Original subtitles

I've given my blood, my sweat, my tears,

my passion to this island.

The reason why you do it

is still the same: what happened here?

I want to find the one thing,

the one irrefutable piece of evidence

that helps explain the mystery

in its entirety and its complexity.

I'm feeling the pressure of time

'cause we've been out here for 14 years.

It's a super crucial year.

We came here seeking a great treasure.

I do think this could be the year.

I feel like we have an intense focus on putting this to bed.

I know I do.

It just amazes me.

Each year, we find something new

that nobody knew anything about.

That keeps me coming back.

"What are we gonna find this year?"

I really, really want to find some treasure

and/or figure out this mystery.

I think every entity,

every group that has come before us

for the last 231 years

thought that "Surely, we can solve the mystery."

Incredible things have been found,

incredible discoveries have been made.

During their quest, the Laginas and their team

have found over 2,000 artifacts

and numerous stone structures that suggest

different groups of European descent

made several visits to Oak Island

between the 12th and 18th centuries.

They have also found unexplained high traces

of gold and silver in water and soil samples

that were taken from deep underground

in the Money Pit area.

Usually, at the beginning

of each exploration season,

we start by having a grand gathering of the whole team.

Seems a little strange, uh, coming back. -It does.

But this year, I just wanted to have

a nice discussion among the three principals

of this operation in Dan Blankenship's house.

Both Rick and I looked up to him,

and you know, we want to solve this together.

The Laginas and Craig's late partner

Dan Blankenship spent more than 50 years living on Oak Island,

tirelessly searching for answers.

Before passing away in 2019,

he amassed many incredible discoveries of his own,

including uncovering part of the flood tunnel system

at Smith's Cove.

I was always in awe when I would step up to the door.

- Hey. Daniel. - Marty and Rick.

- How you doing sir? - Good.

It was like, "This is where the king resided."

Okay, let's go.

Okay, here we be.

Hey. Look at this.

- No way. - It's Dan as a young man.

Isn't that something?

- Amazing. - No question about it.

All right. Well, let's get after it.

- Lots of memories here. - Yeah. For sure.

I don't have a reputation for giving up.

Up until now, I've been operating on faith.

You got to give us credit for persevering, though,

- Oh, yeah. - and believing in something.

You believed. I know you did.

That table right there.

Well, that's where he would always sit,

- right there. - Mm-hmm.

A wave of memories come back, certainly.

Yep. Lots of memories.

But we also need to look at the future.

When Dan passed, we became stewards of a great mystery.

You know, if we're gonna be real stewards of the place,

we have to solve the mystery of Oak Island.

So, gentlemen,

the purpose of this meeting is

what are we gonna do this year, how are we gonna find this thing

and is it still here?

Yeah. We're gonna start with the Money Pit.

You know, we brought a number of maps to focus on our areas

of interest with the Money Pit...

- All right, here we go. - trying to find candidates

for running big caissons this year.

I do feel like we're close to solving it.

Last year, our big target was the solution channel.

Right. Working on the theory that

when the Money Pit collapsed, whatever was in it fell down

into the solution channel.

- For sure. - Yep.

In 1861,

searchers attempted to bypass the flood tunnel

by digging a shaft 18 feet west of the Money Pit,

known as Shaft Six, down to a depth of 118 feet.

From there, they started building a wooden tunnel,

hoping to recover the believed treasure from below.

But in a catastrophic twist of fate,

the Shaft Six tunnel also flooded.

This caused tons of lumber in the Money Pit

to collapse down into a natural, water and sludge-filled cavity

more than 200 feet deep known as the solution channel.

Find some treasure, boys.

Last year, the team excavated

five eight-foot-diameter shafts

to search the solution channel

in areas where their soil and water tests

detected precious metals.

Despite finding promising clues

such as 15th-century Portuguese stoneshots,

as well as artifacts and pieces of wood

that may be connected to the legendary vault,

the treasure remained elusive.

