Tonight on
the curse of oak island...
Rick:
That's impressive.
Don't take a Kn*fe
to a gunfight.
Wow. I was not expecting that.
Doesn't that line up
with the old stone triangle?
It runs along the same line.
I would not have noticed that.
Aha, ha!
- Yeah, look at that.
- Ian: What the hell is that?
That looks like a cannon,
for god's sake.
Holy (bleep).
I didn't expect to see this.
- Oh, geez. Look at that.
- Whoa!
Narrator:
There is an island
in the north atlantic
where people have been looking
for an incredible treasure
for more than 200 years.
So far, they have found
a stone slab
with strange symbols
carved into it,
mysterious fragments
of human bone,
and a lead cross
whose origin may stretch back
to the days
of the knights templar.
To date, six men have d*ed
trying to solve the mystery.
And, according to legend,
one more will have to die
before the treasure
can be found.
♪ ♪
charles:
Here we go.
Narrator: A new
day of investigation
to solve a 225-year-old
mystery has begun on oak island.
What do you got?
108 to 128.
Terry: 108 to 128. Thank you.
- Narrator: And at the money pit area...
- (horn honks)
- terry: Hi, rick. - Rick: Hey.
Rick lagina joins
oak island historian
charles barkhouse and
geologist terry matheson
to check on the
progress being made
in locating a
legendary treasure vault
more than 170 feet underground.
- Here we are at h5.5. - Yeah.
Terry: And as you can see,
that's pretty meager recovery.
- Yeah.
- But it's what we might expect because
it's going down through, uh,
crushed, granite backfill.
Of course,
our target is beneath.
Narrator: One week ago,
rick, his brother marty,
and their partner craig tester
began a core-drilling
operation in an attempt
to pinpoint the fabled
treasure's location,
which is believed
to have fallen to a
much greater depth
due to more than two centuries
of digging by previous searchers
followed by massive cave-ins
caused by an elaborate system
of booby-trapped flood tunnels.
This caisson will not end
until 175 or 190.
Somewhere between that.
So,
there's really no surprise here.
No,
we're still above our target horizon.
We will get into a
more interesting area
when we are beneath 175.
And until then,
it's just boring backfill.
Rick: We've now
all come to the belief
that if there was a treasure,
that it has fallen
to great depths.
So, what has the program
led you to believe
about the possibilities
of that very thing happening?
Terry: Absolutely,
there is an opening
in the middle of
the money pit area.
A break in the bedrock,
if you will,
around 220 or 215.
Narrator: It is now rick,
marty and craig's hope
that by drilling
into the bedrock
to depths below 200 feet,
they can pinpoint
the vault inside a void
where it is believed
to have come to rest.
If we were to consider
a larger dig,
where would you put it?
Terry: I would put it over
on the eastern side here
- where we get our deeper points.
- Where do you go?
I agree.
- You agree with me? Super.
- Yeah. Yeah, I do.
You get the rig
back up and running.
- Terry: Rig back up and running.
- And we'll,
- uh, we'll move on.
- All right.
- See you later. - Thank you. Yep.
- See you, guys.
- Talk to you later.
- Rick: Take care.
Narrator: While
drilling continues
at the money pit...
- Steve g.: Hey, guys.
- Rick: Hey, everybody.
- Hello, crew. - Hey.
Hi there.
Narrator: Rick, marty,
and members of their
team have gathered
for a videoconference
with cartographer
erin helton in the w*r room.
Erin's made a revelation
about what she deems the cross,
the importance
of the cross to be.
I think you're gonna find it
highly, highly interesting
if not illuminating.
So, these, I believe,
are your two anchors.
Narrator: One week ago,
erin presented the team
with an incredible theory
based on a reported 14th
century map of oak island
that was given to them in 2016
by the late author zena halpern.
The map,
which zena believed had been made
by members of
the knights templar,
noted various
locations on the island,
including two labeled
simply as "the anchors."
as an expert in mapmaking,
erin suspected that
these so-called anchors
might actually be boulders
left as markers on a master grid
leading to the location of
the money pit treasure vault.
The coordinate
is taking me here.
- Marty: Wow. - Jack: Wow.
- Alex: That is a rock.
Narrator: When marty
and members of the team
went to verify the
gps coordinates
of the two locations,
they were amazed
by what they found.
- Alex: I mean, that's pretty impressive.
- Steve g.: Yeah.
