnaround in some other lab is-is great.

RICK: We have some work out back,

so if you want to get started, and once you get the machine

up and running, give us a call.

I would love to put a item or items

-in the machine before the end of the day. -Yeah. Yeah.

Let's see it work. Let's see what it can do.

-Sounds great. -We look forward to that. -All right.

-RICK: Thank you. -ALEX: See you guys soon.

NARRATOR: While Jon, Sid and David set up the CT scanner,

later that afternoon...

All right.

Hey, Jack. What do we got?

It's all just a jumble,

but you never know what you're gonna find.

NARRATOR: Alex Lagina arrives at the wash table

to help Jack Begley continue

searching through the remaining spoils

recently excavated from the TF-1 shaft.

ALEX: Have you found much pottery?

JACK: No. We're finding less stuff

on the table because the wash plant's

operating very effectively.

There's actually a lot of possibilities

for finding something really good in TF-1.

So maybe if there is some sort of a treasure nearby,

we can at least catch a piece of that

and figure out what-what's causing

the gold anomalies down in C-1 once and for all.

Ooh.

Wow.

-Wow. Wow. -ALEX: What you got there?

JACK: It looks like parchment, but it...

it's got something shiny on it.

-ALEX: Oh, yeah. -JACK: Do you see

those silvery flecks?

The parchment that I found with Henskee several years ago,

it had that... the same fibers kind of around the side.

ALEX: Yeah. That's interesting.

There's that scrap of parchment or paper,

uh, with the "V-I" on it.

I mean, this could be related to that. It's possible.

NARRATOR: A possible piece of parchment?

Found in the spoils of the TF-1 caisson?

In 1897,

when treasure hunters Frederick Blair

and William Chappell

drilled into what they reported to be

a seven-foot-tall wooden vault encased in concrete,

they were astonished to recover gold shavings

on their drill bit

as well as a piece of parchment bearing the letters "V-I."

Oh, look at that.

-ALEX: Is that concrete? -JACK: Yeah.

NARRATOR: One week ago, the team

found bits of concrete in the TF-1 spoils, as well.

Is it possible that they have discovered

two pieces of evidence

connected to the fabled Chappell Vault?

If so, could that mean

that they are now on course to recover the rest

of the vault's contents within the EC-1 shaft?

Just the color of it and the inconsistency

-makes... -I-I'm really... I agree with you.

The inconsistency of it is very interesting.

I don't know.

I mean, I'm encouraged either way. If it's paper

or if it's parchment, they're both datable.

And it might be an indication that we're...

-we're close to the real Money Pit. -Mm-hmm.

Or somewhere within the-the collapsed debris zone.

The odd thing about this possible piece of parchment

is that on one side, it's shiny.

It's got bits of what look to me like silver.

In, like, medieval times,

they'd take gold and silver leaf

and apply it to parchment as a sort of accent,

especially if the documents were...

(chuckles) ...worthwhile.

-MARTY: Alex, Jack. -ALEX: Hey, guys. -Hey, guys.

We're checking on the wash table.

ALEX: Well, you came at a good time.

Guess what we think this is.

Here. Take a look at it.

This is from TF-1.

MARTY: Is it parchment?

ALEX: I'm not sure.

Jack and I have both looked at it.

We can't tell if it's parchment

or paper or what it is.

JACK: And I think, if it's not parchment,

it looks like an early type of paper.

MARTY: This is definitely worth testing.

ALEX: Yes.

If it dates to the early 1600s,

then we got something.

It can't have been easy to pull that out of there.

-(laughs) -I don't know how he saw it.

-It's amazing. -MARTY: Good find.

-Excellent. -JACK: Thanks.

-JACK: We'll keep looking. -ALEX: We'll let you know.

NARRATOR: While the ten-foot-wide

EC-1 shaft continues its decent in the Money Pit area...

That is one hell of an hammer grab.

CRAIG: We just found something

at the Money Pit on the-the wash table.

-Looks like a piece of parchment. -Okay.

NARRATOR: ...in the Interpretive Centre,

Rick Lagina, along with Craig Tester

and Laird Niven,

are meeting with imaging experts Jon Giencke and David Sampson

to have the possible parchment just found in the TF-1 spoils

analyzed in the SkyScan 1273 device.

DAVID S.: Now we're scanning.

JON: Okay. So, the next step,

once we have all of those different slices collected,

is that we're gonna reconstruct the original sample.

