Original subtitles

There is an island

in the North Atlantic

where people have been looking for an incredible treasure

for more than 200 years.

Hold back!

Oh!

To date,

six men have died trying to solve the mystery.

‐And according to legend... ‐ ‐Whoa!

One more will have to die... ‐

before the treasure can be found.

Treasure?

Curses?

Sounds like the stuff that would ignite the imagination

of your average teenage boy.

And that's exactly what happened more than a half a century ago,

when two brothers‐‐ Rick and Marty Lagina‐‐

read an article in Reader's Digest magazine

that changed their lives forever.

But is there really a vast and incredible treasure

buried somewhere on Oak Island?

And could that treasure really be guarded

by a deadly curse?

Well, that is...

what we'll try and find out.

On this small island

just off the coast of Mahone Bay,

the Lagina brothers‐‐ Rick and Marty‐‐

along with their partners,

have invested thousands of hours

and millions of dollars to find a treasure,

and in doing so, solve a centuries‐old mystery.

We hope to find the treasure.

Either find some fabled treasure,

or figure out what happened here.

Either one of those is a success.

That's what we're hoping for.

Mine is, find the one thing

that opens the door on the first page of this wonderful story.

Find the one thing.

But believe it or not,

even with all the heavy equipment they've brought in,

and despite finding a number of compelling clues,

and even several intriguing artifacts,

not one piece of genuine treasure

has ever been found on Oak Island.

Even after centuries

of digging and drilling, and after the loss

of no fewer than six lives, there has never been any proof

that a treasure was ever buried there.

So then, why do the Laginas and their partners keep at it?

According to legend,

the story began one night in 1795,

when 18‐year‐old Daniel McGinnis

noticed strange lights coming from nearby Oak Island.

Deciding to row across the frigid waters of Mahone Bay

to investigate, he brings with him two friends‐‐

Anthony Vaughan and John Smith.

After reaching the island,

the three young men race toward the source

of the strange lights.

But what they find

when they get there is equally mysterious‐‐

a ship's block and tackle

hanging from the limb of an oak tree,

and just beneath it,

a large, circular depression in the ground,

as if something was recently buried and then covered up.

Daniel McGinnis

had known about the folklore of pirates being in the area,

so he was suspicious that maybe there was a treasure here.

They came back the next day and started digging.

They started digging down, and they found a row of logs.

And every ten feet, they kept digging,

and they went down to as far as 30 feet.

And they found putty and charcoal,

and figured that there was something to this mystery.

Convinced that no one would go to the trouble

of constructing such an elaborate underground pit

unless it was to bury something of tremendous value,

for the next nine years, they dug deeper and deeper,

until, in 1804, when they had reached a depth of 90 feet,

they made a remarkable discovery.

One that seemed to confirm their belief

that they were on the brink of finding something extraordinary.

There, embedded in the wooden platform,

was a large, rectangular slab of granite

on which was carved a number of strange symbols,

almost like Egyptian hieroglyphs.

But when they pulled the stone up,

they were met with another surprise.

The hole they dug quickly flooded with seawater,

as if by removing the stone,

they had sprung an ingeniously‐designed booby trap.

The event thwarted all subsequent attempts

to dig in the area,

which was now known as "the Money Pit."

For the next 200 years,

flooding would hamper any attempt

to uncover buried treasure there.

Until the flooding problem is solved,

there is very little likelihood

that any treasure will be found there.

When the symbols on the stone slab were later translated,

it was believed to read,

"Forty feet below two million pounds lie buried."

But many Oak Island theorists weren't so certain

this translation was accurate.

After all, who said it was meant to be translated into English?

French, Spanish, Portuguese pirates were known

to frequent these islands ever since the 1600s.

Some believed the translation offered instructions

on how to shut off the booby traps,

while others insisted

the symbols were placed there as a deadly curse,

daring anyone who continued the search for the treasure

to proceed at the risk of their life.

