Original subtitles

Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...

It begins now.

A special two-hour premiere.

We're looking for Shaft Two.

It's the very first one searchers put down.

I think we need to get out there and find it.

All right, come on. Let's go.

If this is really Shaft Two...

- There you go. - The Money Pit

should be in close proximity.

That's awesome right there. Look at that.

It looks like you got the shaft wall?

We should be able to put an "X" on the ground.

We do have the gold in the water.

It has to be coming from somewhere.

Whoa.

- Whoa. - Whoa.

- Here we go. - Boy, look at that.

- Wow. - Okay, let's dig.

- This can tell a story. - Hey, wait.

Something special about this.

Somebody was digging around it

way before Fred Nolan.

- Hey! - That's a lot of wood come up.

Whoa. That's a big hole.

- Yeah. - We're 14 feet away from the Money Pit.

Ooh, a banging signal.

- What do you think of that? - No way.

This is treasure.

- It is silver. - Yeah.

Yeah.

There is an island in the North Atlantic

where people have been looking for

an incredible treasure for more than 200 years.

So far, they have found a stone slab

with strange symbols carved into it,

man-made workings that date to medieval times,

and a lead cross whose origin may be connected

to the Knights Templar.

To date, six men have died

trying to solve the mystery.

And according to legend, one more will have to die

before the treasure can be found.

Gentlemen, here we go.

Another season. Another attempt.

We've come a long way

and opened up a lot of possibilities.

After all these years, we're still together,

still passionately committed to finding answers

to what I have always believed since we were little kids

and the story that is Oak Island,

the magic that is Oak Island.

A new year of digging into the ground...

as well as history... is about to begin on Oak Island

for brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and their team.

I'm all in. I want to throw everything we've got at it.

It's got to be now. It's got to be this year.

Ever since the ingeniously constructed,

booby-trapped shaft known as the Money Pit

was discovered in 1795,

hundreds of searchers have tried

and failed to find what might be buried

more than 100 feet underground.

However, after more than a decade

of uncovering stunning evidence of ancient man-made workings

and valuables all across Oak Island,

the Laginas and their team may be closer than ever

to finally revealing the truth.

Here we come, Island.

I do think we're near the endgame.

I really think

we can figure this thing out.

If we find it, it proves

that some endeavor was undertaken on Oak Island

that will perhaps change history as we know it.

Okay, well, the team is assembled, I believe.

Yep, everybody's gonna be there. First time ever.

It begins... now.

This year I wanted a different start to the year.

I wanted everybody in the same room

to set forth the agenda.

- Hello, everybody. - Hey.

We have returned.

We're having the first meeting in the museum.

- Hey, Steve. - Hey, Alex.

- Welcome back. - Hey. Terry.

- Hey, Alex. - Charles. Judi. -All right, mate.

And when we walked in that room

- with everyone there... - Partner.

- Partner. Good to see you. - There was just a,

a sense of joy, a sense of purpose,

a sense of, "Hey, guys, we're back together,

and we're all ready to try to solve this mystery."

Wow. What a group.

Are you all fired up for the season? Let's hear it.

Yeah!

You know, we don't realize just how big

the family has gotten.

We have immense respect for you guys,

and we're proud as can be that you're a part of this

because all of you are unique, bring special skills, talents,

most of all, commitment to a single purpose,

- and... - Yeah.

Without you, we are less.

- So... - That's for sure.

Having said that, we're here to talk about plans

for this year, and why don't we start with the Money Pit?

Dr. Spooner?

We certainly aren't backing away

from the gold and silver that was found in the water...

in the Blob, in the Baby Blob...

and the whole idea this year is to see

if we can figure out where it's coming from

- and give you folks a target. - Yes.

An unfortunate challenge

that the Laginas and their team have faced

during their quest is that the location

of the original Money Pit was lost many years ago

due to previous searcher excavations,

which nearly all ended with cave-ins

as a result of mysterious inflows of seawater

from a believed man-made flood tunnel.

All right, that's the last sample.

But over the past three years, geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner,

along with hydrogeologist Dr. Fred Michel

and chemist Dr. Matt Lukeman,

have conducted water sample testing

in the team's previously drilled boreholes,

which have led to a stunning and promising discovery.

Somewhere near the areas that the team has dubbed

the Blob and the Baby Blob,

a large source of precious metals is likely buried

between 80 and 120 feet underground.

- Steve, can you pull up that map? - Sure can.

So, this winter, Fred, especially,

has done a ton of work

looking at the data. We have a lot of data.

We put together in blue there,

this sort of pie-shaped six-sided figure:

an area called... We call it The Pie.

And that's where we got the highest

- levels of gold and silver in the water. - Yep.

And so, that's an area we need to target.

What's the yellow?

The yellow, that's Fred's special area of interest,

mainly because that's where we got

persistent high copper, lead, zinc and, tin.

Those two metals are a big part of treasure.

Last year, at the end of the year,

I talked about, you know, tasking Billy

with leveling the area around the Garden Shaft.

Did that get done so we can drill there?

- It did. - Excellent.

I'm hoping that something will-will arise out of that.

During the next few weeks,

the team will conduct a new core drilling operation.

And follow up with more ground water testing

in the Money Pit area.

Wherever they find their best evidence

of potential treasure targets,

later this year, they will excavate

a number of seven-foot diameter steel caissons

in an attempt to retrieve them.

The testing of the water is-is the driver for me.

How can you stop

when three good scientists

are telling you that there is a source out there somewhere

that's bleeding precious metals into the water?

Okay. Good stuff.

But that also, I think, leads nicely

to talking about something I love doing here,

which is digging.

And you and Billy have come up with...

Why don't you explain that?

Well, shaft number two, which we felt we found years ago,

that's the very first one that searchers put down.

So, with the clearing we've done,

I mean, we feel we can dig up Shaft Two.

We never were able to finish excavating

what we believe to be Shaft Two.

However, now that we have a level area,

we get to expose the shaft in its entirety.

You know, if that one proves to be Shaft Two,

we know the Money Pit has to be very close to that.

It was 14 feet away from the Money Pit.

With that,

we should be able to put an X on the ground

where the Money Pit should be.

In 1795, a young man named Daniel McGinnis

discovered a strange depression in the ground

near the eastern end of Oak Island.

Suspecting that it contained a cache of treasure

that had been buried by pirates...

who were known to have frequented the area...

he and his two friends,

John Smith and Anthony Vaughn, began to dig.

Incredibly, with the help of others,

they would eventually uncover a pit

that featured platforms of oak logs

at ten-foot intervals down to a depth of 90 feet.

There, they discovered a heavy rectangular stone,

bearing strange symbols.

But just after they removed it,

the so-called Money Pit flooded with seawater,

due to a believed flood tunnel connected to the ocean.

In 1805, the searchers attempted to bypass the flood trap

by digging an adjacent shaft, known as "Shaft Two,"

14 feet to the southeast.

At a depth of 110 feet,

they extended a tunnel toward the original Money Pit

with the hopes of recovering

the believed treasure vault from below.

Unfortunately, just two feet from their target,

they were thwarted when seawater rushed into the tunnel.

Now, using historic surveys

and their own previous drilling records

in the Money Pit area,

if the team can uncover and verify

the location of Shaft Two,

it could offer them another critical clue

as to where the original Money Pit

and the fabled treasure can be found.

You know, one of the ways we also hope to solve the mystery

is through active ongoing research.

