Original subtitles

[narrator] Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...

-[Katya] Oh, wow. -[Derek] What is that?

That's exactly like the stakes we found near the vault.

[Rick] I truly believe there's still another vault there.

-[Adam M.] Whoa, whoa, whoa. -[Terry] There it is,

-the void. -[Charles] That's right.

Is that natural or is that an open cavern?

Only a sonar could tell you that, really.

All right. Well, that's what we'll do.

Hopefully, we find the one thing.

Cross your fingers.

-We're in the cavity. -[Terry] Yeah. You're in.

[Rick] We'd love nothing better than to see

a man-made cavern or vault.

-[Ken] We've got an opening. -This is not natural.

[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,

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.

♪ ♪

As a new day begins on Oak Island...

[Terry] Here we go. BN-13.5.

This is an area that we really haven't looked at

very much and certainly haven't been to the bottom

of the solution channel in very much.

[narrator] ...Rick and Marty Lagina

and their team are shifting their strategy

to look for treasure

more than 200 feet deep in the Money Pit area.

[Terry] We're right in the heart of the Peacock.

-[Steve] Yep. -The Peacock is a real phenomenon.

It's a loose, slushy area

-leading down into the solution channel. -Yep.

[narrator] They are drilling a borehole known as BN-13.5,

located 45 feet northeast from recent drilling locations

and in an area dubbed by Marty Lagina as "the Peacock."

So, right at 55, it's like the bottom

dropped right out of her.

[narrator] It was here where, three years ago,

the team drilled through heavily slushy material

between 55 and 150 feet deep

before entering the solution channel

at a depth of nearly 170 feet underground.

Now, in order to explore another area of the solution channel,

where new water tests have revealed more evidence

of precious metals, the team is once again

drilling down through the Peacock.

[Steve] The Peacock, it's almost like the solution channel

sitting on top of the solution channel.

It's a very low-dense area

of what I'm gonna call, Terry, a "higher mud river."

We've never really drilled to the bottom

as much as we should have, I believe.

[Rick] The Peacock is an area

of significantly unconsolidated soils.

Terry Matheson, our resident geologist

can't explain how that can exist.

There may be a tunnel or a shaft in close proximity,

which has caused the soils to destabilize.

But the historical record does not indicate anyone

being in this area, i.e. searchers.

So what happened here?

What is the story and where is the treasure?

I think we're in a really good area here. I really do.

There's probably multiple number of holes we could put here.

[Scott] I agree with that 100%.

And you know, until we actually hold

treasure in our hand, I'm not willing to rule out

any areas as possible.

[Rick] I totally agree.

[narrator] While the core drilling operation

continues in the Money Pit area...

[Katya] Wow.

-Made some good progress. -Yeah.

[narrator] ...Katya Drayton and Derek Couch

join Billy Gerhardt in the southwest corner

of the swamp.

[Billy] All right, we'll open this up a little bit

to give us room that maybe you can get down

and detect around a little bit.

So, I'll start over here.

Yep. I'll see where you dump and then I'll move there.

[narrator] The team is searching for artifacts

that might help identify who built a stone formation

uncovered in this area three weeks ago,

as well as a possibly related stone road

that was unearthed several yards to the north.

Both of which were lined by wooden survey stakes.

[Derek] What is that?

[Katya] Oh, wow.

We've just found another stake.

-Oh, good. -[Derek] That's quite something.

-[Billy] In place as well. -Oh, my gosh.

How many sides?

[Katya] Four cuts.

It looks like one side is unfinished,

but this reminds me of the five-sided stake

we found earlier.

This has been in here for a while.

[Billy] And what's most impressive of that one, is that

this stake was still standing at a very deep point in the swamp,

so it's exactly where somebody put it.

There's three feet of stuff on top of that, right?

-[Katya] Yeah. -It's cut with purpose.

-[Billy] Yeah. And it's axe-cut. -[Katya] Mm-hmm.

[Billy] You can see there, now it's a round pit

down there which is pretty hard to do with

the square excavator buckets, so...

As you were digging, it just kept falling in there.

-Right. -[Derek] So, it-it does give you

the inclination there's something down there.

[Billy] Right. I just pushed my bucket,

and the stuff fell in, but now, you can really see

the shape of what it was when it was dug.

