Original subtitles

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mature subject matter.

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on The Curse of Oak Island... t

There's a number of questions

that can be answered in the Azores.

Some things here relate to our search.

We have this on Oak Island.

It's time to dig.

We need to get to the treasure.

Oh. What have we got here?

Wow. You might have some evidence

to a 14th-century Portuguese presence in Oak Island.

The proof might be underground right here.

- Wow. - Fantastic.

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.

Come up a little bit, Billy.

There it is. There you go, Billy.

As a crisp fall morning begins on Oak Island,

workers from ROC Equipment and SB Canada

repair the Money Pit area

where the Laginas and their team plan to dig

another eight-foot-diameter steel shaft in the coming days.

It is here where they have detected high traces of silver

some 200 feet deep in the solution channel,

which have been scientifically matched

to a 14th-century Portuguese coin

reportedly found in the original Money Pit

back in 1849.

And after this, we should be good.

While the work continues on Oak Island...

...over 2,000 miles to the southeast

in the Azores islands of Portugal...

Gentlemen. - Hello. Welcome. -Hello.

- Welcome to Azores. - Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

...Rick and other members of the team

have traveled to Terceira.

They are following up on the research that suggests

members of the Portuguese sect of the Knights Templar,

known as the Knights of Christ,

may have used the Azores

to safeguard a portion of their sacred religious treasures

before sailing them to Oak Island

between the 14th and 16th centuries.

Everybody, this is Francisco.

He's a historian here in the Azores.

He's worked with us in the past

on the stone walls found on Lot 26. -[Rick] Yep.

In 2022,

Francisco examined photos of a stone wall

on Lot 26 of Oak Island

and believed it could be of Portuguese origin

and date back to the 15th century.

...by the first settlements in this island.

- Oh, really? - Wow.

What is very important

is that th-this church...

Close.

Is there the possibility that there was

a smaller group, uh, that arrived here

before the official date?

So, is there anything in this church

that speaks to that possibility?

Hmm.

I think we're all eager to see inside. -[Alex] We are.

- Let's go have a look. - So let's go.

- Yes. - Okay.

There's a number of questions that need to be asked

and maybe can be answered in the Azores.

It would be wonderful

to find a smoking gun

directly connected to the Oak Island mystery.

So this likely dates to the 1450s?

Right. Which-which would be...

about 150 years after

the-the dissolution of the Knights Templar.

We're looking at something that the Order of Christ created.

What we have are figures that were important

to the Knights Templar. So this speaks to

the continuation of the belief system.

How closely were the Order of Christ

related to the Templar order?

Was it a true continuation of the order?

So any-any belief systems, any treasures,

any-anything they were safeguarding came with them.

Founded in 1318 by King Denis of Portugal,

the Order of Christ was a successor to the Knights Templar

after their disbanding and persecution

by the Catholic Church in 1307.

While it is rumored that the Order of Christ

protected Templar treasures in Portugal

and the Azores islands,

it is known that they were connected

to the minting of coins exactly like the one

believed to have been found in the Money Pit.

- Mm-hmm. - But what was the destination?

It's not so outlandish to believe that an organization

like the Order of Christ

would have had the capability, the knowledge, the connections

to get to North America to safeguard what they deemed

to be of utmost importance.

If you think of the journey of the Templars as a pilgrimage,

we know from the Camino de Santiago,

at the end of the pilgrimage,

the Templars would leave a goose paw.

You would scratch a goose paw. Uh... -Yeah.

Want to share an observation. If you look up.

So here we have three corners of the chapel.

Only three have three webbed feet.

Three goose paws.

- Three there, three there. - Yeah.

Three there. There they still have the original red color.

Very interesting.

Which ties this all together beautifully

with the symbol that we found in Nova Scotia.

The goose paw is a three-pronged symbol

that was designed by the Knights Templar

and used to mark important locations for the order

throughout the Middle East and Europe

between the 11th and 14th centuries.

In recent years,

Corjan has showed the team several goose paw carvings

found in places such as the Camerano Caves in Italy.

A 12th-century Templar stronghold

which was created in the shape of a cross

matching the design of the lead cross

that was found on Oak Island in 2017.

