Original subtitles

Wow.

‐Check that out. ‐There. Look at that.

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

‐and we got a tunnel coming off it to the west. ‐GARY: 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 would draw the lines to find the center, this is the

dead center of the pentagram.

CHRIS: Right on the eye of the swamp.

The swamp dates at around 1220 AD.

‐This is Templar, baby. ‐(laughter)

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.

♪ ♪

TERRY: Oh! Oh! Oh!

Look at this. Wow. Oh, my.

That's a box joint, right there.

NARRATOR: After finding what they believe to be the location

of Oak Island's first and oldest searcher shaft,

Shaft Two, which was dug

by treasure hunter Daniel McGinnis

and his partners in hopes

of finding a back door into the fabled Money Pit,

brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and members of their team

are convinced that years of scanning, testing,

and drilling are finally paying off.

RICK: We found the first searcher shaft

in close proximity to the original Money Pit.

It doesn't get any better than that,

other than if the core had come up

with a piece of treasure in it.

Nothing could be better at this point.

We have to take advantage of it.

MARTY: Well, here's the deal, guys.

We found Shaft Two, we believe. Right, Steve? Rick?

‐We do. ‐RICK: Yep.

So, what do we do next?

I would assume that the way you're looking at Shaft Two,

sitting here, from our current drill program.

We're all pretty comfortable, including yourself,

was that's the orientation of Shaft Two.

Now we just need to get the orientation of the tunnel.

Shaft Two is a better reference point than Shaft Nine.

Yeah.

That will lead us to the Money Pit.

DOUG: The tunnel's the better target.

The lore that's been passed down to us

was that it was 14 feet away.

They dug over 12,

and then the water broke in and chased them out.

‐Yeah. ‐What a shock.

They never actually fully reached the Money Pit proper.

‐Well, it reached it for 'em. ‐Yeah. It came to them.

So there could be treasure in that tunnel.

It's possible.

‐There could be. ‐Yeah.

You have to go after the tunnel.

MARTY: So I think we should drill

a bunch more holes or several more

and try and delineate that tunnel.

Yeah.

Look, I‐I think all of this l‐lends itself

to making one simple statement, and that is:

looking backwards in time is gonna facilitate us

being much more efficient

in terms of where we dig the eight‐foot can.

We now have two significant reference points

in terms of finding and delineating

where the Money Pit might be,

so it'd be foolish not to chase this tunnel,

and hopefully we get an "X marks the spot."

Well, Steve, if you have time right now,

let's go out and pin a couple holes.

‐Sure. ‐'Cause you've got these marked right where we can

relocate them and we can see where we want to go.

Let's go do it.

NARRATOR: Following their meeting in the war room,

historian Doug Crowell and surveyor Steve Guptill

head to the Money Pit site.

Doug, you wouldn't grab me a spike and a hammer?

DOUG: I got a spike and I got a hatchet.

STEVE G.: Is this our recent one?

‐Yeah. ‐Well, we're just two straight feet north of it.

So we should be in here somewhere.

NARRATOR: Using the GPS data collected from their previous boreholes,

Steve Guptill will now mark the new drilling site

where the team should encounter the Shaft Two tunnel

at a depth of some 110 feet.

If the archival data is correct,

this tunnel, although never completed,

should lead the Laginas and their partners

directly to the original Money Pit treasure shaft.

Now the critical piece of missing information is:

what is the orientation of the tunnel?

Does it go west by southwest, or does it go west by northwest?

Where does it lie?

Right there, Doug.

MIKE T.: Good to go?

‐DOUG: Yep. ‐All right.

Here's hoping, I mean, hopefully,

this is the one, right? Like, hopefully, this is our tunnel.

TERRY: That's good. Well, here's hoping.

Here we go. F‐14 here we come.

NARRATOR: As the team from Choice Drilling positions

the sonic drill rig over the borehole known as F‐14...

GARY: Ready for action.

PETER: All right, let's get to it.

NARRATOR: ...metal detection expert Gary Drayton and Peter Fornetti

join Billy Gerhardt at Smith's Cove.

They're eager to find artifacts that could provide

important information, not only

about when the Oak Island treasure was buried,

but also who buried it.

Can we get through here, Billy?

BILLY: Yeah, I think if you

come here and then follow those rocks, it'd be okay.

They got a few spots there for you to check.