Narrator: Although erin
is still working to decipher
the so-called master
grid that she thinks
will lead them to the
treasure's location,
she believes that a find made
by the team three
years ago at smith's cove
could be key to helping
her complete the project:
The 700-year-old lead cross.
Rick: We'll let erin
tell us what she deems
the importance
of the cross to be.
So, erin,
I'll turn it over to you.
Great.
Thank you so much for sending me
that 3d model of the lead cross.
I was successfully able
to print myself one.
Right there.
So,
I've been able to demonstrate with this
and play with it a little bit.
I believe that the lead cross
is meant to be
used in conjunction
with a square.
I also provided the 3d model
for you guys so
you can follow along.
Rick: That's great.
So, erin,
I'm gonna pass this off
to my brother,
because he is uniquely qualified
to go from skeptic to believer.
- Marty: Not so sure about that characterization.
- Okay.
But I am prepared to try.
All right. Challenge accepted.
So, we're actually going
to end up using the square
to draw some particular angles.
We're going to be
aligning the square,
or the ruler edge,
against all of the
edges of the cross.
So, from the foot to an arm,
arm to the head,
head to the other arm,
and then arm back to the feet.
Do your best to mark that head,
as well. The square hole.
And now we're gonna
complete our lines
as we drew them.
So, what you end up with
is a very symmetrical-looking
- diamond shape.
- Marty: All right. Yep.
And we can take this one
step further. Do you have
- my maps with the anchors marked?
- Okay.
So, if you have the map
in front of you and you have
your tracing paper,
you can actually align
those two intersections
to your anchors.
Marty: Isn't the
little mark I made
through the square of the cross,
the head, doesn't that
line up with the
old stone triangle?
Yeah. It runs
along the same line.
My proposed stone
triangle location does. Yes.
Narrator: In June of 1897,
while exploring the
island's southern shore,
treasure hunter
captain john welling,
working under frederick blair,
discovered a formation of
large stones in the shape
of a three-dimensional triangle.
Even more astonishing
was the fact that the
apex pointed north,
directly toward the money pit.
Unfortunately,
during the massive
excavations conducted
by robert dunfield in 1965
across the eastern
half of oak island,
the stone triangle
was destroyed,
and the location of the
original treasure shaft
was hopelessly lost.
It is cool that
this little device
will make 30s, 60s,
90s and 45-degree angles.
I could look at this thing
all day and all
night long for a year,
and I would not have
noticed that. (chuckles)
but is there something
that this shape represents?
Erin: Uh, yes, actually.
Basically, my conclusion is
that this religious
keepsake that looks
incredibly irregular
might actually be
a protractor hiding
in plain sight.
Gary: I always
dream about finding
a key to a treasure chest,
and this might be the key
to the treasure of oak island.
Erin: I do think this
is absolutely the key
to when they were both
constructing the money pit area
and perhaps if people
were coming back to fetch it.
Rick: By people
looking at things
outside the box,
that is really how this puzzle,
oak island, will get solved.
And she's certainly
thinking outside the box.
(chuckles): So I'm somewhat vibrating,
if you will,
because I think it's
gonna be highly relevant
towards solving this
incredible mystery/puzzle.
I know there's more that
you're going to reveal.
As you proceed,
uh,
you're going to continue to reference
- zena halpern's, uh, material, correct?
- Erin: Yes.
I believe that she
is in possession
of a couple other clues,
and I'm hoping to help, uh,
glean light on that context
and, uh, help use them
to give you an "x marks the
spot" at that point, as well.
If you put an "x" on the ground,
we will get to the bottom of it.
- I guarantee you that. - Great.
Rick: Okay.
We look forward
to the next time.
- Thanks, everybody, for participating.
- Rick: Yep.
- Thank you.
- Marty: See you later, then.
- Doug: Take care.
- Rick: Buh-bye.
Narrator: Later that morning...
Rick: I'm interested
to hear what you have
to say about this.
Narrator: Rick lagina welcomes
geoscientist dr. Ian spooner
back to the island
to continue investigating
a mysterious feature
in the southeastern corner
of the triangle-shaped swamp.
So, what do you want
to find out today? I mean,
we're gonna do probing.
- That's all I really understand.
- Ian: Right.
I want to check out
the anomaly area,
- which is right over there.
- Rick: Yep.
Because the sonar I did showed
the platform and a drop-off.
What I'm convinced of
is a real feature
exists right here.