And to that end, I mean, we understand how important

Professor Gaspani's work has been to date.

It has been so compelling that it has brought us

to entertain other perspectives,

other ideas of what happened on this island.

Yes.

In recent years,

the Oak Island team has been investigating

an incredible theory

that some believe could explain the origins

of the 229-year-old mystery:

That members of the Catholic order

of the Knights Templar made numerous journeys

from Europe to North America in order to hide

priceless religious artifacts on Oak Island

between the 12th and 14th centuries.

In 2023,

archaeoastronomy Professor Adriano Gaspani,

shared his astonishing,

peer-reviewed research with the team.

According to historical alignments

with certain stars in the night sky,

Professor Gaspani believes

that several megalithic structures on the island,

including the formation of six boulders

known as Nolan's Cross, the five stone piles on Lot 15,

and the stone triangle that once sat on the south shore

were all created by members of the Templar order

during the height of their power between 1200 and 1250 AD.

So we're following the Templars

as a prime suspect.

Well, I think the next big topic, Rick, is archaeology.

Those stone cairns.

Lot 15.

I think it's imperative

that Laird and his team members come in

and do an archaeological development of that site.

I think it should be very interesting.

That's part of our focus this year,

but also, we need to do more work

on Lot 5, the so-called circular feature.

It's a very complicated structure.

And then we have that rectangular feature.

I think last year, one of the most important things

was the potential that the work on Lot 5

actually had something to do with the Money Pit.

After purchasing Lot 5 in 2022

from the estate of Robert Young,

the team was eager to explore a new area

for possible clues.

However, they have been nothing short of astonished

by what they have found

in two stone foundations on the property.

Within a round feature near the shore,

they have unearthed artifacts such as 17th-century tools

and Venetian trade beads,

a 14th-century lead barter token

that matches the lead cross found

at Smith's Cove in 2017,

and a mortar-like material that has also been found

more than 100 feet deep in the Money Pit area.

Several yards to the south,

the team unearthed a rectangular feature containing

18th-century pottery and pipe stems, but also,

an iron spike that may date back eight centuries or more.

And several yards further to the south,

Gary Drayton and Rick have unearthed four Roman coins

that are as much as 2,000 years old.

If a great treasure was deposited here

and a great booby trap system was put in place,

it would've taken a lot of manpower.

They had to live somewhere.

Now we found all kinds of stuff over on Lot 5,

which kind of suggests that people were here

over, literally, hundreds of years.

We have three new members on our team.

We have Jillian Parsons.

- Hello. - Hi, Jillian. Welcome.

Hi, Jillian.

- Ethan Green is gonna be... - Hello, guys.

An archaeological assistant.

And Todd Langseth is going to be

- our second archaeological assistant. - Hello.

It's gonna be a great crew.

I'm excited.

- Welcome aboard. - Welcome.

- Thank you. - Thank you.

Yes. I think we've got the team. We got the background.

Let's-let's get it done.

Absolutely.

I want to read something to you.

When you hear these words, think about them.

It says... and this was written by someone far smarter than I...

It says, "Whether you are a true believer

"or a skeptic in the mystery of Oak Island,

"the idea of buried treasure is captivating.

"This story is a testament

"to the power of faith and hope

"and it embodies the determination

and ingenuity of men and women."

That's you.

Look around.

Find inspiration from each other.

You know how many riches are out there?

Not just treasure?

We can fill this room to the ceiling

with a wonderful, magical story.

But we can only do it together.

Who wants to follow that?

I think we need to get out there and find it.

I agree.

Well, we're just getting fired up here.

DN-7.

Following the team's meeting

- in the Interpretive Centre... - Here we go.

In the Money Pit area,

while a core drilling operation begins

in borehole DN-7 within the so-called Pie,

several yards to the southeast...

- It's a pretty exciting day here. - Yeah.

Craig Tester

and surveyor Steve Guptill join Alex Lagina

and other members of the team

where a large-scale excavation

is about to begin in the hope of uncovering Shaft Two,

a 110-foot-deep structure that was dug in 1805,

just 14 feet southeast of the original Money Pit.

We're digging up the first ever

- searcher shaft on Oak Island. - True.

- True. - Well, we think.

- That we know of. - Yeah.

That's right.

So the big goal is to get

good, solid pieces of the shaft

so we can do dendrochronology on it.

That'll give us an excellent date.

If anything's gonna tie to the original Money Pit,

it's gonna be Shaft Two.

Dendrochronology is a revolutionary testing method

whereby tree rings are analyzed in wood samples

to determine the exact year a tree was cut down

for use in construction.

If the team is able to uncover what they believe

to be Shaft Two and confirm

it dates to approximately 1805,

it could help them locate the original Money Pit

and also pinpoint the source of precious metals

that the team has detected in the area.

Lot of smaller rocks in there right now.

There you go.

That's a big piece of wood in the side there.

Look at that profile. Look at that.

That's awesome right there. Look at that.

So that's what we're probably looking at

- is one of the long walls. - Correct.

The big question is, is it Shaft Two or not?

Shaft Two is almost like the Holy Grail,

other than finding the original Money Pit.

Can you pick up that big piece?

The big piece? Yeah.

If we can prove definitively that this

supposed Shaft Two is really Shaft Two,

the Money Pit should be somewhere in close proximity.

- Wow. - I like that.

Look how thick that sucker is.

Yeah.

Why...?

- This... - That's rounded.

That is rounded.

So this should be the outside of the tree.

No, this may be excellent for dendro.

Definitely would like to get more though.

Yeah. I like that.

We want to try to get pieces

that look like they have a lot of tree rings on it

so we can date it by dendrochronology.

And we need multiple samples from here.

- Hey. - Marty.

Look at that.

Looks like you got the shaft wall?

Yep.

It's another piece in the puzzle, you know?

We need to keep on going deeper and try to get more wood.

Yeah.

As the excavation

and drilling operations continue in the Money Pit area...

later that afternoon...

some 200 yards to the northwest on Lot 15...

So here we go again with circular, weird things.

So we're really just getting going on here now.

Okay.

Marty joins his brother Rick,

Jack Begley and members of the archaeology team

as they investigate the remains of five mysterious stone mounds,

or cairns.

The rocks that we just took out,

they didn't look like they were disturbed.

You can see roots and things growing around them.

So that's why we thought this was more possibly

a likelier area to maybe find something.

- Okay. - In order to help prove

Professor Gaspani's work, we're gonna want to dig up

- all the piles. - I agree.

Maybe we'll find an artifact.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

First documented

and partially dismantled in the 1960s

by the late Oak Island landowner Fred Nolan,

the five stone cairns were shaped like pyramids.

According to archaeoastronomy expert

Professor Adriano Gaspani,

they were created around 1250 AD,

based on their alignments to a star cluster known as Hyades.

I have the picture here of the stone cairns.

I'd say it's almost identical.

And what makes that assessment

especially compelling

is that in 2023, Rick and members of the team saw

the exact formation carved

into a rockface in Bornholm, Denmark,

at a site believed to have been inhabited

by members of the Knights Templar

some 800 years ago.

Okay. What would you like me to do?

- I'm gonna roll up my sleeves. - Quite honestly,

the-the rock moving is our-our best first line of defense

if we can, and they do kind of continue

all the way around here.

You guys are a lot younger than me.

Yeah, we can get that.

You know, we'll-we'll have a go at that.