All right, mate.

NARRATOR: One week ago,

the Oak Island team unearthed a mysterious

and previously undocumented log shaft...

Is this part of the flood tunnel system?

NARRATOR: ...sitting above what could be

one of the five stone box drains

that feed seawater into the Money Pit.

I don't think there's an urgent need to do this.

NARRATOR: But after realizing that continued excavation

of the structure might cut off their access

to the rest of the recently constructed "bump out" site,

the team has decided to explore the area

beyond the slipway first.

There's just a lot of curiosities

about, uh, what might be in this area.

If ships were offloading items that,

at the end of the slipway, items may have been dropped.

So if there's anything to be found,

it's at the end of that slipway. Well, hopefully we'll find it.

GARY: Gonna have a little investigate around here.

‐Looks like he's scraped this area off. ‐Yeah.

So we just zigzag along, hopefully get lucky.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to turn around here, Pete.

‐Too close to the wall. ‐Too close to the wall?

‐(detector whines) ‐This doesn't sound too bad.

First signal here, mate.

I'd like some gold coins to go, please.

I'll use my pin‐pointer.

(beeps)

Wow.

What the heck is that? Yeah, it just...

Is that it?

Yeah. It could be anything.

There's something metal in here.

‐It's tough to tell what it is. ‐Yeah.

Probably iron.

‐Might be a goodie hidden inside. ‐Could be.

‐All right, mate, we'll put it to one side. ‐Over there.

BILLY: Peter.

PETER: What's up?

BILLY: Right where I'm digging,

there was all rocks, and I didn't know if it's, like,

the rocks we saw on the other side.

‐I‐I didn't know if you could just... ‐The flat rocks?

GARY: What's he seeing, Pete?

‐It's the same flat rocks. ‐BILLY: It's a thin, flat rock,

and it's quite rocky underneath, so I'm laying a bunch

of flat ones aside.

If we don't have them on this beach here,

they should be all brown, right?

Even the varying descriptions of the flood tunnels

all involve, you know, a flat rock of some sort, so we always

got to be watchful of them, but...

GARY: Yeah, those flat rocks

could be part of the French drains.

BILLY: Yeah.

NARRATOR: A French drain?

Is it possible that the team has uncovered

another part of the island's legendary

booby‐trapped flooding system?

BILLY: Let's go a little more. See what we get.

GARY: Ooh! Look at that.

Hey, Billy, you got a bit of timber there.

‐BILLY: Oh, yeah. There it is. ‐PETER: Wow.

GARY: This is fantastic, mate.

ATOR: After being alerted to Billy, Peter and Gary's It does look more like a pier to me.

potentially important discovery at Smith's Cove,

Rick Lagina and geologist Terry Matheson

have come to the area to check it out firsthand.

‐What do you got, Billy? ‐Hey, Terry.

Hey, Rick.

So we're‐we're peeling this off.

‐Right. ‐And it's quite rocky

in through here.

‐Rocks, rocks and more rocks. ‐TERRY: Yeah.

BILLY: So now I'm three, four feet down,

now I'm starting to pull wood.

RICK: I see the rocks.

I don't see timber.

‐This wood here? ‐BILLY: Yeah.

RICK: Oh, right there?

TERRY: Well, there was a treated

or untr‐‐ probably an untreated timber.

‐That's an old beam then. ‐Right.

This is some kind of a working.

All of these boulders, I'm thinking

that's not a natural conglomeration

of man‐size boulders.

You know, people put that there.

RICK: Do you think it's strange, Terry?

Well, it's definitely a man‐made structure.

There was even more boulders piled up.

Let's take a look.

‐It's pretty solid under here. ‐Is it?

Yeah, I just lifted on that a little bit

‐with the excavator. ‐TERRY: And the whole thing moved, so...

BILLY: The beam is fully intact for a ways here, I would say.

That's round right to there.

‐RICK: Yep. ‐You see that?

RICK: But it keeps going.

‐Keeps going. ‐And it keeps going, yeah.

Somewhere down around there, you can see the bottom, perhaps,

‐where the rocks were piled. ‐Yeah.

Billy, I'd just dump your bucket in here

‐and wash this whole thing. ‐BILLY: Yeah, I was gonna suggest that.

TERRY: All right. Get up out of your way.

I think it's very preliminary to make an assessment

as to this wood that we've encountered, these logs.