So, somebody dug a pit there, and it wasn't me.

Yeah.

[Billy] Maybe that stake marked why they dug there.

You know, who and why, right?

Yeah.

[narrator] Could Billy be correct

that someone previously dug in this area

and then marked it with a wooden stake?

If so, could this stake be an important sign

of what else the team may uncover here?

Rick told us to keep an eye out for these,

and we'll definitely have to get Steve out here to pin this.

I think with the dating of the wood

and the depth that we had it when Steve pins it,

that Dr. Spooner might be able to put

a date on, but that stake has to go back a long time.

Hopefully, there's more there, but that is a great start.

Maybe we can find an answer instead of a question.

Yeah. So, it would be nice to find some answers.

We'll keep going.

-[Derek] All right. -[Katya] Yeah.

[narrator] As the dig in the swamp continues...

[Rick] Gary had done a complete scan of the Lot 5

spoil piles, and lo and behold, this item was found.

[narrator] ...Rick and other members of the team

join Laird Niven and Emma Culligan in the lab

for a report on a folded copper coin, or token,

found one week ago in spoils that were removed

from the round feature on Lot 5.

-You were quite excited about that. -Yeah.

When it came out,

I'm thinking, "Oh, it's some kind of, like,

folded coin," I'm hoping.

These are unusual.

I have found these type of finds in England metal detecting.

And they're normally, like, talisman

-or... -Yeah.

[Gary] ...good luck tokens

they put out there, sometimes,

to ward off even bad luck.

But it was good luck for us because we found it.

-Yeah. -[Rick] Does it cross

cultural lines or religious lines?

Meaning one faith might be more accepting of it? Maybe more--

I mean, Catholicism for sure, I would think.

It's interesting because this tradition,

I think the first recorded one in England

is like 1290.

You fold a coin and pray to a saint for a miracle.

-And that's how this all started. -Yeah.

[narrator] The team has found a number of potentially

religious artifacts in the round feature,

such as the 14th-century lead barter token

that may be linked to the Knights Templar.

They have also found Venetian trade beads

and two ornate buttons

that could be connected to the Knights of Malta,

an order with known ties to the Templars,

who built a stronghold in Nova Scotia back in 1632.

We need to know from you what you think it is

and what it represents and how old it might be.

Okay.

So, for the CT scan, I guess the main question

that first needs answering is whether or not

there's any reliefs or signs that it is a coin,

and immediately, I'm gonna say

there's nothing that I can really see so far.

I mean, we can't definitively say

it's a coin, but if we look at why

coins were traditionally folded,

it needs to have some value

to give literal,

like, weight to the talisman.

So, we can assume it was viable

to somebody at some point.

And then the triple folding

-is quite unusual. -[Gary] Yeah.

We thought it would be fairly straightforward.

Yeah, we did.

What does the data tell you the age of this item is?

So, based on the composition,

it is a copper alloy with a zinc content.

Zinc being an alloying element.

It's definitively post-medieval

and pre-mid-1800s.

There's the arsenic

and lead content as an alloying element,

as well, which is from at least

around the time of, like, Industrial Revolution

of mid-1700s, potentially earlier.

And then, the arsenic could push it to the late 1600s.

And then, the arsenic could push it to the late 1600s.

[Emma] The arsenic could push it to the

1600s, late-1600s.

[Gary] The fact that someone

took all that time to fold it over three times...

[Laird] I mean, it is significant.

It is a-a meaningful artifact.

[narrator] In the lab, Emma and Laird have just revealed

that the folded copper artifact

found in the Lot 5 spoils

may hold religious symbolism and date back

to more than a century before the discovery of the Money Pit.

[Gary] And sometimes, if there was disease, they'd put

-a bent-over coin or token... -Yeah.

-...uh, to ward off the disease. -Yeah.

[Rick] Somebody went to some pains to do it then.

Yeah. To me, it looks quite well done.

Yeah.

We're on an island, but it's a big province.

Have you ever found anything like this on digs?

Or know of any other archaeological

digs where they found these type of offerings?

Not that I can remember specifically in Nova Scotia,

from archaeological contexts.

[Gary] Of course, we're on an island.

Sailors came to the island.