So, yeah, here's the RP-1 Shaft.

We're gonna start out

drilling some additional wells in the area,

because that's where the-the highest gold

came from a piece of wood.

I like that.

You know, when we dug RP-1,

the whole idea was looking for a treasure

that had shot into a tunnel from Shaft Six.

And now we've got a piece of wood

that came from that tunnel

that's indicating the highest gold levels.

So, definitely want to get in there

and look for that, and if it's not,

then we'll drill down deeper into the solution channel

to see if there's a treasure that fell from above.

What's next, Craiger?

We are going to Lot 5.

From the initial finds

on Lot 5, the lot is every bit as mysterious

- as the Money Pit. - Right.

After purchasing Lot 5 in 2022,

the Oak Island team discovered an undocumented

rounded stone foundation near the shoreline.

Artifacts found in and around it

were dated to between the 12th and 16th centuries

and may be connected to the Knights Templar

and their descendants.

That, to me, looks buried.

- On purpose. Hidden. - Yeah. Exactly.

And at the end of last year's search activities,

the team began investigating

what was thought to be a 20th century well.

However, after exposing more of it,

they believe it may be a much older structure.

Well, the big thing on Lot 5 now is

what we thought was the well.

The big problem we have right now is

it has quite a bit of water in it from the spring rains.

It's got to dry up.

But they can start on the surface around it. -Mm-hmm.

The other thing we can get on right away is the slipway.

This is right between Lot 4 and Lot 5. - Mm-hmm.

Near the shore of Lot 5,

the team also discovered the remains

of a believed slipway,

a sloped ramp used for docking boats.

So, we're trying to look

where artifacts might be found that tell the story

of who built the Lot 5 structures.

When you look at Lot 5 in its totality,

there might be some breakthrough discoveries here

that will help us understand who made the Money Pit.

Yeah, okay. And...

there could still be treasure on Lot 8.

Yes.

While searching for clues last year on Lot 8,

the team noticed a 20-ton boulder

that was sitting on top of equally spaced smaller stones.

When the team had the boulder lifted,

a cradle of rocks encased in mortar

was revealed beneath it.

And as they began to carefully excavate the feature by hand,

Dr. Ian Spooner detected high traces of silver

with a handheld X-ray fluorescence device

in the ground soil.

It's showing some silver.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

This suggests there may be

another treasure deposit

buried somewhere deeper below.

This winter, Dr. Spooner's taken

a lot of the samples and looked at them under a microscope

and also sent some out for testing.

So, we should get results on that pretty soon.

- That sounds great. - And of course,

we have to talk about the swamp.

- Yes. - So, let me text Tom.

- He's gonna come in, obviously. - Oh, yeah, no, for sure.

He's our partner, and we have a lot of work to do

in the swamp, so let's make sure

- that he gets here. - Okay.

For the many years that Dan Blankenship spent

searching for treasure,

he was also feuding with fellow landowner Fred Nolan,

who owned property that included the triangle-shaped swamp.

While investigating there,

Fred discovered a number of hand-cut survey stakes

and parts of a ship

which made him believe that it may hold another key

to solving the Oak Island mystery.

- Tom. -Hey. You made it. - Oh, there he is. -Hey, guys.

With Dan's blessing, the Laginas and Craig

forged a truce with Fred.

And since his passing in 2016,

they have worked closely with Fred's son Tom

to finish what his father began.

Okay, here's the swamp.

Yeah, I recognize it.

And our big discovery from last year is this sand road

Yeah. -coming in from the, uh, swamp road and then

also following right down Center Road.

Recent discoveries have convinced the team

that Fred Nolan was right about the swamp's importance

to solving the Oak Island mystery.

Late last year, they uncovered

part of a sand-covered cobblestone road

in the western region

that appears to run from the middle of the swamp

all the way through the center of the island

and potentially to Lot 5.

I mean, the swamp, no matter how many times

we go in there and dig, it seems like we always

- find these weird things. - Yes.

