Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...

-Oh, wow, look at that. -GARY: Oh, it is a timber!

TERRY: It's a timber!

We don't have any structures like this on any of our maps.

This could be some of the early workings.

CORJAN: This painting was an instrument

to record a secret about Oak Island.

I would dig

where the shepherd points.

-TERRY: Wow! -STEVE G.: Lots of wood.

-TERRY: We're on a corner. -JACK: The Money Pit's

-14 feet away. -That's stunning.

I mean, that's zeroing in.

The Money Pit may no longer be lost.

NARRATOR: There is an island in the North Atlantic

where people have been looking for an incredible treasure

for more than 200 years.

So far, they have found a stone slab

with strange symbols carved into it,

mysterious fragments of human bone,

and a lead cross whose origin may stretch back

to the days of the Knights Templar.

To date, six men have died trying to solve the mystery.

And, according to legend,

one more will have to die

before the treasure can be found.

? ?

? ?

That's a substantial amount of water coming through there.

Am I seeing things, or is there,

like, a bunch of cobble?

LAIRD: I do see a bunch of cobble, yeah.

Quite distinctive, isn't it?

GARY: Those rocks look like

they've been placed there.

-Yeah. -On purpose.

(chuckles): Yeah. I think so, too.

NARRATOR: Shortly after completing

this 6,000-square-foot extension

to the massive steel cofferdam at Smith's Cove,

Rick Lagina and members of the Oak Island team

have already found evidence of what could be

another breakthrough discovery.

There's a lot of cobble there and none here.

GARY: Like a rock wall.

This is a heck of a start, or what?

NARRATOR: Just moments ago,

while excavating a mysterious square-shaped log structure--

one that was never reported by previous treasure hunters--

the team unearthed what they believe

could be part of one of the five stone box drains.

First discovered in 1850,

the box drains draw ocean water from the shore,

which is then used to fuel a booby-trapped flooding system

which prevents digging in the area known as the Money Pit.

-They look like they've been stacked. -Yeah.

I mean, look at how quickly the water runs out

from the structure.

It's still working today, you know?

Quite packed in there, Laird.

I'm not gonna make a statement,

but it's... well defined.

I only know one thing, right?

There's a preponderance of cobble,

but it seems to keep going that way and that way.

Hey, Billy, can you take a couple scoops of water,

and we can see it better?

Look at the sheer difference of, like, pure clay

to a mound of rocks.

GARY: There's definitely more rocks

going that way.

That pile is continuing.

PAUL: Wow. Look at that.

DOUG: So, this is the shaft?

We-we don't have any structures like this

on any of our maps, so this is a new original discovery.

Plus, you've got black organic material rotting away there.

That's another sign of it.

RICK: What's disturbing about this is that there is

no historical record.

Dan did not articulate having built anything like this.

I can't believe that Mr. Blankenship

would have built such a structure, so...

Certainly, uh, Restall or earlier,

but it begs the question:

how were they able to get out this far?

I think this,

more than anything else, it mimics Restall work.

These vertical timbers, they used that feature a lot.

The only problem I have is, for this to be Restall work,

this is... somebody said it's underwater.

-So how would they have gotten here? -Yeah.

Yeah.

Bill, you want to hop in and get this cleaned up?

Yep.

? ?

Just like old days.

-CRAIG: It is pretty interesting. -GARY: Yeah.

They look like they've been stacked.

-GARY: Here comes the geologist. -JACK: All right!

-TERRY: Oh, wow, look at that. -DOUG: What do you make of that?

Well, yeah, I would say people were there.

-(laughs): All right. -People piled those boulders up.

-So, the north end of this, Terry, -Right.

is the south end of the slipway.

Oh, we're not to far off there. I see. Okay.

NARRATOR: One year ago,

near the same area of Smith's Cove...

There's a timber right there.

ALEX: Wow.

...the team uncovered the remains

of a wooden slipway, which would have been used

for hauling boats in or out of water,

usually for the purpose of loading, unloading or repair.

When the wood used to make the slipway

was scientifically dated using dendrochronology,

it suggested that it may have been built

as early as 1769,

nearly three decades before the discovery of the Money Pit

in 1795.

Is it possible that this recently discovered

rock-and-log structure is related in some way?

But if so, how?

TERRY: Is that rounded, or is that a piece of timber?

Let's have a quick look here.

I think it's another bit of, uh, wood.

GARY: Oh, it is a timber!