They were all superstitious, especially in 1700 or 1600s.

[Rick] True.

Oh, there are a lot of possibilities.

Obviously, the first one is just preparing for your voyage.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

Coming here from Europe was not an easy thing.

-Right? Yeah. -Exactly.

My suspicion is that's intentional.

-It's folded perfectly. -[Laird] Yeah.

And maybe-maybe three folds means

something different than two folds.

Yeah, our research hasn't gone that far yet.

Given the enormity of finds

that date to the 1600s, there are buttons.

Then you have the trade beads, right?

The dates you're implying are highly suggestive

of the connection to the Knights of Malta.

Their attempt to either create a colony here or

-to do "something else." -Something else. [chuckles]

[narrator] Given the potential symbolism of this artifact,

could the team be correct

that it might be related to the buttons and ornate trade beads

that have been potentially linked

to the order of the Knights of Malta?

[Rick] The folded coin is certainly the first of its kind

on the island, but it's just a puzzle piece.

How do you connect all of the artifacts in the Lot 5 feature?

It's starting to build a body of evidence,

but I think in order to fully understand

what happened on Lot 5,

there's a lot more work to be done.

But at some point, with enough puzzle pieces,

then you can tell the complete story.

I'd just love to know what's on the inside.

[Rick] And I'd like to see the puzzle completed.

[Laird] It's one of those little, innocuous-looking things

-that has a great story behind it. -Mm-hmm.

It was good luck that we found it.

[Rick] I think there's a lot of information

that we can learn because of its uniqueness.

-[Laird] Yeah. -Yeah, and don't forget Sandy Campbell.

-That's good thought. -Yeah.

[Rick] With Sandy, he's not just a numismatist,

-he's a historian. -Yeah.

And he might know the history

-of these coins. -[Laird] Exactly.

[Rick] So, I look forward to what we uncover.

Or what we unfold.

[laughter]

-[Rick] Pun intended. -[laughs] All right.

-All right, see you. -All right, see you.

-Thank you. -Buh-bye.

[Derek] Keep your eyes peeled here.

[narrator] Meanwhile, in the southwest corner of the swamp,

Katya, Derek and Billy

continue to search for more artifacts

near the stone formation.

Yeah, Katya, there's a funny piece in that last bucket.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

[Billy] That's a something there, yeah.

-[Derek] Piece of planking? -This is strange.

[Billy] The top looks maybe cut, but it's...

it's wide and it comes to a point like a wedge.

-No, it does. Yeah. -[Billy] Yeah, it's tapered.

So, you know, somebody spent some time

to-to make it for a very special purpose, I would say.

[Katya] It's got a great groove right there,

a bunch of little dents in it.

I'm thinking it might be an oar or a paddle

just because of the shape.

[Billy] Yeah. They're so close to the ship's rail, and it...

and maybe we get it tested, it's some part of the same ship.

If we find more pieces of the same one,

that would be pretty telling to what actually went on in here.

Yeah.

[narrator] A possible piece of an oar?

Could Billy be correct that it may be related

to the piece of a ship's railing

found just a few yards to the east back in 2020,

which was carbon dated to as early as the 7th century?

If so, might all of the artifacts that the team

is finding in this area be connected

to the nearby stone feature?

[Billy] I think somebody will be able to look at that

and look at the taper, whether it is an oar or wedge

or whatever it is, doesn't matter.

[Derek] Connect some dots.

Yeah. We'll put this to the side and...

-Definitely an interesting piece. -Yep.

[Rick] It's what Marty says all the time,

"You know, facts are stubborn things."

Like the ship's railing, going back into the 600 ADs.

It's very confusing.

And we have data across the-the board

from, literally, from the 1200s,

uh, right up through, uh, 1750

in the bog with the types of constructions

that have been found.

[Derek] That looks like another stake.

Billy, got another stake right under you.

[Billy] All right.

My hope is that, as the work continues in the bog,

the gaps in that information will be filled in.

-[Derek] That is one of those big round ones. -Whoa.

This is probably one of the biggest stakes I've ever seen.

We have one, two, three,

four, five, six, seven, eight.

Eight sides.

That reminds me exactly of the stakes

we found near the vault.

[Derek] Definitely something going on here.