Narrator: Five weeks ago,
while conducting sonar scans
across this area with
local diver tony sampson,
dr. Spooner detected
what he believes
could be some kind
of man-made structure.
Big drop-off. Right here.
- It's like a wall.
- That's fantastic.
If we probe and we hit things,
that probe can tell
us whether it's sand,
metal, wood, uh, rock.
It can tell us the depth,
and then it can tell us
if it deviates from that nice,
uniform basin.
And if it does,
then it's probably been manipulated.
Yup. I think there's
still secrets in here,
and there's still things
to know about the swamp.
- Absolutely. That's why I study these things.
- Yeah.
- This has thrown a few curveballs at me.
- Curveballs?
Yeah. And so,
do I expect to see more curveballs?
Well, I wouldn't have said this a year ago,
but yeah, I do.
- Let-let's go find some.
- Let's go, let-let's find some curveballs.
Let's find some curveballs.
What we're looking
for is any reference
to this structure,
and dr. Spooner now has
some sense of
where to look, to what depths,
in what areas, and
what we hope to find.
I think it was
- somewhere in there.
- Right in here?
How about I just
start trying here?
Sure.
Two meters deep, or more.
It just keeps on going.
We're hitting muck.
I'll move it over.
Well,
it's-it's three meters deep right there.
Holy (bleep).
- (metallic tapping)
- what's this?
- (metallic tapping)
- ian: Holy (bleep).
- What's this?
- Narrator: While investigating
the southeast corner
of the mysterious
triangle-shaped swamp...
- Do you hear that? - Yeah.
- There's rock here. - (tapping)
- that could be it. - Yeah.
Rick lagina and geoscientist
dr. Ian spooner
have just discovered
a flat stone feature below
the brackish water and muck.
Let's try here.
- (tapping) - rock.
- Rock. And it's flat. - Mm-hmm.
It's all exactly the same depth.
- Mm-hmm. - This is not normal.
- Got to keep going down that way.
- Okay.
Narrator: Since
this rock feature
appears to be much larger
than dr. Spooner first thought,
could it be connected to,
or be part of,
the massive stone-paved feature
that the team uncovered
in the swamp last year,
and which he scientifically
dated to as early as 1200 ad?
I'm gonna just, um,
try the probe right here.
Okay.
(tapping)
so, there's stone right here.
Ah.
- (tapping) - stone.
I'm just gonna put a
stake right in there.
(grunts)
so,
maybe we'll just try right in here.
Okay.
(grunts)
- oh, geez. Look at that.
- Whoa.
- There's a stone. - (tapping)
(laughing): Three
meters deep right here.
A three-meter,
give or take, drop-off.
There is. I mean,
we both saw it.
So,
it's stone right up to there?
Right... Right
here. One foot over.
It is my belief,
at least my initial belief,
that it is a road or a
pathway or a platform.
So,
what is it doing two or three feet down,
in a swamp, on oak island?
But that's what
makes this structure
incredibly interesting...
The "why" of it.
- So, it's right here. - Yeah.
It's almost a perfect line,
because there's a definite
side there and a
definite side right there.
It's got to be rock
to the bottom.
But it also drops off to
three meters on the sides,
so this was built with purpose.
It's huge. (laughs)
- right. - I think
there's gonna be an
abundance of artifacts here.
Too many people were
doing too much work,
and maybe transporting
something from the body
of the swamp to the upland.
But if this was used as a path,
you're pointing, generally,
at the lot 15's feature.
Right. Well,
it'll be interesting to see what we find
- under that rock. - Yes.
Narrator: Could it be
that rick lagina's
suspicion is correct?
Have he and dr. Spooner
discovered a hidden wharf
or platform used long ago
to transport cargo
from the swamp
to the structure located
earlier this year on lot 15?
Well,
this is historically important.
Narrator: Five weeks ago,
the team,
led by archaeologist
david macinnes,
a direct descendant of legendary
oak island treasure
hunter daniel mcginnis,
began investigating
what they believe
to be a 16th
century pine tar kiln,
and which may be connected
to the construction of
the original money pit.
Is it possible that
the rock structure
rick and dr. Spooner have
located in the swamp could
also be linked
to that operation?
If so,
could it also offer new clues
about the 200-foot-long anomaly
that the team detected two
years ago with seismic scanning,
buried more than 50 feet deep
in the middle of the swamp?
One bearing the same size and
shape of a large sailing vessel?
Whatever feature is here,
if it was built,
it's quite substantial.