-TERRY: It's a timber! -JACK: Oh, yeah, it is.

What do you think, Terry?

TERRY: It means that it's part of a crib-work, I would say.

That's not natural.

JACK: This is the furthest structure

that we've ever found.

-PAUL: Yes. -You know, furthest away from the actual beach.

RICK (chuckles): Well, who thinks they know what this is?

JACK: We have to keep digging to find out.

RICK: Exactly.

For now, it's been a long day. I think we're done.

GARY: Another day, another structure.

NARRATOR: Following their productive search operation

at Smith's Cove,

Rick, Craig and other members of the team gather

in the war room.

They are eager to share

the news of today's findings

with Rick's brother Marty, who is away on business.

-Hey. How you doing? -Hey, Marty. -(others greet Marty)

Good. Whatcha got?

Well, Marty, I'm just following up,

those pictures that I sent you

-about the Smith Cove's work? -Yes.

Just wanted to explain the-the pictures, really.

Remember Mike Jardine showed us those box-like features

at surface?

Yeah, I sure do, before he even started.

-Yep, I do. -We've exposed them now.

The curious thing that is on the back side,

the seaward side of the box,

there's a tremendous amount of rockwork,

and that really is the most interesting feature to date.

We still have to decide if we want to dig inside the box.

MARTY: Yeah, so, the rockwork

outside the box, do you think that's...

different time, or associated with it?

It appears as though it's extensive.

It was quite laborious.

But what it means and its relation to the box,

I don't think I can time-frame that.

-Not yet. -But it could have been

that they were digging down to-to find a way

to shut off the water, you know, the age-old thing.

JACK: Or it could be one of the...

-one of the last finger drain systems in Smith's Cove. -Yeah.

Entirely possible. Go dig 'em up.

(chuckles)

This area, because it's outside Dan's cofferdam,

it's really interesting.

I know Dan... really liked this area.

He always thought it was leaking in this area,

the... from the flood tunnel or something.

There was water coming out

when he had his cofferdam in here, so...

hopefully, we can get down deeper

and get in these rocks and... and find out what it is.

Okay. Well, it was a good start.

At least you found something already unknown...

-hitherto unknown. -Yeah.

MARTY: I really didn't think we'd discover

something as massive as what we found in the bump out.

When I see these timbers,

um, you know, these are substantial.

And Rick tells me that also there was

an enormous amount of rock associated with it, too,

that he took out by hand.

This is yet another, yet another structure

in Smith's Cove, so I'm impressed.

It's just the beginning of Smith's Cove,

and the hope is that it will reveal some things

that to this point are unknown.

I say dig, Craig, Rick,

Billy, Doug, dig!

Let's get to the bottom of it.

That's the hope, and-and, uh, we'll...

-dig away, as you say. -Yeah, Rick,

you're off to a really good start, and I'll be out there

just as soon as I can, 'cause I don't want to miss all the fun.

All righty. See ya.

-See you guys. Thanks. -BILLY: See you, Marty.

NARRATOR: As a new day begins on Oak Island,

Jack Begley and historian Doug Crowell

have joined archaeologist Laird Niven

and other members of the team at Smith's Cove

to continue their investigation

of the mysterious wooden structure.

DOUG: To get down to the depth we need to get down to,

we almost have to take out a...

a little bit more with the excavator, don't you think?

JACK: Do you want to come onto a linear section

of the box drain undisturbed, or do you want to cut through

-and then try to find it? -Well, that's up for debate.

I'm inclined to try and cut through it

and then find it in the sidewall.

I'll peel back in a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah, but not too far, because yeah,

-this is where... what we're focusing on. -Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

NARRATOR: Using a 40-ton excavator,

Billy Gerhardt will carefully dig along the suspected path

of the rock feature in the hopes

that by exposing more of the structure, they can confirm

whether it is, in fact, connected to a flood tunnel--

a flood tunnel

that would lead directly to the original Money Pit.

GARY: Sounds like he's hitting rocks there.

That's a good sign, then, isn't it?

Are you okay with me metal detecting over this, Laird?

-Yep. -Okay.

When Billy's finished,

I'll give it a little search.

I've been chomping at the bit to get back to Smith's Cove.

We didn't have a lot of success

with coins and artifacts last year,

but this is the year.

You ready, Billy?

-Yep. -GARY: Here we go, Jack.

(metal detector beeping)

There's a hit here. It's just tough

to see what it is.

This is probably iron.