[narrator] The team has found dozens

of wooden stakes across the swamp

that have featured different numbers of cuts at their points.

But when they uncovered the empty slate and brick vault

in the northern region one year ago,

it was after following a trail of eight-sided cut stakes

that lined a cobblestone path.

Is it possible that this eight-sided stake

could be connected to that vault-like feature?

And could it mean another one

that may still contain valuables is hidden in this area?

It looked like it was about four feet down in that sand there.

Yeah.

The eight-sided ones are almost all that same...

that really big circumference.

The more sides that it has--

based on the testing that we did in the island--

the older that they tend to be.

-Yeah. -[Billy] Every bucketful now,

we're finding something.

There was a ton of activity right here.

I'm sure we'll have a bunch of stuff to take back

to the lab for everybody to look at.

Well, that's another good find.

[Katya] Well, I'll put it over there and then we'll keep going.

-Good eye, Derek. -[Derek] That's cool.

[narrator] As the sun rises over Oak Island...

[Terry] You ready to rock, Charles?

[Charles] Yeah. Here we go.

[narrator] ...in the Money Pit area,

Terry and Charles monitor the core drilling operation

in borehole BN-13.5 as it

sinks deeper into the Peacock area.

[Adam M.] Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

We've never had this much fall out.

-[Sooley] No. -[Adam M.] Yeah.

It's too hard to tell if it's a void or if it's just

-water gravel. -[Sooley] Yeah.

Okay, Charles, it looks like he lost the core.

It's gone out the end of the core barrel.

[Charles] Okay.

Here's Adam now.

-[Terry] Hey, Adam, you lost that, right? -Yeah.

-And no recovery? Oh, man. -No recovery.

We pushed from 148 to 158,

and the rods are sinking when I run the casing.

They were, they're sinking.

We're in pretty loose material, obviously.

It's loose. We're right in the heart of the Peacock.

-[Charles] Yeah. -[Terry] So, you're just gonna try

and push to 168 to try and get something solid?

-Yeah. -[Terry] Excellent.

Great stuff. Thanks a lot.

-Good. -[Terry] Appreciate it.

Interesting to see what we come up with on this one.

[Charles] We're excited about this because we're in the area

where we got the gold and silver in the water.

And you know, as we're drilling down,

the mud and the muck is very loose and-and sloppy.

-[Adam M.] Oh, yeah. -[Charles] Is it loose because

of high activity by humans?

-That looks promising. -Yeah.

[Charles] Is it possible that this could be

an opening that was man-made?

If it is, it's something we didn't know existed.

-Whatever was there, we got it. -Right on.

[Adam M.] But it got hard at the bottom.

Very sloppy at the top. [grunts] Okay.

All right, let's carve this up.

Okay, this is the firm bottom

of this area of the Peacock, right here.

-Yeah. -And the bottom here is limestone-rich material.

-It's really only ten feet of recovery... -[Charles] Yeah.

[Terry] ...for a whole 20 feet drilled

all the way from 148 to 168.

Definitely, we've got an effective

water-filled void from about 148 to 158 below grade.

-Yeah. -[narrator] A possible ten-foot void

above the solution channel?

If so, is it simply a natural feature?

Or could it be a man-made chamber?

-I got to go. -Okay.

[Terry] What is a surprise is when we encounter

a relative void,

and you think human activity in that area.

This is shaping up to be a really interesting hole.

-Hey, Terry. How's it going? -[Terry] Steve, how you doing?

Uh, we're loose from between 148 and 158.

Relatively loose, washed-out material like

-what you'd expect down inside the solution channel. -Okay.

[Terry] Relatively high, but this is possibly a void.

Now, is that natural or is that an open man-made chamber?

-We don't know. Also... -Yeah.

...we're getting elevated results for precious metals

associated-- uh, copper, lead, zinc-type of things--

that are associated with the treasure in the Peacock.

So, yeah, for me, I've always been a believer

that there's an offset chamber in the Money Pit.

And if there is an offset chamber, it makes sense

-it would be in this area. -Exactly.

[narrator] The Oak Island team has long suspected that

whoever built the Money Pit, may have not only buried

treasure at the bottom of the shaft,

but also constructed a tunnel away from the main shaft

to hide a cache of treasure in an offset chamber.