You know, what tweaks my interest is that

this sand road, if you follow it,

if it had projected out into the swamp,

we might find something there.

Well, let's dig it, then.

That's easy enough.

We've got the permit in place and -Yep.

now we can, uh, start draining it, so...

Be a few weeks yet

to dry up good, but... but we're ready. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - Good stuff.

The rest of the team will be here shortly.

And I believe

that if we can properly execute the plan in front of us,

that this year, we have the best chance

to solve the mystery once and for all.

Uh, to use Dave Blankenship's old description:

- spendables. Be nice to find... - Oh, spendables.

- Some spendables. - It would be nice.

Okay, well, let's get busy.

It isn't gonna figure itself out, is it?

- It's not. - I think we're done for today,

and it's been very good.

- Let's go. - Sounds good.

- Hey, Uncle Marty. - Morning, gentlemen.

- Brennan. How's my-how's my rig? - Good to see you again.

Oh, beautiful. Beautiful. It's doing well today. -Is it?

- Good morning guys. - Morning.

Two days after Marty, Rick and Craig's meeting,

drilling resumes in the Money Pit area.

- Terry, where we at? - We know that

the bottom of Shaft Six is around 118,

and we're getting close because this core right here

is 102.5 to 108.

Okay.

The team's first borehole is L.25-11.

It is located just a few feet from the RP-1 caisson,

where the remains of the Shaft Six tunnel

were found some 118 feet deep in 2024.

Has everything been just natural so far?

Yes, pretty much

- all the way down. - Okay.

Well, you know, I have a lot of patience,

so you got the right guy.

Wouldn't it be nice to find

where that gold in the wood is coming from?

Like right here, right now?

Absolutely. No question about it.

We're not here for nothing.

I mean, that's an interesting find.

What say you, Peter?

I'm excited. I mean,

another factor that we haven't said is,

in 1861, they knew where the original Money Pit was.

Yeah. -That is something that we've been chasing.

We know that we found material,

potentially, from that Money Pit with the gold on it.

So, if there's wood here,

- maybe the rest is still here. - Yeah.

Okay. Let's have a core.

Here it comes. Here's the bottom. -Yeah.

All eyes are gonna be on the table

because this is at tunnel depth.

We may pull up something that we missed

in one of the caissons.

A coin, you know, some evidence of the collapse.

- Who knows what? - Thank you.

What do you got, Kyle? -118.

- 118. -118. - Yes, sir. - Yeah.

108 to 118?

Very dense material here.

I don't see anything in it.

We haven't encountered the Shaft Six tunnel,

and looks like we might have missed it. -Okay.

We're right above

the solution channel, so if something would have fallen

right around Shaft Six, it would have fallen here.

My goal for this one, this hole in particular,

isn't this depth, it's the bottom.

- Yeah. - Well, what's the top

and bottom of it estimated?

We'll pass into it around 150 feet below grade,

but the really interesting part is around 208 to about 220.

In and around there, that's where we hope

the actual treasure might have fallen.

Yeah. All right.

I'm gonna grab a bag and we'll still do

- a soil sample. - Oh, for sure.

It's always possible we just missed the tunnel.

According to the data, there's still large amounts

of precious metals underground.

If our prevailing theory is that the treasure

collapsed into the solution channel,

maybe it's just deeper.

Who knows what's down below, but we're gonna find out.

We're over here because of gold.

Right, Pete? It's gold.

It's gold. I'll throw in another: silver.

Okay, gold and silver. Precious metals.

- There. - Yeah.

As the drilling operation continues

in the Money Pit area...

...on the western side of the island,

at the border of Lots 4 and 5...

- Morning. - Hey. - Good morning.

- Good morning, guys. - So,

we know the extensive amount of work

that was done on Lot 5.

They had to get from ship to shore.

Yep.

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

begin investigating the remains

of a possible slipway, or ship's wharf.

They are looking for any clues that might help identify

who created and inhabited the nearby

rounded stone foundation.