I think that what

the cairns at the Nolan's Cross represent

is some sort of information

for someone who understands their importance

that will help you put an X on the ground.

The curiosity is, to me,

and this is where if Dr. Spooner were here,

what's all this fractured slate doing in here?

I don't quite get that.

And it's all at depth.

It's not... it's not here. It's down here.

- You're seeing it down there? - Yep.

A layer of slate

found beneath one of the stone cairns?

If so, could it be covering clues

that might help prove Professor Gaspani's belief

about their origin?

You've got this big stone,

you've got a big stone, and then you've got

these smaller stones tossed in to keep the thing stable.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

That is very interesting.

I think we need to reach out to Dr. Spooner.

A new day has begun on Oak Island...

and while the core drilling operation continues

in the Money Pit area,

several yards to the south...

Hopefully, we may see it reveal something over there.

A little bit that way might be a little bit of wood.

Rick, Marty and Craig

are supervising the excavation of a structure that they hope

will be confirmed as Shaft Two,

the first shaft built by treasure hunters in 1805,

which was located just 14 feet southeast

of the original Money Pit.

Can you see what the far wall's made of there?

Not really. Why don't you grab the mirror?

- Yeah. - We'll do that.

We want to keep our dig

going deeper.

We're using a mirror to try to shine some light

down there so we can see

to examine this shaft.

Right there?

There you go.

- Yeah. - There it is.

Now you can see it going across.

- So, is that the corner then? - That's the corner.

The thing that comes to mind immediately

whenever we unearth these shafts,

what people did here without technology,

that's the first thing, always, when you unearth these things.

Then you think, "Okay, what does this mean to us?"

If we find Shaft Two, we know we have 14 feet

to the Money Pit. That's not a great distance.

- Billy. - Yep.

Reposition the excavator here.

Do a cross-section

along that end,

- try and find the other wall. - Right.

We'll get our dimensions.

Well, hopefully,

he can find the far end of this shaft.

Ooh, I've got a signal, Rick.

Hang on, Billy. I got a signal.

Ho!

Look at this, Rick.

That's a beauty. Look.

- A rose-head spike. - Yep.

It's an oldie, as well.

Look at the condition of that.

- What years? - Yeah, I mean,

a spike like this, 1700s.

Well, it lines up with the possibility

that that's Shaft Two.

A rose-head spike?

Between the 1780s and 1840s,

hand-forged iron spikes

were created for construction,

which featured crudely hammered heads

resembling the petals of roses.

Could this iron fastener

be another important clue that may help verify

that the team has located Shaft Two?

Gentlemen.

Check that out.

Typical rose-head spike.

Every time we dig where others have been,

we find something out.

We find an artifact, we find something

that could be, really, an important clue.

- I'm going to bag it. - Yeah, all right.

Good find, Gary.

As the excavation continues...

Gentlemen.

- Hey, guys. - Guys.

Craig Tester heads several yards northwest

for a progress report on the drilling operation

in borehole DN-7.

We're just cased now to 109 below grade.

A borehole located in

the so-called pie-shaped area,

where recent water testing has suggested

a large source of precious metals

may be buried as much as 120 feet underground.

Whoa!

- Whoa! - Whoa!

Wow, look at that.

Holy cow.

When they were running the casing,

they stopped, water started shooting up out of the casing.

Is this some potential problems,

or maybe we're next to a chamber with air in it?

I don't know.

So, it's-it's a bit of a mystery.

Mike!

Mike, what do you got?

Hey, Mike. How you doing?

So, this is the core

that just came up from that level.

- Yeah. - So, 119 through to 109.

And, Mike, tell them what you saw.

Well, when I ran my casing, the...

when I shut it down, broke my casing free,

the water just kept spilling out of the top.

Seemed like it was mixed with air.

Okay.

I'd actually like to take a look at this stuff...

- Yeah. - If I could.

We'll see what comes.

Do you want to do some honors there, Craig?

Yeah.

It's very soft.

This is unusual.

There's a little bit of clay in that.

This is definitely carrying water and saturated.

Has anything in this area

been this soft at this depth?

It's very, very soft, isn't it?

Which means maybe

we're close to an open space.

Yeah.

So, I think we're in the right area anyway.

Let's just say we poke around here

and maybe we're gonna find some kind of an offset chamber.

- All right. - Okay.

We'll find out.

Good eye, Mike. Thanks.

Because the ground soils

that the drill has encountered are soft,

due to being saturated with water,

could that mean they are close

to a possible flood tunnel?

Or could it mean they are close to a man-made chamber

that a flood tunnel was engineered to protect?

Terry... so, what happened?

Well, you could see water spitting up, out with air,

eight or ten feet.

We really had to tap into or have been close to

something like an air pocket that was under pressure.

There shouldn't be any air here

unless there's something man-made.

So, we're either right next to a something or...

Yeah, we're close to something then.

It's always good when you get

an anomaly in drilling these wells...

We've got a core coming.

Showing some evidence

of manipulation by humans at depth.

Let's get the patient up on the table here.

Sadly, gentlemen, this doesn't look good.

Okay.

Just as Mother Nature left it.

So, we sort of just missed.

Yeah, more or less.

We have two eminent scientists

that say we do have the gold in the water.

It has to be coming from somewhere.

At the end of this year, I want to have

chased these metals to its conclusion, to the source.

Where are we going next?

We'll talk to Dr. Spooner first

and see if he has any directions

that he wants to give us.

There's some interesting holes around here.

We have interesting results in the water.

Okay.

- Carry on. - Thank you.

There's a big chunk right down in there.

While the excavation

of the newly exposed shaft

proceeds in the Money Pit area...

Hey, Rick.

- Jack. Fiona. Todd. - Hi, Dr. Spooner.

Just the person we need.

On Lot 15,

located some 200 yards

to the northwest,

geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner

has arrived to inspect the rock feature

that Rick Lagina discovered

beneath one of the potentially

ancient stone piles one day ago.

Can you divine anything

from the type of rock that's come out of the hole?

- Yeah. - I'll let you get down here.

Really interesting. I mean...

you got nice slate.

Pyritic slate.

I look upon that rock

as human moved, transported...

And here to infill and lock in a structure.

Something like this, you can fill in around

to build some kind of structure, gather up

from the landscape.

From like the surface

- or deeper down? - You can only

come up with this stuff two ways:

You're either tilling the land,

bringing it up or you're-you're digging.

You're excavating.

A curious geological fact about Oak Island

is that it is composed of two separate drumlins,

or hill-shaped land masses,

with distinct types of bedrock.

The eastern drumlin, where Lot 15

and the Money Pit are located,

is made up of anhydrite limestone

while the western drumlin is composed of much more

compact pyritic slate.

So, given Dr. Spooner's analysis

that the slate rock beneath the stone piles

must have been transported to this area,

where might it have been transported from?

When, and by whom?

Professor Gaspani,

he's putting a date of construct,

with 95% certainty,

mid to later 1200s

for the five stone cairns.

I just see this as very similar

to the Lot 26 wall.

That construct exhibited this type of stone,

and that smaller stone

that locked that together to make it stable.

- And then you have the well. - Yeah.

On Lot 26,

located on the western side of Oak Island,

the team has been investigating

a mysterious stone wall

that may be more than 500 years old.

However, several feet away lies a stone well,

that Dr. Spooner has personally dated

to approximately 1200 AD

based on carbon testing of organic materials within it.