Is it possible that this theory could explain

the potential ten-foot void that the team has just encountered

148 feet deep in the Peacock?

[Terry] So, what we found

was an area with possibly a water-filled void.

-That's a candidate for a sonar, don't you think? -I think so.

Adam!

Quick question.

-What's up? -We had a bit of an open area,

-which I think of as a void. -Yeah.

Is it a void?

-Only a sonar could tell you that really. Right? -Yeah.

-All right, well, that's what we'll do. -Yep.

[Steve] So, if this proves fruitful,

I can see this being a caisson location.

Yeah. We're not done with the Peacock.

[Steve] Yep. Absolutely.

[narrator] As the team arranges to look deeper

into borehole BN-13.5...

[Rick] I want to thank you for coming down.

This, when Gary found it, it was coin-like.

[narrator] ...in the research center, Rick

and other members of the team

meet with coin expert Sandy Campbell...

-It's very peculiar, again a one-off. -Yeah.

[narrator] ...to have him examine

the folded copper artifact that was found on Lot 5.

Never found another one of these on-on the island.

So, I don't know. I'm hoping you can help us here.

Okay.

[Sandy] Yeah, this is extremely interesting.

Uh...

And it is a coin.

Folded three times.

You know, when they first started folding coins

was early medieval times.

[Laird] It represents a ritual

-that's thousands of years old. -Yeah.

It was thought that, when you folded a coin,

you could trap, you know, the evil inside the coin.

And-and at some point, when that evil is passed,

if you pass the coin on or if you buried it,

there was no more risk to you from that evil.

-Hm. -And it relates to

Christianity, the Crusades,

you know, even the Knights Templar.

However, because of the size of this coin,

it's not likely medieval.

And this is probably 1600, 1700s.

Really?

[Sandy] But I think it still has the same religious

and spiritual meaning.

[Rick] Fascinating.

This is probably 1600, 1700s.

But I think it still has the same religious

and spiritual meaning.

-It's an interesting piece. -Yeah.

[narrator] In the research center,

Sandy Campbell has confirmed

that the folded artifact found near the round feature on Lot 5

is indeed a coin,

and may be a 17th century religious symbol

connected to the Knights Templar.

Trapping evil. It seems like a strange ritual, right?

It's a bizarre ritual, but...

you know, copper was really a show of wealth,

and it was also a show of strength

-to anybody in medieval times. -[Rick] Hmm.

So, the only folded coins you will see from that period,

you're not gonna see folded silver or gold.

They're always gonna be copper.

-Really? -[Sandy] Yeah.

Folding of coins was also a ritual

-to honor saints. -Hmm.

The Knights Templar, they-they worshipped both

Saint George and Saint Bernard.

-Yeah. -And...

there was a ritual with folded coins,

where you would fold the coin, trap the evil,

toss it away as a... an homage to those saints.

-Hmm. -So...

it's bizarre that you have this piece on the island.

I guess that ritual continued into the 1600s.

-Really? -[Sandy] Yeah.

So, you feel that this is probably 1600s?

At the earliest.

So, my mind always goes to Knights of Malta...

Interesting.

...which is one of our suspects on the island.

That falls right in that time period.

Mm-hmm.

[narrator] Is it possible

that this folded copper coin might offer another key clue

that sacred treasures of the Knights Templar

and the religious order of the Knights of Malta

may be connected to the Oak Island mystery?

[Rick] Sandy Campbell's statement

that the trifold goes back to medieval times

during the time of the Templars, it's very curious.

We have proven, in fact, that the Knights of Malta

had interactions and even through families

of great importance with the Templars,

and there was a connection between the two.

So, there is a possible tie there.

There's more research to be done.

It's strange because there are some, I believe--

Laird, correct me if I'm wrong-- but that feature

-that you've uncovered, -Mm-hmm.

it's basically east to west, is it not? Its orientation.

-The long axis. -[Rick] We know, we know

from the churches we visited and the historical places

when we went to Europe,

all Templar-associated buildings and constructions

were east-west orientation.

It-It's interesting, different, and adds to the mystery.

There's no way to unfold that coin, physically unfold it?

My initial response is, you-you folded it to-to capture evil.