However, it's what we were hoping to find.

Previously unknown structures in Smith's Cove.

That's exciting. That's‐that's important.

What do you think, Doug?

It seems to be oriented

‐like this. ‐Yeah.

Which is the way you would think the slipway would set.

Looking at the rocks inside that structure,

more like a pier to me, for a wharf.

NARRATOR: A wharf or pier?

Is it possible that it could be connected

to the 18th century slipway discovered nearby?

Or, has the team found evidence of an entirely different

and possibly even older structure?

RICK: There's certainly a distinct possibility that this structure

could be the slipway.

I mean, it very much could be.

The caveat here is we have to be very careful to make

one simple statement about what might be a complex structure.

There's a possibility that the slipway was built on top

of a much older structure, and that is something

we'll have to take into consideration.

Careful now, Billy.

Hardly any rock here, big pile of rock there

with some timbers under it.

Timber‐‐ Oh, is that a plank sticking out like?

RICK: Can you wash this?

That‐That's enough.

Just put the bucket down there.

‐Hello, hello, hello. ‐Hey, Laird.

You get a better look if you come over here, Laird.

‐See, there's a timber running back towards... ‐Oh.

LAIRD: And this is off the slipway, right?

DOUG: It seems to be off the slipway.

Then Rick says this one, where he's digging,

continues right into the bed.

A lot of rocks inside, hardly anything outside.

TERRY: That's a log right there, eh, Rick?

RICK: Th‐Th‐The cross log is here.

Yeah, right there.

TERRY: Yep. Wow.

The bottom beam is right here.

There's no, uh...

no end to the log here.

TERRY: No end to the log.

This one.

To me, all those rocks is what I would expect

inside a pier.

‐Yeah. Yeah. ‐Yeah.

LAIRD: But even concluding footings for a pier...

big cribbing logs, eh?

If that's cribbing, it's big. It was a big wharf.

RICK: Strange cribbing. I mean, I'll be honest.

I don't know what this is.

Could be a structure associated with deposition.

It could be a structure associated with the search.

We don't know.

I know what I would like it to be: something original.

Let's come to an understanding of what this is,

and then slowly remove what needs to be removed

to get a proper sample.

‐Absolutely. ‐Okay.

NARRATOR: Later that day,

as the investigation at Smith's Cove continues...

DAVE: What do we got here, Terry?

All in situ. Undisturbed, down to 89 feet.

NARRATOR: Geologist Terry Matheson

has joined Dave Blankenship at the Money Pit,

where they are supervising the drilling operation

at the borehole known as F‐14.

They are hoping to find evidence of a horizontal tunnel

which was constructed in 1805 for the purpose

of connecting Shaft Two to the original Money Pit.

‐Hey, Brennan. How you doing? ‐Good.

‐Hey, Dave. ‐DAVE: Hello.

So what are we at? 89 right now, right?

‐This looks the same? ‐89 feet. Yeah.

99 to 105 is where we hope to break out into the tunnel.

Okay.

NARRATOR: Using a 30‐ton sonic drilling rig,

which generates powerful vibrations

to pulverize earth and other obstacles,

the team will extract core samples

at intervals of ten feet.

The spoils will then be collected into plastic sleeves

to be carefully searched for any evidence

of the man‐made tunnel.

MIKE: 99 to 105.

Okay, gentlemen, turn that down here. Down here, Mike.

Thank you.

This could be it.

What do you think, Mike?

‐I want to see it. ‐Anything, uh,

‐anything of interest in here? ‐(chuckles)

Felt like I punched through it

and then there was, like, a void.

Let's operate.

This is where the rubber meets the road.

I'll tell you what, boys and girls.

‐Check that out. ‐SCOTT: Right there. Look at that.

BRENNAN: That's the floor.

TERRY: That's the floor or it could be the ceiling.

Pushed directly to the top.

We just drilled here and hit the tunnel, gentlemen.

NARRATOR: The ceiling of a tunnel?

Found at a depth of some 100 feet?

Could the team have found the searcher shaft?

The one that could lead directly

to the actual Money Pit?

No, this is gonna be good for Rick.

Rick's gonna love to hear about this.

Did I hear we have something interesting

‐going on? ‐DAVE: Hey, Doug. ‐BRENNAN: Yes.

‐Hey, Rick. ‐Look who's here.

