Original subtitles

Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...

Is the swamp man‐made or is it not?

‐Moment of truth, buddy. ‐This is it.

Here it comes. ‐ Come on, baby, be something good.

If we find a flood tunnel between Smith's Cove

and the Money Pit it would be huge.

Hang on a sec. It looks like it's got a top

and a bottom to it, which means it could be a tunnel.

Is that it?

‐That's an oldie. ‐Wow.

This could be mid 1400s.

‐Wow. ‐Medieval, baby.

There is an island in the North Atlantic

where people have been looking for an incredible treasure

for more than 200 years.

So far, they have found a stone slab

with strange symbols carved into it,

mysterious fragments of human bone,

and a lead cross whose origin may stretch back

to the days of the Knights Templar.

To date, six men have died trying to solve the mystery.

And, according to legend,

one more will have to die

before the treasure can be found.

‐ Excited, Craig? ‐ Yeah.

Come on! Get us a core.

‐Let's go. ‐Yeah.

For brothers Rick

and Marty Lagina and their team,

recently conducted seismic data indicating

that a large ship possibly a Spanish galleon

could lie buried at the bottom of the Oak Island swamp,

has them eager with anticipation.

We're right in the heart of the anomaly.

Yeah. Exactly.

But rather than drain the swamp

and begin digging,

the team has chosen a more cautious approach.

Today, representatives from Choice Drilling

will begin extracting core samples

from a series of exploratory boreholes

in the Oak Island swamp.

If the core samples turn up evidence of old wood

or other man‐made artifacts,

it will go a long way toward convincing the team

that the enormous cost of draining,

and then digging up the swamp,

will be more than justified.

Moment of truth, buddy.

‐This is it. This is it. ‐Coming up.

Yeah.

Joining the team

for the investigation today

is fellow Oak Island landowner Tom Nolan.

As the son of the late Fred Nolan,

Tom is keenly interested

in maintaining his father's legacy on the island.

He has also joined the Laginas and their partners

as a full‐fledged member of their search operation.

Quite a sight.

I wish Dad could see this.

Yep.

‐He's probably looking at us. ‐Yeah. Yeah.

You were in this area.

What type of material is actually in the swamp?

Like, peat, uh, silt? What type of silt

are we gonna run into? What type of material?

I mean, we've only ever done a surface dig here.

So it's‐it's hard to say, but you guys

are going a lot deeper than that, so...

it's hard to say what you're gonna bring up.

‐We just went shovel‐deep. ‐Oh, okay. All right.

Using a five‐ton sonic drill rig,

which has been staged aboard

a massive 800‐square‐foot floating platform, or barge,

the drill team will extract samples of soil

and any objects contained within

by means of a specialized coring barrel

every five feet, down to the target depth.

All right, here we go.

‐What a great machine. ‐ Yeah.

We got one core coming out here.

These core samples

will then be collected into plastic sleeves

and transported to shore,

where they can be carefully examined by the team

for any evidence of a possible ship,

important artifacts or treasure.

Well, there's the core.

Okay, here it comes.

‐Got it? ‐Did he say 16 1/2?

16 1/2 at the water line.

Okay.

Got it?

You can move that way, Craig.

‐Okay. We're good. ‐SCOTT: Yep.

This is the longest three‐foot core I've ever seen.

‐Ten‐foot core?

This is supposed to be three feet.

Yes, that‐that's some three‐foot core.

Have to move it just around this way.

Yeah, we're gonna have to move it.

So, what do we have for the recovery on this, Craig?

This is gonna be, uh, 16 1/2 feet deep.

‐16 1/2, yeah. ‐And th‐they're measuring from water level.

All right, let's cut her open here.

It stinks like swamp.

This reminds me again why I hate the swamp.

‐This is gonna be even worse. ‐Yeah.

Organic material.

Not seeing any wood so far.

My experience is that seismic is fuzzy.

It can be accurate, but it's generally not very precise.

So we'll obtain the cores and we'll look at them.

The hope is there'll be wood in there,

‐and then we're off to the races. ‐Or something else.

Or something else. Exactly.

Come on, baby, be something good.