-[Sandy] Yeah. -So, if you back it up,

-you-you release it. -Yeah, you're on your own there.

-[laughter] -[Sandy] I don't know what's in there.

[laughter]

You know, it-it's unfortunate

that we can't learn more about it.

You know, the hope is, as the work continues on Lot 5,

'cause you're not done, um, we find others.

And-and hopefully, they'll be able to tell us

something a little bit more than

-what's currently in front of us. -Exactly.

So, we thank you very much for coming down.

-No, I appreciate it. -[Rick] Appreciate it.

[narrator] After the meeting in the research center...

[Fiona] I'm really expecting to find

some good things in here.

Then this really should be a potential

for a high-traffic area.

[narrator] ...while members of the team search

for more clues in the round feature on Lot 5...

-We'll see what today brings. -[Ethan] Yeah. Let's see.

[narrator] ...Rick and Katya arrive on Lot 8,

located on the western side of the island.

-[Katya] All right. -[Rick] Let's have at 'er.

High five before we start.

-[chuckles] -[narrator] Two weeks ago...

-[Ethan over radio] Perfect. -[Steve] All right, Gary,

-here's our first location. -[Gary] Okay, mate.

[narrator] ...while the team searched for clues

on a straight line that led away

from a potential 12th-century marker stone on Lot 5,

Gary and Peter found part of a possible barrel on Lot 8.

Now, Rick wants to see if that find

might be related to something more valuable buried nearby.

[metal detector beeping]

Oh.

[device beeping]

-That's a hit. -[Rick] It is?

[sustained beep]

-Right there? -Right there.

[exhales]

[Katya] It's looking to be iron.

-Let's see. -[rapid beeping]

[Rick] There you go.

[Katya] Oh.

Look at that.

What is this?

[Rick] I don't know.

Looks like two holes in it right there.

Yeah.

[Rick] Not heavy enough to be a tool, though, is it?

[Katya] I think this might be a knife handle,

'cause there's another hole down here.

-Oh, really? -Yeah,

you'd possibly have, like, another side to this.

-Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. -And then you'd have

-the blade starting up there. -Oh, the-- yep. Yep.

You can really see how

both of the holes are square on each side.

[Rick] Your father has always said

that square holes imply "older."

-Mm-hmm. Yeah. -Right?

[Rick] Well, I know one thing. I'd like to see that

-on a CT scan, right? -Mm-hmm.

I would definitely agree with you.

-Well, we'll bag this, tag it. -Yeah.

-All right. -[Rick] There are all kinds of questions

about Lot 8.

In this particular location,

there is no data or no record

that people were in this area doing something

following the discovery of the Money Pit.

-All right. -Okey doke.

It's a good start.

So, anything you find,

uh, almost literally anything,

is an important clue

in terms of who might have been there and when.

[device beeping]

-This one looks good. Yeah. -Yeah.

-Oh, yeah. -[sustained beep]

-Right there. -Two-way repeatable.

-Right? -Yep.

[Katya] That was a beautiful plug.

[beeping]

-Oh, yeah. -Even I know that's a good one.

[rapid beeping]

Now, that is an interesting piece.

[Rick] What is that?

[Katya] I've never found one of these before.

-This is a lead bag seal. -Bag seal, maybe.

This is great.

[narrator] On Lot 8 of Oak Island,

Rick and Katya have made what could be

an important discovery.

[Katya] This could possibly be a tail

-coming out of it. -Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

That would have been, probably, from the bag

-or whatever it was being attached to. -Mm.

[Rick] Yeah, yeah. Your dad has found other bag seals.

One on 32.

-Mm-hmm. -One on Lot 5,

down by the ocean, and yet, here we are...

...[chuckles] in the middle of nowhere...

-Mm. -...you find a bag seal?

[narrator] First developed in Europe in the 13th century,

bag seals were fasteners used to secure

large quantities of goods inside cloth packaging.

The Oak Island team previously found

one of these items on Lot 5

that was British and could date back to the 16th century.

However, they uncovered another one

near the shore on Lot 32

that was a scientific match to the 14th-century lead cross

which may be connected to the Knights Templar.

Is it possible that Rick and Katya

have just found a similar artifact?

To the best of my knowledge...