They would have had
to pour enormous
resources into this.
Yup. So that means
it's got to be excavated.
Yes. Exactly.
Any discovery in the
eastern corner of the swamp
is a big deal, right?
It's-it's been unexplored
by any of the searchers
that we know of.
So, whatever you find there
could be highly relative
to perhaps understanding
the-the money pit,
because it's in very close proximity.
It's possible that it'll give
us some more information
to understand the swamp itself
or its construction
or its purpose.
But that's-that's... That's
remains to be seen.
(line rings)
- marty: Hello. - Rick: Hey.
Dr. Spooner and I have
been out in the swamp,
and I'm gonna let him tell
you what he believes he found.
So, what we found was
a 20-foot-wide, 70-foot-long...
The only way I can describe it is,
it's like a road
across the swamp.
It kind of connects
from land to the beach.
It's the biggest
feature I've seen.
Rick: Because we...
We didn't dig. It's
not metal-detectable.
It would not have shown
up on an em target,
because it's not metal.
It's got about 15 centimeters
of muck on top of it,
which means that it probably
was built back in time.
I mean, it just gives more,
I think, more impetus to...
To doing some excavation.
- Okay. - Okeydoke.
- See ya. Bye-bye. - Bye.
Rick: I do believe
the swamp is a
keeper of secrets.
Ian: Yeah.
Narrator: The following morning,
at the oak island
interpretive centre...
Tony: How you doing, guys?
We've got something
here to show you.
Narrator: Brothers
rick and marty lagina,
along with marty's son alex,
are joined by dr. Ian spooner
and professional
diver tony sampson
to discuss a plan
to further investigate
the mysterious rock
feature in the swamp.
However, because they must
wait for the necessary permits
to drain the area and excavate,
this investigation will focus
on the surrounding ocean waters.
- So, what we're looking at here is around oak island.
- Marty: Yeah.
And what ian's got
there is also a map
of what it would
have looked like
going back to 1600 ad.
So the idea here is to go
back to these time periods.
1600 ad. We're probably
gonna go back to 1200 as well,
- thinking of the paved area...
- Good. Mm-hmm.
And reconstruct what the
shoreline was at that time.
It gets back to understanding,
fundamentally, the swamp.
It lends a new perspective on
what could have been possible
- back then. - Mm-hmm.
Rick: Oh, wow.
But that wondering will be,
I think, a little bit solved
by us getting out and
doing the sonar work.
Perfect.
Some of the things that we found,
I think,
seem to suggest that the swamp
was connected to the ocean.
So the sonar data
that we're getting
is to extend that knowledge.
Narrator: It is dr. Spooner's
hope that if he can find evidence
of the mysterious structure
protruding out into the ocean,
he may be able to
determine exactly what it is
and what its purpose
may have been.
So,
what we want to do is look at the swamp,
- which is right here. - Mm-hmm.
This is a projection right
here of a 1600 shoreline.
1200 would likely
be even further out.
Because where it's eroded...
And we can see that
it's eroded right there.
You can see what's left behind.
It's probably
deeper than it was.
If we project a
shoreline out in the past,
then the swamp becomes a different,
um...
It has different utility.
Different purpose.
- Okay. - If I reconstruct
what it was like
at 1600 and 1200,
what the island was like,
I know the oak island we
will see will be more complex
than the one we see now.
Marty: Yes,
it could be all different. Yeah.
- Mm-hmm.
- So we've got to go out and do sonar
to modify the map.
If you know where the
shore was back then,
you know, potentially,
where artifacts might be.
Rick: The value of doing
scans around the island is simply
that we may get some information
regarding the, the swamp.
As we know, the oceans have
come up about a foot a century.
Is there evidence
of workings out there
that we currently
are unfamiliar with?
We may get an
"aha" moment out of it.
Well, look, I-I-I can tell you this,
if you pardon the pun.
- I'm aboard. - (laughter)
ian: And all that we've
got to do is stay focused on
the data as it comes rolling in.
Marty: Take the young guy.
Tell me where and when,
and I'll be there.
Okay. Tomorrow
morning. (chuckles)
make it so. Get on the boat.
- Let's get some results.
- Ian: We will go. Okay.
- Marty: Perfect.
- Tony: Fantastic.
- See you in the morning, alex.
- Marty: Thank you.
Ry: Looks like the
guys are on the way.
Steve g.: Yeah.
Gary: I'm looking
forward to this.