(beeping)

-JACK: You can feel it? -GARY: Yeah.

I'm getting something, but it seems to be

all over the place.

Wow.

This is fantastic.

Yeah! It's definitely an old piece

of wrought iron here.

That's a cool little find.

-Structural, right? -GARY: Yeah, that's cool.

JACK: They look very similar to what you found last year

-along the slipway. -Yeah.

-JACK: Right in line. -GARY: And that's where we found

all those old cribbing spikes from 1600s, 1700s.

NARRATOR: A cribbing spike?

Similar to the ones found within the 18th-century slipway

that was unearthed in this area last year

and which blacksmithing expert Carmen Legge suggested

could be as much as 400 years old?

Could Gary and Jack have just found

further evidence to suggest

that the mysterious log structure was made

before the discovery of the Money Pit in 1795?

This is the start of something good, mate.

Mm-hmm. (chuckles)

-LAIRD: Hey, Rick. -DOUG: Hey, Rick.

RICK: Hey. How can we help?

GARY: We've already found

a couple of things here,

and I'm sure you'll recognize these.

-And I believe... -Yeah.

GARY: This is the only area

we found those old cribbing spikes beside

of the slipway, and it was found down there.

RICK: It's in really good shape.

GARY: Oh, yeah. That's an old piece of iron, as well.

You can actually see it. I think it...

The hand hammered, you know, right here.

All the little dimples.

-Right here. -Yeah. It's in great shape.

And we haven't gone that far down in this area.

RICK: Gary comes up with a cribbing spike that he

suspects could be from the 17th century.

And we're always looking to have one data set,

if you will, reinforce another data set.

So we have this

dendrochronology date of 1769.

Certainly fits within that bracket.

And I ask myself, is it original work,

or is it searcher work?

We know the myriad number

of structures that we've found down here.

-LAIRD: Mm-hmm. -There's nothing says that this is the singular one.

Might be something over here. Over there.

There. So we have to take our time

and really analyze what we see

-and just take it slow. -LAIRD: Yeah.

I feel good about how it's going so far.

Good. Very good.

NARRATOR: After finishing the day's work at Smith's Cove...

-CORJAN: Hey, guys. -MARTY: Corjan. Welcome to Oak Island.

NARRATOR: Brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,

along with members of the team, meet with Oak Island researcher

and theorist Corjan Mol in the war room.

Corjan has recently intrigued the Laginas with the notion

that a French artist used his paintings

to plant clues as to the location

of the Oak Island treasure.

Thanks for the invitation.

Okay, there we are.

So, this is, uh, Nicolas Poussin.

Now, if you look at the mystery,

first, you need to know some things about Poussin.

Nicolas Poussin is-is a...

Well, he's actually the classical painter.

Some of his works are, uh,

incredibly famous and are in the big museums.

And from my perspective,

you know, he-he was an instrument

to, uh, record a secret

about Oak Island.

NARRATOR: Born in 1594,

Nicolas Poussin became one of the preeminent painters

of the classical French baroque style

during the 17th century.

In addition to serving as the First Painter

to King Louis XIII of France,

Poussin spent much of his career

living and working in Rome,

where his patrons included powerful nobles,

Catholic church officials

and even the pope.

But according to Corjan Mol's research,

three of Poussin's prominent paintings

may have been created with a secret purpose:

to offer clues about a treasure buried on Oak Island.

The first of these is believed to appear

in the 1627 painting Shepherds of Arcadia,

which depicts a group of shepherds

gathered around a stone tomb inscribed with the phrase

"et in Arcadia ego."

If you look at the painting,

the shepherd is pointing at the phrase,

"et in Arcadia ego."

It's a special phrase, and perhaps it's an anagram.

So, an anagram is a word or a phrase that uses

the same letters in a different order.

Now,

"et in Arcadia ego" could be an anagram for, uh,

in Italian, uh, "Gite neo Arcadia."

Excursion to new Arcadia.

NARRATOR: In 1523,

Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano

led an expedition to North America

on behalf of King Francis I of France.

After making landfall in North Carolina,

Verrazzano sailed northward along the Atlantic coast,

a region which he later called Arcadia,

a name meaning "refuge" or "paradise" in Greek.

During the 17th century,

this was later changed to Acadia

by the French cartographer Samuel de Champlain

to refer to the coastal colonies

of New France in Canada,

which included Nova Scotia.

Now, Poussin paints

another work at the same time:

Midas washing his feet in the river Pactolus.