There's been stories

of the curse of Oak Island

going way back, even before 1795.

People believe this island is cursed,

that if you get a little too close to the truth,

to the treasure, your life was in danger.

We don't know how curses work or if they work.

Is there some kind of metaphysical power?

Or is it the power of suggestion?

Perhaps it's self‐fulfilling.

Somebody hears about the curse, and so, it has effect.

Maybe you're not a superstitious person,

you don't believe in curses, but just,

it's not unusual

that even if you think something's impossible,

still a lot of emotions are just driven

through unconscious processes.

And knowing that you're in a place

that is cursed might make you feel bad and uneasy.

So when we talk about a curse on Oak Island,

is the curse manifested in some sort of supernatural element,

or do people just feel that their luck isn't there?

The island has a long history

of something happening

just when you're on the cusp

of retrieving the treasure or getting the answers.

But were the stories of curses justified?

After all, what good is a curse without a victim?

That question was brutally answered

on a hot summer's day in 1861.

There was a man that was working at the Money Pit

with a steam boiler.

The boiler overpressurized and exploded...

and apparently, scalded him to death and injured

a few others.

Unfortunately, we don't know his name

because the death records weren't kept

until 1864 in the province.

On March 26, 1897,

tragedy struck again,

when 47‐year‐old Maynard Kaiser,

while working for the island's new owner, Frederick Blair,

became Oak Island's second human casualty.

They had a pit nearby the Money Pit

that they were using for fresh water.

And they would put the buckets down there and bring them up.

And one of the buckets had become disconnected,

so Maynard Kaiser went down on the rope

to reconnect the bucket.

And as they were coming back up,

the weight of the water in the bucket and the additional weight

from Maynard caused the rope to unspool.

‐ ‐And he fell to his death,

some 80 feet down.

The aftermath of this unfortunate incident

is that many of the workers,

being quite superstitious, it is said,

refused to go back down in the pits.

In fact, they quit their jobs,

and work came to a standstill on the island.

Maynard Kaiser's body was never recovered,

as if devoured by the Money Pit itself.

Oak Island now had a curse,

and its second taste of human blood.

But was there a treasure?

And, if so, who buried it there?

What group of people had the kind of skills

needed to booby‐trap

something buried at least ten stories underground?

For many, the answer was simple...

pirates.

On a humid summer day in 1969,

Oak Island land owner and treasure hunter, Fred Nolan,

makes a remarkable discovery.

While investigating the island's triangle‐shaped swamp,

he unearths compelling evidence

that a large ship might have been buried there.

Fred actually retrieved ship artifacts from the swamp.

There's was a ship's mast, there was ship's scuppers.

Did he suspect there was a ship?

The answer would almost certainly have to be "yes."

The find serves to confirm

what Fred Nolan has believed for some time:

That the Oak Island swamp is man‐made,

and that it was created to hide a large sailing ship.

But why?

Well, the main thing that supports the idea

that Oak Island was two islands

is that one end of the island is made of granite,

and the other is sandstone, limestone, crumbly rocks.

They're two completely different compositions

on one end of the island and the other.

So it‐it almost seems like they're two...

two separate... islands.

Fred's theory that somebody sailed a boat

into the waters, you know,

between these two very close islands and sunk it

with a treasure on it was, like, it was one more outlandish idea,

until people started pulling

pieces of an old Spanish ship out of the swamp.

So... it looks like a ship was sunk there.

Fred Nolan's discovery

also seemed to validate the theory,

held by Daniel McGinnis back in 1795,

that not only was an incredible treasure buried

somewhere on Oak Island

but that it was put there

sometime before the 18th century...

by pirates.

It was a time when pirate treasures

or caches of gold coins

were being discovered all over Nova Scotia.

A lot of them buried by pirates.

And so people

were actually digging up treasures occasionally.

Naturally, that's what people would imagine first

about Oak Island, because it was the only known theory

of people laying in treasure, uh, and it persisted

because nobody came up with any alternatives.