‐Okay. I... ‐Hey, Rick.

Let me guess. I've seen a lot‐‐ I see a lot of smiles.

SCOTT: Morale is definitely high.

Right here?

TERRY: Feast your eyes.

BRENNAN: We're at 98 and a half

to basically a ten‐foot run here.

TERRY: Pretty good chunks of beam?

RICK: Pretty good chunks of beam, yeah.

DOUG: Truth be known, all's we know is that

a tunnel came out towards the west of the Money Pit.

We don't know what the dimensions were on that tunnel.

That's great. It's a win.

This is definitive,

‐you know? I mean... ‐It's huge.

...everything else was "minor wins," right?

Highly interpretive, highly subjective, highly...

somewhat suspicious, because of all the work that has been done.

You guys narrowed in on the shaft,

figured out the orientation, came off.

What you have to do now, though,

is find the direction of the tunnel.

Without that, the importance of this find is somewhat limited.

Yeah. Yeah.

What's the next proposed hole?

‐SCOTT: F‐15. ‐Right. ‐DOUG: Yeah.

It's, uh, it's still in line with where this should run.

‐We came out between our two hits. ‐Mm‐hmm.

RICK: We know definitively we located Shaft Two.

So if we find the orientation of the Shaft Two tunnel,

we should be very, very close to the original Money Pit.

That's huge.

That's the Holy Grail of Oak Island:

where is the original Money Pit?

So, there's still a lot of puzzle pieces

yet to‐to fit together,

but the puzzle pieces are getting bigger.

The picture's getting smaller.

It just ramps up the interest.

‐Right? And the hope. ‐TERRY: Absolutely.

Maybe, just maybe, this is the year.

NARRATOR: As a new day begins on Oak Island,

and as the search operations at both the Money Pit

and Smith's Cove continue...

MARTY: Gentlemen.

NARRATOR: ...brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,

along with members of their team,

are meeting once again with theorist Corjan Mol.

With him is fellow researcher Chris Morford,

who has come to pinpoint what could be additional targets

of interest in the mysterious triangle‐shaped swamp.

RICK: So, the reason for this meeting

is, I believe Corjan and Chris have worked together

and come up with an "X" marks the spot.

They've been developing an additional theory,

I will call it, something that I think you're gonna find

extremely interesting.

Unfortunately, for you, it's about the swamp.

‐Oh. Yay. ‐(soft laughter)

How predictable is that?

RICK: So, I'm gonna turn over to these two gentlemen,

and‐‐ hopefully, for the big reveal.

‐Okay. ‐Thanks, Rick.

NARRATOR: One week ago, Corjan Mol

presented the team with an incredible theory

which connects the Oak Island mystery

to the work of the prolific 17th century French painter

Nicolas Poussin.

CORJAN: From my perspective,

he was an instrument to, uh, record

a secret about Oak Island.

NARRATOR: According to Corjan's research,

Poussin had been given secret knowledge

of a sacred, religious treasure that had been buried

on Oak Island centuries ago by members of the Knights Templar.

Poussin then created a series of three paintings,

each containing important clues which, when viewed together,

reveal where the Oak Island treasure can be found.

We started by having a closer look at, uh, Poussin.

‐And then if, Steve, you can bring up the picture of him? ‐Sure.

CORJAN: This is a self‐portrait that he did in 1650,

and we noticed that on the left, uh, the lady over there,

if you look at her hat, there's another eye.

RICK: Mm‐hmm.

CHRIS: Almost like a third eye.

She's obviously holding a place of importance here.

CORJAN: We think

that's the lady that figures on the second version

of The Shepherds of Arcadia.

‐CHRIS: Same woman. ‐It's the same woman.

CORJAN: So, what we did is,

we went back to The Shepherds of Arcadia

and we had a look.

Where is this woman positioned?

So, if you can bring the wireframe, Steve.

There you go.

So, if you draw a line from each of the five points

to the other point across, you land in the same spot,

which is exactly on her eye.

And you can do this in many ways,

but the‐the result is always the same.

This is the dead center of the pentacle.

Okay.

‐Then, uh, the next step is, if we, uh, switch to the CAD model. ‐Sure.

CORJAN: Last time I was here, uh, I showed the, uh, the pentagram,

‐um, mapped on Nolan's Cross. ‐Mm‐hmm.