Want to get a marker?

This is 21 1/2, 16 1/2.

I'll take this one.

21 1/2.

16 1/2.

That's extremely dry.

Yeah.

Does this remind you of anything you dug in Smith's Cove at all?

I'd say not really, no.

Yeah, me, neither.

This is some of the color that you get.

You know, when the... in the clay up in the Money Pit.

Dry clay?

Found just 20 feet beneath the surface of the swamp?

And similar to that found in the Money Pit area?

When the original Money Pit

was excavated down to 90 feet in 1804,

members of the Onslow Company

reported finding platforms made of oak logs,

spaced every ten feet.

At a depth of 40 feet,

they discovered a layer of blue clay,

which they believed was being used as a sealant

to keep water from seeping into the treasure shaft

from the ground above.

Could this dry clay be evidence

that a similar waterproof layer

was intentionally placed beneath the swamp

to protect something of great value?

Why would it be dry at the 21‐foot mark?

I don't know.

It's unusual.

‐It's very unusual. The last place

you'd expect it to be dry is here.

No, I don't know what it is.

It could be a sealed pocket

of real dry stuff that would do it.

Yeah, it could be. ‐Yeah.

The first thing we got

was that the organic matter was very thin,

and we went directly into hard clay.

Well, that's significant

because it's the same sort of clay

and very dense clay that we see uphill

where the Money Pit is.

It'd be nice to figure out why.

Surely, this next core

will be just as interesting as this one,

but it's not what we're looking for.

‐It's definitely not wood. No. No, exactly.

We got to keep on going

‐and see what we find. ‐Yeah.

Let's get this off the table.

All right, here we go.

Something's stuck.

I think we're on something very hard.

While drilling

an exploratory borehole in the swamp

in an effort to find evidence

of a possible ship buried at the bottom,

the Oak Island team

has just encountered a mysterious object

at a depth of nearly 30 feet.

Optimistically, I hope that's wood,

but we're gonna have to wait and see when it gets over here.

All right, here we go. It's gonna be in this one.

‐29 1/2. ‐ 29 1/2.

That's... Wow.

That's looking more like clay.

Gray clay.

That's extremely dry.

Boy, that is hard as...

That's probably why it's dry, Craig. Look at that.

Cap rock.

Like in an oil reservoir.

This would seal anything off from water.

A cap rock?

Commonly used in the energy and mining industries,

the term "cap rock" refers to

a natural layer of extremely dense rock

which covers looser layers of sediment

or underground voids,

such as those filled with oil or gas deposits.

This acts as a kind of seal

which prevents anything contained within

from escaping to the surface,

and is highly resistant to attempts

to penetrate through it.

Could the hard, rock‐like substance

that the team has encountered

be a natural formation?

Or... could it be something

that was placed there by man,

something intended to hide an object very deep

below the Oak Island swamp?

All right, well, let's keep going.

You ready to drill?

‐BRENNAN: Fire it up. Yeah. ‐ Let's go!

Still having a hard time?

Looked like it stopped, to me.

Sounds like it's rattling itself

to death out there. What's going on?

We're having a hard time getting our casing down.

What do you think, Rick?

We might be at the point of refusal right here.

We could take the remaining time and reposition the rig.

Do you want to call it in a little bit and move,

or do you want to try it for a while?

‐What do you want to do? ‐Yeah, and I think

it's probably worth pulling this rod

and trying to drill another one.

All right, so the decision's made for us.

Okay.

Because the sonic rig is unable

to penetrate the mysterious stone‐like feature,

to avoid damaging their equipment,

the team has decided to move to a second drill site.

We're done for today, gents.

Tomorrow's another day.

Absolutely.

The next morning,

as the team from Choice Drilling repositions

the 25‐ton drill barge in the swamp...

This is Smith's Cove.

Last year, we did a major excavation in there.

Okay.

...Craig Tester, Alex Lagina

and members of the team, along with

area archaeologist Laird Niven, gather at Smith's Cove

to meet with ground‐penetrating radar experts Don Johnston

and Steve Watson.

We found a couple of major wood structures in the cove,

and we think there might be an underground flood system,

so they felt they intercepted the flood tunnel at this point.