Gary, you say this all the time:

when people move, they lose things, right?

Yeah. Because it is a slipway,

people get off the boat--

and it's slippy rocks--

fall over and lose artifacts.

And they're probably not coming

in an empty boat.

No. - You wouldn't think so. -Yeah.

I'm excited because we know all the activity up here

and the start of that activity was right here,

so I'm sure we'll find something.

And to me,

any activity here is probably the best candidate

- for being treasure-related. - Yeah.

- I agree. - Our one restriction is,

I have a permit for the high-water mark inland.

Okay.

So, we've got it marked at those orange rocks right there.

That's as-as far in as you can go.

Yep.

Okay. I say we get started.

- Let's get going. - All right. Yep.

Due to federal regulations that restrict

any disturbance of the seabed,

the team is allowed to excavate the shore

but must stay above the mean high tide line.

Laird has given Billy permission to dig the slipway.

My hope is that something can be found

that will predate the occupation

of the Lot 5 feature as we currently understand it.

I think the work here is much earlier than 1600.

I am intensely excited and I am very hopeful

that a major discovery will be made.

Well, here's a bit of pottery.

- Check this out, Laird. - Yeah.

Looks like creamware?

Creamware is a type of English pottery

first invented around 1750 and was used

as a more affordable alternative to porcelain.

What can we learn from that?

The artifacts we're getting

from the round feature and then the yard--

- majority of them are creamware. - Mm-hmm.

That's mid-17s into the early 18s.

So, it puts it into the mid-1700s, which is nice.

There's activity, which is what we're looking for. -Mm-hmm.

The team has found many pieces of similar pottery

near the Lot 5 stone foundation.

Could this new piece be a clue

that people were coming ashore at the slipway

nearly a half century before the Money Pit was discovered?

If so, is it possible

that others docked in this same spot even earlier,

and could that perhaps explain the much older finds on Lot 5?

I think this feature is now, at least in my head,

tied to the Lot 5 round feature.

As we currently understand it, I would say, yes, yep.

And it held up well-- really, really well.

Mm-hmm. -I mean look at it, it's still here. -Yeah.

To me, the fact that none of the boulders

have been moved up shore, they've all been moved

- out and around... - Mm-hmm.

suggests that maybe this was all done by hand,

because the boulders would be much easier to move in the water

where you have at least a little buoyancy. - Yeah.

And you imagine what we are standing on now,

the artifacts, uh, still trapped in this sand.

Yeah, everything is looking very, very promising.

Yeah. - Okay. I got to check on a few things.

I'll try to get back as soon as I can.

See you later.

I got a signal right in the corner.

- Right in the sand there. - Yep.

- So, that's way down there. - Better jump in.

Pinpointer time.

Seems like a pretty big something, whatever it is.

Here we go. It's coming out.

Ooh, what have we got here?

Look at that.

Ooh, what have we got here?

Ah, look at that.

What do you think, Laird? Here.

Put your peepers on that.

While excavating the remains

of an old ship's wharf near the round feature on Lot 5,

members of the team have just found

a potentially important clue.

I'd say it's been there for a while.

Does it look wrought iron? Hand-forged?

- It does to me. - Yeah, what do you reckon,

like a cribbing spike? So, I mean... -I would have

- thought so, yeah. - So, it may be connected

to a wood structure that was here?

'Cause although the wood might be rotted away,

- we know the iron remains. - Yeah.

If this is a hand-forged iron cribbing spike,

could it be part of the possible slipway

and maybe help determine just who built the feature and when?

That's what archaeologists look for.

You know, you'd have the...

uh, a board in the ground and the board is gone

- but the nails are still there. - Mm-hmm.

Should we maybe dig a little further here, if we just

pulled this out of the corner of the dig?

- I would say so. - Yeah.

Brilliant. We're off to a flyer.

- Okay. - Yeah.

I'll recheck the hole.

No, that was it.

So, go ahead, Billy.

I'm surprised how deep the sand is in this area.