That is the mark of the Masons for the Knights Templar.

- Incredible. - And in 2022,

Corjan showed them a goose paw carving

in Liverpool, Nova Scotia,

just 50 miles southwest of Oak Island.

Isn't that a great connection to Oak Island?

- Mm-hmm. - We found the same

symbol language here that we know both

from close to Oak Island

and from the place in Europe where we've been.

So what this place brings is a consistent next step

in the journey that we're sketching,

a journey that led from Jerusalem

through the Mediterranean basin to Portugal

and through the Azores, maybe to Oak Island.

That's more than I expected.

We would invite you to come to the island at your convenience

and experience the same mystery,

the same questions that we have puzzled over

all these many years, and maybe with your help

and others, we can finally put an answer to these questions.

- So, thank you. - Thank you.

- We appreciate it. - Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We have a lot to discover.

- Yeah, let's keep going. - Keep looking.

- This has been great. - As the team

continues their investigation in the Azores...

...back on Oak Island...

All right. Well, I think I'm positioned okay.

Perfect.

So, hopefully, with continued digging,

you find an artifact to give us an answer to this thing.

- That would be nice. - Yes.

...Marty joins Laird and Fiona on Lot 8

at the stone cradle formation

that the team found beneath a 40,000-pound boulder.

What's the plan?

So, we just want to carefully check,

see if there's a soil change.

- See if it's not natural. - Yeah.

And just have a feeling that something was coming this way.

Why don't I dig this down and look for the roof of a tunnel?

Yeah. -Off chance, I understand, but...

Well, I mean, worst-case scenario is you hit a tunnel.

Yeah. Which is also the best-case scenario. -So...

- Yeah. - All right.

- Let's do it. - All right.

- [Narrator] Over the past several weeks,

scientific testing and investigation at the site

has revealed traces of silver in the ground soil

and possible evidence of a shaft deeper below.

That's a lot of roots.

Now, because Laird does not want to risk

archaeological damage to the feature,

he has given Marty permission to dig an adjacent trench

to look for evidence of a possible tunnel

that may run beneath it.

Sounded like rocks, but I don't see any.

It's pretty consistent soil.

What the hell is that?

That's interesting.

Doesn't make a any sense.

Unbelievable.

Let's see what we got.

I think that's bedrock.

These little chips are starting to look like bedrock. -Yeah.

While digging near the cradle of stones

- on Lot 8... - You know, that's interesting.

- Absolutely. - ...Marty

has made a potentially important discovery.

And yet we're higher

than the base of the cradle over here.

Yeah.

Doesn't make any sense.

Huh.

On the eastern side of Oak Island,

the slate bedrock is known to be flat and at a uniform depth.

Because Marty has now confirmed that the cradle of stones

sits below the bedrock to the side of the feature,

this offers more compelling evidence

that the stone cradle is the result of an earlier excavation

and may be covering a much deeper man-made shaft.

But you didn't hit bedrock

- in the cradle over here? - No.

So what we need to do next, Laird, then is

you need to dig deeper there.

- Yeah. - See if you can find bedrock.

Laird doesn't appear to have hit the bedrock at all

in that cradle, so there's the possibility

that under that rock a lot of digging occurred,

which, you know, makes your mind go to a shaft or a tunnel.

So I'm very excited about it.

I'm happy with the information.

It's moving the needle for me that somebody did dig that out,

way out.

They did it for a reason.

Th-This is not something that somebody

- would've done lightheartedly. - No.

I think we really need to take our time and understand this

a little bit better.

I think this makes it something even more special

than we already thought.

I know a certain Rick Lagina will be real interested

in this, too, who will be back from the Azores soon.

So I think we leave this all like this,

in case they want to do more or move something around.

- Yeah. - So let's call it,

- shall we? - Excellent.

Meanwhile, over 2,000 miles away

on the island of Terceira in the Azores...

- Hey, Francisco. - Hi.

- Hi, Francisco. - Thank you.

...Rick, Alex, and other members

of the Oak Island team have journeyed

to the region of Serreta to meet once again

with Francisco Nogueira.

Like we talk about this before...

We have suggestions that the wall on Lot 26

bears a distinct, uh, Portuguese-Azorian style.