So, uh, we used that same mapping.

‐So, if you can bring up, uh... ‐STEVE G.: Sure.

So, here's how it would lie,

using what we know is to be Nolan's Cross.

CORJAN: Now, if you would draw the lines

‐to find the center. ‐Sure.

‐We'll go "ta‐da." ‐(soft laughter)

CORJAN: There you go. Right on the eye of the swamp.

RICK: Wow.

The all‐seeing eye?

Yeah.

Holy smokes.

NARRATOR: The all‐seeing eye?

The so‐called Eye of Providence,

which is featured in the iconography

of both Freemasons

and their predecessors, the Knights Templar?

And connected to the man‐made structure

the team found earlier this year,

which Marty Lagina dubbed "the eye of the swamp"?

Could this recently discovered spot,

located at the tip of the man‐made swamp,

provide the key to unlocking the Oak Island mystery?

RICK: I have made mention to every theorist

that have come and gone.

A theory is but a theory until you hold the proof in your hand,

but, uh, my hope is that

this won't be just theoretical,

that we can take this theory

and‐and pick a position on the land

where we can find the one thing,

hold something in your hand.

That's probably the hardest spot to dig in the island. Well done.

‐Well done, guys. Yeah. ‐I promise you that. Yeah.

We think this makes an awful lot of sense.

Again, there's a fixed cross on the island

that you can use to project a pentagram

and then you just find the center. That's easy.

That's something you can do with, uh,

11th, 12th century, uh, technology.

Mm‐hmm.

Already had a lot of interest in the eye because, you know,

Gary and I were out there

probing for rocks, and, you know, there seems to be

rocks all around that circle,

and, I mean, they're mapped out there.

From a purely observational point of view,

that position in the swamp was always

significantly interesting.

So there's no reason not to dig that.

Yeah.

All right, gentlemen. Well, you've set us a task.

I mean, I... I am a skeptic by nature,

so, uh, you know, I guess

the‐the digging will be the proof of the pudding.

In this case it's in the digging, isn't it?

‐Yeah. Fantastic. ‐MARTY: So we will see

what happens and, you know,

uh, keep communicating with each other.

If you, uh, have another "aha" moment,

‐as Rick calls them... ‐For sure.

‐...uh, let us know, okay? ‐Yeah, absolutely.

And we'll keep you in the loop. Thank you very much.

RICK: You're welcome back any time.

‐IAN: Steve. Se‐STEVE G.: How you doing? re.

‐Good to meet you. ‐Nice to see you, again.

NARRATOR: One day after the team's meeting

with Oak Island theorists

Chris Morford and Corjan Mol,

surveyor Steve Guptill has arranged to meet

with geoscientist

Dr. Ian Spooner and his team in order to further

investigate the area known as "the eye of the swamp."

So the game plan for today, we're gonna go back to the pond.

We're gonna go back to the pond. What I want to do is

try to locate the stones, uh, much more accurately.

Try to figure out what this ring

‐of stones is, uh, up at the pond. ‐Okay.

Lauren is gonna go with you and I,

and we're gonna look at Site A.

‐Sure. ‐And Julia and, uh, Chelsea

are gonna be doing

a whole bunch of probing in this area right here.

We're trying to get, uh, a depth o‐of the swamp.

That'll be good.

We've got a lot of data from here,

‐but we need some of your data for this area... ‐Yeah. Okay.

‐Good. ‐RICK: Dr. Spooner was

interested enough to come back

with his students to extract a‐‐

what he's called a vibra‐core sample

from the back pond area.

On a couple fronts, this is exciting and rewarding.

We have always felt that that

back pond area was of interest,

that there were some mystery

surrounding that, and he has singularly

focused on that area, and I'm grateful for it.

He and his students are gonna do

a proper job, and I'm very hopeful

that the cores they extract will give us some information.

I'm gonna try just to hit the top of this, Lauren.

There's the sediment right there.

I'm just gonna try to hit it.

‐Ready? ‐Yeah.

Good, okay. Here we go.

So there's our core.

What's critical about this core and why it's a good core...

‐See how it's undisturbed? ‐STEVE G.: Mm‐hmm.

And so the water's relatively clear here.

Uh, Steve, so that‐‐ what that means is, I didn't disturb this.

So, when we extrude it, when we take a look at it,

centimeter by centimeter, you're going back in time.