We got a squeaky piece of iron here.

- I was gonna say, it's... - And again, I should be able

- to pinpoint it. - Sounds okay.

It's in that top. Yeah.

This is more promising.

I think that is a square-shanked fastener.

- Mm-hmm. Yeah. - Yeah, you can see. Look, Alex.

That is definitely a square nail.

Older-style fastener.

What do you think?

Is that a square shank, Laird?

- Yeah, looks like it. - That's an older type, then.

Yeah. I'd like to take a closer look

- when we clean it up. - And I'm sure you found

a few of those type of nails near the features there?

We did, yeah.

Oh, this is a lovely,

jubbly find.

I love these old iron fasteners.

And just the type of find you want to be pulling up

when you're looking for a slipway.

Don't get any better than this.

It's a substantial piece.

So, late 1700s use for this slipway?

I-I think a couple more pieces

- of evidence there. - Yep.

Not to say it doesn't go earlier. -Exactly.

- No, of course. Yeah. - But what we found

- pushes at least that far back. - Yeah. Mm-hmm.

And something older may be out deeper in the water. -Yeah.

You're right, Craig.

Could be some really interesting artifacts out in the water.

There's no doubt that this is an old slipway.

We did find some good artifacts.

I think the big key today

is the slipway was active, uh, in the 1700s

when Lot 5 was active, and could easily

have been active earlier than that.

So, we need to pursue that.

Hopefully, it's part

of the overall Oak Island story.

You know, we-we still have the lab work.

And you never know what surprises come from that.

Yeah. - Well, I think we're good, Billy.

Call 'er quits for now.

- Good digging, Billy. - Thank you. -Thank you, Bill.

See you, mate.

The following morning...

Emma, I'd like to get some information here.

I think that's some sort of spike,

and I have no idea what that other one is.

...members of the team gather in the lab

for a report on the two iron artifacts found on Lot 5.

So, these two--

again, you found at the slipway--

a spike and a nail,

both have signs of...

usage. Like, extended usage. They're extremely worn.

They went through a lot.

And compositionally, they're very similar.

Okay.

Emma has scanned both artifacts

with a computer tomography device,

which uses X-rays to see through any built-up corrosion

and reveal clear 3D images of them.

So, this one is, um, the larger artifact.

It's hand-forged, it's wrought iron,

from just from the grain texture,

which are all good signs.

So is the nail.

It's got a square cross section.

Not pure iron but very clean.

They still have some impurities, so it's not

really old bloomery iron but it's bloomery

that's early-refined.

What's bloomery?

Bloomery's just a type of, um, old-school, uh, smelting.

Like, we have blast furnaces.

It's what was used before the blast furnace.

So, it's-- looks more like a kiln in design,

but they were the perfect temperature

to produce very near-pure or pure iron.

Which really does put it in the mid-1600s

to mid-1700s range.

- Wow. - Yeah!

Whoa.

Bloomery smelting

really does put it in the mid-1600s

to mid-1700s, comfortably.

Wow, that's fantastic.

That's a lot earlier than a lot of the iron artifacts

- you find on Lot 5. - Mm-hmm.

Yes. And it was the closest match

to the William Phips collection

that we analyzed, that was sent from his homestead.

Wow. - Yeah, I was gonna ask that.

Perfect.

In 1687,

the English merchant and explorer William Phips

located the wreck of the Concepción...

...a Spanish treasure galleon

which sank in 1641 near the Dominican Republic

with over 100 tons of silver on board.

After recovering some 34 tons,

Phips was knighted by King James II

and ordered to retrieve the remaining sunken riches.

Phips carried out the mission

with the help of Captain Andrew Belcher,

a high-ranking Freemason with strong ties to Nova Scotia.

But upon returning to England,

they delivered only five additional tons of the treasure,

claiming that the wreck had been looted by others.