Narrator: Following his meeting
at the interpretive centre...
All right, chaps.
That's impressive.
Don't take a
Kn*fe to a gunfight.
Rick lagina, along with oak
island historian doug crowell,
metal detection
expert gary drayton,
and surveyor steve guptill,
arrive at lot 15,
located near the eastern
edge of the swamp.
So, this is all about the ringbolts,
right?
Gary: Exactly.
Like so many
things on oak island,
you've heard about
the 90 foot stone,
these ringbolts,
- and no one's ever seen 'em.
- No.
For a long time.
Well, that ends today,
- 'cause we are gonna find 'em.
- (chuckling)
can't ask for more than that.
Rick: You've come
up with an idea
- exactly where to look?
- Steve g.: Mm-hmm.
Doug and I took
one of dan's surveys,
and we calculated the
scale and overlaid it.
So,
we're gonna start at the coordinates.
We're gonna hope it's there.
And if it's not,
we're gonna work slowly
northwest with gary.
Narrator: After referencing
a survey map of the area
between the swamp and lot 15
made by dan blankenship
back in the late 1960s,
rick and the team are hoping
to find evidence of a discovery
reported to dan by rival
treasure hunter fred nolan
that may be directly connected
to man-made
workings in the swamp.
The assumption we're making is
that there should be a
substantial boulder there
for these things to
be anchored into.
So that's what the ringbolts
are in. They're in boulders.
- Yeah. - Rick: Okeydoke.
- Let's go find something.
- Okay, mate.
Narrator: While investigating
his oak island property in 1969,
the late fred nolan
claimed to have discovered
several iron ringbolts
embedded in boulders
near the eastern
bank of the swamp.
Shortly after,
he was stunned to recover
numerous pieces of
a large sailing vessel,
including the scuppers
and part of a mast,
within the swamp itself.
These finds convinced
fred that the ringbolts
may have been used to
dock a treasure galleon,
and that the swamp
was artificially created
in order to hide it.
Rick: The long-sought-after
ringbolts is important because
fred used the
ringbolts as his...
One of his major
reference lines.
And it directed him
to all kinds of things.
That's what we're hoping for.
The one puzzle
piece that will fit,
and we'll go,
"wow. That's what that means."
narrator: Although fred removed
the ringbolts that he discovered,
his son tom nolan
has confided to rick
that he believes one or
more may still exist in the area.
So, let's start here.
The radius that I've
calculated is gonna loop out.
- Gary: Okay.
- Okay? So I'll get out of your way.
- I'm gonna go to the next location.
- Okay.
(device humming)
- rick: Anything? - Gary: No.
(murmuring)
steve g.: There we
go. Take a look at this.
Doug: This one here looks
big enough to be an anchor rock.
Steve g.: Yeah.
What are you guys
up to over there?
We have some pretty
substantial boulders
over here that we
need to be checked.
Yeah,
we'll check 'em with the ctx.
This is what we should be looking for,
a lot of boulders.
Just seems like the rocks that
should have a ringbolt in 'em.
(device humming)
- yeah, these two are really promising.
- (device chimes)
oh. And there's a target here.
- (beeping) - it's iron.
Eight- or nine-inch reading.
- Yeah? Dig? - Yeah, please.
Well,
there's something there, gary.
Do it slow.
- There, gary, it should be out.
- All right, mate.
I'll check it and see.
Steve g.: Is it out?
Wow. I was not expecting that.
You know what this is?
It's a, definitely,
in my opinion, part of an old
cast-iron stove
or a cooking pot.
I can see now... Look,
you see that flat piece?
That was what
you grabbed hold of.
And this would have
fit along the front
of an old kind of
like a pot-belly stove.
This is an old piece of iron,
mate.
When fred moved the stone
just up the hill here from us,
he found parts of an old
cast-iron stove under it.
He called it a ship's stove.
I could see this off a
ship. Especially being here
on the edge of the
swamp. I really can.
Narrator: A piece
of a ship's stove?
In 1981,
while surveying his property,
fred nolan discovered
six large boulders
that make up the
megalithic formation
now known as nolan's cross.
Believing that the
boulders might be covering
buried treasure caches,
fred dug beneath
several of them.
Although he found no treasure,
he did discover fragments
of an iron stove that,
based on further research,
were believed to have come
from a 17th
century galleon ship.
If rick and the team can verify
that this iron
fragment also came
from a large sailing vessel,
it could be a valuable clue
that might help
identify who was behind
the oak island mystery.
