Original subtitles

Matty: We are just one hour away

from the season eight premiere of the curse of oak island.

Now, this year is much different from any in the past.

As the world has struggled with the covid-19 pandemic,

you must be wondering: Could rick, marty, craig and the team

have made any significant progress toward solving

the world's most incredible treasure mystery?

The answer, my friends, is a categorical yes.

And I'm here to get the inside scoop on all the new dirt.

This is drilling down.

♪ ♪

afternoon, everybody!

-Matty blake! -Hey, matty!

Jack: Welcome!

-Welcome to the war room! -Come on in.

Well, I am glad to be back, especially this year, guys.

So, I guess there's a season eight.

-You're looking at it. -Love it.

Last I saw you guys, we were all in our respective living room,

wondering if this was gonna happen.

And-and I can tell already, things are a little different.

Talk about this setup.

Is this covid-related?

-The reason... -Marty: Oh, yeah.

We took several initiatives.

We're trying to maintain our six feet in here.

We're limiting it to this many people in the war room.

I mean, you know, last year, there were faces crammed

right next to each other all the way around this table.

-Absolutely. -So, what we've done here is

we have not one but two outside air machines,

uh, running all the time.

And then, of course, the rest of the fellowship's

up there on the, on the screen.

Craig is here in nova scotia,

but he got banned because there's no room for him in here.

-He got the short straw. -Uh, yeah, you could say that.

(laughter)

we will get through it.

Um, actually, marty,

I want to stay with you for a second

because last time that you and I did talk,

we were remote, and you had mentioned your daughter.

She's a doctor.

She was working right in the thick of it in michigan.

-She still is. -How is she, and-and is everything okay?

It's been tough, but she's handling it.

Thank you for asking.

She's in our thoughts and she continues to be

-and all those heroes that do that. -Thank you.

-It's-- yeah. -Uh, I don't know how they do it.

I'm very, I'm very proud of her, as-as you might imagine.

Despite the challenges of covid, how have you been doing?

Everyone's waiting at home to hear.

Rick: Very quickly, it became apparent

the covid situation was gonna be very impactful

not only to society in general

but to us in particular here on the island.

So what happened really was we became

focused on certain agendas.

Hopefully, as the year progresses,

uh, we'll, uh, find success in that.

It's-it's cliché that one door shuts and another door opens,

but I think it happened here, and, I mean, we're gonna

show you some stuff here today that, I think,

might not have happened but for covid.

That's exciting.

So, the search continues, you know.

Smith's cove-- some of the things

you found there last year.

Last year, rick, marty, craig and their team once again provd

that large sailing vessels visited oak island

long before the discovery of the money pit in 1795.

Rick: This is far and away much larger

than anything associated with the slipway.

Matty: After installing a 6,000-square-foot extension

to their massive steel cofferdm surrounding smith's cove,

the team was amazed to uncover a wooden ship's wharf.

It was clearly an old structur, but they were shocked

when tree-ring dating, known as "dendrochronology,"

provided them with the precise year that it was constructed.

1741.

Whoa.

(laughter)

matty: All right, so smith's cove.

Things you uncovered moved the date back again.

Are we following up on some of that data?

Has that led us anywhere this season?

Alex: Matty, I think it's fair to say

that we're getting closer to the money pit,

uh, over in smith's cove.

We have found some new data and some historical data

that's throwing us a little bit closer to the money pit,

and we're following up on all of that this year.

Rick is suspicious now

that maybe not just one big thing happened here

but maybe a couple, right?

-Maybe two stories, maybe three. -Rick: Yeah.

Oak island continues to befuddle.

The more we uncover it, it seems like there's more to uncover.

Matty: You know, we're talking treasure now, so perfect segue.

Do we have some top pockets so far this season eight, gary?

So far, this year has been incredible.

Uh, the finds have been numerous

and they've been absolutely brilliant!

(laughter)

bingo.

Gary was busy with his trusty metal detector last year,

filling his top pocket with a number of amazing discoveries..

Ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo!

(blows sharply) it's a ring!

Matty: ...Including a decorative ring

found in the swamp,

as well as 17th-century cribbing spikes

uncovered at smith's cove,

along with a lead artifact that, like the medieval cross,

was proven to have come from a region in europe

once connected to the knights templar.

Feel how heavy that is, rick.

-Wow. Wow! -(laughs)

matty: But perhaps his biggest finds, made on the property

that once belonged to daniel mcginnis,

were much too big for that top pocket:

Two iron swages, or tunneling tools,

that were estimated to be as much as 600 years old.

So, gary, shortened season,

maybe a more focused, directed season--

-has that helped you? -Gary: Yeah, it has because,

this year, I brought some new equipment out with me.