I think one of the reasons it's so easy

to associate pirate lore with Oak Island

is that Mahone Bay was unpopulated at that time.

So, I mean, this was a very secluded bay,

a perfect haven for pirates

that wanted to be out of the way of prying eyes.

Several pirates have been credited

with possibly depositing the treasure here on Oak Island,

including Peter Easton...

Blackbeard...

and William Kidd.

In the early accounts of the Oak Island mystery,

it was often told that...

a dying man in the New England states

said he was a member of Captain Kidd's crew

and that he had a treasure map

to where Kidd's treasure was buried.

Many historians will tell you that Captain Kidd

never visited Nova Scotia,

that he never got further north than Boston.

There is a lot of local lore here in Nova Scotia, though,

that he did.

My favorite pirate of all time is, uh,

is Peter Easton,

who was based up here in Newfoundland,

and he had a fleet of something like 14 or 17 ships.

They called him the Pirate Admiral.

He often...

stuck close to Newfoundland

and preyed on the trade routes from there.

Once a year, the Spanish galleons would come

from South America back to Spain.

He would prey on them.

He amassed quite a fortune.

I've heard it said that Peter Easton amassed

two million pounds.

That is really interesting when you consider

what the solution to the cipher

that was on the 90 Foot Stone said,

which was: "Forty feet below two million pounds are buried."

Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard,

had said, before he was hung,

that he had buried his treasure somewhere

where "none but myself and the devil can find it."

He claimed to have hidden the treasure somewhere

in the New World,

so people made the connection between Teach and Oak Island.

The Pirate Admiral,

Captain Kidd

and Blackbeard.

Did these infamous buccaneers

really bury their stolen treasures on Oak Island?

And even if they did, where did they get

the incredible engineering skills

that would have enabled them to bury a treasure so ingeniously,

complete with booby traps?

You know, when I was first asked whether it was possible

pirates could've constructed the Money Pit, I scoffed.

You know, I mean, because pirates would,

what would they do with their booty?

They'd dig a hole ten feet deep,

bury it and come back for it when they were ready.

But I didn't know then about the works that pirates had created

at, uh, Port Royal in Jamaica and on Tortuga,

which are incredibly elaborate systems of tunnels and vaults

that more than match in scope what's been done on Oak Island.

So there clearly were pirate engineers,

and I couldn't be as dismissive of the pirate theory after that.

But even if pirates did hide

an incredible treasure on Oak Island,

is it really possible that it would bear a deadly curse?

There are some Oak Island historians who are convinced

that the answer is a disturbing yes.

In pirate folklore, it's a common thing

that they would bury somebody that was alive

to guard the treasure as a spirit

so it would be cursed and haunted,

so nobody would be able to get access to the treasure.

That seems to play into a lot of the myths

regarding the‐the curse on the island.

One of the stories is that pirates may have buried

their treasure on the island in treasure tunnels.

And they had slaves digging for them.

And in the process, they left them there to die.

And as they knew they were dying,

those slaves cursed those pirates

and cursed that treasure, and by extension, the whole island.

Sometimes those near the tunnels late at night

could hear the rattling of chains.

Perhaps that's the energy we're dealing with today.

It is like a time bomb,

something that goes down through the ages.

The idea that Oak Island might be haunted by the souls

of those who dug the treasure tunnels had a chilling effect

on pretty much everyone who came there.

So far, two men had died horribly.

But Oak Island's reputation as cursed didn't really take hold

until a man came to the island claiming that he and he alone

could solve the mystery.

It was a notion that would ultimately cost him

and three other men, including his son, their lives.

An article appears in Coronet magazine

called "The Buried Treasure of Oak Island."

It attracts the attention of a former motorcycle daredevil

named Robert Restall.

Having professionally toured Europe and North America

with his wife Mildred throughout the 1930s and '40s,

Robert was now a man who struggled to find work

that earned him enough to provide for his family.