Gary: Nice, cool find.
But just like any interesting
piece of iron we find,
we know the guy who will
tell us exactly how old it is
and where it comes
from: Carmen legge.
Rick: He'll certainly
have an opinion.
It's really cool 'cause we
went looking for one part
of the mystery, the ringbolts,
and we might have found
a fragment of another part
- of the mystery.
- Makes you wonder what else is in here, right?
There could well be some more
interesting
artifacts in this area.
Rick: Okay, let's find it.
Narrator: As a new day begins...
Where are we
right-right now? This hole.
Well, we're not finished yet.
They got a ways to go, so...
And as the team continues
their drilling operation
in the money pit area...
Some 60 miles
north of oak island,
in centreville, nova scotia...
- Jack: Hey, carmen.
- Carmen: Well, looky here.
Alex lagina,
along with his cousin peter fornetti
and jack begley,
arrive at northville farm.
They've arranged for
blacksmithing expert
carmen legge to
inspect the iron fragment
the team found one
day ago on lot 15.
What you got today?
All right,
this was actually found
right at the edge of the swamp.
That's what we were thinking,
too. Stove part.
- It's the proper thickness, too.
- Mm-hmm.
Where would you find
something like that?
For warmth?
What-what time would
that have been in use?
- Early 1700s? - Yeah.
- Wow. (chuckles) - yeah.
Narrator: A ship's stove,
dating to the early 1700s?
Could it be more evidence of
someone sailing to oak island
more than three centuries ago
to hide something
of great value?
Well, I think we should
get back out there and see
if we can find more of this.
Well, it's been a great visit,
as always.
- Very good.
- We know a lot more than we came here with.
Jack: Thanks again, carmen.
Alex: Thank you.
We'll see you again soon.
Narrator: Later that day...
Alex: Looking forward
to a day on the water.
Couldn't have picked
a better day for it.
Narrator: After
returning to oak island,
alex lagina joins
dr. Ian spooner,
along with tony sampson,
at the dock
belonging to fred
nolan's son tom
on the northern
shore of oak island.
They will be making
their way to the swamp
in order to conduct sonar
scans along the coastline
in search of more evidence
of the massive rock structure
found two days ago by
dr. Spooner and rick lagina.
As they navigate around
the island to the south shore,
they will also be
running scans to look for
any other important clues
that may be helpful in solving
the 225-year-old mystery.
- So what's the plan?
- What we're trying to do is trying to find
old shorelines,
paleo shorelines.
You see this brown line
around oak island here,
that's dropping sea level
down to what we thought
- existed in 1600. - Mm-hmm.
If we're thinking that the
island was used back then,
if there was a wharf
or anything like that,
it would be at that shoreline,
not where the
shoreline of today is.
Exactly. And so, you know,
whether it's looking
for artifacts,
whether it's looking for features,
we can go back,
reconstruct that shoreline,
and look for features.
What we're gonna be
doing today is we're gonna be
going around smith's cove,
around isaac's point here,
and then into the south
shore cove area by the swamp.
So that's where we're gonna
do some scanning in there.
Well, that's great, guys. Let's,
uh, let's get out there.
- Ian: Yeah.
- Let's check this stuff out.
Tony: Come on board, chaps.
I'll start her up, ian.
(engine starts)
we're all good.
Narrator: In order to conduct
a comprehensive scan
of the island's coastline,
dr. Spooner has
equipped tony's boat
with three different
sonar devices:
A down-imaging scanner
focusing on the seabed
directly beneath the boat,
a side-imaging scanner
focusing on either side of the boat,
and, finally,
a low-frequency scanner
capable of penetrating the
thick silt on the ocean floor
where artifacts or valuable
clues could be buried.
Tony: Target area, ian.
- Ian: Okay.
- We'll move closer to the shore.
- We'll be about three meters' depth, ian.
- Yep.
So,
we should watch this carefully.
Mm-hmm.
Alex: Nothing so far.
Pretty shallow, though.
- If we can just kind of go out a little bit further, tony.
- Tony: Okay.
Ian: That's good. That's good.
Well,
let's see what we can find.
Tony: You got any silt here,
buddy? Or...
Uh, yeah.
- Alex: I don't see anything on this.
- Yeah, I know. It's featureless.
What about that right there?
Ian: That is...
What the hell is that? Yes.
So, that... yeah,
what the hell is that?
- Tony: That's cool.