I brought some deep ground scanning equipment,

some pulse induction equipment,

and my moneymaker, of course, the ctx 3030.

But everything has been firing on all cylinders, mate.

Gary's new equipment has produced

so many different artifacts this year, and...

So now we're going for the deep targets,

the older stuff.

We'll show you some of this equipment, mate.

Jack and I will take you out and show you how it works.

Matty: That's exciting.

I can't wait to see it.

I'm smelling some swamp.

Let's talk about the swamp.

Matty: Any doubt that something extraordinary

happened on oak island centuries ago

was buried last year

by what rick, marty, craig and the team found

in the triangle-shaped swamp.

It all started with the search for a 200-foot-long feature,

conspicuously shaped like a large sailing vessel,

some 50 feet deep,

that had been detected at the end of season six

by seismic scanning.

Although they have yet to figure out

exactly what lies buried there,

they did unearth a number of burnt wooden and metal

artifacts from ancient ships.

Those really shouldn't be in the swamp.

Matty: Then, they uncovered a mysterious

circular formation of boulders

at the northern point,

also known as "the eye of the swamp,"

with geoscientist dr. Ian spooner.

Ian: So what we did was we got a sample

and we get these dates: 1674 to 1778.

Matty: Now, scientific proof

of man-made workings dating bak

more than a century before

the discovery of the money pit was huge,

but it was, well, swamped by what they found next.

This is the paved area, right there where billy's digging.

Alex: Mm-hmm.

Matty: A vast stone paved feature

extending all the way from the eye

to the southeastern area of the brackish bog.

And when dr. Spooner's carbon-dating results came bac,

the discovery became the oldest

and most profound proof

of human activity ever recorded on oak island.

Here's the dates we're getting.

-Wow. -Yeah.

What are they?

Around 1200 ad.

(chuckling)

last year, huge game changer, dial mover.

You know, the paved area.

You guys, for all intents and purposes,

proved that there was man-made works going on in this island

and they were prior to 1795,

before the-the discovery of the money pit.

Has that been followed up on this season?

Have you been able to follow up on any of that stuff yet?

Actually, yes. I find it extremely ironic

that you framed your question that way because,

actually, the scientists said

it was highly probable last year.

This year, they're using words like "definitive."

that's what has changed this year.

I'd say a good way to describe what we found this year

is it makes the paved area seem small.

Oh, that's good. I can feel the fans

sitting on the edge of their couches

right now as you say that.

You mention that word,

"definitive," and as you say,

it's not a word used a heck of a lot on oak island

and when I hear "science" and "definitive,"

I want to go to craig tester because, craig,

I know that's speaking your language.

How excited are you this season eight?

Very much.

I mean, we're finding some nice artifacts

and we've got some new experts that we're bringing in

to help solve this, uh, mystery.

(laughs) hold me back.

To that end, I'm thinking about last year,

also, and the growth that happened archaeologically.

The team,

the archaeological aspect of it, has expanded.

Uh, it went from laird, by himself.

Now there are three people, archaeologists,

involved in the process because there are other locations

that we have need of the archaeological process.

And the fact that we need a team of archaeologists here,

that just shows how well we're doing this year.

-All right. -We have a new site,

uh, it's up on lot 15.

But what's really interesting is that,

in some way, and you'll learn this

as you meet one of the archaeologists

out at the site,

that, strangely, it connects the past to the present.

Lot 15, that's-that's kind of out behind the money...

-That's all we're gonna say. -That's new. It's all new.

That's all we're gonna say.

All right.

Get ready to step back in time, matty.

All right, I want to talk about the elephant in the room,

because it kind of all began at the money pit.

It's well known that constant digging

by determined searchers

and constant cave-ins

from the legendary booby-trappd flood tunnels

over the past two centuries

has hidden the exact location of the original money pit.

Last year, the team made their boldest attempt yet to find it,

digging three 8-foot-wide steel-cased shafts

across the area-- 8-a, rf-1, and oc-1--

where, incredibly, they discovered part of a shaft

dating back to 1706.

Although they were encouraged

to have possibly pinpointed the money pit,

they also discovered that the legendary treasure

may have moved a significant distance

from its original location.

Since we're in the money pit,

uh, craig, I want to come to you

because another cliffhanger

was some of the sampling you took out of oc-1

and some of the dating that came out of the wood there.

The date was 1706, it's really pushing it back in time.

Uh, we're gonna have more science on that, um...

But we're also drilling in the money pit this year,

so we need to get you back there and see what's going on.

Rick: So, craig will drive in

and we will all-- meaning doug, uh, charles and terry--

we'll go out there and we will

tease you a bit more about the money pit work.