Could it be possible that Rick Lagina's notion

of these two features being connected

to the stone piles on Lot 15 is true?

And if so, could he have found another clue

supporting Professor Gaspani's theory

that the stone piles were created

in the early 13th century

by members of the Knights Templar?

If you do get to the bottom, take a very close look

at whatever organic matter was underneath it,

because that might give you an age.

Great. That's all really helpful.

- Appreciate your time. - Yeah. Okay.

- Thanks, Dr. Spooner. - See ya.

Later that afternoon...

Where do you think the other wall is?

I think we try to go a little further this way.

Rick has rejoined Craig,

Billy, and other members of the team

in the Money Pit area

as they continue excavating what is hoped to be Shaft Two.

We got a couple boards off the top over there.

The big concern is, is it the original cribbing

or is it re-cribbed later in years?

Let's try to outline this and see what we've got.

Yeah.

We found the wall of a shaft.

So next step is to just

widen our dig out a little bit.

And we'll try and find another original wall.

And try to figure out the orientation

and confirm if it is Shaft Two.

- Hey, Gary. - Hey, Rick.

And with a little bit of luck,

we're gonna get some wood out of here.

- Morning, guys. -Hey. - Marty.

What do we got?

The plan is to move a little bit more

this way because he hasn't found the other wall.

I keep hoping he'll find

that other parallel wall to this one rather.

- I thought we'd have found it by now. - Right.

- All right, mate, I'm getting stuck in. - Yep.

If we see a gold coin fall out of that bucket,

we will turn into Olympic divers.

- Look at that, Gary. - What is it, Rick?

It reminds me of dowels that we've found in other shafts.

And remember the U-shaped structure had dowels in it?

Yeah. Good eye, mate.

First discovered beneath Smith's Cove

in the early 1970s by the late Dan Blankenship,

the U-shaped structure is

a 65-foot-long construct

featuring Roman numerals and wooden dowels

that some believe was part of the flood tunnel system.

In 2018, Rick, Marty, Craig

and the team unearthed it once again,

and were amazed when dendrochronology testing

revealed that it dated to approximately 26 years prior

to the discovery of the Money Pit.

This might be a candidate to get dated.

- It's deep enough. - Yeah.

- I'll put it over there. - All right, mate.

Is it possible that the Onslow Company

simply used a similar style of wooden dowel

to create Shaft Two in 1805...

That's a good one. Look at that.

Or has Rick Lagina just made a discovery

that suggests the team may be excavating

a much older structure?

A couple coming up, but they're all from this side.

- Do we agree? - Yeah.

Let's get a tape and measure

way to where he's at to see how far away we are.

- Okay. - As we were digging

what we hope is Shaft Two,

the wood we're bringing up kept

extending in a northerly direction.

Much more than what I would have thought.

17 feet.

The wood is potentially as far as 17 feet

away from the area where we thought Shaft Two was.

Shafts are usually six by ten,

six by 12, and-and we're past 12 feet.

I don't understand how we're finding timbers

at 17 feet from the one side.

I don't know.

It just doesn't make sense that this is one shaft.

- Hey. - What's going on, Craig?

Well, Scott measured out

to how far we're getting disturbed material.

It's 17 feet, which is way too big.

Way too big.

So I tend to think it's,

it's two different shafts.

I think there's two different shafts.

That's very confusing.

Yeah.

In the Money Pit area,

while excavating what they believe

could be an early 19th-century searcher structure

known as Shaft Two, the Oak Island team

has unearthed possible evidence of a second unknown shaft

located next to it.

We have found more shafts

that are not recorded

- than shafts we know about. - Yeah.

We can now pin this location

and then go back to the other shaft.

Well, you've got to keep going until we find more clarity

- about what's down there. - Yeah.

I think these shafts

are probably somewhat

independent investigations.

So right now, I'd like to just stay focused

on this supposed Shaft Two.

Well, we can't go any deeper, so...

we'll move over to, you know,

what we're calling Shaft Two, then bring in the long-reach.

Okey-doke.

The following morning...

The key is getting deeper,

so we can get potentially original timbers.

- Well, we've got the machine to do it. - This will do it.

Billy Gerhardt has obtained a long-reach excavator,

capable of reaching more than 30 feet underground.

Do you want to grab any of this wood?

- I'd wait until we get a little bit deeper. - Okay.

Once the team is able to fully expose

what could be Shaft Two,

they will work to unearth the possible second

mysterious shaft located just to the east of it.

There's the end of it.

Yep. That's a corner.

We got a corner here.

Yeah, I see that.

I'm gonna go look at that.

As he's getting deeper, it looks like

we're getting, older material.

You know, material specifically from this shaft.

Big timbers.

These look like good samples

with a lot of tree rings,

so we can have it tested.

The center piece looks like it's right there.

- We've got a lot of rings going up to that corner. - That's not bad.

So, I think we're gonna get enough

information to, to date it.

- Hey. - Hey.

Boy, that is way down there.

- How long is that? - About 30 feet.

We might've reached as deep as we can go with this technique,

but we got a lot of wood.

Okay.

Well, we should have enough data

to see whether this is Shaft Two or not.

- Right. - All right.

- Let's call it. - Okay.

Hey, Billy.

We're good.

So, the consensus here is we've done about what we can.

You did a nice job.

- Yeah. - You know, once we get the dendro,

carbon-14,

metallurgy,

we should have a pretty good idea how old this shaft is.

So, mission accomplished.

Yeah. It's important

we find out what shaft this is.

I mean, I think we're looking at

two shafts very near each other.

If it is Shaft Two, the records

indicate it's 14 feet away from the Money Pit.

So, we really want to pinpoint it.

They're putting big caissons down.

We need that information.

If it's Shaft Two, I agree with you.

It would've had a direct connection

to the original Money Pit for sure.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Well, I think we're gonna have to go back over

and chase this mystery shaft

for a little bit and then come back here.

Yeah.

- Okay. - All right.

- Thanks, Billy. - All right.

Later that afternoon...

- Hello. - Hello. Hey.

- Hello, ladies. - Hi.

At the Oak Island Laboratory,

Rick and Marty Lagina,

along with Oak Island historian Doug Crowell,

meet with archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan

and archaeologist Moya MacDonald.

We heard this is gonna be really interesting.

Okay, what do you got?

So, we conducted a bunch of soil analysis

on the concretion that we found

under Cone E on Lot 10

and soil samples from around the Money Pit

and Lot 5.

Last year,

in order to follow up on archeoastronomy

Professor Adriano Gaspani's belief

that Nolan's Cross was created around 1200 AD,

Marty, Tom Nolan, and other members

of the team lifted the bottom boulder of the cross,

known as Cone E, to look for evidence of human activity.

If that's cement, then we found something.

Incredibly, they discovered a mysterious

cement-like conglomerate that Dr. Ian Spooner

and Terry Matheson determined to be man-made.

We have a Lot 5 sample over here,

a sample that we found under Cone E,

and then a Money Pit sample of maroon till from 91 feet.

At the direction of the Laginas and Craig,

Moya has conducted a comparative analysis

on the Cone E concretion

with other believed man-manipulated materials

that were unearthed in the round feature on Lot 5

and nearly 100 feet deep in the Money Pit area.

So, to start, we're just going to zoom in

on this little section here.

What is the difference as it grades from red to yellow?

What does that mean?

It's just most similar to least similar.