‐Wow, that's a heck of a wall, isn't it? ‐Yep.

Last year, the Laginas and their partners

conducted the largest excavation of Smith's Cove

in the 224‐year history of the Oak Island treasure hunt.

In addition to uncovering a mysterious concrete wall...

Look at that thing. ‐It's huge.

...and a number of wooden structures,

which were scientifically proven

to predate the Money Pit's discovery

by more than two decades...

‐See the opening? ‐Yeah.

...the team also uncovered one of the five stone box drains.

This discovery means the team may be close

to revealing the location where the drains converge

into a single flood tunnel

leading directly to the original Money Pit.

So, I'm thinking we can start in here somewhere.

If we run the GPR, it shows there's a better place

to excavate going inland, we'd rather do that.

We're trying to limit how much ground we're excavating.

‐So, if that makes sense, then. ‐Okay. Yep.

Okay. We'll head on up.

One thing we want to do with the ground‐penetrating radar

is, uh, to try to look for the flood tunnel.

So we're hoping that the GPR can get us a more precise area.

Looks like you're about ready.

‐Yep. ‐Okay. Well, let's get after it.

Here we go.

Using a Noggin 100 GPR device,

Don and Steve will send electromagnetic pulses

into the ground beneath Smith's Cove.

This will allow them to scan for possible voids

or buried objects that might exist

up to several hundred feet below the surface.

Of particular interest will be the area

known as the "upper beach,"

where the team believes the box drain convergence point

could be located.

‐Whenever you're ready. ‐ We're ready.

‐Ah. Hang on a sec, Don.

We have some, uh...

interesting anomalies in the data here.

To me, it looks like five meters down.

Six, seven meters back.

Oh. Way back there.

‐Okay. Officially marked.

As Craig and Alex continue to supervise the investigation

at Smith's Cove...

‐Park up here, mate. ‐Yeah.

...metal detection expert Gary Drayton

has decided to look for artifacts on Lot 21,

located on the western end of the island.

Joining him are Rick Lagina and Dan Henskee,

who are equally curious about what Gary might find.

‐Let's go for it. ‐Let's get Big Bertha ramped up.

Let's go.

Oh, my gosh!

Because of the incredible finds

made on this same lot last year,

including a gold‐plated brooch

estimated to be as much as 700 years old

and a decorative lead object, which was scientifically linked

to the medieval cross that was found two years ago

at Smith's Cove,

Rick and Gary are eager to continue their investigation

of the area.

I very much look forward

to every time we go out with Gary,

and this area has history behind it,

has significant finds.

So it's a significantly interesting area,

and I hope we can...

hopefully come up with some real targets.

I'm gonna zigzag along this track.

That sounds good. ‐Yeah, that sounds good.

Here's the center, mate.

It's probably large iron.

It's not that deep. It's reading five, six inches.

That's certainly good.

Good two‐way repeatable.

‐Tough digging.

Hey.

It is rocky.

Is that it?

I don't know what that is.

Wow. Look at that.

Whoever made this

did it a long time ago.

located on the western side of Oak Island...

‐It looks like there's a little piece missing off it. ‐ Yeah.

...Rick Lagina, Dan Henskee

and metal detection expert Gary Drayton

have just made a curious discovery.

I thought it was a flat iron, like an old Victorian flat iron,

when I first saw it.

Yeah? ‐But you know what?

That looks like a... a quarry hammer.

A quarry hammer?

Found on Lot 21?

Dating back as early as the first century BC,

a quarry hammer, or sledgehammer,

is a blunt tool used in modern mining and stonemasonry

to break apart large boulders.

This type of tool is used in a quarry for rock work.

The first thought is: Nolan's Cross.

Or perhaps even some earlier structure.

So we'll have another look at our stone,

see if we can't...

draw some connections.

That looks like it was used for hammering that way.

It looks like it was made for the wooden shaft to go in.

I mean, that is a meaty piece of iron.

Oh, yeah.

You think it's very old.

Yeah. I couldn't put a date on that.

I've seen some old, old tools,

and I've found medieval tools, but I've never found

anything looking like that.