But now, after reading about the possibility of a vast treasure

buried deep beneath the surface of a small Canadian island,

Robert became convinced that he had both the engineering skills

and the determination to solve the Oak Island mystery.

Robert Restall got involved in Oak Island

like so many others have, by reading a magazine article.

So when he read about Oak Island,

he got every single available document, book, you name it,

maps, charts, and studied Oak Island.

It was his passion. He would stay up at night

reading, like, the survey maps of Oak Island

and looking for clues and codes and things.

After making a deal with the owner of the island Mel Chappell

on October 15, 1959,

Robert Restall moves his family onto the island

and takes up the search.

I was just a nine year old boy.

It was, uh, it was like leaving the city

and arriving in some paradise.

It was just full of life, color, nature,

and, uh, I couldn't have been happier.

For almost two or three years, I think,

I was the luckiest kid in the world.

Many people talk about the treasure of Oak Island,

but the treasure to my dad was not so much the money,

but it was being the one who was able to unravel

the mystery of the island.

The men were always busy digging...

or writing letters to investors

or working on a piece of machinery

that was becoming problematic.

Or as Bobby did, uh,

making maps and drawings of the work that was ongoing.

My dad was totally innovative.

And he knew what the others had done

and where they had fallen short.

Up to that point, people didn't really trust

the work of the person ahead of them.

But Dad wasn't gonna make that mistake.

He was going to take everything just the one step further.

That's all he had to do.

It wasn't a big deal.

And he really believed he could do it in about three months.

Unfortunately for Robert Restall,

three months eventually became five long years,

during which his family endured the harshest of conditions.

Bitter cold in the winter,

sweltering heat during the summer.

For Robert Restall,

determination eventually turned into desperation.

And desperation into obsession.

If you're trying to understand the mindset

of a treasure hunter, it's actually very useful

to try to understand the psychology behind gambling.

Sometimes gamblers will spend many, many hours

at the same slot machine, and in a sense, you could say

that's like a microcosm of what's happening

with very obsessed treasure hunters.

In the case of either treasure hunting or gambling,

if the person is failing after many repeated attempts

and not getting any reward,

most often, people will eventually give out.

But that's what separates these obsessive personalities

from the ones that will just quit.

And they will keep on chasing that rush

and building up that anticipation

until they get rewards.

I think obsession is the salient characteristic

of what happens on this island.

I really, really do.

And knowing that that condition exists here,

I think it's something to be wary of.

I think it's easy to become obsessed with this.

I feel that the treasure is here and that we can get it,

and we're going to stay here until we do.

By 1965, Robert Restall had poured everything he had

into Oak Island.

He couldn't leave empty‐handed.

And then, on August 17, 1965,

Robert Restall,

his eldest son Bobby,

and two of his coworkers

would become part of Oak Island history.

But not in the way they had hoped.

That afternoon, Robert had intended to travel

to the mainland to visit the bank.

But he took one last walk to take another look

at their current work.

And while he was looking in the shaft,

he tumbled in.

His son Bobby saw his father

tumble into the shaft,

and quickly went to his aid.

Carl Graeser was very close behind,

Cyril Hiltz, Andrew DeMont

and Leonard Kaizer

also followed them down into the shaft.

Of all the individuals that entered the shaft,

only two were saved.

They all seemed to have been overcome

by some gas in the shaft.

By the end of that tragic day,

Oak Island's deadly curse had added the names of four men

to its list of victims:

Robert Restall,

his son Bobby,

Cyril Hiltz

and Carl Graeser.

And in a morbid twist on an already sad tale,

a rumor was being spread

that not only was the Oak Island curse real

but that one more would have to die

in pursuit of the treasure

before the Oak Island mystery could be solved.

The idea of seven people dying seems to have come

from a 1967 article in True magazine.

It was attributing this to a local legend

that said seven men have to die

before the treasure will be found.