And these two works belong together.

They call that pendants.

So these were supposed to hang together.

The story is that when Midas washed himself,

the gold, uh, came into the river.

And from that moment, it was a gold river.

A gold-bearing river.

NARRATOR: It is Corjan's belief

that Poussin's second painting in his trilogy

offered a deliberate reference to the Gold River,

which is located just north of Oak Island

and was also the site of a gold rush in the mid-1800s

after large deposits were discovered there.

Almost ten years later,

he paints the scene again.

And Poussin used a pentagram as the basis

for the Shepherds of Arcadia, the second version.

NARRATOR: A common practice

in 17th century painting

was to use geometric shapes as a means

of basing a painting's overall composition.

Most often, this was done for aesthetic purposes,

but Corjan is convinced

that Poussin intended the shape embedded

within his painting to serve as a kind of treasure map.

One which, when combined with the megalithic formation

known as Nolan's Cross, points to a possible treasure site

in the Oak Island swamp.

I thought if you look at Nolan's Cross,

there's five dots,

and you only need four to make a cross.

-MARTY: Mm-hmm. -CORJAN: So the fifth might be what you need

to place a pentagram on Nolan's Cross.

So, this point is where the shepherds point.

If you superimpose the painting,

this would be the placement.

RICK: Wow.

That is pretty cool that that pops out. It really is.

JACK: You think that these paintings

actually say that

the treasure came to Nova Scotia?

But it also could have been

-on Oak Island that it was deposited? -CORJAN: Yes.

Yes. Yeah.

RICK: Look,

I've always felt that,

and I think we spoke earlier

when we first discussed things,

that there was something in the swamp.

My question to you is since you are intrigued,

what is here, in your opinion?

I believe the ark was found,

uh, by the Templars in, uh... after 1099.

And I'm convinced it came here.

NARRATOR: The Ark of the Covenant

buried on Oak Island?

For decades, numerous Oak Island

researchers and historians

have theorized that while fighting for control

of the Holy Land during the Crusades,

members of the Knights Templar

also conducted secret excavations at the site

of King Solomon's Temple

and removed numerous sacred religious relics,

including a golden menorah

and the Ark of the Covenant.

It has also been speculated

that after facing persecution

in Europe in the early 14th century,

the surviving members of the Templar order

fled to North America, taking with them

not only these sacred treasures but also a fortune in gold

and buried them on Oak Island.

Could Corjan Mol's incredible theory

that Nicolas Poussin had secret knowledge

of these Templar treasures and that he used that knowledge

to embed clues in three of his most iconic paintings

offer evidence that the Templar theory

might be true?

MARTY: Very interesting. I mean, the connections

you can make with conventional history

-are really amazing, you know? -There's no end to it.

MARTY: I mean, with all the data we have now

from Steve's work... So we should be able to...

-line that up. -Yeah.

RICK: Well, Corjan, I've always felt that

it's through collaboration and cooperation

that this will ultimately be best served.

So, to that end, we can but say thank you.

-MARTY: Thank you. -CORJAN: Thank you very much.

? ?

NARRATOR: One day after the team's meeting

with Oak Island theorist Corjan Mol...

Actually, I'm probably gonna start digging this shaft out.

...Jack Begley and Gary Drayton continue digging

inside the box-like wooden structure at Smith's Cove

in the hopes of finding evidence

of one of the fabled stone box drains.

What I like about this area, what we're digging in now,

there's no photos of what it used to look like.

JACK: Yeah.

GARY: Never dug this deep.

JACK: Yeah.

Meanwhile, at the triangle-shaped swamp...

-Morning, Don. -Good morning.

-Sorry about the weather. -(chuckling)

You're gonna get wet.

...Rick Lagina,

surveyor Steve Guptill and local diver

Tony Sampson welcome back

ground-penetrating radar experts Don Johnston

and Steve Watson.

They are curious to find out

if the possible treasure sites Corjan Mol identified

in the swamp are worth further investigation.

So, uh, Tony's been kind enough to assist us,

and I think that he's gonna be a great boon to the effort here.

The hope is that Steve and I will be in the water.

We'll run the-- run the line.

Tony will be in the boat with you.

We'll do a hand-over-hand pull.

Try to keep it consistent travel.

And, uh, then you're gonna have to tell us

-if it's working or not. And then we'll tweak... -Yeah.

We'll tweak the system.

-Yeah. -All right. -RICK: Okay.