-LAIRD: Mm-hmm. -JON: Now, on the image i-itself,

what you're seeing is these very straight lines

on the top and the bottom.

So that's the actual pieces of paper that we've inserted

in order to hold the parchment in place.

And the parchment's going down the center line.

DAVID S.: I would expect

to see some sort of fiber.

CRAIG: Isn't that fibers you're seeing

sticking out the sides, though, or not?

JON: Yeah. I'm starting to see that same thing, Craig.

-Especially up top there. Yeah, right there. -Yep. Yep.

DAVID S.: Yeah.

JON: Good news is iron,

in particular, when it's hit with X-rays, it tends to glow.

It's a process called fluorescence.

So, if we see a lot of those rays coming out from it...

-RICK: Mm hmm. -JON: ...it could be indicative of iron.

JON: So, as we're looking at that center line

where we'd expect the parchment,

you can see those very, very bright spots?

That could actually be some of the writing.

DAVID S.: Some of the older inks were made of gall.

And so that is a metal. It's an iron-based ink.

NARRATOR: Iron gall ink,

also known as oak gall ink,

is composed of iron salts and tannic acids

from vegetable sources,

and was developed in Europe during the fifth century AD.

Ever since the discovery of parchment

deep in the Money Pit back in 1897,

many researchers have speculated that the treasure lying deep

in the booby-trapped Money Pit is composed of not just gold,

silver and jewels but also priceless documents.

DAVID S: Even if the ink itself is no longer readable,

that iron should be left behind and should be visible.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the team

has found more evidence that this theory could be true?

If so, what sort of documents would someone want to hide

by such ingenious means?

If we had actual proof that there were

a-a book, a parchment,

a-an old tome that depth in the Money Pit,

it's all exciting.

CRAIG: So, at this point in time, can you make a determination

whether it's parchment or something completely else?

What we can say at this point is that

we tend to see some lines which would be indicative

of, say, a type of, uh, parchment.

Generally when we've looked, though, at more modern fibers,

that structure becomes very apparent very quickly.

Here we're seeing more of a rudimentary style to it.

-This? -The fibers seem to be a little bit larger.

-This? -Yes.

It likely wasn't placed there recently.

That it has some historical context to it.

So we are likely looking at something, you know,

a little bit older.

So, you know, my suggestion would be

that we set up a little bit longer scan,

get a little bit higher-resolution on this,

and then we get back together maybe in the war room.

I think that's the proper plan, right.

Let's do the hi-res scan and see what happens.

-Sounds good. -Yep.

-JON: All right, we'll get that started. -RICK: Okey doke.

RICK: Thank you. Thank you both.

-CRAIG: Thank you. -JON: Yep.

NARRATOR: The following morning...

All right. Here we go.

NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina joins Craig Tester

and other members of the team at the Money Pit to observe

the continued progress on the excavation of the EC-1 shaft.

-Morning, gentlemen. -CRAIG: Andrew. -RICK: Hey, Andrew.

How are we doing this morning?

-Good, how are you? -Good.

So, right now this morning, uh,

we're currently at 82 feet

-with the excavation. -Okay.

ANDREW: We definitely did cut through something

that was acting like wood.

We're not seeing high pressures at all, so...

But we haven't seen any wood or anything,

so whether we were just on the edge of it, I'm not sure.

The truth is, we're, you know, we're not quite there yet.

No, the 85-to-90-foot range is the...

the 95 or so is the big stuff for me.

-Right. -DANNY: Here it comes again.

NARRATOR: Although the team is eager

to reach a depth of 118 feet,

where an abandoned searcher tunnel constructed in 1861

is believed to contain

a vast debris field of scattered treasure...

All right, mate. Let's see what hammer-mammer's brought us.

NARRATOR: ...earlier this year, Rick, Marty,

Craig and the team also recovered

trace evidence of gold between the depths of 85 to 95 feet

during their initial core-drilling operation.

Well, no metals.

Got a piece of timber right there.

Thank you.

-You definitely see an axe cut right there. -Oh, yeah.

-Definitely... -And we were at 82,

-so this is probably about 84 feet. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: Axe-cut timber,

found more than 84 feet deep in the EC-1 caisson?

Because it is not machine-worked wood,

meaning it could be from human activity

prior to the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795,

could it offer more evidence that the team is on target

to soon make a breakthrough discovery?

RICK: It's always difficult, up in the Money Pit,

to say definitively,

"Are we perhaps in or near original work?"

-Uh, 84 feet. -84.

We know there was a collapse long ago.