There's distinguishing features about the Lot 26 wall

that we want to keep an eye out for.

There are larger boulders that run along either edge.

And inside of those large boulders,

there are smaller rubble rocks.

So that's one thing that we're looking for here.

We want to look at these walls and confirm

they're made in the same way.

Yeah, those walls are very interesting to us,

because carbon dating has said that they were

likely constructed somewhere around 1470, 1475.

And that would put it in what sort of time?

That's very comparable in time to the wall on Oak Island.

Yeah. -Why do you believe it's not earlier than that?

Nothing says that this wasn't much earlier.

In 1427,

the Portuguese explorer Prince Henry the Navigator,

who was also a high-ranking member of the Order of Christ,

officially discovered and claimed

the Azores islands on behalf of Portugal.

However, some believe that the Order of Christ

may have been secretly visiting the islands

as early as the mid-1300s

in order to safeguard their priceless treasures.

Well, let's-let's go in and see how they compare

to the wall on Lot 26.

I have really never seen anything like this in my life.

It's full of rock walls

that potentially predate the official dates

of discovery and settlement of the Azores.

Don't get lost. It's a labyrinth.

Looks like it.

Nobody seems to know who built them

or what the purpose was.

Here's where it gets, uh, exciting,

because they're great candidates

to compare to our wall on Lot 26.

Come take a look.

What'd you find, E?

So, look at this.

So, we have small rocks in the middle,

big rocks to contain it.

And the width, it's almost the same

as Oak Island.

It's very close.

Come take a look at this.

- Got rubble right here. - Yeah. Inside the wall.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

- I see it everywhere. - Yep.

It's all in there.

The interior wall is filled with rubble,

small stones.

That is exactly the way the Lot 26 wall was created.

What you can see is a mirror of the Lot 26 wall.

Question here is why was this wall built in this manner,

just as it is on Lot 26.

It's almost like the same technique was used on Lot 26,

so it's almost like that approach

was taken from here to Oak Island.

The same style, the same understanding

of how walls function, how you build a wall.

The wall on Lot 26

is unique, because we don't have other examples

like that in Nova Scotia, right?

- Not that we know of. - So, Francisco,

would you think these might've been,

like, living quarters for people?

Interesting.

Might a treasure once have found its way to the Azores

and thus to Oak Island?

There's nothing we see within this complex that would suggest

anything other than the possibilities

when people are committed to an endeavor like Oak Island.

I've said it many times-- where there's a will, there's a way.

All you have to do is look around you

at this incredible complex of stone

a-and realize that there is a purpose.

All of that is associated with Oak Island.

This fits all our timelines, right? -Yeah.

It sure does.

We sort of suspect that perhaps somebody was here

in the 1300s secretly.

Yes. -[Rick] We talk about it all the time

on the island. You've got to look backwards

in order to look forwards.

And we know just from this little...

experience here

that, indeed, the possibility of information having traveled

to the New World,

generationally. -[Corjan] Is there a place on the island

where we can qualify a little bit more, perhaps?

- Yeah. - Okay.

As a new day begins on Oak Island...

Billy.

Hey. Glad to see you here.

Thank you. All right, I'm ready.

...Marty joins other members of the team on Center Road

near the western border of the swamp.

The sand road projects right down here.

And if it's here,

then that would be

a very strong clue that Center Road was here

- before the survey. - Right.

The team is preparing to dig

a cross section of Center Road to look for evidence

that it may have been built by previous treasure hunters

on top of the sand-covered cobblestone road

that was recently found running through the swamp

toward the believed Portuguese stone road

in the southeast corner.

If the team can find evidence

of the sand and cobblestone road here,

it could suggest that it was created by someone long ago,

perhaps even before a 1762 survey

when Oak Island was divided into 32 four-acre lots.

As I'm standing here, Billy, I see

the sand road you nicely uncovered.

I'm lined right up with it,

which also lines right up with Center Road proper.

- So I think this is our spot. - Yeah.

Hey, Marty, what time is it, mate?

It's time to dig, Gary. Time to dig.

You heard the man.

Let's give the boy room.

Here we go.

We speculate,

upon looking at the sand road,

that it could be directly under Center Road.