Although Rick and Marty conducted

extensive seismic testing across the swamp last year,

which revealed a 200-foot-long anomaly,

they are hoping

that additional scanning will help better define

existing targets

and possibly identify new ones.

RICK: The other years, you know,

we were in there doing investigative work,

and we didn't-- we didn't have an inkling

as to what may or may not be in there.

But now we have real reason to-to gather great data,

corroborative data, at this point.

So there's a lot more incentive

-to get back in there. -Yeah.

RICK: We believe there's something there, but...

it's all about expectation management. We have to prove it.

Just like finding the one thing in the Money Pit.

We have to prove that that's a real anomaly.

Okay. We're all ready to go.

-Got it? You got it? -Yeah. Yeah.

Ground-penetrating radar, or GPR,

sends electromagnetic pulses into the earth

to detect changes in soil

that could indicate any structures or objects

buried deep beneath the surface.

-Ready? -Yep.

In order to apply this technology

in a wetland environment like the swamp,

the GPR team will conduct

their scan by boat with the help of Tony Sampson.

Meanwhile, Rick Lagina

and Steve Guptill will guide the team

along a systematic grid pattern

using rope lines.

Went off a little bit.

Come back left.

There you go.

RICK: Corjan Mol has done

an incredible job of research,

and the swamp is a very specific location of interest.

It's more than interesting. It's certainly

something we have to follow up on.

And I'm hoping that GPR will get

two things: one, to get a baseline reading of the swamp

and also to see if there are any hits, if you will,

in the associated anomalies within.

STEVE G.: Steve, what's your swath like?

Like, are you going-- You're probably--

You're a meter wide

-and you're swathing out, right? -Yeah.

STEVE G.: At-at what angle?

Uh, 30 degrees.

STEVE G.: That's not bad. That's good coverage.

STEVE W.: Yeah.

Just hold on!

I'm gonna get rid of the other rope!

Okay! Go!

Going over a bunch of stuff now.

Okay, just...

went over something there.

Just went over an anomaly!

How deep?

About three meters!

-How big? -Uh...

six meters.

Six meters!

STEVE G.: Six meters wide? Across?

-Across. -Okay.

NARRATOR: An anomaly some ten feet beneath the swamp

measuring 20 feet wide

and found near one of the locations identified

by Corjan Mol?

Could it be connected to the large ship-shaped anomaly

that was discovered by seismic scanning last year?

This GPR is showing a-an anomaly that's quite substantial,

and I do want us to pursue it as aggressively as possible.

So we're in the process of trying

to acquire permits to allow such a dig to occur

and understand if indeed the swamp held secrets.

That's probably our anomaly!

Yep. That's interesting.

Where you are, the dimension of it.

It could be significant. Let's put it that way.

STEVE G.: So, here's what I think we should do.

Do a couple more runs here and then go north-south

-through that area. -Okeydoke.

NARRATOR: As GPR continues in the swamp...

You guys call for some more guys with shovels?

Only if you're willing to get your hands dirty.

(laughs) Yeah.

...Alex Lagina joins

other members of the team at Smith's Cove

as they continue searching

inside the mysterious log structure

in hopes of finding possible evidence

of the legendary flood tunnel system.

ALEX: What's going on?

PAUL: We're trying to find the stone drains.

So, we're digging very carefully to see if we can find the trace

that the drain is hiding somewhere within this pile.

-So... -ALEX: So, on the theory

that this was put down to try to...

intersect and shut off the drain,

we're looking in here and out there?

-PAUL: Yes. -Yep.

DOUG: This, hopefully, will tell us two things.

Maybe it'll show us what they were looking at,

or maybe it'll show us the-the level

that they were trying to reach to examine something.

Got it.

RICK: When we first revealed the amount

of rock that was in the front

of the box-like structures, the first thought

on everyone's mind was is it

some association with the flooding system?

We don't know as of yet, but we need

to continue to expose the structure.

Because if you can prove that the, uh,

old stories,

the-the old reports are accurate--

there is a flood tunnel, there is a box drain--

that's huge.

DOUG: Oh, look at that.

That's about three feet down.

Wow.

DOUG: I wonder if that's part of a platform.

-Yeah. -Mm-hmm.

-Yeah. -Yeah, looks like a pretty thick beam.

I can reach all in through there.

NARRATOR: A platform?

Could the shaft-like wooden structure,

possibly connected

to the island's legendary flooding system,

be covering a much deeper structure

than the team previously thought?