-...I don't think there was a homestead here. -Mm.

I just, for the life of me,

I can't understand why it's here.

Just doesn't make sense to me.

I cannot explain

why this bag seal has been found

almost in the middle of the lot...

...not in proximity to the open ocean.

Everything prior to the causeway construction

in 1965,

things would have had to have come by the sea.

By way of the sea.

So, why it was lost in the middle of the lot,

I cannot explain.

Look, it's a great find.

I'm more curious about this one

than I am about bag seals found there and there.

-Really? -Because if it had something to do

with a work area,

-Mm-hmm. -then whatever was inside

-would have been needed here. -Hmm.

[Katya] I'm really hoping that Emma and Laird

can find a maker's mark or moniker on it,

and we could really trace this back

-to where it came from. -Yeah.

Let's get it analyzed,

see if there is a maker's mark or something.

-I agree. Yeah. -Yeah. Good find.

-Well, congratulations. -Thank you.

You found something you always wanted to find. Well done.

-[Rick] It's cool. -[Katya] Right?

-[Rick] Let's keep looking. -Yeah. Let's do it.

[narrator] The following morning...

-[Rick] Let's find something. -[Craig] Yeah.

[Terry] Oh, hey guys. How you doing?

-[Rick] Morning. -[Craig] Hello. -Hey, Craig.

-Rick. -You about ready?

Yeah. Just about.

[narrator] ...while they wait for analysis

on the new find from Lot 8,

Rick, Craig and other members of the team

meet with underwater imaging expert Ken Deboer

in the Money Pit area

to investigate the possible ten-foot void

nearly 150 feet deep

in borehole BN-13.5.

We're gonna try the camera first,

so we can see if we can get an image down there.

-Sure. -And then put the sonar down.

Can you explain it, Terry?

Can I explain it geologically? Not really.

No, I mean, I'm looking for beams and posts here.

That's what I'm gonna look for in the pictures,

it's what I'm gonna look for in the sonar imaging as well.

-Cool. -And-and perhaps, a little chest over in the corner.

[laughter]

-Cross your fingers. -[Charles] That would be nice.

-Ken, it's up to you. -[Scott] No pressure.

-No pressure. -No pressure at all. -No pressure.

All right.

It's very interesting. I mean, we're in the area

of high-metal values.

Uh, in my opinion, this would be an offset chamber.

-Potentially, yes. -Yeah. That's true.

It's quite interesting, so I-I'm ready to go.

-[Terry] For sure. -Let's have a look.

-Let's get the camera down there, then. -[Rick] Okay.

Let's get at it.

[narrator] Before running a sonar device

down the borehole,

the team will insert Ken's high-definition camera

capable of operating in low-light conditions

with a lens that he can rotate 360 degrees.

[Steve] I'll take it to 150 feet,

-so we're into the hole. -[Charles] Okay.

[Terry] Traveling downward.

-[Scott] And you're touched down in water. -[Steve] Water.

[Rick] We'd love nothing better than to see

a man-made cave, cavern, vault.

Anything man-made, really, at that depth, in that location.

I don't know what to expect, but I'm very eager

to find out what's down there.

How deep are we, Charles?

You're 32 feet right now.

80 feet.

90 feet.

[Terry] That's close to the top of the chamber.

-[Scott] 100. -Okay, hold.

[Terry] Okay, there's a silt cloud

coming up from around, uh,

looks like a boulder or something.

Oh, that-- oh, could be a beam.

-[Scott] Wow. -Oh, wow.

[Scott] There's something in there.

[Terry] Steve, come up, like,

-about an inch or two. -Okay.

-[Scott] Whoa. -[Terry] Whoa. That's good.

[Scott] You can make out almost like

a wall or something like that there.

When you move away from it...

...we go-- kind of go into more an opening here.

[Rick] Really?

[Terry] Now, that's interesting.

[Scott] There's definitely some sort of opening there.

Yeah, for sure.

[Craig] Yep.

-[Scott] Right there. -[Ken] Right there.

[Scott] Just staring into the abyss.

[narrator] In the Money Pit area,

the Oak Island team investigates a strange cavity

some 150 feet underground.

Steve, do you want to just take us up slowly,

-kind of inch by inch? -Yeah, sure will.

