Original subtitles

Narrator: Tonight on beyond oak island...

There are treasure stories on every island in lake michigan.

They were the freeways of the time.

Brian: The gangs ran prohibition from canada.

You've got a huge smuggling operation going on.

Marty: There's a story of big treasure

somewhere near poverty island.

They were carrying gold.

Feldman: Nobody's gonna go looking for it

'cause officially, it never existed.

Marty: The treasure had to be thrown overboard.

-How much? -$400 million.

Bob: That's poverty.

Brian: The sonar's scanning the bottom.

-This is the spot? -Right here.

-This is a really good target. -There we go.

All the while we were growing up,

my brother and I were fascinated

with finding treasure.

Rick: Pirate treasure,

cursed treasure.

Civil war gold.

-since then, our work on oak island

has shown us there's a world of mysteries...

-Whoa. -...Waiting to be explored.

Rick: So, we like to reach out to other treasure hunters.

X marks the spot, right there. Brilliant.

-Marty: We want to hear their stories... -That's right.

-...And share our insights. -"ill-gotten gains."

-rick: And who knows... -Gary: I got it.

...Maybe we can help them with their search.

Marty: Not only in america.

Wow. That is gold.

-Rick: But all over the world. -Yeah!

Marty: Beyond oak island.

Matty: You know, every time I'm in here,

I'm just blown away by the history.

Rick: Absolutely.

There it is.

Man, that reader's digest article

brought so many people here, it's... It's unbelievable.

Then I remember, I-I just was enthralled with it.

And told marty, of course,

because you're-you're in eighth grade.

A treasure story? I mean, come on.

Who's not gonna gravitate towards that?

Marty: I-I remember him

explaining it to me, saying, "look at this,

look at this, look at this: There are logs every ten feet."

I go, "wow, there's got to be something there."

rick: It's about unknowns and-and looking for answers

and the quest, if you will, for knowledge.

Did you guys already have the-the passion

for treasure hunting stories and stuff at that point,

or do you think that launched it?

Well, you know we had the indian rock thing.

-Ah. -We called it the indian rock. -Yeah.

I-I think we-we knew of the indian rock before this.

Before this. Yeah, well, I'm sure of it, rick.

I was very, very young when you and greg daniels

were trying to move that thing.

Rick: We were treasure hunting when we were

knee-high to a grasshopper.

There was a great big giant stone up on the hill

where we used to play ball, and we called it the indian rock.

Marty: It had a piece of quartz that went all the way around it,

but it looked to us like it was...

Special.

The whole community of boys

were sure there was indian treasure underneath it,

if we could only move that rock.

-Matty: Ah. -We had no tools.

We would have to sneak dad's s-single shovel

-out of the garage. -Yeah, that's right.

-Matty: See, now, that... -And hope we didn't break it.

-Marty: Right. -Right. That indicates to me maybe you guys

had read some treasure stories, because to have that instinct,

-"underneath this might lie treasure..." -we had...

-We had certainly read treasure island. -Rick: Of course.

-Matty: Right. -Rick: But when I read a story,

I could see it in my mind, with the colors

and the-- like treasure island,

I'd walked the paths, I'd see the stones.

I'd w-- look at the markers.

-You could literally lock it in your mind. -Yes.

And that's kind of what that article did.

I think that's what separates the people

who, it's sufficient just to read about it

and say, "yes, that's very interesting,"

and then the others who kind of immerse themselves in the story

-and want to become a part of it. -Right.

Do you remember-- y-you're growing up,

you're loving these tales

and you're getting more interested in it,

do you remember hearing anything,

I don't know, even locally, that might have captured

your imagination in terms of treasure or anything like that?

Well, michigan has a lot of treasure stories.

Particularly involving islands, and-and honestly,

quite a few on the mainland, too.

Absolutely.

Narrator: The state of michigan,

also known as "the great lakes state,"

is home to more than 400 lost treasure mysteries,

both on land and deep under the vast waters surrounding it.

One of the most infamous revolves around

a 17th-century french trading ship

that was the largest of its time, the griffon.

On September 18, 1679,

the griffon vanished without a trace

in the northern region of lake michigan,

along with six crewmen and a fortune in goods.