If so, how far down does it go?

And what could be lying at the bottom?

LAIRD: Hey, Rick.

RICK: Hey.

That's the end of it?

No, this is a-- this is like a platform.

We took another board out.

It would have been over top of this.

If that's a platform, they went deep.

LAIRD: What was the purpose of the platform?

Well, in general, it was because you had ladderways, right?

So, if it was a deeper shaft,

you come down to a platform

and then the next ladder segment would take you down deeper.

You set the ladder that way and that way

-kind of thing. -Yeah. You got to wonder

how deep this goes if they put a platform into it.

RICK: The whole point of this bump out

in Smith's Cove was to find things.

Well, we certainly have done that.

There appears to be a working platform we found in the box,

and, of course, we don't know how deep the structure is.

But might they be critically important

in terms of the discovery process

as it applies to the ongoing search agenda?

Absolutely.

So, I very much look forward

not so much to the days that have come before

but the days as we move forward.

The only problem is

this footprint keeps getting wider and wider and wider.

Then we compromise our ability to dig as we excavate.

I'll ask you, Laird.

Is there an importance for you to dig this shaft?

Or should we just leave well enough alone?

-Yeah. -And then, as this dig proceeds this way,

then, in conjunction with the dig,

-we excavate the shaft? -Yeah. I don't think

there's an urgent need to do this,

-to be honest. -Okay. So we got to stay focused here.

So, as interesting as it is,

we don't want to compromise the whole area.

We have no idea what might be here or there or there.

NARRATOR: Although Rick Lagina is eager

to continue investigating the mysterious log

and rock structure,

he is concerned that fully exposing it

would require digging a much wider and deeper hole,

one that would restrict the team's access

to the bump out area.

RICK: At this point, I don't want to get too aggressive.

We don't want to lock ourselves out of getting

as close to the sheet pile as possible.

So, the idea is to go dig from north to south

and hopefully uncover something that will tell us

what these structures may or may not mean.

That's the hope. We have to stay the course.

I think the best thing to do is

to start digging over there and-and dig this way.

Once we get to here, then we can

have a proper plan to do this

with archeological precision and with

-paramount safety in mind. -Yeah.

ALEX: I'm sold. Let's do it.

LAIRD: Yeah.

NARRATOR: One day after the Oak Island team

halted their search efforts at Smith's Cove,

Jack Begley, Dave Blankenship, historian Doug Crowell

and geologist Terry Matheson have resumed the team's

core drilling operations in the Money Pit area.

Having recently found a 19th-century

searcher shaft, known as Shaft Nine,

they are using its location, along with archival maps,

in an effort to find Shaft Two.

This was the searcher shaft dug by Daniel McGinnis

and his partners in 1805,

while they were looking for a back door into the Money Pit

that would allow them to avoid the flood tunnels.

If they can find Shaft Two, the team hopes

to finally pinpoint the precise location of the Money Pit,

which has been lost for more than half a century.

Shaft Two is really important, 'cause it's the first

-searcher shaft that we know of. -SCOTT: Last night,

we come up with three possible, uh, layouts of the shaft.

-Yup. -TERRY: That's the whole idea.

We're trying to dial in its exact location.

And we're gonna use this information

to figure out where the Money Pit should be.

-It's gonna direct us one way or the other. -Yeah.

-STEVE G.: Look at all the wood. -TERRY: Oh! Look at the wood!

-So we're definitely on a shaft. This is the edge of it. -Yeah.

NARRATOR One week ago,

Craig Tester and members of the team drilled

into a wooden structure some 33 feet deep,

while looking for the shaft.

Eager to confirm that they have indeed found

the 200-year-old searcher tunnel, the team

has begun drilling a number of exploratory boreholes.

All right. We got some good stuff here, guys.

TERRY: Time to get dirty.

-DOUG: What's our depth? -BRENNAN: 19 to 29.

TERRY: I think this is gonna answer some questions.

Hey. People, this is great.

Oh, that's a lot of wood!

TERRY: This is really good.

We got a nice section of wood here.

Wow. Oh, my.

And some square edges.

JACK: Oh, no way!

TERRY: Look at that. There's a cut end.

Look at that!

JACK: So, we might be hitting the corner of something?

TERRY: That's a box joint right there!

Look at that flat there, flat surface.

-JACK: Yeah! -TERRY: We're on a corner,

-I think, gentlemen. -Yeah.