So, you can compare all the samples to each other.

So, we have the concretion, Cone E.

- Yep. - And then we have that mortar sample from Lot 5 there.

It's 95% compositionally similar.

Wow.

So, not only is the concretion

matching up with Lot 5,

it's also matching up with the Money Pit.

So, it is highly likely at this stage

there is a direct connection between

whatever it is I pulled out from underneath Cone E,

the Money Pit and Lot 5?

- I would say so. Yeah. - You too?

Well, that's astounding.

That's huge because if that Money Pit soil

went in place during the placement of that rock,

then we're looking at possible deposition too, right?

- They work the Money Pit... - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They place the stone boulders of Nolan's Cross?

That's true, yeah.

Gaspani is telling us that Nolan's Cross

was probably put in place around the 1200s.

And with the 1200 time period,

the Templars are our primary suspect right now.

Yeah.

Man-manipulated soils

from the large stone foundation on Lot 5?

And others from more than 90 feet deep

in the Money Pit area,

almost exact matches to the concrete-like substance

found beneath a boulder of Nolan's Cross?

A feature which may date back to as early as 1200 AD?

Is it possible that the team has now found

three key clues that the Oak Island mystery

could have originated more than eight centuries ago,

and be connected to the order of the Knights Templar?

It's gonna be imperative that we date Lot 5.

Because whoever was active there

was likely active in the Money Pit.

- Yeah. - I think this is the first connection

between Nolan's Cross, which I've always believed in,

the Money Pit and Lot 5.

So, for me, it's-it's a physical manifestation of my belief.

It's quite something, and there it is in front of us.

We're lifting that cone again.

This has to be vetted further. I-I mean,

it's so... it's so crazy.

Because if it's for sure correct,

that makes it all real.

You have unique qualities deep in the Money Pit,

unique qualities over on Lot 5

and unique qualities under Cone E.

That's really astounding.

The stuff that happens here

on this island is ridiculous.

Every year, we're closer to solving the mystery.

I have hope and faith to make this the year

where, you know, the answers are brought to the fore.

I want us to be grateful for the opportunities

that have been presented to each and every one of us

by our efforts to try to understand

this magical story that is Oak Island.

- Okay. Yeah. - Okay. Let's let them get back to work.

- Thank you. - Thank you.

- Thank you, guys. - Thank you.

As a new morning begins on Oak Island...

- Some more cores. - Okay.

Okay. More of the same, guys.

And while the core drilling operation

continues in the Money Pit area

to look for the source of the gold and silver

that has been detected between 80 and 120 feet underground...

I like this location. It's a mystery to us.

Several yards to the southeast,

Rick Lagina, Craig Tester and other members of the team

are refocusing their large-scale excavation

away from what they believe to be Shaft Two

to another potential key discovery.

I mean, we're kind of halfway in between

the Garden Shaft and what may be Shaft Two.

A wooden structure that was unearthed

a few feet to the east two days ago

that they have labeled "Shaft Two-A"

and which was previously undocumented

by all treasure hunters since the discovery

of the Money Pit in 1795.

People dug these shafts for a reason.

Absolutely.

And a shaft between the Garden Shaft

and what we call Shaft Two that we don't know about,

there's a lot of potential here for unknowns.

Yeah.

Well, if they can get dimensions,

which is always good to have,

and then wood samples to get the age

so we can figure out which time period it was dug in,

- that would be huge, so... - Yeah.

Every piece of data is good data, especially this year.

You know, we have the cans showing up

and we need some X's on the ground.

Yep.

Given the team's current plan

to find valuable targets now and then install

seven-foot-diameter steel caissons

later this year in order to explore them,

if they can confirm that this shaft predates

the discovery of the Money Pit,

it may prove to be critical

in finding the legendary treasure

and solving the 229-year-old mystery.

We're ready, Bill.

What we don't know, or are unclear of at the moment,

is whether or not it is Shaft Two

or it could be much older work.

To simplify things, we're gonna call this shaft

Shaft Two-A.

It's a previously unknown shaft we have to figure out.

He's going to dig closer to this bank

so I think we should step back some.

Here we go.

Boy, I can't imagine sinking a shaft in that stuff.

That excavator bucket was bouncing off of that clay.

And yet, human beings had created this shaft

out of the most hard, dense material

that I've seen on this island.

Whether they be searchers or depositors,

I was stunned by

what these people had done.

- There's boards. - Boards?

- Right here. - Yeah.

This is a mystery shaft.

The historical record gives us nothing.

We don't know who was working here.

This could be something original.

It's strange. I mean, it's definitely worth pursuing.

There's a beam here against the side of the bank.

- All right. - There's a big, long one down there.

See right there?

Yep. There's more stuck up.

It's stuck up like this.

Right now, with what we're seeing,

the wood looks similar to what we saw in Shaft Two,

but we need to uncover more to figure this out.

A wooden timber, matching those that the team found

just a few feet away in the believed searcher shaft

known as Shaft Two?

Because there are no historical records

of a second shaft being constructed

in the same area as Shaft Two,

which was built in 1805,

just 14 feet southeast of the original Money Pit,

could that suggest that the team has found

an undocumented shaft built by a different group of searchers?

Or might it have been constructed much earlier

in order to hide something of value?

That's exactly the way that shaft was built.

Certainly looks like it. But now look at that.

Just looks like a wall.

- Intact. - Yeah. Yep.

- Gentlemen. - Hey, guys. Hey, guys.

Let me look.

- Pretty cool. - That's a shaft.

- But it's over there. - It's that way.

If we get some old dates on these two shafts,

it might change where we think the Money Pit is.

So many shafts.

That's the thing.

Remarkably good shape.

It really would be nice to get down there

and get some measurements on that,

have our eyes on it, see how it was made.

I'm aboard that.

Yeah, this is, this is fine.

- Here's your beam. - Yep.

- Definitely the inside. - Yep.

Before we move anything, let's get your tape,

let's get a real accurate measurement here.

I'm going to go right to an edge right here.

I've got 116 inches, nine-foot-eight.

That's pretty consistent with the Garden Shaft too,

- eight by eight inside. - Yeah.

Well, the design is exactly... Right?

- Yeah. It really is. - You know,

you've got your frame. You got your rails.

This construction technique is the same as Garden Shaft's.

Yep. It's very much like the Garden Shaft right now.

It does to me, too.

An identical design

to the so-called Garden Shaft

located only eight feet to the south?

Okay, that would be probably the outside wall there.

- 10-4. - A ten by ten shaft.

When Rick, Marty and the team

first uncovered that 80-foot-deep feature in 2017,

they assumed it must be

an abandoned 19th-century searcher shaft.

However, after conducting dendrochronology testing

on wood samples taken from the bottom of the structure,

it was dated to 1735,

60 years prior to the discovery of the original Money Pit.

And even more astonishing,

other wood samples taken from a depth of some 50 feet,

yielded high traces of gold.

Although the Oak Island team is now unable

to further investigate beneath the Garden Shaft

due to the mysterious flooding that occurred last year,

is it possible that they have now uncovered

a structure created by the same people?

If so, just how deep might it go?

And what might be buried at the bottom?

What's amazing, Craig, is that this shaft

- is totally unrecorded. - Yep. That's so strange.

Y-You could replace the Garden Shaft with this shaft

- and you wouldn't know the difference. - That's true.

We have three shafts within, what, 30 feet?

- Yeah. - Yep.