That's a certainty.

The good news is,

is that we're not to total depth.

We've got a ways to go. You have to stay hopeful.

The big zone is still coming up yet in the 85 to 90 foot range,

so... who knows?

NARRATOR: As the excavation of the EC-1 shaft proceeds

in the Money Pit area...

GARY: They're going really fast now.

RICK: So, guys, today,

we have the gentlemen from Bruker, Jon and David.

BOTH: Hi, Marty.

NARRATOR ...brothers Rick and Marty Lagina

and members of their team are meeting in the war room

with imaging experts David Sampson and Jon Giencke

regarding the possible parchment discovered one day ago

in the spoils from the TF-1 shaft.

RICK: So, yesterday we gave them

this-- the parchment that Jack found,

and we got incomplete information yesterday.

So these gentlemen were kind enough to-to rerun the sample

at a higher res, and I believe

this is the information they're going to present

-to us today. -JON: Yeah, so, we looked at this piece

of, uh, what we're calling parchment.

And what we see is that there's some-some striations in it.

So, if you look, you know, carefully,

you can see that there's directionality.

Now, when we think about indelible types of material

that people would write on in the past,

one thing you would generally find in that

is not so much of the specific striation.

-ALEX: Mm-hmm. -JON: Now, that being said,

one nice thing about this technology, though,

is that we can actually look deeper.

So, uh, Dave, maybe if you could bring up a cross section.

Sure.

JON: As you see those little streaks coming off,

that tends to come from materials like iron.

So, iron glows when you hit it with X-rays.

-Mm. -And that's what we're seeing here,

just a little artifact from that glow.

MARTY: I saw those shiny bits up at the table.

Are you saying those are iron?

What we can infer to it is it's high density,

likely iron.

Yeah.

You also mentioned that older ink...

-has a high iron content. -DAVID S.: Yeah.

-JON: Yep. -DAVID S.: Wouldn't expect to see that

as a big chunk of iron, though.

-LAIRD: Right. -Rather, I'd more likely see that

as some sort of streaking across the material.

Yeah. Yeah.

DAVID S.: This one is a little bit different-colored.

JON: From this, what we can see now is relative densities.

And as we look at the inner part,

it tends to indicate that we're looking more at a paper.

Probably a cellulose-type product,

not necessarily an animal skin.

-Oh. -ALEX: Right.

What about the green and the blue blobs?

-Very good question. So, blue now... -Yeah.

...that's your little chunks of the iron.

The green, now what are we looking at there?

Well, that's when we started thinking.

We brought in a little bit of context

from what could be present at the site,

and one thought was this could be a coated paper product.

Something very traditionally found

maybe somewhere around here.

Might be something coated with wax.

ALEX: It held up.

So, it'll hold up. It's resistant to moisture.

In fact, it's so resistant to moisture

it's typically used for, uh,

for, say, wrapping, um...

...explosives.

Is that what you think it is?

-Yeah. -ALEX: Well, that definitely matches

-the historical record. -Yeah.

-Yes. -Mm-hmm.

NARRATOR: In the fall of 1909,

upon reaching a depth of nearly 100 feet in the Money Pit,

workers of Franklin Roosevelt's Old Gold Salvage Company

exploded dynamite in the shaft,

hoping to not only clear the debris from the 1861 collapse,

but also as an attempt to seal off the flow of seawater

from the flood tunnel.

The effort failed on both counts,

and the company would close down operations

at the end of the year.

Could the team have now determined

why they discovered only small fragments of gold

earlier this year during their core-drilling program?

And if so, since they have also detected

high concentrations of both silver and gold

where they are currently digging EC-1...

could that mean they are on course to locate

the vast cache of treasure

that people have been trying to find since 1795?

If dynamite was dropped somewhere right near a treasure,

you might tend to find small bits of metal with gold on them.

And we did, so that's good.

That's good stuff. Makes us keep looking.

What's important is that we were able to discern what it was.

It's about what the technology can tell us.

How we can use that information to, perhaps, provide us

with greater understanding of what happened out

on this quite mysterious place.

MARTY: All right.

Very, very, very great presentation,

and we're impressed, so let's go look

-at some more stuff as soon as you're able. -DAVID S.: Yeah. All right.

-MARTY: Thank you. -Thank you.

-Thank you. -Let's go.

-NARRATOR: Later that afternoon... -MARTY: Hey, guys.

-LAIRD: Hey, Marty. -Hey, Rick.