Thank you, guys, so much. Let's get to the money pit

-and kick off this season, shall we? -Marty: There you go.

-Matty: All right. -Marty: There you go, matty.

E's one place that embodies drilling down

on oak island, it's right here, at the fabled money pit.

The hallowed ground where people have been drilling and digging,

searching for a legendary treasure vault

for 225 years now.

Here to tell me how that search is going currently

are my friends rick lagina, charles barkhouse, doug crowell,

steve guptill... (chuckles)

craig tester and terry matheson.

How are you, fellas?

-Good, matty. -Thanks, matty. Good to meet you.

I got the whole gang here, thank you.

So, guys, we're in the war room,

you're telling me I got to come up here.

There's a lot I want to ask you about.

I see some things over there I want to ask about--

one thing in particular-- but what's here on this table?

Rick, what am I looking at?

You're looking at this very morning's work.

-Wow. -And, this hole in particular

has proven to be very, very interesting.

You're looking at a core of a shaft

that we did not know about.

But even more interesting...

And I'll let charles, because he's the metal detectorist

of-of this enterprise in gary's absence.

Charles: Might like to see this, matty.

This was found at 95 feet.

-Square nail. -Square nail. Yes.

Matty: This was, uh, handmade,

most likely at 95 feet, is that right?

Charles: That's where it was found, yes.

From-from this wood somewhere in here?

Yeah. You can see the nails right there.

Matty: Oh, I can see that-- yeah, so it sat right there.

Craig: Yep.

Matty: Every time I see these core samples,

I can't help, but I think of the chappell vault.

It was in the summer of 1897 that frederick blair

and his drilling operator william chappell

literally struck gold on oak island.

At 153 feet, their drill rod penetrated

a massive seven-foot-tall wooden vault

that was also encased in concrete.

When they extracted the drill bit,

the traces of gold they saw had them convinced

that they were on the verge of recovering

oak island's storied riches.

They also found a tiny piece of parchment paper

with the letters "v.I." written in ink,

giving rise to the theory

that the treasure also includes priceless historical documents.

In terms of the finding of the chappell vault,

craig has something in his pocket

that he would like to show you.

-Oh, my gosh. Yeah. -Found this.

-Rosehead nail. -Rosehead. Look at that.

Craig: And what we did, we went through last year's spoils.

And this came up from oc-1,

the one that brought up the piece of wood from 1706.

-The old wood. -Yep.

And the one thing you'll notice on it,

this could be cement on there.

Matty: Oh. One of the layers

in the, the so-called chappell vault-- cement.

-Cement. -Wow.

So, is that part of the chappell vault?

Chappell vault. This could have been in the chappell vault?

Oh, my god.

That's fantastic.

Well, I'm a layperson compared to all you guys at this table,

but I am getting good at analyzing oak island wood,

and this looks really old to me.

Tell me about the process to get us here.

Doug: Really, over-over the winter and spring,

we came up with a-a drill plan.

We're gonna radiate out from rf-1

'cause in that caisson, we found the signs

of the deepest collapse.

And the story of the money pit includes a deep collapse.

-That big famous collapse that they heard... -Right.

-...And everything could have flowed down. -Right.

Steve, it made sense to what you were doing?

Yeah, so we built a 3d model.

So we've taken the work that we've done on the island,

all the survey work, all the data collected over the years.

The-the three of us, and really, the group of us

have built a 3d model.

And what we realized is, from surface down,

it looks like it's just been pounded with drill holes.

But when you get in that 130, 140, everything disappears

and it becomes virgin ground again.

-Wow. -And that's where we believe

the treasure may have disappeared.

So we've got all these remnants, especially the shaft.

As of today, this is a completely unexplored area.

And it's frustrating-- because of that solution channel,

you could be on what was the traditional money pit,

but it's just flown down a little deeper

and a little bit out of your reach. Terry?

There's a lot of movement of material.

So there's a potential that things have fallen

from a-above to below.

Wow. Well, I know all the huge caissons

you guys have put in this area.

They've all been stars in their own right

over the years, gal-1 to h8.

But I see only one left.

It looks like it's almost, like, a little monument there

and it's c-1.

Why am I only seeing c-1 at the money pit, fellas?

Charles, I'm gonna throw that to you

'cause it's named after you, buddy.

Well, uh, matty, a-as you know, to quote david blankenship,

"we actually saw the shiny gold thing down there."

-yeah? -Uh, and, you know,

every time, you know, c-1 kind of comes off the table,

something happens and it goes back on the table again.

Matty: In season three,

oak island historian charles barkhouse

convinced rick, marty and craig

that he believed the original money pit

was further north from where they,

and other past searchers, had been looking.

Well, his intuition really paid off.