Yeah, I believe that this would be a top‐pocket find.

‐I'd need a big top pocket, mate. ‐Strong pocket, yeah.

Let's see if there's anything else in the area.

This sounds good.

Just here, mate.

Dig me something up good, mate.

Is that it?

Wow.

It's another hammer.

It looks like a hammer head.

Look! It is! It's got that same end as well.

‐And this is even bigger. Look. It's twice as big as the other one.

Feel how heavy that is, Rick.

‐Wow! Wow!

Let's have a look at that other one, Dan.

Let's see if it's similar.

Wow. So we got two of them.

Yeah. Well...

Uh, actually...

yeah, it's thicker that's why it's heavier.

Wow, this is heavy, isn't it, mate?

Yeah, that‐that's rather dense metal there.

I mean, they look very, very similar.

Never seen anything like that before.

We were all a bit confused by it, so...

what we'll do is probably bring it to Carmen Legge

and have him, uh, render an opinion.

But we got two good pieces.

Oh, yeah. These are great.

What a way to wrap up the day.

This is the section we want to look at.

As team members Paul Troutman,

Charles Barkhouse and Doug Crowell

continue to oversee the coring operation at the swamp,

brothers Rick and Marty Lagina arrive

at the South Shore Road, where they've arranged

to meet with geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner...

‐Marty. ‐Morning, Ian.

...a professor of earth and environmental science

at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

Dr. Spooner has spent over two decades

studying the geology of wetlands throughout Canada.

Well, we have something to show you.

It goes from organic stuff to hard‐packed clay,

‐like, real fast. ‐Right.

And not that deep, which, you know,

I mean, to an amateur like me, sounds like this isn't that old.

‐So, I want to... I want to see that. ‐You want to see that. Yeah.

‐We want you to see that. Yep. ‐I want to see that interface.

Rick reached out and found a swamp expert,

which is great 'cause we're in need of one.

‐Right through there. ‐We're hoping that he can shed some light

on the perennial question

"Is the swamp man‐made, or is it not?"

‐Ian, here's... ‐Yeah.

Here's the first core right here.

Basically, we use datum as pond level.

It started right where the cut on the plastic is,

‐believe it or not. ‐Right.

So, this is pretty normal in terms of what

we see in wetlands, in that you've got marine sediment here.

And then we've got the first vestiges of a swamp

right at that connection right there.

That's kind of odd.

What's that?

It's an angular rock fragment,

which starts me thinking there might be,

you know, a glacial connection to this sediment, as well.

But if you take the sediment

and you roll it between your fingers,

you can see there's a lot of clay,

which you'd expect in a marine environment.

If you're saying that's marine,

you're saying that, whatever time that interface is,

‐it was sea bottom. ‐Yeah.

Frankly, I think this was all water.

‐Wow. ‐Yeah.

That would be interesting to know.

If this was 2,000 or 3,000 years of wetland,

you'd have more organic sediment than that.

My first guess is it's...

it's not‐not terribly old,

but what I'd like to do is take it to my lab,

and we can take a careful look at it.

‐All right, well, thank you very much. ‐Hey, thank you.

Do what you need to do. We'll get you some more.

‐Yep. Okay. ‐Appreciate it. ‐Thanks.

Because it is Dr. Spooner's assessment

that the swamp appears to be much younger than expected

and was, at one time, open ocean

he has decided to take the core samples for further testing.

If successful, he may not only be able

to determine the swamp's approximate age,

but also whether the samples contain any signs

of human manipulation.

‐ Okay. Good. Thank you. ‐IAN: Good.

Thank you. ‐ Carry on.

As core samples continue

to be drilled in the Oak Island swamp...

‐ Gentlemen. ‐ Craig. Morning.

Well, you ready to start on this new area?

‐Ready to start on this, yeah. ‐Okay.

...Craig Tester, Doug Crowell

and archaeologist Laird Niven

continue to oversee the search

for the legendary flood tunnels.

If found, they could lead the team directly

to the original Money Pit treasure vault.