TERRY: That's gonna really help with our configurations.

JACK: If this is the corner of the shaft, then

we should be able to adjust all our data.

TERRY: Oh, yeah.

NARRATOR: Finding one of the suspected corners

of Shaft Two is an exciting development.

However, the team will need to find at least one more wall

in order to pinpoint the location

of the connecting tunnel believed

to lead to the Money Pit.

JACK: Now that we have two different points of the shaft,

it gives us a good idea of where we need to go to locate

the other sides, but it's looking like we're starting to

get a really good idea of where this tunnel used to be,

and where the Money Pit

hopefully still is.

-Hey, Rick. -Hey.

Great timing. We tagged into the shaft again.

Okay. Explain where we are, what, how deep.

TERRY: So, we've got a good solid intersection,

whether it's on a corner or whether it's the wall

from 24 feet to 29 feet.

We're so close. We're really dialing in

the orientation of the shaft.

But to go back to this then,

we're still not...

We can't be confident of the orientation

-even with that. -100%. There's too many variables.

So, it's an easy call. Keep drilling.

As long as needs be...

-Yup. -...to come away

with high confidence of the orientation of that.

-TERRY: Absolutely. -RICK: Because this is

absolutely necessary to put "X" on the ground here.

And then we do whatever it takes to find that tunnel,

and we drill it.

-BRENNAN: Good. Looking forward to it. -TERRY: Super.

RICK: If this is the shaft, it's

the point of beginning, as all surveyors need.

You need a POB.

We know the shaft was 14 feet away

from the original Money Pit,

but now, the critical missing piece of information is,

what is the orientation?

Because it will go a long way towards

pinpointing the Money Pit.

I wish everybody good luck,

but I'm going to go down there, and I hope to...

I hope to find something to show you guys.

-Good luck! -BRENNAN: Thanks, Rick.

-TERRY: See you later, Rick. -JACK: Thanks. You, too, Rick.

TERRY: Everybody hold their breath.

This is getting so exciting.

NARRATOR: After finding what they believe

to be one of the four corners of Shaft Two...

DOUG: Incoming sausage!

NARRATOR:...members of the Oak Island team

have begun drilling a new exploratory borehole

in an attempt to locate another wall of the structure.

I don't see any wood right there,

but let's-let's have a better look.

Let's-let's see what we got.

-You just got shards there. -Yeah.

Yeah. Oh!

-Whoa! Hello. -Oh.

Okay. Hold the phone. Wow.

-JACK: Oh, yeah! -STEVE G.: There we go! -Okay.

That looks like we got something interesting there.

STEVE G.: Oh, lots of wood.

-This is good. -Yeah.

TERRY: This could be the day.

That's a fairly substantial plank.

We are right up against the wall here.

-So this is our third time. -DOUG: Yup.

We got three points now. That can't be just one wall.

-Yeah. -DOUG: So we've got two walls.

-Yeah. -TERRY: This is great news, gentlemen.

NARRATOR: Because Shaft Two

is the oldest-known searcher site on the island,

and the one closest

to the original Money Pit, finding evidence

of what appears to be the shaft's second wall

is an exciting development.

If they can verify their discovery,

and then locate a tunnel running off of it

at a depth of 110 feet,

the team could lock in an exact location

for the fabled Money Pit,

and, hopefully, the Oak Island treasure.

We're now chasing a tunnel from Shaft Two.

The best thing of all of this, it's pointing to an area

that's never been searched, so it's all virgin ground.

So, I think this becomes our most important search to date.

It's looking really promising.

That makes me want to collect dendro from this shaft.

-Yup. -NARRATOR: In order to confirm

that the wooden structure they discovered

is, in fact, Shaft Two, the Oak Island team will need

to submit wood samples taken from the site

for dendrochronology testing.

Also known as "tree-ring dating,"

dendrochronology is a scientific method

used to study the size and pattern of growth rings,

which develop as a tree grows over its lifetime.

The process can accurately determine

not only the age of wood, but when it was cut

for use in construction.

The tool that seems to have worked the best

on the island really, as far as precision and accuracy,

is dendrochronology.

So, now we have several different samples,

and we need to test it.

RICK: And if it comes

back in a very narrow window,

this is when the trees were used,

if it lines up with that information, then

we know definitively we've located Shaft Two.

We've got to pin the next hole.

So we're-we're gonna move off of this shaft.

We're gonna chase the tunnel.