Matty: Charles helped the team find a void

measuring more than 20 feet hih and some ten feet wide.

Glen: Here we go.

Matty: Then, when a pipe-inspection camera

was sent down to explore the silty cavity,

c-1, as it has come to be known,

was cemented into oak island history.

Right there.

Yeah, it looks metallic.

Look how yellow that is.

The hell is that?

Matty: The footage was nothing short of incredible:

A gold, metallic-looking object

170 feet deep in the money pit area.

Marty: Okay, get after it.

Matty: Since then, borehole c-1

has been expanded to a four-foot diameter

to allow for human exploration,

but the find itself has remained a tantalizing mystery.

Is the shiny gold thing back in play?

The proper term is "things,"

but, uh, you're just gonna have to wait and see, matty.

-Shiny gold things? -Rick: Things.

Shiny gold things? You see that, acorns?

I'm only just leaving the war room

and I already have my first scoop.

Shiny gold things.

That's awesome, guys.

Are we trending towards a big dig, in your estimation?

So, based on the data collected--

and you can see it in front of us--

I mean, this is a new discovery.

I think we need to go bigger, like, 200,

and deeper, like 230.

Charles: Wow!

Are you kidding me?

-Well, I'm not paying for it. -(laughter)

matty: Craig,

what do you think of when you hear that?

Craig: Well, I mean, to me,

big dig has always meant big money.

-Yeah. -And so, the more we can define it,

the more we can shrink it down,

the more it becomes a potential reality.

Coming up here from the war room, I wasn't quite sure

what to expect in this shortened season.

You all seemed excited,

but I think it's gone to the next level here.

I mean, I look at this like,

"what the hell were they doing down there, guys?"

it's thrilling. So thank you.

Thank you for taking the time.

Matty: Ever since 1795,

the money pit has been the main focus

of nearly all treasure hunters

who tried to solve the oak island mystery.

But for the past seven years, rick, marty, craig and the team

have made shocking discoveries right here

in the triangle-shaped swamp that may be just as key

to revealing the ultimate answers.

Here to tell me about that and show me some things

are rick and marty lagina, geoscientist dr. Ian spooner,

archaeologist miriam amirault and billy gerhardt.

Guys, thanks for meeting me here.

-Good morning, matty. -Hello, matty.

(exhales) you guys were not kidding in the war room.

I mean, here we are again in the swamp.

Completely drained.

I don't know if I've ever seen it quite this drained.

H-has it been?

We got really lucky with the weather,

and that's the reason that it is as you see it.

It's really been exceedingly helpful

in terms of the discovery process.

It's been one of the driest summers in nova scotia,

-hasn't it? -Oh, in-in probably two decades, yeah.

-Yeah. -Matty: All right,

so, I'm hearing rumors, and I can almost

see something massive right over my shoulder.

Uh, what's...

You mean, where-where that excavator's in the way?

Matty: Yeah, that huge excavator's blocking my view.

-Good job, billy. -(laughter)

billy, a-a few years ago, I had the honor of actually digging

an excavator here in the swamp.

It didn't look anything like that, it was a lot smaller.

Talk about the capability of that monster.

Well, it's a big rig.

It's a, it's a 30-ton capacity machine.

We can dig an 80-foot-deep hole.

The unique thing that it is, though, is the tracks

are actually pontoons.

So, we could run it on water if the swamp flooded.

And it actually only puts, I think, 0.1 pounds

of ground load when it tracks.

It tracks more lightly than what a person does on the ground.

That's incredible, something that massive

leaves basically no footprint.

Leaves no footprint.

I want to go back a little bit, in time, in the swamp.

A while ago, we see this ship-shaped anomaly.

And that sets you on a search for a ship.

That search for the ship has kind of led you

to where you are now halfway through season eight.

Rick has been a believer that there's something hidden here.

I don't think he was ever focused

on it being a ship necessarily.

That was, that was intriguing-- when we ran that seismic

and there's this ship-shaped thing.

Yeah. You know, fred's discoveries

-of a possible ship mast, ship scuppers, um... -Mm-hmm. Yeah.

...You know, that was, that was compelling.

Matty: In 1969,

oak island landowner and treasure hunter fred nolan

became the first documented searcher to drain the swamp.

Based on his career as a renowned land surveyor,

he believed it might contain the keys to solving

the oak island mystery.

He proved himself right,

after making a number of astonishing discoveries,

including the scuppers and part of the mast

from a large sailing vessel.

This led fred to the groundbreaking theory

that oak island was at one time two separate islands,

and that the swamp was artificially created

to hide a ship and whatever was contained inside it.

Because of fred's work and fred's interest,

because that this had never been part

of the search agenda, why not look?