To this day, it is considered the holy grail

of michigan shipwrecks because of how elusive

it has remained to determined searchers

and treasure hunters for more than three centuries.

Another notorious legend

about missing midwest treasure began in 1874,

when $74,000 in gold coins--

worth $20 million in today's dollars--

was reportedly buried along the shores of scenic benton lake,

some 50 miles north of the city of muskegon.

Branton: A stagecoach was delivering the payload

to a lumbermen's camp up there,

and they got robbed along the way.

-Hands up! Give me that thing! -Hands up! Do it!

The robbers had taken so much in gold coins

off the stagecoach, and they buried them

in a potbelly stove in benton lake...

...And it's never been discovered to this day.

Narrator: But one of michigan's most valuable

and legendary treasure mysteries

is set deep in the wilderness on the keweenaw peninsula.

It is known simply as the wall of silver.

In 1927, jake stockard,

a geologist conducting a field study,

discovered what he claimed to be the entrance

to an abandoned mine.

Upon entering, stockard reported

that as he made his way past booby traps

and human skeletons, he found himself standing

before an enormous wall of pure silver.

Feldman: Stockard finds this mine

that has this rich wall of silver in it.

The area that this wall of silver

is supposed to be located in is in an area

that absolutely could contain a giant deposit of silver.

Narrator: For four decades,

jake stockard kept the wall of silver a secret.

That is, until he met richard kellogg,

the owner of a struggling bar in the town of kearsarge.

The two became fast friends, and jake broke his silence

to help save kellogg's ailing business.

Carter: They were selling the silver samples at the bar,

and the bar ended up becoming a roadside attraction.

So it helped generate

an adequate enough amount of traffic

for the bar to become financially viable again.

Narrator: Unfortunately, in 1973,

jake stockard passed away, taking with him

the location of the mine,

and the legendary wall of silver.

Branton: Over the years, richard tried to find the location,

and he couldn't.

And to this day, they still haven't found

the, uh, wall of silver.

Yeah, so there are treasure stories, uh, all over michigan,

and certainly stories associated with virtually every island

in lake michigan and lake huron.

Rick: You know, the seas were the freeways

of the time, so any treasure story

associated with the high seas, what's the first stop,

if you will? Islands.

Matty: It's so funny because, you know,

again, the cliché belief when you're talking about treasure

is caribbean or maybe american west--

we've talked about before--

but you don't usually think of michigan.

Think again.

-wow. -Not only is stuff buried on the islands

but buried in those lakes.

I mean, those are big lakes, matty. You've seen them.

And they took a lot of ships down.

In fact, it's amazing you went this way, matty,

because I just got off the phone a little while ago

with a guy named bob kreipke.

Uh, really interesting fellow, because he was literally

the historian for ford motor company.

That was his career.

I didn't know big companies had such people, but...

It's a treasured michigan company, ford itself.

Yeah, big-time michigan company, yeah.

And, um, he contacted me and alan kostrzewa...

-Yeah. -...Who is our partner in this,

with a story of a big treasure in lake michigan

somewhere near an island called poverty island.

-Yeah, a great name, right? -That's a great name. Poverty island.

-Money pit, poverty island. -Oh, yeah.

Marty: The story is there was a ship that came through lake michigan

that the french were trying to supply

the american confederacy, so here we go

-with confederate gold again. -Wow.

Um, it's not even a shipwreck we're looking for.

The legend is that the treasure had to be thrown overboard...

...Because they were being pursued

and they knew they were gonna get caught by the opposition.

But are we talking chests of gold, silver...?

Chests of payroll. It's a-- it's payroll.

Or capital, for the south.

-Love it. -Yeah, so,

they supposedly chained the boxes together,

threw them overboard so they could come back

and drag the bottom.

Potentially how much?

$400 million.

Matty: Oh, wow. That's unbelievable.

Marty: So, this fellow bob kreipke

is-is so enthusiastic and so credible

because-- rick, rick knows this-- we get, we get

input from erstwhile treasure hunters all the time.

-Right. -You have to kind of weed them out, you know?

But this guy was credible and interesting,

and we're gonna go have a go at it.