[Steve] Tell me when to stop.

[Scott] Oh, oh.

You see that?

Turn that way.

Hold it there for a second.

[Steve] Okay, I'm gonna steady it.

[Terry] That looks like something.

I mean, you see the potential

of having boulders on top of one another.

But I mean, just off to the left or right

could be the original man-made structure,

-holding those boulders out. -Yeah.

[Scott] If there was a collapsed offset chamber down there

or a tunnel, I mean, we're gonna see bare earth.

But it looks like it has depth.

-That's interesting. -[Ken] Yeah.

[Terry] But we do see some potential

boulder on boulder again.

We're towards, kind of, the-the rock-facing wall,

if you will, side of the borehole.

[narrator] Could Terry be correct

that the team is looking into a man-made structure?

If so, could it be connected to the precious metals

that have been detected in this area?

If we rotate around this way...

...we see we start opening up here,

back into that cavity area right here.

[Terry] That's just very surprising.

Is that what you're seeing Ken?

Yes.

[Rick] I'd put the sonar down and try to define the cavity.

That's a great idea. Yeah.

[Rick] We can actually see some things,

but it's difficult to understand scale.

It's difficult to get a-a real interpretation of

what you're looking at.

So, the next step here is to introduce the sonar

and see how open

and how big, how wide, how long this area is.

[Ken] So, what we have here is a scanning

360-degree sonar.

-Mm-hmm. -The cable's marked,

so we'll know where that 150 foot is.

Okey doke. Keep your fingers crossed.

[narrator] The Blue Robotics Ping360 sonar device

emits a sound wave that reflects off of objects and barriers.

-[Steve] We're in water. -We're in the water.

[narrator] This will produce full-scale images

of the underground void or possible cavern.

Show me the money.

So, we're in the cavity as of right now.

-[Ken] Well, there's the opening. -[Terry] Yeah.

[Terry] You're in, you're in. Okay, okay.

-Right there. -[Charles] Here we go.

[Ken] This darker red line is the opening.

You can see how rough it is.

And the yellow is lower density returns

and backscatter caused by particles in the water.

[Terry] Right.

-Go down just a little more? -[Steve] Yep.

[Craig] Oh, that's popped out farther.

Is that an opening now?

It looks like around the hard return, we've got an opening.

Oh, two directions, too.

-[Rick] Oh, yeah? -[Terry] Looks like it's open.

[Craig] Wow.

[Ken] To me, this looks very linear,

like, with an opening here.

So, it's two feet from side to side right now.

[Charles] If this is not natural,

it could have been a larger cavity that has collapsed

-around it, so... -Mm-hmm. -True.

I mean, the-- just out to the left or right,

we might encounter what we're hoping for.

Yeah.

[Rick] This hole shouldn't be open.

There's no reason for that.

Geologically, there's no reason for that.

We found gold in the water in the area.

Right.

[Craig] It's open down there.

There's no reason for it to be open,

uh, unless man was down there doing something.

We have precious metals and high silver

in the Peacock,

and greater depths in the solution channel.

We've always speculated that there was more than,

call it an offset chamber or multiple vaults.

Maybe we've just found one of them.

This is a priority target.

Now that we have video, let's contact ProHawk,

a company that enhances video, to, uh, have it analyzed.

We will incrementally pursue this because

-we're trying to find the treasure, right? -Yeah.

There's every indication here that that could be

in this specific area.

Yep. We have a few more holes to drill in this area.

-Good deal. -[Rick] Okay.

-Right on. -Let's make it so.

[narrator] The more Rick, Marty, Craig and their team dig,

the deeper this 230-year-old mystery becomes.

After making intriguing new discoveries on Lot 8

and in the swamp,

has the team finally located a treasure vault

150 feet underground in the Money Pit area?

But if so, is that the only place

where Oak Island is hiding its most precious secrets?

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

-I got a signal. -Aha!

What have we got here?

I recognize this seal.

So, it could date to the 1300s.

That large boulder looks intriguing.

[Fiona] We've uncovered a big void right there.

[Rick] What is underneath that boulder?

We put cameras in BN-13.5.

[Bob Brown] What we found suggests

-human origin. -[Jack] It really seems like

-it's depositor. -Wow.

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