-Hmm. -And I don't know why,

I just always thought the swamp was a keeper

of some secret or secrets.

We certainly have uncovered some secrets.

I think so.

Matty: Well, marty, the dial moved

for you, right, when you did start

finding what looked to be man-made works.

Very old, I mean, we're talking medieval possibly, right?

That-that dial has to move for you in the swamp.

Dr. Spooner moved the dial for me,

because it's dr. Spooner who is convinced that

something happened on sort of

an industrial scale up in the eye, pre-1700.

Ian: Miriam and I

classify things as, you know,

possible, probable, and definitive.

The eye and the paved area were...

I-I think I put them in the probable range

for-for man-made features.

What we found this year is definitive

and, you know, I'm-I'm even smiling right now.

We've-we've been looking at it for...

About a month and a half, two months now,

and it's spectacular.

Miriam: It's definitely man-made.

This has completely just surprised,

I think, everyone here, and it's-it's

-pretty incredible. -Rick, you got a sly smile, and I love it.

I think we all can rally around the point

that it is definitely a man-made something

and been hidden by the swamp for...

-Lord knows how long. -Hmm.

That's exciting, rick.

Miriam, I want to come back to you,

-because you are a new face. -Yes.

And every time I meet someone who is new to the island,

um, I want to get your perspective on

what you thought coming here

and what you think now halfway through a season.

I'm from nova scotia, so I knew about this island.

I knew about the-the mystery here and all that's happened.

And so I was really, really excited to join the team.

And at this point, I'm-- every day I'm surprised.

Every day it's-it's almost something new.

We think one thing, and the next day it's,

it's just, completely different.

That's-that's an amazing part of this entire journey.

Let me just cut right to the chase, because

what I'm hearing I think in so many words is...

Is this the most significant thing

that you guys have found in the swamp so far?

-Oh, yeah. -Yes, yes.

-Wow. -Because of one word-- "definitive."

matty: That's huge.

It's the most amazing thing so far.

Ah.

It's not, it's not done.

Artifacts are being found on top of it

that have really, really helped us better identify

the timing of the use of this feature.

And from my perspective,

we found this massive man-made feature,

but it leads to other features that we found

-that keep on going and going. -Mm-hmm.

I mean, the total length as I last saw it was

well over 200, 300 hundred feet, so...

What? Here?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so...

-In addition to whatever that is? -Yes. Yes.

(stammers) just take me out there, please?

Rick: You know, matty,

we've kind of teased you and, you know,

we don't want to let you walk away

without showing you something.

So we do have one artifact

that we would love to show you.

-Whoa. -Billy: So, matty, we'll let you hold it,

and see if your reaction is the same as all of ours.

Thank you. Thank you, billy.

Oh, wow.

Uh, that's old, hand-forged, you say?

-We believe so. -Oh, I think so.

And-and this was definitely found

in whatever this new structure is, correct?

I notice... It's flanged at the end, so--

was it driven into something

and then that's like that, to hold it in place?

Or driven through maybe,

and then flared to keep it in place.

Matty: Wow. So...

Potentially-- I have to go here--

this could have been instrumental in,

let's say, the depositing of something on this island.

-Yes! -Yes.

Rick: It confirms the stories

from the past that indeed fred probably did find

a series of ring bolts and that led him to certain areas

in the swamp. It's a clue, but it

connects the past to the present.

And it certainly allowed fred to pursue

his favorite theory, I.E., that something

very important was here in the swamp.

Well, guys, thank you so much. This is incredible.

I know that's gonna be incredible.

And let's go find whatever this was used for, okay?

Okay, sounds good.

-Rick: I say yes. -Matty: Let's do it. -Yep.

Marty, craig and team have made, when we come back, hat rick,

it's almost like we've just scratched the surface

of the oak island mystery.

I'm here now with two key surface scratchers

to show us a lot more where that came from.

Gary drayton, the metal detecting ninja,

and his protégé, jack begley. How are you doing, fellas?

-Good, mate. -All right.

Well, we're not scratching the surface

anymore, mate.

I-I just got to say, I've never seen any equipment

like this, gary. What is this?

You are looking at an okm exp 6000.

It's an electromagnetic signature reader.

Ooh, new season, new technology-- I love it!

What does this do for you?

This can detect anything

down to 40, 50 feet.

Jack: If you were burying a treasure chest,

you bury it four to six feet deep.

-Right. -Your average metal detector only goes to, like, two, three

in optimum conditions and oak island's not optimum.

This piece of equipment can go deeper than any

metal detector and pick out, possibly,

a large cash, a treasure chest.

Matty: So this could actually prove

the whole theory that there was

massive tunneling works going on here on oak island?