But is the notion of an Oak Island curse simply made‐up,

the product of a pulp writer's fantasy?

Or is it real?

There are many who insist that not only is it real

but that its origins

stretch back long before the days of pirates,

all the way back

to the days of the Knights Templar.

I mean, this is an ideal situation, Rick,

because, obviously, it's low tide.

Mm‐hmm. ‐We got these rock pools.

So, you're thinking between

the beach and the old cofferdams.

‐This is a perfect spot? ‐Yeah.

So, let's see if we can find something.

While searching

along a stretch of Oak Island's shoreline,

Rick Lagina and metal detection expert Gary Drayton

make a shocking discovery...

That's worth digging, Rick.

One that would ultimately shed light

on the Oak Island curse.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

What?

‐I don't see anything. ‐I see something.

Holy...

Holy schmoly, all right.

It's a cross. ‐That's a cross.

There's a square hole.

Yeah, right there.

It's heavy, too.

Oh, my gosh. I mean,

that is an old, old cross.

I didn't really know

what it was until I pick it up

and I can see

this is a religious artifact.

I could tell straightaway

that this cross is probably hundreds of years old.

This isn't a modern design.

I got to be honest, when I first saw it,

I'm thinking medieval.

Sweet!

Gary was extremely excited.

More excited than anything he's ever found on the island.

This is the type of thing I'd expect to find in Europe.

I would say that is somewhere between 1200 and 1600.

It's really that old?

Yeah, that is old.

That is really old.

I've seen that shape before.

I swear, that'll tell the tale how old it is.

‐That shape. ‐Yeah.

Where do you think you've seen it before?

You know, when I was in France,

I swear I saw a carving like that

in the Templar prison in Domme.

Incredibly, it was while on a research trip to France

one month earlier

that Rick Lagina was shown a virtually identical carving

etched into the wall of Domme Prison,

a 13th‐century fortress

where 70 members of the Knights Templar were imprisoned

and tortured

‐prior to execution. ‐.

But could the striking similarity between the cross

found by Rick Lagina at Smith's Cove

and the carving on the wall at Domme Prison suggest

that some members of the Knights Templar actually made

their way across the Atlantic to North America

centuries before Christopher Columbus' historic voyage

in 1492?

The Knights Templar were founded in the 12th century,

and they were the world's first combination

of warrior and monk, a security force

of a sort that would assist pilgrims

on their journey to the Holy Land.

And one of the services they provided

was they would hold on to and‐and give safekeeping to any

of the relics that pilgrims would have gathered

on their journey.

They were the guardians of a lot of the treasures

of various kings and popes and monarchs.

And because of their amazing reputation,

they became known as the world's first international bankers.

The French crown

had borrowed a great deal of money from the organization,

and so to get out of paying back the order,

the king of France decides they are Satanists,

and they're defiling the church.

The king of France then leaned on the pope to back him up

and press charges against the Knights Templar.

And here, the pope was siding with the king of France,

turning all of his people over to be imprisoned

and burned at the stake, and they felt horribly betrayed.

On Friday 13, 1307,

Pope Clement V ordered the imprisonment

of the Knights Templar,

including their grandmaster Jacques de Molay.

Of the Templars who were able to evade capture,

many fled to Scotland,

and as far as some Templar scholars are concerned,

successfully made their way across the Atlantic

to North America.

But if such an audacious theory is correct,

is it also possible that the Templars brought with them

many of their riches and religious artifacts

that they rescued from the Holy Land?

The Knights Templar were formed during the first Crusades,

after the Christian knights had come to the Holy Land

and captured Jerusalem.

And it's believed that possibly they found the Holy Grail.

They may have found the Ark of the Covenant.

The Ark of the Covenant holds

the covenant from God to man‐‐ and that is, physically,

the two tablets representing the Ten Commandments.

If the Templars were carrying this extraordinary treasure

to a place where they wanted to be safe

and create a New Jerusalem, Oak Island makes sense.