Billy's right.

Why do that in such close proximity

to another shaft, or shafts for that matter?

So, we must retrieve a sample and do C-14

and dendro analysis and come up with a proper date.

There's so many questions that it's...

it's mind-boggling.

I wish I understood how they built this shaft.

If you want to see how it's constructed,

that has to go, right? On top of it?

I think too, yeah.

Let's keep digging.

While the excavation of Shaft Two-A continues

in the Money Pit area,

and while members of the archaeological team

investigate the stone piles on Lot 15...

No mistaking these spoils, mate.

Now, all of these spoils

that we're gonna go over today,

came from Lot 5

around the big feature. There's a big pile...

Metal detection expert Gary Drayton

and Peter Fornetti arrive on Lot 4,

located on the western side of the island.

- Now, let's get stuck in there, mate. - Okay.

They are searching

more than ten tons of spoils

that were excavated last year

from the mysterious round feature

near the shoreline of Lot 5.

Since the team has found artifacts

in that stone-lined foundation that wildly vary in age...

such as the 14th-century lead barter token

and 17th-century iron tools...

and also, because they have recovered

a mortar-like substance within it that matches materials

discovered more than 100 feet deep in the Money Pit,

as well as below Cone E

of the potentially 800-year-old Nolan's Cross...

We'll go over it twice, Pete.

- Sounds good. - Nonferrous first.

And then we'll pull some ferrous out.

Rick and Marty are hoping that Gary and Peter

will find more clues to help confirm

when the feature was created,

and, most importantly, why.

- Ooh, a banging signal, mate. - Okay.

It's gonna be good, mate. Just there.

Let's do it.

- It's out. - Ooh, it's out.

Let's see what we've got.

In your hand?

What a find!

What a find!

- I think we've found a cut coin. - Okay.

While searching through spoils

from the rounded stone feature on Lot 5,

Gary Drayton and Peter Fornetti

have just made an exciting discovery.

And if this is a cut coin, mate...

I'm getting...

- I'm getting bumswizzled, mate. - Yeah.

If this is a cut coin, mate,

it could well be a Spanish coin.

- More than likely, it's silver, mate. - Okay.

And that has got to be a really clean break

to cut in like a quarter like that.

'Cause that's what they used to do.

- They used to cut the silver and gold coins up. - Okay.

It was to make change back in the day.

A cut... potentially Spanish...

treasure coin?

Between the 15th and 18th centuries,

when European nations

such as Spain, England and France

were colonizing and establishing trade routes

throughout the Americas,

it was common practice for both militaries

and outlaw pirates to cut coins

and distribute them as payment to crew members.

This is a piece of treasure, mate.

This is silver treasure.

- Oak Island silver treasure. - Wow.

Given the fact that the team has found evidence

connecting the feature on Lot 5

to underground workings more than 100 feet deep

in the Money Pit area,

could this cut coin be related

to the much larger source of precious metals

that have been detected in the so-called

pie-shaped treasure zone?

This can tell a story,

- and I know that my Uncle Rick... - Yeah.

Is going to be really excited to see this.

He is, mate.

- High five, mate. - All right.

This is absolutely brilliant.

We'll put it in a bag, mate,

and let's get it back to the lab.

All right. Let's do it.

- What a day. - Wow. What a day, all right.

Following their discovery on Lot 4...

Well, well, well...

- Look at that walk. - What a strut.

Gary and Peter arrive

at the Oak Island Laboratory to share it with Rick

and Jack Begley and have it analyzed

by archaeologist Laird Niven

and archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan.

- What's up? - Well, Pete and I

have been searching those spoils off Lot 5,

and we have just recovered

a real top-pocket find.

You are gonna love this.

Ooh...

What do you think of that beauty?

It's got some weight to it.

What is it?

It's a cut coin.

And Pete and I believe it's more than likely

gonna be silver.

- No way! - Way!

- And it's perfectly cut. - Yeah.

- It's quartered, right? - Yeah.

This is treasure. This is Oak Island treasure.

You know, Laird, I will take a look at that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's quite cleanly cut.

That's very cool.

I have found a lot of Spanish silver coins,

and this is typical

early 1700s or older.

But it could be a lot earlier, could be a medieval silver coin.

We don't know.

I'm not bothered. It's a silver coin.

- Do you want an XRF first? - Yeah.

In order to determine

if the coin is truly made of silver,

Emma will first scan it on the X-ray fluorescence...

or XRF device.

By emitting non-destructive radiation,

the machine can identify the types of elements and metals

that make up the composition of an artifact.

When you find something

as described in the Treasure Trove License

as treasure, the excitement in the room goes up.

It's why we're here. To me, that's quite a high, right?

It's the Oak Island roller coaster.

I just want the roller coaster to keep going like this

until it gets to the goalpost.

Here we go.

- It is silver. - Yes!

- Yeah! - Ka-ching.

Yeah. There it is.

There's a lot of chlorine.

So, it's been in contact with, like, salt water

for a really long time.

Is there a possibility that this could be part of

the treasure that was deposited in the Money Pit?

It's a treasure coin. That is for sure.

And the treasure that Williams Phips recovered

was a bunch of silver.

We know that Phips found silver on the Concepcíon,

and I believe some of the treasure

from the Concepcíon was secreted to Oak Island.

In 2021,

32nd-degree Freemason Scott Clarke

presented the team with compelling research

suggesting that the 17th-century English politician,

naval captain and treasure hunter William Phips

was directly connected to the Oak Island mystery.

In 1687, Phips discovered the wreck

of the Concepcíon,

a Spanish galleon that sank near the Dominican Republic in 1641

while transporting more than 100 tons of silver and gold.

After retrieving some 34 tons of silver

for the English Crown,

he was knighted by King James II

and then ordered to conduct another salvage operation

to retrieve the remaining sunken riches.

But before making his return to the wreck,

Sir William Phips recruited a high-ranking Freemason

named Captain Andrew Belcher.

Curiously, when Phips made his way back to England

after the second salvage mission,

he delivered only five additional tons of treasure,

claiming that locals had already recovered

the bulk of the riches.

I found a 1688 letter

that shows that Captain Andrew Belcher

was caught with one of Phips's ships

in the Mahone Bay area

at the exact time that Phips was coming back

from the second attempt, where he,

"allegedly," officially, did not find as much silver.

I strongly believe

that Belcher and his comrades were actually

transferring treasure from the Concepcíon to Oak Island.

According to Scott Clarke's theory,

Sir William Phips and Captain Andrew Belcher

deposited much of the silver that they recovered

from the Concepcíon in the Money Pit,

due to their secret Masonic knowledge

of an existing treasure vault that had been created

centuries earlier by the Knights Templar.

And as incredible as that theory may be,

in 2023, the Oak Island team

recovered a number of iron tools

in the round feature on Lot 5,

that Emma scientifically matched to others

from the birthplace of William Phips.

Maybe this is more evidence that William Phips

came to Oak Island and somehow deposited some of that treasure.

I mean, that definitely could've been his, right?

Well, it's a "Phipping" good find,

that is for sure.

Is it possible?

Absolutely, it's possible,

but we need more and more and more data.

I'm gonna pop it out, put it in the CT scan,

and try to get an image.

Let's do it.

In order to visualize

any identifiable features on the coin,

Emma will now analyze it

with the Skyscan 1273 CT scanner.

The device works by emitting X-ray radiation

to produce magnified, three-dimensional images

of artifacts.