Well, it could, it could, but a lot of the tunnels were done at

at least the hundred-foot level.

-So it might not pick those out, -yeah.

But if any tunnels start to come up near the surface,

yeah, we should be able to find them.

Yeah, and the beauty of this, it's real time.

You see the results real time as we're walking across the ground,

we're doing scans-- all the information

-is compiled on the screen. -Matty: You're seeing it.

Well, could I actually see you do it? Is that all right?

-Yeah, of course. -Yeah, I'd like to see you, you know,

-how it works in person. -Okay, and we are in the monitored zone,

which means that if we do detect something in this area,

we have to get laird, the archaeologist

over to monitor it.

He has to be there, present, when we dig things up.

Well, fire it up and let's hope I have to go get laird

-real fast. -Yeah, I'll start

-on the bottom corner of the grid. -Okay.

Jack: Where were you talking, gary?

Gary: Just level with these trees, here.

Jack: Right here?

Yeah, nice square. Yep.

-Okay. -Matty: Great.

Okay, mate. This will be the first scan.

You know the score, mate.

I'll do the scan,

I'll come back here

and we'll do the next scan.

Every one's gonna be a yard apart.

Oh, wow! It's way faster

than I thought.

It's not as deliberate as a metal detector, right?

I'm gonna step back because I have a shovel.

Yeah, and my boots, right? Steel-toe boots.

Yep.

Honestly, it's gonna pick those up, matty.

-Yeah, yeah. -At the end of every line it's going to start picking it up.

Matty: And you're getting live feed

-right there on that screen? -Yeah. Oh, I'm looking, yeah.

Gary: All will be revealed, mate.

He's got that smile. He's got that sly little wry smile

I know so well. (laughs)

about another yard up.

-Yeah, about here. -So cool.

Gary: That is the scan complete.

Wow.

Let's repo to where we started the scan.

Matty: Let's do it. All right.

-All right. -Yep. We are ready.

Let's see what is in this square.

Gary: Look at this.

This is where...

Matty: Wow, there it is.

There's the grid. Incredible.

-Literally it is showing you the scan. -Yeah.

Greens and blues

mean it's just normal background.

They seem normal but look what we got there, mate.

-You see that reddy-orange? -Oh! Yeah, it almost looks,

yeah, reddish.

What this tells me, mate, is

we have got a very interesting anomaly in the ground there.

That is iron.

And the size of that target is fairly small.

It could be a tool or a weapon.

Wow.

The artifacts that we've recovered in this area,

uh, tell us that this could be huge for us.

Wait a second, so you-- this has paid off already.

You've found things here this season?

-Oh, yeah. -Wow.

We are smashing historical records

with some of the artifacts we've recovered this year, mate.

Mind-boggling.

So this is incredible. You have found...

Older things?

-Yeah. -Mm-hmm, since...

-Much older. -You got to give me something.

-Tell me more. -Don't show him

-the whole thing, just, like, a little piece of it. -Okay.

You know where it's coming out of.

-Top pocket? -Top pocket find.

I'm nervous right now.

-This is our oldest artifact ever found on oak island. -Yeah.

-What? -By far.

We're not talking about oak island,

as well, this could be one of the oldest

artifacts ever recovered in the americas.

-What? -Jack: Honestly, yeah. -Gary: Yeah.

Oh, wow. I've never seen anything--

well...

It almost looks like, at first glance,

an old coin.

The two words that come to mind when you see

a find like this is "exotic" and "ancient."

ancient, so pre-17th century?

-Way... -Way, way back.

Pre-16th century?

-Keep going. -Much older than that. -Come on.

-Are you serious? -Jack: Oh, yeah.

-So experts have looked at this? -Yeah.

And they agree-- this thing is old-old-old-old?

-They're perplexed by it. -Incredible, gary.

-Incredible, jack. -It really is, isn't it?

That is why we cross the causeway every day.

-Amen. -And we only just started using this new equipment.

Who knows what else we're going to find?

I got the chills right now. I think you better

-put that thing back. -Yeah, I'm gonna do.

If it's as old as you say it is.

Yeah, I've got to put it safely away.

Yeah, unbelievable.

Guys, this is incredible. That's incredible.

Wait until you hear the dates that that was made.

And where it comes from. That is the thing

that's gonna blow your mind, mate.

(groans) more questions on oak island.

-Thank you, guys. -You're welcome, mate.

That the oak island mystery coming up, we're drilling down on a new historic now, thet

is first and foremost about

looking for that legendary treasure.

But rick, marty, craig and the team are also trying

to reveal the truth about who buried it,

why they buried it, and how they buried it.

Here to tell me about all that and more

are my friends jack begley, doug crowell and archaeologists,

laird niven and david macinnes.