The Ark of the Covenant.

Is it possible that this most sacred of all religious objects

was brought to Oak Island and buried,

along with other Templar treasures,

in a booby‐trapped vault deep beneath the ground?

It may sound like a far‐fetched notion,

but according to both Oak Island and Knights Templar researchers,

the best proof of this theory may be something

that both the island and the Templars have in common:

A deadly curse.

When Jacques de Molay, was brought to the stake,

he gave a very powerful and impassioned speech

about his innocence and the innocence of his entire order.

It was a very dramatic speech that to this day

is talked about in France and elsewhere.

As Jacques de Molay stood at the funeral pyre

waiting for the flames to consume him,

he cursed the king and he cursed the pope.

And he said that both of them would be called before God

before the end of a year and a day.

Within a year, the pope dies of a prolonged illness.

Within a year, the king dies of a stroke

on his way to go hunting.

But it doesn't end there.

Over the course of the next 14 years,

the king of France's line, his three sons and his grandson,

all die in somewhat mysterious circumstances.

There is the kind of curse that carries over,

that has long‐lasting implications.

When de Molay was killed by the French crown,

there was a curse‐‐ perhaps on France, perhaps on the materials

or the wealth of the Templars‐‐ that goes down through time.

And anybody who recovers this or has some interest

might be hurt by them.

Is it possible that the curse somehow carried over

and is protecting whatever is buried

in the Money Pit on Oak Island, which some researchers

have speculated is actually the resting place

of the Ark of the Covenant?

Could the fabled riches of the Knights Templar

really lie buried

in an elaborately constructed treasure vault on Oak Island?

There are many who believe the answer

is a profound yes

and that these riches are still being protected

by Jacques de Molay's deadly curse,

one that was designed to keep the treasure hidden

at all costs.

Shortly after performing the ancient practice

known as dowsing, which entails using metal rods

to detect underground voids,

treasure hunter Dan Henskee

is suddenly overcome with a strange

and disturbing sensation.

I don't actually know if what's happened to me

on Oak Island was real or imaginary.

It was quite strange.

It involved what appeared to be possession

by a spirit of someone long dead.

I thought that the spirit of a dead priest

had entered my body

and that the priest had his throat cut.

‐ ‐I do remember falling down,

feeling that I was experiencing the death

of this person.

After Dan was able to regain control of himself,

he was left with a daunting question:

Was his experience just a trick of his mind?

Or could it have really happened?

Now, what makes this really interesting

is the fact that he was able to determine

that the entity possessing him

was that of an allegedly murdered priest.

Now, you might be wondering,

how did he come by this information?

It's entirely possible

that whatever had been interacting with him

literally just told him that this is who I am

and this is what happened to me.

While many think

that Dan's story is too bizarre to believe,

it's not an isolated event.

Throughout Oak Island's history,

tales of frightening, mystical phenomena

are as numerous as the theories

concerning the legendary treasure.

One of the more interesting extreme reports

comes from a man named Fred Nolan.

He was convinced

that the ravens on the island were possessed

by the souls of former slaves

who had helped in digging the pits and the flood tunnels.

There have been all kinds of stories

about a dog with fiery eyes.

People have told me

stories of their father or their grandfather

wandering across the island and seeing this dog.

Red glowing eyes have also been reported,

uh, in another story.

After the Restall Tragedy,

one of the people that worked for them, Jim Kaizer...

He often worked as a night watchman.

One night, he was staying in the Restalls' cabin,

and he woke up to a feeling

of a great weight on his chest.

He had these two red eyes staring at him in the dark,

and he heard a voice tell him to leave the island

‐and never come back. ‐.

And in the morning, when he woke up,

he had bruises all over him.

Jimmy Kaizer was a real stand‐up guy,

an unshakeable sort,

and this particular event, I think,

from all accounts, really affected him

for the rest of his life.