Doug and I are gonna take off to the Research Center.

-I'm gonna put this data into our 3-D model. -Yeah.

I'll come back and supply you guys with that.

TERRY: So the quest for Shaft Two

continues for at least one more hole.

-That's right. -At least. Yeah. -Yeah.

If we're lucky enough to go into a tunnel, we might

just chase the tunnel as far as we can, actually, so...

-Oh, yeah! -That's the plan.

-Yup. -All right, we're gonna go pin the next hole.

TERRY: Super. Thanks a lot.

-MARTY: Hey, Craig. -DAVE: Craig!

-Hey, Craig. -Hey, guys. -RICK: Hey.

NARRATOR: One week after sending

wood samples collected at the Money Pit area

off for scientific testing, Rick,

Marty and members of the team gather in the war room.

They are eager to hear a report

on the structure they hope can be verified as Shaft Two.

Guys, my favorite kind of war room is about to commence.

And-and this is a favorite of a favorite because

what has worked best for us

as analysis tools has been dendrochronology on, uh,

the logs, and we got a bunch of results coming in.

-All right! -Got good info for us?

I've got the data from Colin Laroque

for the dendro from the Money Pit area.

It was from, uh,

98.5 to 103.5 feet deep.

-Yup. -Um,

but the age he's coming up with is 1796.

-MARTY: Wow. -That's good.

CRAIG: Yup. So,

in 1805 was the year Shaft Two was put in.

So it fits great.

So we're in the right spot!

-(laughter) -NARRATOR: Success.

The results of the test indicate that

the wooden structure the team has unearthed

at the Money Pit site is most likely Shaft Two.

They should now be able to pinpoint the exact location

of the mysterious Money Pit treasure shaft

first discovered by Daniel McGinnis

and his friends in 1795.

That's perfect, don't you think?

Yeah, it's perfect.

No, that's great. That's your-- there's your--

-There's your test. -There's my test.

Yeah. Look, that's stunning.

I-I'll be honest.

I'm a bit-- What is it, Gary?

-Gobsmacked? -Yeah, gobsmacked.

Yeah.

You couldn't get better results than that.

-Once again... -It's a good thing.

-...a right-on number. -Very good.

That's fabulous.

-Yes. -Fantastic information.

That's great.

I'll tell you what's refreshing.

How many times have we sat around this table

and some data comes in, says, "Well, could be, might be"?

I think we found Shaft Two, which means we...

we are very close to the original Money Pit.

Yep.

And now we're talking about the Money Pit's

right in this small area.

-Yeah. -14 feet away from known points.

Yeah.

1796. What it does is eliminate that shaft

from being anything but Shaft Two.

I totally agree.

'Cause nothing's anywhere near that old,

except that and the Money Pit itself.

MARTY: I think the Money Pit has to be somewhere in about

a 20-foot radius, maybe even a little less.

RICK: I think we're close to the original workings.

More so than at any other time.

If you accept Shaft Two and 14 feet as valid--

and I think Shaft Two just became completely valid--

it's the 14 feet we're dealing with now.

The 14-foot arc is, I mean, that's-that's zeroing in.

You know what the big takeaway today is?

That the Money Pit may no longer be lost.

-Yes. -Hear, hear!

We're in the right time frame. Late 1700s.

And we all believe in the dendro.

-Yeah. -MARTY: We're not done yet.

I'm really encouraged by it. This is great news,

and we need to go capitalize on it.

So, let's go do that.

NARRATOR: For brothers Rick and Marty Lagina

and the Oak Island team...

locating Shaft Two offers the promise of a potentially

historic breakthrough.

One that suggests that

the end of their decades-long quest

could be just a few weeks away.

But if and when they finally reach

the fabled treasure shaft, just what will they find?

An ending to their search?

Or perhaps only another clue...

to solving a mystery that has, so far,

taken more than two centuries,

millions of dollars,

and six lives to solve.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

-Wow, check that out. -Look at that.

-That's the floor. -DOUG: We've got a shaft

and we've got a tunnel coming off it to the west.

Oh, yeah, that is one heck of a log, isn't it?

RICK: That's massive.

Puzzle pieces are getting bigger,

picture's getting smaller.

CORJAN: If you draw the lines

to find the center,

this is the dead center of the pentagram.

CHRIS: Right on the eye of the swamp.

DR. SPOONER: The swamp dates

at around 1220 AD.

(a la Austin Powers): This is Templar, baby.

(laughter)

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