I love it. So whatever bob said to you

prompted you to, "let's go do this,"

and you're kind of going home, in a way.

Yeah, look, I love the upper peninsula.

Yeah, the-the garden peninsula

is where my company is building a wind farm.

So I've sort of been up there a lot, anyway.

Uh, I do know some of the people.

Uh, yeah, I mean,

you know when all the buttons all get pressed,

you know, when everything clicks?

So if you don't mind, I'm gonna take

a little leave of absence, rick, and go have some fun.

-Absolutely. -So alan has-has

arranged a-a boat, because it's a big fishing area

up there by poverty island.

And we're gonna get bob and we're gonna get,

of course, you know brian abbott.

-Oh, he scanned 10-x... -Yes.

...For you guys, and-and his images,

he believed he saw some stuff down there.

-That's right. -Absolutely.

So we're gonna go have a look.

Narrator: Located some six miles off the garden peninsula,

poverty island is a small, 200-acre land mass

in lake michigan.

Clyburn: The garden peninsula is at the top

of lake michigan.

It was a rural area,

but yet some of the earliest communities in michigan

were up in that area because of the, uh,

trading, because of the lumber.

It is remote.

Bob: Poverty island always was quite isolated.

I mean, it's isolated enough

being out on the peninsula, but in this day and age,

when you get out on the water and go to poverty island,

you're really getting out there, you know,

in no-man's-land, and there's a lot of currents.

And back in the early days, there was a lot

of shipping through that area and it's treacherous.

There's a lot of shoals and a lot of reefs.

Storms, when they came up,

everybody with their schooners

and that kind of headed to try to get in the lee

of some of these islands,

and a lot of them met their doom.

Narrator: Because the great lakes

provided indigenous people, explorers and sea merchants

with a natural waterway dating back

more than two centuries,

poverty island became a popular destination

for mineral prospectors, hunters and even pirates

to not only explore,

but also seek refuge from harsh storms

and in some cases, the law.

During the civil war, the waters around poverty island

were used by some european governments,

who are believed to have been secretly aiding

and abetting the confederate government.

Union forces had established a blockade

of the eastern seaboard to keep the south

from being supplied by these foreign sympathizers.

However, the st. Lawrence seaway

could still be accessed by ships north of the blockade

and then easily and secretly

navigate through the great lakes.

But exactly which nations or nation

was supplying gold to support the southern cause?

Bob: When something is secretive and nobody

wanted to trace it back to their country

that was supporting the confederates,

there's no records to follow in that.

Britain, France, Spain, portugal.

Any of those four countries could have been

involved in shipping this gold over to the great lakes.

Narrator: Of all the european powers who could have been aiding

the confederacy, perhaps France had the most to gain.

In 1862,

napoleon iii, France's first president

and the nephew of napoleon bonaparte,

sent troops to mexico with the intent of creating

a competing empire to curb the growth

of the united states.

Two years later, he appointed

archduke ferdinand maximilian I of austria

as emperor of the so-called second mexican empire.

Is it possible that napoleon iii

was secretly supporting the confederacy

as part of a grand scheme to shift the balance

of world power in France's favor?

If we look at the history though,

the french never officially supported the south.

Because the north said that that would be

a declaration of war against the united states.

France did not want to go

to war with the united states.

But is it possible that the french

secretly sent chests full of gold

down lake michigan into chicago

to get into the south's hands?

It's possible, and it'd have to be very secret

and nobody would have had to ever talk about it again.

If it sinks, nobody is gonna go looking for it,

because officially, it never existed.

The french did have an area, a territory that they controlled

where they could have possibly sent

a large shipment of gold from.

It's possible.

Narrator: But if the french were, in fact, secretly shipping gold

to support the south, where did the plan go wrong?

Based on his extensive research,

bob kreipke has a theory that he believes

may provide the answer.

One of these ships carrying gold

to supply the confederates was up in this area,

getting ready to go down to chicago

when, all of a sudden,

a canadian pirate ship started to chase them.

Pirates were, uh, very much a part of the great lakes.

In years gone by,

a lot of commodities were shipped on the great lakes.