Guys, thanks for meeting me here.

-Good to see you. -Hey, matty. -How's it going?

Welcome to lot 15.

I'm told we're at a very important and exciting spot

and I really want to know what I'm looking at here,

but before I get to that, we have a new face this season.

I just said the last name macinnes, uh, so, david,

I got to come to you. I understand you have

a big-time tie to this island. Talk about that.

Well, uh, my four times great-grandfather

is the guy who started the story.

-Unbelievable, the famous daniel mcginnis. -Yes.

David, what did you grow up hearing

as a member of the mcginnis family?

Did you hear about this since the time you were little?

No, no, it was more, it was more something, a-a-a discovery.

My father and I researching our family history

and reaching back in-in various things

and we found that, uh, we were related to this mcginnis guy,

uh, from oak island.

So it grew from there.

Wow, so the whole mcginnis tie-in

didn't... Didn't come to you till later.

No, no one in our family really talked about it.

How do you feel, david, standing on this ground,

searching for things, knowing that your

great-great-great-great- grandfather was here

on this land and-and started this whole thing?

When I came on the island, of course, uh,

it was a surreal experience, of course,

'cause it's a family thing, right?

And coming here and working here,

um, is an emotional and psychological experience

that few people have the honor of experiencing.

All right, let's get to this site. Jack... (sighs)

uh, first of all, I'm being told this is a very important site.

Did you guys find treasure here? What is this?

Jack: Well, all I'll say, there--

it's definite that there was man-made activity

and that man-made activity

appears to be before the three boys

made the discovery of the money pit.

Wow. That's exciting.

We did find an old map in dan blankenship's basement

that shows that he knew about this feature

denoted as a tunnel entrance.

Well, that's exciting,

because it's dan blankenship

posthumously helping aid the oak island search.

Which is incredible.

But as of right now, what I'm hearing is,

we still don't quite know what it is,

but we know how old it is, laird, is that right?

I think we have a general idea.

May I ask how old this is?

-Well, you can ask. -(laughter)

I mean, all I can tell you is that it's old.

And in your archaeological experience,

talking to laird and david,

have you ever seen anything like this in nova scotia?

-No. No. -Wow.

As far as I'm aware in archeology.

And, laird, I've seen you do your thing in previous seasons

on this island, and it is painstaking-- brush by brush.

I'm struck by the magnitude

of how big and deep this thing is.

I mean, how did you tackle this one?

Well, we just used our trowels.

That's incredible.

And we sifted each bucket of dirt as well,

to get the smaller artifacts, so...

I mean, h-how, how do you do that?

Like, is there any area here that you still have to go?

Well, why-why doesn't david show you.

Well, this, we can work a little bit in this area here.

-Matty: I would love to see. -Well, first,

-you want to get over here. -Okay.

First of all, I got to clean it up a bit, right?

Get rid of some of the roots.

Then you just take your trowel.

And I like to outline it first,

cut it free like that.

If I'm going in, I go like that.

And then you pull it back

and you take your soil.

So you're looking for potential artifacts

-as you're doing this. -Yeah. Yeah.

-That's why it's so... -I'm looking. But I'm also--

because I don't ever s-- don't actually see everything,

-I'm gonna put it in my bucket. -To sift later.

Then I'm gonna take it up to the spoil pile and I'm gonna sift it

and I'm gonna find any little artifacts that I missed.

Most of the artifacts are gonna be in this dark brown layer.

-Matty: Wow. -So you notice something.

-See that, right there? That's a piece of charcoal. -Yeah.

-Matty: Right here? Oh, I see it. -Yeah.

-Matty: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yup. -Yeah, that's an artifact.

Matty: Wow! Look at that.

Look, it's shining in the sun. You can see it.

David: One of the very interesting things about this site

is that you're gonna find charcoal everywhere.

-Hmm. -And you're also gonna find a lot of this.

This is fire-cracked rock.

Matty: Uh, tell me about a fire-cracked rock.

-What does that mean? -Usually means repeated burning.

You put rocks around a fire and-and just have fires there,

you heat it up enough, y-you're gonna hear a crack,

crack, crack.

But in order for them to crack and come apart like this,

-it's got to be repeated burning. -Wow.

This is-- there's been a lot of burning going on here.

-Matty: What the heck was this thing? -And...

The next thing we do is, course,

we clean up all the rocks.

'cause you know what we're gonna do?

-We're gonna take a nice pretty picture. -(laughs)

why are we doing that? Because archaeology

is a destructive process.

-Once you dig it, you can't put it back together again. -Mm.

So what we do is record everything,

so we have a complete record afterward.

Well, that was incredible. Thank you so much, david.