It's kind of like a book

‐where you haven't mixed up all the pages. ‐Mm‐hmm.

So this is a good core.

We'll cap it and then we will get another one.

STEVE G.: Yeah. Let's go.

NARRATOR: As Dr. Spooner, Steve Guptill, and the team

conduct their coring operation in the swamp...

GARY: Here comes our big spade.

NARRATOR: Rick Lagina and his nephew Peter Fornetti,

along with Gary Drayton and Billy Gerhardt,

continue to investigate

the large wooden structure at Smith's Cove.

Another flat rock, Billy.

Hang on. Hang on, Billy.

See what we got going on here.

(chuckles): Oh, yeah.

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

BILLY: Yep.

‐Been there a while. ‐GARY: Yeah.

I mean, that is bloody massive.

What is that... that round...

Looks like a...

‐PETER: What? ‐Just a little bit.

Looks like a tube. There.

Is it just mud or is it a peg?

Good fishing, Pete.

A wooden peg.

I thought that looked like a peg.

Good eye.

I mean, you think about it, the only place we found

wooden pegs was in the U‐shaped structure.

Maybe this is connected to the U‐shaped structure.

NARRATOR: A wooden peg

similar to those found in the U‐shaped structure

that the team unearthed last year?

And which was proven to predate the discovery

of the original Money Pit by more than two decades?

Another wooden peg, mate.

PETER: Wow. Awesome.

‐That's a peg. ‐PETER: That's cool.

‐Yeah. ‐It's getting interesting.

Hey, Rick. You ain't gonna believe this.

‐What's that? ‐Look at how big that is.

RICK: Wow. That is huge.

And we're finding wooden pegs.

Got one here and one there.

That's several.

‐Seen the size of that log? ‐(laughs)

GARY: What's it remind you of, though?

‐RICK: U‐shaped structure. ‐GARY: Exactly.

RICK: Does it stop there?

GARY: Yeah, it stops there, but you can see where it's been cut.

I wonder if it's just that.

If we go deeper, I'm sure I'll get more.

‐Hey. How you doing? ‐Welcome, Terry.

‐TERRY: Hey, Rick. ‐RICK: Hey.

So it looks like we got quite a bit of crib work here,

Much more extensive than we had thought.

Does it continue or is it just in and around the boulders?

‐We don't, we don't know. ‐Okay.

This is very strange.

You've got this massive log,

then you've got this carry log,

then you've got a beam coming across here,

then you've got another beam there,

and another carry log.

Wow.

RICK: That is massive.

That's bigger than the U‐shaped structure log.

GARY: Yeah. That is very old.

RICK: Steve said

that elevation was seven feet below sea level.

This is another three feet beyond.

And we know that the deeper you go, this log‐‐

it is possible that this is much older than this.

GARY: That looks old, that bottom layer,

and all the rest has been repurposed.

It's been built up.

‐It's been layered. ‐Agreed.

Upon visual inspection only, um,

we can see that it's saddle‐notched.

We can see it's easily every bit as large

as the U‐shaped structure logs,

but we have to uncover it because we need to know,

hopefully answer "Who?"

Hopefully answer "When?"

And maybe even possibly "What?"

TERRY: So we're not sure what we're looking at here yet.

Rick, what do you think it is?

RICK: I have no idea.

‐It's that real sandy clay. ‐TERRY: Yeah, yeah, very sandy,

silty, it cakes together.

Almost appears as though this is packed.

Yeah.

RICK: And this could be oak.

NARRATOR: Oak beams packed with clay?

In 1804, one year before treasure hunter Daniel McGinnis

and his partners constructed Shaft Two,

they excavated the original Money Pit down to

the 90‐foot level.

At every ten‐foot interval,

they discovered a platform made of oak logs,

but starting at the 40‐foot level,

they found the logs were packed with dense blue clay,

which acted as a water sealant.

Could the team have found evidence

that this massive log structure at Smith's Cove

could be connected to the construction

of the original Money Pit?

It's certainly a massive structure.

Whether it's original or searcher work,

it's absolutely phenomenal.

This structure could be the slipway.

At the very least, the suspicion is growing that it's

the slipway and then the‐the possibility of the wharf

being built on top of it.

I hate to say it, but I wonder

if we shouldn't leave this for Laird.

GARY: I was thinking the same, Rick.