- I've never seen anything like that.
It's sticking straight out.
Alex: Yeah,
it's flat and then it's like a tower.
Yeah, but that looks like a ship,
for god's sake.
Alex: Wow.
Tony: Nothing sticks up like
that for no reason at all, huh?
Out of the silt.
Tony: In the middle of nowhere.
And we're... look where we are.
Right off the boulderless beach.
Narrator: Off the northern
shoreline of oak island,
alex lagina, dr. Ian spooner
and tony sampson have made
what could be an important discovery.
Ian: This place was
used by a lot of people.
- Yeah.
- So, if there was a boat that either sunk or was sunk,
there should be a fair
bit of that activity around.
Yeah. Whoever came here,
they didn't come in one ship.
- You know? They came in a, a fleet.
- (chuckles) uh-huh.
And, you know,
some of it's still
on the bottom now,
waiting to be found.
Narrator: A possible shipwreck?
Just off the coast
of oak island?
Although the waters of mahone
bay that surround oak island
are known to have been a
major thruway for sailing vessels
dating back more
than three centuries,
if this is indeed a shipwreck,
could it be related in some way
to the 225-year-old
treasure mystery?
Now,
this position has always interested me
because it's a shallow rock
ledge just below the surface.
There's a reason there's 25,000
shipwrecks around this coast.
It's because of
these tricky areas.
And so,
that would have been an area
where a ship coming into
here could have wrecked.
Ian: So, to have it sticking up,
there's only a few
things that can do that.
- And you just can't get them in the middle of a basin.
- Tony: No.
At 12 meters. It's
almost impossible.
So,
is it ballast? Is it... What is it?
Alex: Yeah.
I mean,
I'd love to come back and do a jump
on that,
alex. What do you think?
Yeah. If we can find it,
let's dive it.
Sounds great to me, mate.
Alex: Right as we're
passing boulderless beach,
we both see this really
weird kind of spike up
and a plateau and
another spike down.
Like nothing we've seen around the island,
ever.
It could be the
remnants of a ship.
We just don't know,
but that's why we need
to investigate further.
We're moving more
towards the swamp area now.
So, that's... that's what
you should be getting...
- Alex: That's what we're seeing. Yep.
- Ian: Right.
And we can see
it beautifully here.
So,
what's kind of very interesting
I-in terms of what we're doing,
is we're picking up these points
where it's highly erosive.
We see a lot of
boulders. Huge boulders.
And we can, I think,
project land a little further out.
Tony: Well, this is interesting,
'cause we're going
back 400 years.
Chances are this was
the beach on oak island.
Alex: I'm seeing a
lot of rocks down here.
- Ian: Yeah. - And I'm seeing
maybe something
even larger just on the,
kind of perimeter of what
we're scanning right now.
Yeah, it's right... we're
coming right up to it right there.
There's something very...
There's something here.
Alex: What's that?
- I have no idea. - Hey, tony?
- Can you see this?
- Tony: Holy smoke... okay.
What I'll do is I'll come
back 20 meters on that side.
- Okay. You're on the line now, guys.
- All right.
Right, we can see it. We're
coming up on the structure now.
It should be right about now.
- There.
- Alex: Yep. See that line right there?
Ian: Boom. Like,
it looks like a line.
Like a line that we're following
here. Edge of the swamp.
- Parallel to the old shore.
- Ian: Yeah.
Ian: This might be evidence
of a human-made structure.
The remnants of an old wharf.
Something like that.
Narrator: A
wharf-like structure?
Just off the south shore,
right near the oak island swamp?
Could it be connected
to the mysteriously
uniform feature rick lagina
and dr. Spooner found
just two days ago?
Ian: What I can do, I think,
is really refine this map.
You got to... you
probably have to dive it.
- It's worth a look, up close.
- Alex: Yeah.
This feature on the
south side of the island
is a square-shaped anomaly
that we think might be, uh,
the remnants of an old wharf.
This lines up with what
the island used to look like
before it was eroded.
So,
if you're going to build a wharf,
that's where and why
you would have built it.
Ian: So, we got everything.
I think we've got all the lines.
W-we've got enough data.
Alex: Well,
it's been a good day, guys.
We-we know a lot more
than when we set out.
So, let's, uh,
let's head back to the dock
and tell the guys
what we learned.
Tony: Fantastic. Will do.
Alex: I love it.
After completing their
sonar scanning operation
off the north and south
shores of oak island...