If that's the case, whoever built it

came here long before anybody else.

Is that sand there already?

Oh, he might've seen sand.

Kind of. Yeah.

That would explain the activity

that was here before the Money Pit.

It would explain the very significant wall on Lot 26.

- Clay rich. - It would explain

the rock feature on Lot 8.

It would explain virtually everything.

It's a little of both. Keep digging.

Getting rockier underneath there.

Yeah, it looks like sand now.

- Check this out. - Does it?

What do you think? -Yep. Right down here. Look at that.

Where it should be.

- Mm. Still a lot of... - Yeah.

- Gravel in there, too. - I'm afraid

we're getting contamination from the road.

Yeah. -If you want to look at the end of the bucket here,

you can see the profile of what it is: rocks...

- sand. - Hey, look, Laird.

Oh, here.

But see how it's rocks in the bottom of the sand?

- Yeah. - Yeah.

But I mean, that shouldn't be here naturally.

That's not the natural dirt for here, no. -Yeah.

All right. I'm gonna have a scan.

I just don't see anything definitive here.

No metal.

This isn't jumping out at me.

It's a little bit tricky to evaluate it

because you have to raise

the possibility of contamination

from modern construction.

So, we need to try another location.

Any sort of ancient road

on this island is worth following.

We want to put this back, Billy, and try one more right there?

Sure.

As the team repositions

to dig another cross section through Center Road...

Oh, look at how pretty that is.

- Yeah. - Beautiful.

...Rick and members of the team arrive

at the Angra do Heroísmo Museum.

It's incredible.

Thank you. Great to see you. I'm Alex. -Thank you.

Francisco has arranged

for the team to look for clues in the museum

and meet with local archaeologist Tiago Rodrigues

regarding artifacts that have been found on Oak Island.

We have a Portuguese coin

dating to the late 1300s,

and if it came through the Azores,

that's about 50 years, give or take,

prior to the official date

that the Azores were discovered and then colonized.

Uh, so, is it possible

that some people knew

that the Azores were here?

It does kind of remind me

of the early years of our treasure hunt on Oak Island,

stories that speak of people from Europe

at a time when the conventional story

says that people from Europe should not have been there.

And from what Tiago is telling us,

it sounds like that is again the case

with the story here in the Azores.

Before you arrived, Emiliano and myself

did some, uh, scouting here in the museum.

What we came to do here is

well-illustrated by, by this stone here.

This is 15th century, Emiliano?

Mm, uh, 1454,

probably, and it's the oldest stone carving

that were found here in the Azores.

This caught our attention not only because

it's possibly one of the oldest or the oldest

carved stones that there are on this island,

but particularly because of what it's showing, you know, the...

...swirls here from the copper piece from the ribbon.

In 2022,

the team unearthed part of a copper artifact on Lot 8

decorated with an ornate symbol.

Incredibly, one year later,

they saw the similar symbol

in a Templar-related manuscript in Reykjavík, Iceland,

that dated back to the 12th century.

I actually have a photo of our copper a-artifact

from Lot 8 that shows that symbol.

Let's see if it compares to what we're seeing here.

Hmm.

It could be a match.

Well done.

It could be a match.

It has the same middle feature here,

and then on the ends, it could round closed.

At the Angra do Heroísmo Museum in the Azores,

the team has found a 15th-century stone carving

that may be connected to the Knights Templar

and the Order of Christ,

which matches a symbol on the copper artifact

that was discovered on Lot 8 in 2022.

It shows that when people traveled,

they took their symbols with them, right?

Correct.

And also, that symbol

is, um, the one we found

in a manuscript in Reykjavík, Iceland.

The image is telling a story.

We see the decorative carving,

indicating the possibility that Templars

or the Knights of Christ knew of the Azores

before their documented discovery by Portuguese.

Could it be related to the copper artifact

that we found on Lot 8?

I think it's very plausible that they had the ability

to make a transatlantic voyage.

Tiago, we've actually brought some artifacts

from Oak Island with us.

We were hoping you'd take a look at them.

We're trying to understand

the pre-Columbian history of Oak Island

and what happened there.

After you.

We've brought a number of artifacts,

and Tiago is qualified to look at them

and render an opinion.