Although most would agree

that Oak Island is an unusual place,

could any physical evidence exist to support the notion

that there really is a supernatural presence

on the island?

For many, the evidence lies

in the unusual electrical activity

that regularly happens there.

One of the first things

is people here will have brand‐new cell phones,

and the batteries will constantly drain out.

There is a Bermuda Triangle for Oak Island

that occurs between Apple Island and Frog Island

coming up to Oak Island.

Everything will go dead, you will lose power in your boat.

It's happened to several people in this particular spot.

There's no explanation for it or the reasons why.

But are strange electrical anomalies

really evidence of a curse?

Isn't it more likely that the bizarre occurrences

experienced on the island have a perfectly rational explanation?

Perhaps.

But as far as two of the islands' owners are concerned,

the notion that dark forces might be at work

is not so easy to dismiss.

You know, I'm a skeptic about paranormal stuff,

But I spent, but I spent one night‐‐

I said, "I'm gonna go check this out myself."

So we drive out, it's dark as can be,

and it gets, um, sort of, like, misty.

A lot of fog and stuff, you know.

It's a spooky‐‐ It is a spooky place at night.

Rick walked off, and I'm kind of sitting there

thinking, "Well, this is silly."

And I got out of the car, and I'm kind of leaning

against the car‐‐ it's pitch black‐‐ and all of a sudden,

I heard the nastiest scream you've ever heard in your life.

I mean, a bloodcurdling scream.

Scared the bejibbers out of me.

I jumped back in the car and I took off.

And‐and I almost ran him over.

So, uh, intellectually, I don't believe that sort of thing,

but you know, emotionally, it seems to happen.

And there have been plenty of instances

where that exact thing has done‐‐ has happened.

And there's no logic to why they happen.

That's what's... strange.

Is there really an Oak Island curse?

There are many who believe the answer's yes,

but they'll also tell you that it isn't a curse

that involves dark forces or threats of death.

They believe it's the one that takes root in the mind

of every would‐be treasure hunter.

There are many psychological processes that could explain

why a person actually spends years searching for something,

doesn't find it and keeps doing it for even more years.

So, one explanation is this sunken cost fallacy,

and the idea there is that if you think

you've already invested a lot in finding something

or pursuing something,

then you don't want that investment to go to waste,

so you're willing to put in more investment

into the pursuit of the thing that you still didn't find.

And additionally, they're often very worried

that if they leave this treasure hunt site,

someone else might come and swoop in right after them

and benefit from all of the work

they have been doing all this time and get the big rewards.

I don't know what it is about the island

that so captivates people.

But I do know that it really does.

It really does, and it goes beyond reason.

I can see the fascination.

If the accident hadn't happened when it did,

and I had come to the age of 16 or so,

I can see myself taking shovel in hand

and becoming so upset with the cursedness of this mystery

and going after the answer myself.

Perhaps the legend of a curse,

the reason for it existing is to hide something.

And the fact that people are searching,

people are actively saying, "I'm gonna go against this

and I'm gonna look for it anyway,"

that inherently gives the curse a reason for being.

There is a definite presence on Oak Island,

and I don't know if this feeds into the curse,

or if this is something completely different.

Or manifested because of the general knowledge

that there may be a curse on the island.

I think the island is cursed or there at least

is some negative energy around the multiple layers of history.

I think the curse shows up in many forms,

whether it's greed, obsession or financial difficulty.

And I think something is still unresolved and unsettled.

The curse is the way Oak Island swallows people's lives.

It consumes their fortunes,

and in many cases, destroys their sanity.

The curse of Oak Island is that once you get in,

it's really hard to get out.

Brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and the other members

of the Oak Island team are risking

an incredible amount of time and money

looking for a fabled treasure on Oak Island.

But are they also risking their lives?

See, one thing is certain: So far, six men have died

searching for the answer.

And according to legend, one more will have to die

before what lies buried there can be found

and the Oak Island mystery will no longer be among.

The UnXplained.

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