Stories of vessels being sunk purposely on the lakes.

Even up in the, the poverty island area.

Brian: So you had a lot of pirates here

that would knock out lighthouses,

make ships run aground,

they would steal the contraband,

throw people in the water with everything.

So there's a lot of history of pirates during that time period.

Narrator: As the pirates were rapidly closing in

on the smugglers' ship, the desperate sailors

are believed to have dumped their gold

into the lake in order to make

a quicker escape.

According to legend,

it was just off the shores of poverty island.

Bob: They dumped the treasure in thinking

they might come back to get it.

They chained the boxes of gold together.

And threw it overboard.

But they were never able to find it again.

Rick: You know, as we talk about treasure stories,

it's not just seeking the treasure.

There's a wonderful story behind

-that episode, you know? -Yeah, absolutely.

And-and it connects real history.

The confederacy, the struggles.

Will the union survive?

You mentioned the blockade.

I mean, if you were to follow that story,

you could go down any number of rabbit holes

and find a very interesting

story connected to a real treasure hunt.

-And that's what I find fascinating about treasures. -I know you do, yeah.

I'd like to pull up those chests.

-Well, I was gonna say... -I wouldn't mind it.

And I'm not gonna say no to that.

But here's the thing, we all love the story,

we all love history, but if he gets hits...

You and I are packing our bags.

-Boom. -Yeah, that would be fun, you know,

-and you'd get to see our old stomping ground. -I love it.

Well, I can't wait to find out

what you come up with, uh, back home.

Good deal. I'll do it. I'll do it!

Rick: All right, stay safe.

Marty: I will, rick.

Narrator: One week after his meeting in the oak island war room,

-marty lagina is on the road to fairport, michigan...

-Bob: Hello? -Hello, bob!

Yeah, marty, how are you doing?

Narrator: ...Where he's arranged to meet up with bob kreipke,

and set out on lake michigan

in search of the long-lost poverty island treasure.

Marty: I really appreciate you coming on up here

to the wilds of northern michigan.

Bob: Well, I'm glad. Well, it's an interesting subject, marty.

It's got some credibility to it.

The pieces are kind of there.

Marty: That's what makes it all exciting.

Narrator: Bob kreipke has harbored

a lifelong fascination with shipwrecks and sunken treasure.

He first heard about the poverty island treasure

from a commercial fisherman when he was just a teenager

and was instantly hooked.

Over the next several years,

bob visited the island on numerous occasions,

filming the bleak, uninhabited surroundings.

I've been out to the island I-I think a total of four times.

And back then, it was so isolated that

it was kind of sinister.

In my dealings and research, I'm thinking,

looking for this poverty island treasure

starts with the few clues that we have.

There was a story that a ship came across that treasure

in the early 1930s.

Narrator: In 1932,

while passing by poverty island during a storm,

a ship reportedly snagged its anchor line

on something lying at the bottom of the lake.

As the crew began to hoist the anchor,

they saw that it was carrying with it

what looked to be a chest.

Possibly one of the five treasure chests

abandoned by french smugglers during the civil war.

But just as they were about to heave it aboard the ship,

the chest slipped free

and plunged back into the watery depths.

Bob: Word kind of spread

that they did pull up something

and maybe that was worth looking for, maybe that was gold,

maybe that was some civil war gold.

And a gentleman, wilfred behrens,

bought himself a ship,

teamed up with some other people that were interested

in this and they got some financing.

And they went up looking for what became known

as the poverty island treasure.

Narrator: Over the next three years, a team of treasure hunters

conducted a salvage operation to find the chests

and raise them from the bottom of the lake.

Their efforts were observed

by a group of children who lived on the island.

Among them was carly jessen,

whose father served as the lighthouse keeper.

Bob: I had an opportunity

to talk to carly jessen,

and he was an eyewitness to this thing.

The lighthouse keeper's kids used to watch them offshore

looking for that treasure.

Well, one night,

it was supposedly getting dark,

they pulled up the diving bell and the guys crawled out,

and they were jumping around, they were happy

they had found something.

Presumably what they were looking for.

And they were going to go out and retrieve it the next day,

but that night a big storm came up,

blew their ship ashore,

the diving bell fell in the water,

and the ship was completely destroyed.