We have got a lot of it exposed, but we could be missing

something an archaeologist would spot straightaway.

RICK: This is a success.

The swamp itself initiated at on Oak Island,

and as operations continue at both Smith's Cove

and in the Money Pit area...

MARTY: Gentlemen,

‐it's another data day, which I always like. ‐Yeah.

NARRATOR: ...brothers Rick and Marty Lagina

meet in the war room,

where they are joined

by fellow Oak Island landowner Tom Nolan

and other members of their team.

They have gathered to hear Dr. Ian Spooner

give his report

on the core samples he and his team

retrieved from the swamp one day ago.

MARTY: Dr. Ian Spooner's here.

He's done a lot of work in the swamp,

and I‐I‐I'll give you a preamble

in the sense that it surprised you

as to how difficult it was, right?

Yeah, um, I would say what surprised me

was that the data

did not meet my expectations.

Welcome to Oak Island, Dr. Spooner.

(all chuckle)

So what we did here, this is Site A.

We're calling that the "eye of the swamp."

But Site A will do.

This is the core, uh, from Site A,

and, and what we can see

at the bottom here is the gray sediment.

There's gravel in it. It's a glacial till.

The key thing here‐‐

there's a few really important things going on.

And that is, we got the till.

We've got the organic matter.

And then it's disturbed in the middle.

RICK: Wow.

I find that interesting.

IAN: How do I know it's disturbed?

It's because we've got interlayered organic matter

and till. You just can't get that.

‐Yeah. ‐The glaciers don't go in‐out, in‐out,

and trees grow in the glacier, come in and out.

The other thing is, there's no soil.

So, there was a glacier, there was a swamp.

What happened in between?

Usually, it'd be a marine environment.

Maybe it would be a land environment,

but we don't see any soil,

so we're really quite sure it's disturbed

by something. And so, the question is,

what is that?

Wow.

‐That's really interesting. ‐RICK: Mm‐hmm.

IAN: So what we did was

we got way down in here

and we got a sample,

and the sample dated out at 1600 to 1700.

MARTY: So what you're saying is,

in 16‐something, somebody dug a hole there?

‐Right. ‐Okay. (chuckles)

And the only thing I can come up with is,

it's being excavated.

It's being dug, or it's being disturbed.

So what is the time, you know,

the exact time of that disturbance?

Can we have the next slide there, Steve?

Sure can.

So, this is kind of neat.

This is the extruded core.

This is the same site, Site A. Another sample.

And it's‐it's really good. It's a twig. It's fine.

And we get these dates:

1674 to 1778.

And so, I'm very confident we're looking

at 1680 to 1700 that that disturbance took place.

‐Really interesting. ‐There's reasonable cause

‐to believe there was significant human activity. ‐Yes.

Yeah. That's the other big piece. Right.

NARRATOR: Significant human activity

in the area now known as "the eye of the swamp"

sometime between the 17th and 18th centuries?

Could it be in some way related to the theory presented

earlier in the week by Corjan Mol and Chris Morford?

So this is quite a provocative site.

It all points to something pretty complex taking place

at that time.

RICK: Can I just ask a question, not to yourself, but...

Your father had somewhat of a fascination

with that back pond area.

‐Yeah. ‐Wh‐What‐‐ Do you know anything at all

about the work he did there or...

‐what he came to believe? ‐It wouldn't dry out.

There's one area of the swamp, no matter how much

we pumped it out, it always stayed wet,

so, you know, we always wondered why‐‐

‐if it was spring‐fed or whatever. ‐Mm‐hmm.

Which just, I mean, how do you explain it in a bog?

MARTY: When you look in other parts of the swamp,

is it like this or much different?

IAN: Uh, so we go into S2, and S2's kind of fun for me

because when I was looking at one of them,

at that gray sediment, the till,

an organic interface, it was a nice twig.

And so we sampled that.

It tells me that the swamp itself initiated

at around 1220 AD.

‐Oh. I was thinking Templar, baby. ‐(all chuckle)

Well, Dr. Spooner, I mean, I hate to say it,

but it fits right into all the lore.

I mean, it all fits into the lore

that it's... (chuckles) Look at Gary.

‐Oh, yeah. Medieval. ‐You got...

You got somebody making a swamp

in about 1200, and then you got somebody digging

‐a lot time later. ‐Yeah.