NARRATOR: ...Rick and Marty Lagina

along with members of their team

arrive in the Money Pit area to monitor

the progress of the EC-1 shaft excavation.

-Where are we at? -We're at 86.

NARRATOR: They are hoping to soon find a massive amount of timbers

and potential valuables related to a reported collapse

of the original Money Pit in 1861.

MARTY: Are we getting any wood or anything?

Well, we did get a little bit up in around 84 feet.

We did get a few little pieces there.

The next-- what, Laird?-- seven feet, give or take...

-Yeah. -...we should-- definitely should hit some wood.

If I look back to 93,

it's right at the level that there should be wood.

Well, they're going fast. We should find out today.

We're hoping to find something

maybe around the 90 to 100-foot area,

because that was where the drilling results found wood,

heretofore undiscovered potential tunnels,

all kinds of data that indicate there are things there

we didn't know existed,

including metal with gold on it.

So, we're at about the right depth for something to occur.

GARY: Ooh, look at that.

That's an old timber hanging out of there, mate.

MARTY: Here comes the goodies right now.

LAIRD: There's your wood.

So it begins.

-LAIRD: There's your wood. -MARTY: Here comes the goodies right now.

So it begins.

NARRATOR: It is a potentially critical moment

for brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and their team.

Oh, that's a big timber. Look at that.

NARRATOR: At a depth of nearly 90 feet,

massive amounts of timber, that is believed to be related

to a collapse of the original Money Pit,

is being unearthed from the EC-1 shaft.

What do you see on it?

RICK: It looks pretty square.

See here?

That is so perfect here.

MARTY: I don't really see any saw cuts, Craig.

-CRAIG: Yeah. -Is this the only one brought up?

There's some more wood.

That's interesting.

MARTY: That looks very crudely done.

This doesn't look modern.

No.

MARTY: That's incredible that that's down there.

NARRATOR: Could the massive amounts of potentially ancient wood

that is being unearthed offer evidence

of the catastrophic collapse of the Money Pit in 1861?

If so, could that also mean that the team is close

to recovering something of great value?

MARTY: This makes sense because we found the same thing in TF-1.

We came down, we think,

into a cribbed portion of the Money Pit.

And most significantly, in the same vicinity

as where we found the-the metal that maybe has gold on it.

There's only one thing to do: follow it,

see where it leads, keep digging.

Another load up.

-GARY: Man, there's a lot of wood in here now. -Ah, that's a lot of wood.

RICK: To me, this looks older.

It's not dimensional lumber like TF-1.

PETER: Mm-hmm.

GARY: Another load.

RICK: Every time you put a shovel in the dirt,

every time you drill a borehole,

every time you drill a caisson, you're hopeful.

You think that, you know, "We're gonna find it today."

What are we kind of anticipating to see?

A treasure vault.

-GARY: I've got the other end. -PETER: Yeah.

RICK: Based on the finding of this old wood,

it could suggest that we're close to the original Money Pit.

That is interesting.

My takeaway in this moment is that,

yes, I believe we're close.

MARTY: Well, hey. Here's the deal.

-It's something different. -CHARLES: Yeah.

I mean, I'd about almost thrown in the towel,

but it's something different.

So that's the most exciting thing

that's happened out here today.

-That's true. -We're in a disturbed zone

at this point in time, still.

But they just want to get a few more feet here

and then they're gonna be putting the new can on.

-That's cool. -RICK: You still want

to go to 150?

That's for sure. Need to keep on digging.

I like it.

There's still hope!

NARRATOR: For 227 years,

generations of determined and faithful searchers

have tried in vain to solve the Oak Island mystery.

However, as Rick, Marty, Craig, and their team

diligently move forward in their own quest

to solve the world's longest running treasure hunt,

the efforts that those previous searchers made

continue to offer helpful clues

that may soon lead to the ultimate discovery.

So now, as they utilize the latest technology,

and keep digging with the most cutting-edge machinery,

the dream that they all have shared

may soon be fulfilled.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

GARY: Ready to find some good stuff out of these spoils?

-RICK: Whoa. -What have you got there, Rick?

-Look at this. -Ooh, that's nice.

Wow. This is old.

JOE: This came out of the medieval period,

-from about 1235. -CHARLES: It's amazing.

(soft laughter)

GARY: I'm hoping we smash

straight through the Chappell Vault

and come up with some treasure.

-This should be it. -GARY: Wow. Big timbers.

Chappell Vault, here we come.

(laughter)

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