And, uh, that was the end of that expedition.

Marty: All right, here's what I've got arranged.

Because this was intriguing

enough for me and... I am totally with you.

I've got sort of a big old iron fishing boat barge-like thing

that my partner alan kostrzewa,

-he's arranged it all. -Excellent.

Well, that's very exciting.

You know, the older you get,

the more it matters, I think, that you have

some kind of an adventure.

So we're gonna go on one today, partner.

-That's the deal. -Oh, hey, I'm looking forward to it.

Marty: All right, bob. Cheers.

Narrator: In fairport, michigan, marty lagina has just arrived

-at the local marina... -Hey, guys.

...Where he is joining his business partner

alan kostrzewa, alan's son aaron,

along with treasure hunter bob kreipke...

-You ready? -I'm ready.

...And underwater imaging expert brian abbott

to begin a search for $400 million in sunken gold.

According to local legend, five chests filled with

civil war-era gold lie approximately

six and a half miles out at the bottom of lake michigan

near a 200-acre land mass known as poverty island.

Brian, are you ready?

I'm set up pretty much on the boat, ready to operate.

So I'm ready to get moving.

We're off to poverty island, then.

-Let's just hope that's not what happens to us.

okay, we're ready. You guys are all set?

-Marty: Yeah. -Bob: Excellent.

Crewman: All right, captain, we're clear.

Narrator: Along with his crew, captain larry barbeau

will navigate the treacherous waters

south of fairport, en route to the team's destination.

It's refreshing to do this.

To see what other treasure hunters are doing,

see what other treasure stories are out there.

Some of these are gonna hit, too.

You watch. Some of these are gonna come up with treasure.

Hey, captain, what do you do mainly, you fish?

I'm a commercial fisherman here, uh, in fairport.

You guys ever talk about any of these treasure stories?

We talk about 'em.

What if we catch one with an anchor someday

and pull up a big treasure chest?

It'd be a lot better than a fish, wouldn't it?

-Yeah, we definitely talk about that all the time. -Yeah.

It'll be interesting to see what we can find.

Since we've been kids, it's been a mystery,

-so we'll see. -All right, okay, good.

-Well, stay away from the rocks. -You got it.

Marty: So I tell you guys, I knew

that michigan had a lot of various

potential treasure stories.

You can't believe how many there are.

-I mean hundreds. -You said-- you said

over 400 or something...

-I believe it was on one site. -Bob: It's true. Yeah.

You know, michigan has always been a real hot spot.

-Yeah. -People made fortunes here.

Mining,

lumbering and, of course, wherever there's big money,

there's always gonna be that faction of criminal involvement.

Brian: The gangs ran prohibition

from canada-- they're running booze and liquor.

So you've got the whole great lakes here.

It's an open waterway system,

and if it's not patrolled or taken care of,

-you've got a huge smuggling operation going on. -Yeah.

Narrator: Although most of the midwest's great treasure mysteries

revolve around gold bullion, silver and coins,

there have also been numerous caches of another sort

of so-called treasure associated with the great lakes,

what some refer to as "liquid gold."

January 17, 1920.

The 18th amendment to the constitution became law.

Production, importation,

transportation and sale of liquor

became illegal in the united states of america.

However, with prohibition, a new criminal enterprise soon began:

Bootlegging.

Practically overnight,

the midwest erupted into a hot spot

of gangland activity.

Big midwestern cities-- chicago, detroit, milwaukee--

they were center points of gang violence and bootlegging.

The great lakes offered logistical routes

for coming into the cities.

There was a lot of money in the area.

Narrator: Much of the money and liquor

that was being ferried across the great lakes

belonged to the most notorious mobsters of the 1920s.

-carter: Al capone, dillinger,

baby face nelson were all very active in the area.

Nelson: We think about those gangsters

being associated with the big cities in the east,

whereas a lot of these figures

actually had success in the midwest.

Narrator: These gangsters became fixtures in the public imagination,

and the great lakes played a major role

in their criminal enterprise.

Brian: Al capone's companies,

they would actually hire divers to go out into the great lakes.