IAN: And my sense on it is,

if there is this kind of incredible manipulation

over the last thousand years

of this site, that there was something

super big going on.

This opens up the possibility that the swamp was man‐made

on a grander scale then we ever expected.

‐Yeah. ‐GARY: And the crazy thing

is, your dad Fred's probably looking down now,

‐going, "I told you so." ‐(all laugh)

TOM: Oh, he believed the swamp had been worked.

Your information seems to point

that he may have been well onto...

‐Yeah. ‐...the mysteries that swamp holds.

This‐this is exciting, what you've...

‐what you've uncovered here, so... ‐IAN: Yeah.

What do you think, Laird? What's this say to you?

Oh, I'm intrigued. I mean,

I like the whole idea that it was terrestrial.

I like the whole idea that there was human activity in there.

‐Right. ‐LAIRD: I just... I'd love

to find some intact contexts

‐that could really add to the story. ‐Absolutely.

‐We need to find some gold in the cargo hold. ‐RICK: Exactly.

Oh, absolutely.

If you asked me a month ago,

likelihood of it being manipulated by man

in any significant aspect, I would've said, "Eh,

I don't know. 20%."

Now, after Dr. Ian Spooner's work,

I've been moved a long ways.

If the data says so,

then we got to go there.

So, there is one thing that, you know,

when speaking about the‐the swamp, you know...

It's‐it's Zena's map that has always intrigued us.

A‐And there's a... there's something curious about the map.

You might want to render an opinion about it.

This is the map that Zena brought to us. Uh...

Indicates a landing in 1347.

NARRATOR: Three years ago,

the late author and researcher Zena Halpern

presented Rick Lagina and the team

with several documents and maps related to Oak Island

that she believed had been created

by members of the Knights Templar.

NARRATOR: According to her research,

the Templars had first visited Oak Island

as far back as the 12th century.

But what has always

been curious about it is these references.

I think, Steve,

‐you have the translation. ‐I have the digital. I do.

RICK: This map comes from what Zena believed,

or came to believe, was referencing

a Templar voyage to the New World in 1179.

Those areas, you can see.

You‐you have to put your mind to it.

There. It says that the swamp on the left there...

But when we're talking

about manipulation of the swamp...

You see the reference to the dam?

Certainly, this map is indicating

that there are significant areas of interest in the swamp.

‐Yeah. ‐IAN: I'd like to look at it a little more closely

and just see how it matches up with what

we think might have existed at that time

with lower sea level.

Look, would I love it to be Templar‐associated? Yes.

To fill in that gap in history would be...

(exhales)

...to me, better than any treasure.

I've always believed that a greater understanding

of the swamp had some connection

to the original work on Oak Island.

There's an answer there,

or an answer which will propel us forward.

But we have a ways to go.

I'm getting all enthused about the swamp. Come on, man.

‐(all laugh) ‐So, you know,

the objective is to figure this all out.

‐Yeah. ‐MARTY: So, let's get the data we need,

and I‐I just speak for everyone here,

and I thank you very much.

Very interesting.

It was a very good presentation.

Yeah. Well, thank you.

So, let's get back to it.

IAN: Thank you.

NARRATOR: For Rick, Marty and their team,

receiving scientific evidence

that a major engineering effort could have taken place

in the Oak Island swamp nearly 800 years ago

is nothing short of a historic breakthrough.

If anything,

it supports the incredible theories

that the region now known

as Nova Scotia may have been visited

by members of the Knights Templar.

But once the team is able to dig in the swamp,

what will they find?

Perhaps a secret tunnel

leading to a vault at the bottom

of the original Money Pit?

Priceless religious artifacts

like the Holy Grail

or the ark of the covenant?

Or will they find

something even more incredible?

Something that will explain why it needed to be

so carefully and elaborately hidden

deep beneath the ground?

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

JACK: Fire up the pump!

RICK: There we go.

MARTY: Showtime!

All right, here we go.

JACK: I'm excited to finally be digging in the swamp.

TERRY: We hit the side of a tunnel, gentlemen.

Complete success on this hole.

We could be very, very close to the Money Pit.

GARY: We're hot on the trail.

(beeping)

Got a signal, Pete.

‐PETER: What's that? ‐GARY: Oh, my gosh.

That's bloody silver, mate.

This is what we've been looking for!