Ahead of us is what's known as the Cave‐In Pit,

and the flood tunnel was thought

to run up here through the Cave‐In Pit.

And we're thinking that perhaps

your technology will help us better position that hole.

Let's get the day going and see what we can find.

‐ Okay. Sounds good. ‐Okay.

‐Thank you, gentlemen. ‐ I'll stay here

‐with these guys. ‐All right.

‐Okay. ‐Thanks, Craig.

In the spring of 1878,

island resident and farmer Sophia Sellars

was plowing a field using a team of oxen

approximately 350 feet east of the Money Pit.

Suddenly, the ground beneath her collapsed,

sending both her and her oxen

down a ten‐foot‐deep sinkhole.

Later dubbed the Cave‐In Pit, searchers believed

that Sophia had unwittingly discovered an ancient air shaft

created by the treasure depositors

as they constructed the flood tunnel

between Smith's Cove and the Money Pit.

The Cave‐In Pit has always been of interest.

Certainly, previous searchers

were extremely interested in it, so...

we have a unique opportunity at this moment in time

to throw some science at it and possible excavation.

Okay. Let's roll.

‐Hang on one sec.

So we've got an anomaly happening here

about a meter behind me at...

25 meters down.

Let's go ahead and mark that.

‐Hang on a sec.

It's 28 meters down.

It looks like it's got a top and a bottom to it.

It could be a... a tunnel.

Okay.

These anomalies coming in at 28 meters, pushing 100‐foot depth,

that's kind of the‐the magic number of where

‐the flood tunnel should be coming through here. ‐Oh, okay.

So, there's the Cave In‐Pit and Smith's Cove.

‐You know, it lines up pretty good with the Money Pit. ‐Yep.

Well, we've got two nice markers here. That one over there, too.

‐I'm gonna get ahold of Rick. ‐Oh.

‐Okay. ‐Uh, and, uh, bring him up to date,

'cause if he's anything like me, he'll be surprised

‐we're seeing anything at this depth. ‐Yeah.

Hey, Rick. It's Craig.

I'm down by the Cave‐In Pit with, uh, Steve and Don.

We just got running some, uh, GPR lines.

Don had 28 meters, about 90 to 100 feet, but definitely

could be flood tunnel type anomaly.

Yeah.

Yeah. I know.

It's very encouraging.

Definitely deserves further attention.

Okay.

Yep.

Talk to you later. Yep.

The following day...

47 to 50.

‐So let's see what it tells us. ‐Yeah.

...as geologist Terry Matheson and surveyor Steve Guptill

oversee the continued drilling operation in the swamp...

Gentlemen, we have a very important guest today.

...brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,

Craig Tester and members of the Oak Island team have invited

blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge

to meet with them in the war room.

They are hoping that by examining a number

of recently discovered metal objects,

Carmen might be able to determine not only their age,

but also if they might offer valuable clues

that could help solve the Oak Island mystery.

Carmen has a wealth of knowledge

about these things in front of us.

All of these things were found on the island.

So, let's get to it. What do you want to start with?

Well, thank you for, uh, having me here today,

and I'm sure I can tell you a few things

in some of the stories that these tools are telling.

Do any of those ox shoes stand out to you?

Is it different than this?

Hmm.

And I should tell you, when we first found these,

we thought it was, like, stonemasons' tools.

Mm‐hmm.

‐They're not? ‐Oh, wow.

It's a sharpening tool, then?

Dating back as early as the 12th century BC,

swages are a blacksmithing instrument

used to mold and sharpen metal tools

by driving them against holes of various shapes and sizes,

depending on the object's desired purpose.

It would have been mounted on a shaft?

Do you have to heat that up, then?

Is the drill spun or run back?

Pounded?

For tunneling?

A major mining

or tunneling operation?

Could these swages have been used

during the construction

of the original Money Pit treasure shaft?

Have you ever seen any of these in this area?

Yeah. 'Cause what I'm getting at is where did these come from?

‐ Wow.

In the Oak Island war room,

blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge

has just shared an astonishing assessment.

He believes that the iron objects

found two days ago on Lot 21

are drilling tools known as swages

and could date back as early as the 15th century.