Based on the theory that Phips and Belcher

may have hidden a large portion

of the recovered treasure on Oak Island,

in 2023, Laird and Emma compared the metal composition

of several iron artifacts found in the Lot 5 rounded feature

and others that came from the birthplace

of William Phips in Maine.

Incredibly, they were a near-identical match.

I mean, how many times

have we tested iron and we've been happy

when we get that Phips connection?

Well, add it to the pile

that keeps growing and growing and growing, right?

Mm-hmm.

Could these new discoveries

offer more evidence that Sir William Phips

may have led one of the groups

who used the slipway and stone foundation on Lot 5?

I'm happy with the results of the slipway dig.

Is there a building body of evidence that

might possibly connect Sir William Phips

and activities on the island?

Sure, it's possible.

He was known to have been in Nova Scotia waters.

It's a very intriguing theory.

This sort of proves that slipway's very old.

Yeah. - Is there anywhere we can look on Oak Island

where we won't find historical artifacts like this?

Seems like they're popping up everywhere.

You know, let's keep looking into this.

- Yep. - Okay. Great.

Well done, Emma, as always.

- Okay. Thank you. - Okey doke.

Thank you.

Later that day...

...in the Money Pit area...

L.25-11, here we go.

Let's see what's down below.

...Terry and Scott prepare to inspect

a new drilling core that was just extracted

from the bottom of the solution channel.

Here it comes.

- Here you go. - Thanks, Kyle.

This should be 214 to 218?

Yeah. Sure.

- Shall we? - Well, there's something

interesting right there, now.

Whoa. What the heck's that doing there?

It has wood sitting on the top of it.

It's amazing. Literally amazing.

Just when we think we finished this hole

and there was nothing of interest, boom,

we have this anomalous piece of wood. -Yeah.

So, if things in that solution channel are migrating,

this could be part of the Money Pit. -Yep.

So, we could be very close to something with this.

I'm gonna text Rick and Marty and let them know.

- They're gonna want to see this. - I think that's

a great idea.

This piece of wood doesn't belong here.

This really lends credence to the story

that the Money Pit collapse allowed things to fall

from the floor of Shaft Six to the solution channel.

If there's any open space down there,

there's potential for treasure to be there.

- Hey, guys. - How you doing?

What's the big fuss about? What do you got? -Wow.

This is what we found.

Piece of wood.

At 214 feet.

Hmm. What do you make of that, Rick?

Are you certain that wasn't

pushed down 'cause of the drilling?

There's no other way in other than coming from elsewhere

- in the solution channel. - Does that sink?

Give it a try, Terry.

Okay.

The answer to that question is yes. - Hmm. Mm-hmm.

- Hmm. - Wow.

During his time drilling in the Money Pit area,

Dan Blankenship found that wood from modern searcher structures

found belowground would float in water.

However, samples that sunk

were often proven through carbon dating

to be several centuries old.

Is that the biggest piece of wood

we found in the solution channel?

It's got to be. -Just about as-- it's pretty close

- to the max, I would say. - Yeah.

You know, that's actually really a totally solid

- chunk of wood. - Yeah.

It's more than a solid chunk. I mean, that's, like,

from a beam. - Yeah, a significant piece of wood.

That looks cut.

Yeah, it kind-it kind of does.

This could be something from the original Money Pit collapse.

Well, that's huge.

- Is that cut? - Yeah, definitely.

Mm-hmm. -You can see at least two or three knife passes.

Hmm. -To sharpen that point or to take the end off of that.

Yeah.

Somebody got at that with a knife, I'm, mm, 99% sure.

It may have been cut,

and that makes it associated with humans having cut it.

There's intent, there's purpose.

That's of significant interest.

Well, that's huge

but I mean, it was probably part of a bigger board.

I mean, it wouldn't have to been a knife,

it'd been just the adze would have come by

- and took that off that notch. - Sure, it could have.

Yeah. - This could be a part of the Money Pit

or the treasure chest.

- Yeah. - Well, there you go.

Somehow, that piece of wood found its way

into the solution channel,

much deeper than the wood

from Shaft Six with high gold values.