This is a really, really quick scan.

So, it's not gonna be a great image.

There is a lot of scratch marks.

A longer scan should reveal a lot more detail.

So, you're gonna run a longer scan?

Yeah.

We're gonna have to be a bit more patient.

It's early days.

- It's early days. - Where there's one,

there might be two, three, four, five.

Yeah.

Yeah, because this was cut up as change.

So, look, a great day.

You guys did your high five out in the field.

- Yeah, yeah. - We'll do a high five in here, all right?

Come on.

There's only one thing to say.

Let's go find more.

A new and energized morning begins on Oak Island

as representatives from Lawrence Veinotte Enterprises...

Here it comes!

Are delivering a 30-ton crane.

Here we go.

Boy, look at that.

Wow.

At the direction of Marty Lagina

and fellow landowner Tom Nolan,

the team is about to once again lift Cone E,

the bottom boulder

of the believed 800-year-old megalithic formation

known as Nolan's Cross.

Okay. The plan, gentlemen and young lady,

and the whole reason for doing this

is that conglomerate is very mysterious.

- Let's move the crane in. - Yeah.

Give her a spin, big guy.

All right. Seems like a good level.

Following the incredible scientific report

that the mortar-like concretion

that was found below Cone E one year ago

matches similar artificially-worked soils

from the round feature on Lot 5

and from more than 90 feet deep in the Money Pit area...

Put a chain right around the bottom.

Marty is eager

to see if any more evidence of human activity...

Tighten it up.

Can be found beneath Cone E...

There she goes.

That might help prove

when all three features were originally created

and who was responsible for them.

That's a big egg.

Sure is.

Yeah, she's all yours now.

Okay.

There's no water in there. That's nice.

Okay. Let's dig. Let's go.

What I want is the data.

I want to understand this thing.

It would be great to find definitive proof

that it was put up for a purpose and that it was put up

in the 1200s.

Yes. Perfect.

If the science is correct, we ought to come up with something.

Hey, wait.

This could be something.

You got any water, Pete?

Hey, Tom.

There's more of it.

That conglomerate.

Another sample of a man-made conglomerate?

Can I see that?

And more potential evidence of human activity

connecting Nolan's Cross to Lot 5 and the Money Pit?

It's not similar.

It's the same.

If so, could there be anything else beneath cone E

that might help the team prove that Nolan's Cross

and the Oak Island mystery might date back

as much as eight centuries?

What I'm seeing is a red moss.

It has sticks in it.

And that takes a...

that takes a long time to form.

And what that tells me

is there's a possibility that before Tom's dad was digging,

somebody else was digging here, too.

- Yeah. - So, this is...

extremely interesting.

Nothing in the historical record indicates

anybody was aware of the structure

- before your dad found it? - No. No.

Right.

Although the late Fred Nolan

is known to have excavated around Cone E

after he discovered the megalithic cross formation

in 1981,

he claimed to have never moved this boulder

or dug directly beneath it.

So, could the team have found another critical clue

that could help them determine the true origin

of Nolan's Cross?

We know

Fred Nolan dug around that cone,

but Dr. Spooner is saying, "Wait a minute.

This looked like this was disturbed way before that."

If we found out that somebody was digging around it,

say 300 or 800 years ago, that's

quite substantive.

It may answer some of the mystery here.

All right. Let's fill her back in.

Later that afternoon...

Try to give them a little more.

While drilling continues

in the so-called pie in the Money Pit area...

Good?

Several yards to the southeast...

- See the crossbeam all the way? - Yeah.

- About there? - Right there.

Scott Barlow has joined Peter Fornetti

and Billy Gerhardt to proceed with the excavation

of the mysterious structure they have dubbed Shaft Two-A.

All right, I think that looks good right now, Pete.

We can probably get down in there.

All right. I got some shovels.

Shovel off those top timbers.

After determining

that the structure has a nearly identical design

and dimensions as the nearby,

potentially mid-18th century Garden Shaft,

they are now hoping to prove

whether it was built by treasure hunters

during the past two centuries,

or if it may predate the discovery of the Money Pit.

The wall is still intact all along here, as well.

- Look at that. - Yeah.

Hey, Billy.

Want to just skim this off a little bit at a time?

Okay.

So, this shaft... Rick's

starting to call it Shaft Two-A

because this current shaft could also be Shaft Two.

Until we get some clearer answers,

the door is still open to any possibility.

Yeah, it seems very odd that there's two shafts

this close to the Garden Shaft.

We don't know who was working here.

There's a lot of unanswered questions here.

- Hey, guys. -Hello. - Hey.

We're getting her cleaned out.

That's pretty amazing.

Billy, I had my doubts you could do this

with that machine, but I doff my hard hat to you.

Doesn't seem to have damaged anything. Good job.

You know what's amazing to me?

Whoever did this shaft

went to great pains to fill it back properly.

- I know. - 'Cause this is packed right in there.

Yeah, it really is.

That's amazing. That almost implies

- trying to hide it. - Yeah.

Maybe it's a depositor shaft.

That almost implies trying to hide it.

- Maybe it's a depositor shaft. - Yeah.

It sure is impressive.

It really is.

In the Money Pit area,

Marty Lagina and members of the team

are investigating what they have labeled Shaft Two-A,

a previously

undocumented structure that appears

to have been deliberately hidden

by someone many years ago.

- It is in great shape. - Yup.

Unbelievable.

The burning question is whether or not

it was constructed and then buried

before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795.

How deep do you want to go with this?

How deep can you go without hurting it?

We're not having too much trouble yet.

You know, we could go to the next set, I think.

Well, keep going, then.

I think Rick wanted to see that.

If this shaft dates to turn of the century,

then it's a searcher shaft.

But if that shaft ended up being from the 1600s

or perhaps earlier, then

we're gonna put a caisson down over it because that could be

an original shaft.

Hey, Billy.

Come take a look.

This just continually impresses me.

- I mean, you look at this, it's history. - Yeah.

Well, big brother, there's a shaft.

I mean, those boards... you couldn't fit

a human hair between 'em.

It's an incredible piece of construction.

- It's very cool. It's very amazing. - Very cool.

- It's very intact. - It's very... intact.

Why do you think the compartments are gone?

'Cause they did a really good job filling it.

Which is pretty amazing, too.

There's some homework to do.

We have a, Shaft Two-A,

and right next to it, possibly Shaft Two.

Some of the wood is very similar,

and they had similar orientations.

So, it's important to verify

that supposed Shaft Two is really Shaft Two.

So, we need to go back, dig down a bit deeper

and see if there's

a different style of construction.

Well, we need a proper sample at depth.

We can send that off for dendro, but we can't wait

for the results. What we have to do then, is dig down

a bit deeper into the shaft that we believe is Shaft Two.

- Correct. - Sure.

The Money Pit has had so much activity on it

that was unknown

because here are two shafts within,

you know, a putt of each other.

Yet, each one of 'em was an enormous amount of work.

Hopefully, these shafts give us information which ultimately

might lead us towards the treasure.

- Let's go. - Yeah.

Call it a day.

The following morning,

while the core-drilling operation continues

in the Money Pit area...

Okay. More of the same, guys.

Still into the blue gray.

Lady, gentlemen,

today we're gonna learn about something

that I think has caused great excitement.

Rick and other members

of the team meet via video conference

with Marty and Craig in the war room.