The ships might go down in a storm,

but they might have, you know, 200 gallons of whiskey on 'em,

and that's a lot of money.

So they would hire divers to go out,

and they would salvage the wears on board and pretty much...

I had no idea of that.

-Yeah, absolutely. -You keep talking

about these bootleggers and stuff,

and I happen to have

family members who were part of that whole thing.

My grandmother... My grandmother was

-a very small-level bootlegger,

and to make ends meet, she ran a little hooch,

-you know? -Oh, sure.

Marty: So...

Hey, we're coming up to poverty right now.

marty: Look at that.

-Is that poverty? -Bob: That's poverty.

Narrator: Today, poverty island stands barren and desolate.

It has been abandoned since 1957,

when the lighthouse was fully automated,

and local restrictions now prevent anyone

from stepping foot on the island.

This will keep marty and the team offshore,

at a distance from the island's natural residents.

Bob: When I was out to the island one time with the coast guard,

poverty island was covered with snakes.

Big snakes. That round.

Unbelievable.

I saw the largest snake I ever saw in my life up here.

Variety. They were all different types.

And some of them were eating seagulls.

But there were thousands of them.

Marty: Holy smokes.

You ever see anything that looks

so quintessentially haunted in your whole life?

Looks like that lighthouse is looking right at us.

Bob: Yeah.

Larry: Where would you like me to get you set up at?

-I mean, right over here...? -Yeah. We want to go a little bit past

the lighthouse.

Narrator: On lake michigan,

some six and a half miles south of the town of fairport,

marty lagina, treasure hunter bob kreipke,

underwater imaging expert brian abbott

and their team have just arrived at poverty island

to conduct a sonar scanning operation of the deep waters.

This deserted outpost is believed to be the location

of a vast treasure lost during the civil war.

Make sure, though, we're in about 40 to 60 feet of water.

The legend was that they

had raised their anchor from a shoal,

and it fell down in that deep water.

-Okay. All right. I'll get you there. -So, see what we can.

Bob: Okay. Thank you.

You got to do your research and try to figure out,

hey, what was the weather back then,

what were the lake levels?

We already know there's terrible currents out there.

It's not a very pleasant place.

It's not a place you'd want to vacation.

It's really nice to talk to somebody

who knows what they're talking about.

That might be a clue, too.

Marty: Bob's a huge resource.

I mean, he's great.

An absolute wealth of knowledge.

Historian to the core.

You know, that's what he did his entire life,

and he's got this passion for these unsolved things.

And, um, you know, that's infectious.

Narrator: Could marty, bob and the team

be within reach of five chests of missing gold,

as reported to bob nearly 40 years ago

by former resident karly jessen?

In a matter of moments, and with the help

of brian abbott's sonar equipment,

they will find out.

Larry: We're in 60 feet of water, so if you guys

-want to start the sonar... -Bob: Let's start here.

-All right, brian, find us something. -All right.

-Marty: I've seen that gizmo before. -Brian: You have.

-marty: 10-x. -Brian: Around the island, too.

Narrator: To visualize today's target areas,

brian abbott will be using a sector-scanning sonar device

called the ms1000.

Mounted on a steel tripod,

the ms1000 will be able to stand on the lake bottom

and generate a three-dimensional map

of the surrounding environment,

along with any near surface-buried objects

not visible to the naked eye.

So, the deal is, we want to set this on bottom.

This spins all the way around as it takes the sonar,

and through the magic of zeroes and ones,

we get a pretty picture on the computer screen.

If by some miracle we found something interesting,

-we got gps coordinates? -Mm-hmm.

Okay.

We'll walk it up towards that way.

-Marty: I'll get out of the way. -All right.

Yeah, watch your feet, now. Just nice and slow.

-Yep. -Okay.

Bob: People have looked for this poverty island treasure

for years and years, but it's eluded everybody.

If it is still there, I believe

that, literally, electronics will help us.

-Everybody clear? -We combine

these new electronics with some research that we did,

and, you know, we'll see what we can find.

Brian: Okay, on bottom.

So, we're scanning the bottom now.

What I've got is 150-foot range,

so from circle to circle is 300 feet across.