It's a clue.

If treasure has fallen to those depths,

we may be able to retrieve

something that is irrefutable evidence.

The one thing, if you will.

It bodes well for our theory of a collapse and something

going to the bottom of the solution channel.

Not maybe.

Yeah, it-it, it makes our theory sound exactly correct.

Pretty sure I spent hundreds of hours last summer

at this drill table hoping for something like that.

I mean, y-you remember, just hoping

to get something from solution channel depth.

- Yes. - If this wood

is really old, that, to me, would make this

a really exciting find

and-and a really good omen for our actually locating

this treasure of whatever is in the Money Pit.

This is our first hole of the year,

and we already have something of interest,

potentially something that absorbed

some Money Pit gold.

Yeah. It's a good... it's a great start.

It's a good start.

You know, guys, anything that comes out

of the solution channel, like wood,

is significant.

Yeah.

The idea is to stay and drill

close to RP-1 because of the gold on the wood

that Dr. Spooner detected near the tunnel from Shaft Six.

That piece of wood got down there in that solution channel.

So, we'll test it

for gold, we'll carbon date it

and we'll drill wells into the solution channel

in areas we haven't explored,

and see if we can find evidence of this treasure.

Entirely unexpected. I mean, that would be

pretty much tied for the deepest wood

in the solution channel right there.

The one more thing that should be done with that

is species ID.

Okay.

Bag that up, get it to Dr. Spooner,

and we just have to keep looking.

And the year is gonna progress beautifully.

We're all happy. Let's call it a day.

- Yeah. -Absolutely. - Great success,

no question. - You know, you wouldn't think,

uh, a little piece of wood

could elicit that kind of response, but it is true.

Yeah, w-well-- no, it-- well, because of where it was found.

Because of where it was found.

It didn't grow down there.

Cool.

The following morning...

Dr. Spooner, welcome back to the war room.

Look at the turnout.

And every one of these people are interested,

as am I, because you've been studying

the ground under the Lot 8 boulder

- all winter, right? - Right.

...members of the team gather

for a highly anticipated report.

What I was interested in-- and I think

the archaeologists were, too--

do we see anything that might have indicated

that there was something underneath the boulder

other than the organic matter?

So, we sent, uh, the samples out to a lab-- and those

were both the samples of the organic matter here

and the mortar here-- for elemental analysis.

Last fall,

Dr. Spooner made a surprising discovery

in the ground soils beneath the Lot 8 boulder.

It's showing something that I didn't see in the other sample.

- Oh. - Which is some silver.

- Yeah. - Yeah!

I absolutely, completely think there's a good shot of either

something being buried underneath that boulder

or it covering something of very strong interest.

I mean, look,

I'm still flabbergasted that all the experts agree

that that thing was placed by people.

And the archaeologists think it was placed a long time ago.

After detecting the traces of silver on-site

and also finding man-made mortar in the feature,

Dr. Spooner sent new samples out

for laboratory testing.

So, we've got

the mortar, its chemistry,

a date from wood within the mortar,

and we looked at the chemistry of the organic matter.

Okay. And?

Uh, well, we got the data from that soil...

...this stuff has the highest silver

I've ever seen on Oak Island.

- Wow. - No way.

This stuff has the highest silver

- I've ever seen on Oak Island. - What?

Yep.

Wow.

That's a real surprise.

A big surprise.

In the war room, Dr. Ian Spooner

has just presented new test results

for samples of the man-made mortar

and ground soils

that were taken from the Lot 8 boulder feature.

Well, like, wait a second. Put that in perspective, please.

So, the soil had 0.56 parts per million.

- Right. - The average for natural soil

is.04.

So, it's over ten times average. -Yeah.

0.56 PPM.

That's higher than we've seen in the soils

in the Money Pit or elsewhere.

So, this is really quite high, the data.

Okay.

I can't see a way that the local till

in the area is providing

this silver to accumulate at that level.