So, as old as 1400.

When‐when would they not be being made?

‐Really? ‐Wow.

And from the blacksmith's point of view,

is‐is... are these crude or well‐made tools?

Which means it's older.

Medieval, baby.

Yeah, we're going back, baby.

More curious than that in the sense that the tunneling

that I think Carmen's talking about would not

have been the kind of tunneling done over by the Money Pit.

They were just digging through glacial clay there.

They wouldn't need this.

So that makes me wonder about this side of the island,

'cause on this side...

Yeah. That's on this side of the island,

and we've not looked for tunnels that much over here.

Right.

Surveyor‐turned‐treasure‐hunter Fred Nolan

long believed that Oak Island was once two separate islands.

This was largely due to the fact that each half,

known as the eastern and western drumlins,

are comprised of two very different kinds of geology.

The eastern drumlin,

where the Money Pit and Smith's Cove are located,

is made of anhydrite limestone,

a sedimentary bedrock

created when a large volume of seawater

evaporates over time.

The western drumlin,

which includes Lot 21 and areas of the swamp,

is made of highly compacted slate,

a metamorphic rock formed when clay or volcanic sediment

is exposed to extreme heat and pressure

deep beneath the Earth's surface.

Fred was convinced

that these two separate and distinct landmasses

could not have been conjoined naturally

and were most likely the result of ancient engineering.

Because a tool like the drilling swage

would not have been necessary

on the eastern side of Oak Island,

is it possible that drilling and tunneling

were also being done on the western side,

a side that has, until now,

remained virtually unexplored?

You know, from recent history, Fred and Dan,

as they conducted their search agendas,

each independent of the other,

they both came to believe that...

the activities that had been conducted long ago by what

they both called "original depositors,"

they believe that the activities

were not solely conducted in the Money Pit area,

that they extended into the western drumlin.

So, but now we have

tooling which indicates those activities

might have been conducted for that purpose.

All right. Well, again, I thank you tremendously

on behalf of the group. Very interesting.

I find all this fascinating.

So I thank you.

I appreciate it very much,

and we will be in contact.

Gentlemen, let's get at it.

Later that day...

Hey, Terry.

Hi, guys. How you doing?

Rick and Marty head to the swamp

to see if the drilling operation

has found any evidence of a large wooden ship

or other ancient structure

that seismic testing indicated might be buried

some 55 feet deep underground.

‐Talk to us. ‐ So,

‐ship anomaly four. ‐Yeah.

This is the hole we're looking at right here.

54 feet to, uh, 57 feet.

No wood.

‐No... no ship, unfortunately. ‐No ship.

‐It is a disappointment. ‐ Seems to be...

It is a disappointment.

Um, we really have to look

at that material to see what we have.

This is just the last of the S. A. four.

We're not finding what

‐we're looking for here, are we? ‐ No.

Unless we see some evidence of disturbed material,

i.e. a tunnel, this hole hasn't panned out.

Interestingly enough, you probably could tunnel

‐through this stuff, right? You could... ‐Oh, yeah.

‐Yeah. ‐Oh, no question. You could...

‐you could definitely. ‐It's dry.

Dry clay?

Creating the perfect conditions

for tunneling deep beneath the triangle‐shaped swamp?

Could Rick, Marty and the team

have just been given key evidence

as to the true nature of the ship‐shaped anomaly

recently revealed by seismic scanning?

But then that begs the question,

if that is a construct, what was its purpose?

‐Exactly. ‐ Yeah.

It didn't have to be a ship. Just something man‐made,

and we... and we haven't got it.

Not what we're looking for.

One thing we learned from this core drilling already is that

it would be possible to tunnel under the swamp.

That's for sure,

because it's a dry clay.

One meter below the base of the swamp is dry,

so there could be a tunnel there, and we need

to check that theory out.

All right, good.

We're not done hoping yet, buddy.

So, the reason why we're here, course,

is to talk about your favorite topic,

‐the swamp. Um... ‐Yes, the swamp.

You know, it's been a bit of a disappointment.

I will say that.

The results have not been

as I would have hoped.

Everybody knows how I feel about the swamp.