- Alex: Hey, guys.
- Tony: Hey, guys. How you doing?
- Good. How are you? - Good.
Alex lagina and professional
diver tony sampson
join rick,
marty and other members of the team
at the interpretive centre
to share their report.
- So, did you guys go swimming?
- (laughter)
no. No, we didn't.
We, uh,
we and dr. Spooner took the boat out.
We were trying to do
a bathymetric survey
around the island to say,
okay, where has it eroded
and where has it deposited over
the last couple hundred years?
The goal is to
put a map together
of what the island would've
looked like in the year 1600
- and-and possibly also in the year 1200. Right.
- 1200. Yeah.
- Did you get good data?
- Alex: Uh, we did.
Um, we have a,
we have a map that we could
kind of show him where we went?
- Any surprises?
- Yeah, there were.
- Yeah. Oh, yeah. - (laughter)
- oh, really? - Alex: So,
- everything was coming along.
- Yeah.
Alex: And then... Do you
want to tell him what happened?
Well,
that was... It was the weirdest thing.
- You've got a flat, sandy bottom...
- Mm-hmm.
And then all of a
sudden there's structure
- and then there's an anomaly.
- Yeah.
So,
maybe it's part of a shipwreck.
- Wow. - Jack: Oh, wow.
Alex: We do know
that the surrounding
area is flat.
- How deep is it?
- Oh, she's 30 feet.
- I see. - Jack: Interesting.
Tony: Yeah.
- Marty: Is that it?
- Alex: Well, no.
Uh,
just coming off the... The swamp
by where the stone triangle
used to be,
you get lots of evidence
that that has been eroded.
The other thing we found there
was a-a square-like structure
just-just off there, as well.
Off the southern shore?
- Yeah.
- Rick: What'd it look like?
Tony: So, it was probably about
eight feet by eight feet, rick.
But it-it definitely had a
linear feature to it, as well.
Well,
it's a square-shaped something.
Doug: In the old aerial photos,
there's what looks like...
It resembles an old wharf.
It looks like a very
rectangular pattern
that runs out from the,
from the point.
Tony: If we find those,
um, like, small stones, like,
it was a cribbed wharf,
they may even be part
of a timber structure
- down there as well. - Wow.
Rick: I-I think we all
know that there are
man-made structures
in the swamp.
But, you know,
where are they built?
You know, do they go out into the,
uh, intertidal zone?
Whatever results are-are
derived from this are good results.
It's good data.
The bottom line is,
dr. Spooner ought to be able
to give us a picture
of this island,
of what it looked like in 1600
and what it looked like in 1200?
- From this data?
- From-from the details we got, yeah, for sure.
Well,
I'm keenly interested in that.
Well,
it sounds like it's worth a dive.
- Oh, for god's sake, yeah.
- Yeah.
Marty: Well,
as rick always says, then,
"eyes and fins on the ground."
- (laughter) - there you go.
- You have one really giant mystery to go figure out.
- Tony: Yes.
And you got your-your big
eight-by-eight target there.
And so, you know, go-go do it.
You know,
it's like diving in the money pit, right?
The prime directive
is stay safe.
- Excellent. Will do.
- All right.
Let's get out of here.
Let's call it a day.
- Rick: Okay. I think we're done.
- Tony: Excellent.
Narrator: For rick, marty
and the devoted
members of their team,
a year that began
with great challenges
that they never
could have anticipated
continues to yield
new discoveries
both on and around the island
that may soon prove
the 225-year-old mystery
is more complex and profound
than anyone ever knew.
Does the triangle-shaped
swamp hold the key
to unlocking the
ultimate answers?
Or could it be,
just like the money pit,
only one of oak island's
incredible enigmas
that will hold onto its secrets
until a deadly curse
is finally satisfied?
Next time on the
curse of oak island...
Gary: Here we go.
What does that remind you of?
It looks like an enormous key.
Doug: I saw a rock mound
that doesn't look natural to me.
- What is this thing?
- I ain't got the foggiest.
It's like some crazy
irving work.
It's a man-made structure.
Tony:
Let's go find some treasure.
As soon as you got close
to the bottom,
it was that whole area was live.
- (exhales)
- wow.
08x06 - Seaing is Believing
Watch/Buy Amazon Merchandise
Follows brothers Marty and Rick as they search for the infamous treasure on Oak Island.
Follows brothers Marty and Rick as they search for the infamous treasure on Oak Island.