- No. - I mean,

it's quite stunning. I-I don't know what to say about it.

It means there was silver there.

- Yeah. - -Yeah.

I'm hoping it's still here. -Yeah.

I'm trying-- I'm searching desperately

for something rational that happened there.

Yeah. -I mean, the-the only rational thing

I can make out of this is it plugged something.

Right. -I mean, it's something really important.

Some cache of silver.

Right.

Uh, you know, this is valid.

And we found wood

within the mortar of the cradle feature

and we were able to date that wood.

And this is a date.

Uh, we just got it a little while ago,

and we got somewhere between

1694 to 1726.

Okay.

These dates really fit into that time frame

of Sir William Phips.

And we can't discount that, because we have had

many outliers of the artifacts and things that we found

on Lot 5 related to Phips.

Lot 5 is not that far away from Lot 8.

So, I don't think it's out of the realm to...

to associate Sir William Phips, perhaps,

with this type of activity.

- Mm. - Right? And...

William Phips did find an enormous amount of silver,

some of which they believe was not accounted for.

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.

Could the team's suspicions be correct

that the boulder feature on Lot 8

was created as early as the late 17th century

to hide treasure on Oak Island?

And might they have also potentially identified

just who was responsible for it?

Okay, that's an eyebrow-raiser.

These are very highly significant amounts of silver.

That's exciting as can be.

That's really, really amazing,

but I don't know what to make of it.

How'd that get there?

Well, here's the thing, uh-- you know,

let's break this down to action items.

- Yeah. - That boulder gets

more and more mysterious all the time.

And let's drill, let's get the rig set up over the,

right over the cradle and drill down underneath it.

Does anybody-- Do we have a problem with that at all?

I-I think we have enough information from the cradle area

that I think it's safe to do that now.

I probably would have said no last year. -Yeah, I...

Um, but I think-I think it's-- it's prudent to do that.

Okay, so, we're going to bring in the drill rig

- as soon as we possibly can. - There you go.

Yeah. -And I'd really like to get to the bottom

of that spot, just to rule anything out,

and who knows what we may find?

Something that may give us some answers.

All in all, we've had a great first week.

We got corroboration of the theory

that the solution channel swallowed up the treasure.

And we're getting a lot of data, cumulative data,

that indicates that this is an island-wide mystery

because there are very high levels of silver

under that boulder.

And in the Money Pit,

we found this massive amount of gold in the wood.

Okay, that is a lot of stuff and a lot of work to do,

so let's go.

- Let's-let's go do it. - Okay.

As a pivotal new year begins on Oak Island

for Rick, Marty and Craig,

their team has already found more compelling evidence

of possible buried treasure,

both deep in the Money Pit area

and somewhere that no one else ever knew to look.

Has the time come for their faith

and determination to finally be rewarded?

After all the struggles

and all the work and all the effort,

we are very focused on solving the mystery.

This year, I think that will happen.

I don't want a conjecture or a possibility.

I want to know, definitively, what happened.

This season on The Curse of Oak Island...

Let's go do this.

How long do you continue a quest?

Time's a-wasting. The pressure is on.

We're hot on the trail, we got to keep going.

We've invested more

than a decade of our lives.

All the dots connect. We are looking

- at a known Templar symbol. - No kidding.

It's a worldwide mystery.

We're burning daylight.

It's right here in front of us.

Fantastic.

It looks like bone to me.

If you're burying somebody under that boulder,

I think it's someone of high status.

There could be Templar graves on Oak Island.

- What have we got? - What?

- Gold! - No way!

- We found gold! - Look who's here.

We've got an "X" marks the spot. -Let's find it.

This might be our last chance.

Here we go. - We need to find the one thing.

Come on, baby.

That is a piece of history.

You have to hold the proof in your hands.

- It's time to go get it. - Whoa, what the heck?

- Wow. - You found that

in the Money Pit on Oak Island.

- I'm trying not to cry. - Me, too.

Ah!

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