Uh, I hope that he can speak definitively about them.

Tiago, we really appreciate you

taking a look at these items.

I guess, maybe we just dive right in and get your thoughts.

This is actually one of the stoneshot

that we have found on the island.

This was found this year, actually.

Right.

So, most, most probable then,

is that this is from the 1300s or-or earlier?

Have you found any around here in the Azores at all?

Mm-hmm. -[Doug] You know, we're looking at several

scenarios of when treasure might have passed through the Azores

and then moved to Oak Island and safeguarded there.

To hear Tiago agree that our stoneshot

and the others like it have been found here in the islands

is the connective tissue we're looking for.

Now that you mention it,

this is a very interesting artifact,

and we believe that it may be a small hand cannon.

And I have the report to go along with it.

Earlier this year, when the team first discovered

a section of the sand-covered road

in the western region of the swamp,

they found part of a hand cannon,

a weapon first invented in China during the 12th century.

After having Emma Culligan examine the piece in the lab,

the team sent photos of the artifact

to Maltese military historian Matthew Balzan for his analysis.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

The timelines that Tiago relates,

it aligns perfectly for my belief

that the effort on Oak Island was, uh, in multiple stages.

I believe it's more aligned

with the efforts here in the Azores

to possibly protect a treasure

in transit from Europe

across the seas to North America and perhaps to Oak Island.

This one here is a-a deck spike, we believe, from a ship.

It was found

a couple years ago on the island.

The believed deck spike

was found in 2023

by Jack Begley while investigating

the rounded stone foundation on Lot 5.

- Oh. - Really?

Mm-hmm.

Is there a time period

that...

Amazing.

Is it common for the Portuguese

- and unique to the Portuguese? - Yes.

Wow.

Okay.

At the Angra do Heroísmo Museum

in the Azores,

archaeologist Tiago Rodrigues

has concluded that a spike found in the round feature on Lot 5

is not only of Portuguese origin

but could also date back to the 1300s.

That artifact just got much more interesting.

Yeah, it did. It did.

Could this artifact offer further evidence

to support the theory that members

of the Templar-related Order of Christ

may have visited Oak Island as much as four centuries

before the discovery of the Money Pit?

I mean, what can you say?

Without any hesitation, this is Portuguese.

Size, shape, weight, hammered head,

everything spoke to him that it was a Portuguese design.

Quite impactful.

Okay, next up.

This, uh, sparked a lot of excitement for us this year.

It was, uh, revealed to us by a family

that was associated with the treasure hunt

on Oak Island in the past.

And that family showed it to us this year,

and it's a Portuguese coin, of Ferdinand I.

The mint is somewhere between 1367 and 1383.

Yeah, the story behind this coin

is that, in 1849,

they were drilling to try and strike the treasure chamber,

and this may have come up on the drill bit.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And you previously said with the stoneshot

that it was most predominately used... -Yeah.

...likely, in the 14th century as well.

Both those objects, we believe,

came from underground on our island

in the so-called "treasure pit."

Yeah. -So, there's a, there's a connection there.

Oh, almost for sure.

So, a lot of these artifacts

seem to be centering on the 1300s,

that we've shown you here today, so...

Several have, and-and several are also

converging on the 15th century,

which happens to be kind of the two timelines that we were

wanting to investigate when we came here. -[Tiago] Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. The proof might be

- underground on Oak Island. - Yeah.

And-and we might only

do as good as, uh, establishing plausibility

until something comes out of the ground.

Yeah, the forensic evidence

seems to point to silver a-and gold underground,

- almost certainly. - Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It's quite impactful

to have a person of his experience

and his understanding confirm the clues

to the possibility of a treasure moving east to west.

- Mm-hmm. - There might be

multiple treasures connected to the Templars

and their descendants.

So, we learn that, as you uncover clues,

you not only advance the search agenda

but you-you learn about history worldwide.

You know, this is a little bit different setting

than the war room on Oak Island,

but it has been highly informative.

We're most appreciative of your-- both of your time.

You've set us on a course of action that may provide

the definitive answers that we seek.

I can't say anything more than just "Thank you."

- Thank you very much. - Yeah, thank you.