They are eager to hear an updated scientific report

on the silver coin that was discovered

in the spoils removed from the stone foundation

on Lot 5.

Hopefully, Emma can

tell us what she found out about this cut coin.

So, the CT scanner, although it could catch

some of the abraded surface,

like all the scratches on the surface,

getting any detail was nearly impossible.

We couldn't really see any details,

but there was faint signs or faint engravings on one side.

You could see some sort of writing on it,

but couldn't make it out.

So I just popped that into the XRF map scanner.

So this is a compositional surface scan

of one side of that coin.

It is, in fact, silver,

but it does have a little bit of a lead content.

Like, I only left these elements

'cause they image really well on the XRF map.

X-ray fluorescence... or XRF scanning...

uses highly-focused beams of x-rays,

which assigns specific colors to the elements

that are present on the surface of objects.

The process reveals fine, microscopic details

that are not visible to the naked eye.

Initially, when you guys brought it in,

we did think that it could be Spanish.

But as you can see, you see the "GVLI"

really clearly.

And this little... little design over here...

and these two little triangular spots.

So, this right here

is a William III shilling.

Silver, same diameter.

And it matches the designs to a T.

- Wow. - Wow.

So it's an English shilling

from the 1690s.

Yeah. You can see the ponytail.

Yeah.

And the little two triangles is its little ribbon.

Wow, that's a shocker.

Wow.

It's an English shilling

featuring William III from the 1690s,

but I'm fairly certain that it's from 1697.

Wow. That's a shocker. So, it's English?

Yep. Yeah.

In the Oak Island war room,

archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan

has just revealed that the cut silver coin

that was recovered from the round feature on Lot 5

is part of an English shilling

bearing the likeness of King William III

and was minted in 1697.

Emma, fantastic detective work.

I mean, there's a million coins out there,

and to have that match like that

is really, really cool. Very impressive.

She's figured out what coin this is.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Laird, doesn't this kind of go

to your thought that that habitation there on Lot 5,

you know, was older than mid-1700s,

pushing things back into the 1600s or very close?

Is that all correct?

Yeah. Yeah.

It certainly supports a possible earlier date.

So this may also suggest that this was

a stopping place for them over a period of time.

Yes.

The hell was they doing there?

Well, this is much

less likely to be a component of treasure, but rather

-somebody who was on Lot 5 doing something... some -Yup.

- Officer, perhaps, being paid. - Yup.

This makes me think of a book I read by,

Graham Harris and Les MacPhie about the British military

trying to recover, um, William Phips' treasure

here on Oak Island.

In their 1999 book

entitled Oak Island and Its Lost Treasure,

Graham Harris and Les MacPhie

put forth an extraordinary theory about secret events

that they believe took place on Oak Island

after Sir William Phips

allegedly buried a treasure vault in the Money Pit area.

According to their research, English allies of Phips,

who assisted him and Andrew Belcher

during the second treasure salvage operation

of the Concepción,

made a number of failed attempts

to retrieve the valuables on Oak Island

between the late 1600s and the 1750s.

So, if-if that's true,

this could be evidence that the British military were here.

That fits in really well.

Could Doug Crowell be correct

that this 1697 silver English coin might be connected

to one of those failed treasure recoveries?

Would that explain

why the team has also found

numerous English military artifacts

in the round feature on Lot 5

that have been dated to between the late 17th

and mid-18th centuries

in addition to the metal tools

that were scientifically linked to William Phips?

And might it also explain not only who constructed

the mid-18th century Garden Shaft,

but perhaps also Shaft Two-A,

that has been unearthed next to what may be Shaft Two

in the Money Pit area?

They didn't retrieve the treasure.

And the gold and silver particles

in the current water test indicate

that that treasure's probably still there.

You got to find it, man.

And I think this is

somehow significant.

The things happening on Lot 5 have certainly moved the dial.

I'm sure of that.

Yeah.

Oak Island is

a very complex mystery.

Perhaps a mystery that has been developing

over decades, if not centuries.

But there's one way for this to be put to bed.

We have to find proof

that the most hardened skeptic says, "I believe."

And we continue to endeavor to do that.

Okay, I think we're all set to get out back and keep digging.

- Okay. - Okay.

Get back out there

and find some more.

Later that afternoon...

- Whoa. - Hey.

That's a big hole.

You can see a wall.

- Yup. - Look at that.

In the Money Pit area,

Marty and Rick Lagina,

along with members of the team,

are once again excavating the wooden structure

that they believe could be

Shaft Two.

See where the darker area?

Yeah.

There's a whole bunch of boards in there.

Yup. And blacker usually looks older.

Ooh, yeah.

It is their hope to obtain wood samples

from a much deeper depth than their previous excavation

of the feature in order to confirm

it really is the first searcher shaft dug in 1805,

which could help them locate the original Money Pit.

Okay, what do you want to do?

So, Scott's gonna guide Billy,

and we're just gonna try to nick that off the wall.

Okay, Billy.

We'll try and grab the side of those beams.

Looking at the bottom,

you can see much older wood.

Shaft Two was created in 1805.

So, the hope is that we can get a wood sample

that will date to that period of time,

and bingo, we have the first discovery shaft on Oak Island.

So, it's incredibly important.

Now, pull... pull your bucket forward a little bit.

That looks like our beam.

Go straight down with your boom.

You got it.

It's perfect.

It fell out of the bucket.

When you get a hole 40 feet deep with vertical sides,

it's challenging for the equipment operator.

Billy's really good, but

he cannot see where that bucket is.

There. It's tipped back into your bucket.

Bring it on up.

It's like a very large,

very expensive variation of

the little grabber video games.

- That's a monstrous beam. Look at that. - Yeah.

It's huge!

- Watch your feet. - Yup.

That's a good piece.

All right. Let's see if there's any metal in there.

Yes.

No metal in there.

That is a good sign.

No fasteners,

maybe an older style of construction.

Yes.

Possible older wooden beams

some 40 feet deep in the mysterious shaft?

Could that suggest

that someone reconstructed the top portion of Shaft Two

after it was first built in 1805?

Although it will take several weeks

for dendrochronology testing to be conducted

on the wood samples that they have recovered,

the team may have finally obtained the evidence

that they need to locate the original Money Pit.

So, I mean, if this is Shaft Two, we know

we're 14 feet away from the Money Pit,

so, it's a landmark for us.

We've succeeded in what we intended to do.

We've got a proper sample at depth.

We can send that off for dendro,

move seamlessly forward with the drill program

in the pie-shaped area.

Look, we wanted proof that this may or may not be Shaft Two.

- This could be it. - Exactly.

Everybody wants to get at it.

Everybody's invested in this.

Everybody wants to figure it out.

Gentlemen, I think

it's time to declare victory.

Yeah.

- That's a top-pocket find, Gary. - Yeah.

It feels good. The energy is high.

Everybody thinks it's worth doing.

Okay. Let's go.

Good job, everyone.

A new year full of great promise

has begun on Oak Island.

Having already made compelling discoveries

in the Money Pit area,

on Lot 5

and beneath Nolan's Cross,

Rick, Marty, Craig and their fellowship

have uncovered more evidence to suggest

that they are actually looking for numerous treasure vaults,

and that the truth behind them

could change the history of North America.

And while the team is humbled by the many known

and unknown people who have come before them to search,

nothing can break their will

to ensure that they will be the last.

>>>>oakislandtk www.opensubtitles.org