I still think there's answers there

even though the latest drilling has been somewhat inconclusive.

Yeah, the answer might be no.

And‐and I... and I'd be okay with that.

‐I really would. ‐ But if we had

cored a bunch in Smith's Cove last year,

we could easily have missed every structure out there.

‐Mm‐hmm. We could, yeah. ‐ Easily.

‐Because they‐they're vertical structures. ‐Yeah, I'm not gonna...

So you could be jumping all around

with data like this and miss everything.

But what did come of this round of drilling

is Dr. Spooner's interest in the science.

His initial inspection of the cores,

he made that preliminary assessment, and he was stunned.

‐It was much younger than what he had thought. ‐Yeah.

And if you postulate that it's man‐made,

I don't know what that anomaly is. If you... Let's say...

Let's say somebody said right now,

for sure, this is man‐made.

All right, so then you have to figure out...

To what end. ‐ What is it?

And I'm not coming up with a lot.

I mean, potentially, that could have been a tunnel.

A tunnel? Is it possible

that the 200‐foot‐long anomaly that was detected in the swamp

was not a wooden ship but a tunnel?

Well, look, one of the things

I remember saying out there as these cores came up

is that the clay itself, once again,

once you got below

the depth of the water some odd feet,

the clay itself would have been impermeable enough

to allow tunneling in it.

You could tunnel under the swamp.

You could do it right now today based on what we saw.

You go right under it, probably dry,

because of this Oak Island clay.

So, yes.

Some sort of tunnel.

Entirely possible.

The long‐fabled back door.

‐ Yeah. ‐ Yeah.

Well, what about having a look at it?

What about digging it up?

Putting a fence around it and...

I think it's a logistical nightmare.

Yes, the excavation would be problematic.

I mean, and nasty because...

because digging that stuff is awful.

‐Mm‐hmm. ‐You know, the bladder system might work.

I don't think the bladder system would work, Rick,

because it would stop the surface water,

but the minute you put a shovel in there,

it all comes oozing in.

‐Absolutely. Yeah. What this begs is,

then, the larger question.

How do we exploit it?

What do we do?

If there is a dig, how large, how wide?

You know, how deep?

Because that's all... rounds to, then, back to permitting.

Yeah.

The options for digging in the swamp

revolve around, mainly, how we do it

‐and what permits we have to get. ‐Exactly. Permits.

So, um, we're looking into all of that. It's tricky.

First, we have to decide exactly what the target is

and how deep we're gonna go.

And then we got to figure out how and what's permissible.

It's‐it's a...

‐Complicated. ‐It's a complicated deal.

We're wondering whether we encountered

a man‐made structure.

We have an archaeologist sitting here.

So, what do you... what do you make of it?

It's unusual.

It certainly feels man‐made to me.

‐ Okay. ‐ Very much so.

Look, I think, you know, something we should do,

you know, try‐try to come to a‐a real,

science‐based understanding of the development of that swamp

that would facilitate getting the permit.

Rick, in this particular case, if‐if you want an argument,

‐you're gonna have to change the subject. ‐Well, I...

Because I agree. I agree.

Bringing hard science to it the morphology, as you say

which was your idea to say, "Bring in a swamp expert,"

could shed some light on whether it might be man‐made.

Uh, yeah, absolutely, 1,000% agree.

I‐I... I‐I don't like to speak for people,

‐but I'll bet you do, too. ‐Mm‐hmm.

I'll bet you do, too, and you do, too, and you do, too.

‐So, let's do that. ‐Yeah. Absolutely.

We're not done yet, I'll say that.

So let's do these things.

And I will get the excavator and be...

be ready for your command, okay?

Okay. Let's go do it.

For Rick, Marty and their Oak Island team,

a week that has ended without the breakthrough they hoped for

may have opened the door to stunning new evidence.

Evidence that not only could the swamp be man‐made,

but that it could be hiding

some sort of underground tunnel.

But if a tunnel does exist, where does it lead?

To a vault containing something of incredible value?

Or was it built for some other,

perhaps even more profound purpose?

Subtitled by Diego Moraes www.oakisland.tk