Let's go here.

Meanwhile, back on Oak Island...

- Oh. Yep. - The rock under that.

...Marty, Laird, and other members of the team

have moved to a location a few yards

further down Center Road

to look for evidence of the sand and cobblestone road beneath it.

That's sand there.

- Yeah, it is. - Yeah.

Looks like it.

The sand goes under the modern,

and that should be-- that's right on line.

That's it, isn't it?

- Oh, yeah. Look at this. - Oh, yeah.

- The way that scoops up. - That's sand. Yeah.

Is this what we're looking for? Is this...

Oh, that's what we're looking for.

Okay. Well, then, let's see

what's underneath it.

I'll go over and see if there's anything in that sand.

Is it all sand right there?

Yep. All this is.

I'm getting a little chirping, but...

How about here?

- Got something there to dig? - Yeah.

Let's see if I can pinpoint it first.

It's in me hand. Let's see what we got.

What you got, Gary?

Oh, yeah.

What you got, Gary?

A nice little nail.

Little iron nail.

After finding more possible evidence

of the sand road beneath Center Road,

Gary has just discovered what could be another important clue.

It could be an oxshoe nail.

We found an oxshoe in the sand road

a stone's throw away from here.

Yeah.

This artifact is actually buried

in the sand road.

And this is a foot down, it's in excellent condition.

Better keep hold of this, Laird.

It's going back to the lab,

and Emma's gonna run her magic on it.

Maybe we can find out how old it is

and date this sand road.

That was the only find.

What we don't have is anything definitive on a date.

Yeah. -[Billy] Well, we had the hand cannon,

which is very significant.

- Yeah. - So, we-we have

a lot of old dates in this particular area. -Mm-hmm.

- Yep. - Okay. We find

a sand road in the swamp.

It's really well-constructed, it's heretofore unknown.

Right.

So, we have oxen

going up and down this road well prior to the time

when we thought Center Road didn't even exist.

So, now let's pull that together and say

this road was actually just an extension of that sand road.

- Yeah, exactly. - Yeah.

And then, it goes,

by my reckoning, directly to the beginning

of what we now call the Portuguese Road,

which, in fact, goes up the hill

- towards the Money Pit. - Yeah.

Which leads us to the thought that perhaps

Center Road here existed prior to the 1762 survey.

The reason we're here today is to try and prove that theory,

and we more or less did.

Geez.

It's always fun finding what you're looking for.

- Yeah. - It's Oak Highway.

Pull all that together, and it leads

to a pretty solid conclusion that the so-called Center Road

has actually been there for a very long time.

It was not created after that survey.

Okay, and then the next dot to connect this--

well, there's our connection.

Center Road goes right to Lot 5.

How did Lot 5 get to the Money Pit?

It just went out to Center Road,

and then went on to go to the swamp,

so that road could've carried the people back and forth

between Lot 5 and the Money Pit area.

Simple as that.

It gives credence to what we're doing here, gentlemen.

It helps that these things continually verify

that we're not really on a wild-goose chase.

Well, I think it's been a success,

but now we need to get to the treasure.

I know one thing for certain--

for absolute certain-- I know somebody

who's gonna be keenly interested in this

when he gets back from the Azores,

and that would be big brother Rick. -Yeah.

- Yep. - Okay.

- Let's get on to the next task. - Okay.

Billy, put this back together. -[Billy] Very good.

The deeper

and further that Rick, Marty, Craig and the team

look into this 231-year-old mystery,

new clues and revelations

only bolster their will to keep digging.

Because whether on Lot 8, in the Money Pit area

or 2,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean...

...one conclusion is becoming more probable by the day:

Oak Island may be hiding secrets

that changed the course of history in Europe,

and could most certainly rewrite the history...

...of North America.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

Wait, what's that?

It's similar to what we have on Oak Island.

This is from 2000 BC.

- Really? - We're starting to find

- a hidden wall. - Whoa.

This would be an ideal place to deposit treasure.

That sounds great.

- Wow. - Oh, my gosh.

- This is huge. - Amazing.

This is very, very, very significant.

If that was part of the treasure,

the rest of it is still in the Money Pit.

Absolutely.

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