-You're welcome. You're welcome. -It was great to get a... A peek into that.

-I'm glad we found something, too. -I wish we had more time.

For me, it's-it's relaxation.

Well, what's interesting about finding charcoal here,

you mentioned burning at this site.

It's very old, so this could be burning done by depositors?

W...

Mm. We can't tell you that yet.

-You're gonna have to watch and wait and see. -Okay.

All right.

Well, this is incredible.

And I can now say I made a find on oak island with a macinnes.

-(chuckles) -so, thank you, guys.

And I can't wait to see what else you find here.

We are now just moments away

from the special two-hour season eight premiere

of the curse of oak island.

And to lead us right into it, I'm back

with brothers rick and marty lagina.

Guys, thanks for doing this with me once again.

-Welcome, matty. Thank you. -Thank you, matty.

I came to the island this season thinking,

"how are they gonna do this?

And they're probably not gonna be able to get a lot done."

talk about this season and the difficulties

and how you've been able to do this.

Well, initially, we thought

we weren't gonna be able to do anything.

We didn't know we could get into canada.

You know, when this was all starting to happen in March

and the border got closed and...

Rick: We just thought,

-"the window's closing." -marty/matty: Yeah.

And, uh... And it closed fairly rapidly.

Oh, I thought we were gonna cancel season eight.

That was my feeling.

Rick: Do owe a debt of gratitude

-to all the team members and all the people behind the scenes. -Oh, god, yes.

W-we, we, as we sit here, didn't just do it.

-No. It was... -It's-it's everybody. It's all of us.

Marty: Everything was complicated because of covid.

-Everything was more complicated. -Mm-hmm.

Despite a pandemic, what you guys have been able to do

this season is incredible.

I-I think I'd scale that back though.

It's not what we've been able to do.

It's what we've... Discovered.

In a very shortened year, I was fearful

that the discovery process would be quite limited.

And yet, I would say,

in a general way, we've made more discoveries,

more important discoveries this year

than in a... "full year's" agenda.

Is that right?

That's what I think.

The miracle of oak island,

rather than the curse of oak island, is,

all of a sudden, right towards the end,

-the things that we were working on kind of... -(chuckles)

bore fruit.

Here we sit, and there seems to be--

I can-- I can kind of see it in both your faces--

there seems to be a lot

of incredible things this season eight.

-Uh, yeah. -(laughs) that's all.

I got to do it. I mean, I do it every year.

I-I just want to press you a little bit.

Uh, what can you tell me?

Well, you're-you're excited about some new information.

Extremely excited about some new information, yes.

Three months ago,

I was just about ready to "x" off the money pit.

-We had drilled so many wells and those canisters. -Yeah.

I think I said to you, matty, said,

"look at this map. How could it be hiding?"

-indeed, you did. -Okay.

I'm here to tell you

that I now think it could be hiding.

-Wow. -(chuckles) and we have

some pretty eye-opening evidence

that there's still something there.

That's incredible to hear.

Rick: What has been really shocking

is that some of the things that we anticipated finding

-we did not find. -Correct.

-As per usual. -And yet those led

to some very significant discoveries

that we'd-- were completely unanticipated,

which we are both quite interested in pursuing.

And what got uncovered in the swamp this year

I never could have pictured.

I just couldn't have pictured it,

I couldn't have made it up.

-There's-there's your clue. -You know, I mean,

it's a big joke, isn't it, that the swamp in particular,

I-I was ready to "x" out years ago.

Well, I'm not ready to "x" it out anymore.

In fact, I have rewritten my own history and decided

-I've been a proponent of the swamp since day one. -(laughing)

-we'll go with that then. We'll go... -Yeah, let's just run

-with that, shall we? -All right.

It's a complete lie, but it's okay.

We'll run with it.

But the-the truth is,

I am astounded by what happened in that swamp this year.

-That's exciting. -Honestly, matty.

Every season, we tend to move the timeline back even further.

Did that happen again in season eight, do you think?

Way to bifurcate.

-(laughing) -how so?

-I'm not gonna tell you. -I've got to try.

That's something you're gonna have to wait and see.

Okay. We're about to head into season eight,

a season that... Might not have happened.

-Mm-hmm. -Yeah.

If you could sum it up in one word for our acorns out there

ready to go on this journey,

how do you describe season eight?

One word?

You can do a phrase.

Well, thank you!

(laughing)

hold on to your seats.

Things you wouldn't have thought existed.

-(exhales) -there.

That's awesome.

All right, acorns. There you have it,

from the brothers themselves.

The wait is over.

It's finally time to dig.

What will rick, marty, craig and the team reveal next?

Let's all find out.

The season eight premiere of the curse of oak island begins now.