The sonar is like a flashlight.

If I stick a flashlight in front of a tree,

it's gonna cast a shadow.

Aaron: So we're primarily looking for shadows from this.

-Is that more or less right? -Possibly shadows.

We'd be looking for lines,

and we're just trying to look for something

that's, you know, man-made.

The story goes that five boxes are linked together

with a chain, so I would look for a line or...

Aaron: Was that a common thing they did back then,

like chain together chests, or...?

No, that was just so they could find them themselves.

-Oh, drag an anchor or something to catch the chain? -Yeah, catch the chain.

Well, what's that like?

-Brian: It's a big rock. -Alan: A big rock right there?

Brian: Yeah. What you see on poverty island is what you get.

Out here is, it's a rock field.

Aaron: So, if they're buried under sediment or rocks or whatever,

this is no good then, it's not gonna help us out.

It might-- you know, I doubt it's buried,

just because of the currents out here

-and all the rocks. -And it's rocky, yeah.

There's no sand or anything out here?

Brian: But you see all sorts of stuff,

and this one is interesting here.

It's got a nice acoustic shadow behind it, it's kind of square.

So what we'll do is I'll use a shorter range now.

You start to see some really good definition of targets.

-That's really neat. -I can measure the height

-of how tall it is. -Based on the shadow?

Based on the shadow.

This is where the shadow begins. Six feet tall.

It's interesting in the sense of "what the hell is it?"

-yeah. -But it's too big for what we're looking for.

Yeah, it's six feet.

Narrator: Unfortunately, at least so far,

the ms1000 sonar scanning device has not yet detected

any signs of man-made structures or objects in this location.

So, here's the thing. Here's what we know.

We know there's a big mystery out here.

-Correct. -We know your equipment works,

but this is targeted equipment.

We're kind of like a needle in a haystack here.

-Right. -But this gentleman has a hunch about it all.

And so I think what we should do, bob--

I want you to do this-- I want you to pick

the exact spot, right where your hunch would be.

Now, you steer this boat right where you want it.

We'll put that thing back in, brian,

and we'll just see if-if...

-Take a shot. -Take a shot.

-Yeah. Okay. -Bob: Sounds great.

-Pick the spot, shooter. -Okay. I'll go up with larry.

Brian: Okay, watch yourself. You're gonna get real wet.

Bob: We want to go out

-in a little deeper water. -Okay.

And just a hair back here towards the north.

Okay.

Bob: Getting close. Getting real close.

Marty: We'd have to get really lucky,

in one day, to find these treasure chests

that were thrown overboard.

But you know what? Maybe.

Maybe. Maybe we hit the jackpot.

Brian: Sometimes you'd rather be lucky than good.

-No, no, always. Always.

narrator: Just off the shores of poverty island in lake michigan,

marty lagina, along with historian

and treasure hunter bob kreipke,

are leading a sonar scanning operation

in search of some $400 million in civil war gold

believed to have been dumped in the area back in 1864.

-You just tell me when, and we'll throw her in. -Good. Yeah. Yeah.

Bob: Getting close, getting real close.

Narrator: Having performed numerous scans

and receiving no promising data,

they are now about to search an area

that bob kreipke believes to be nearest

to where an eyewitness saw five chests

connected with a chain dumped into the lake.

Bob: Yeah, this should be good. This should be good.

We'll do that, okay. Okay, go ahead, throw it!

-This is the spot? -Right here.

Bob: My research suggested that they were passing poverty island.

And I believe that this is where

they would've scuttled the stuff.

And it made sense.

This is the big clue:

Those kids that lived in that lighthouse said to me,

"bob, we stood on the shore and could hear them talking."

so they've got to be

-right out in here. -Marty: Wow.

Slowly let it go.

Aaron: Slowly let it in the water.

Okay, here we go.

Brian: Okay, in the water.

Narrator: After successfully lowering

the ms1000 sonar device to the bottom of the lake,

brian abbott will now begin scanning

in a 360-degree pattern.

-That's it. -Brian: Yep. On bottom.

Narrator: If the treasure is anywhere in the vicinity,

the team could be on the verge of making a historic find.

Brian: This is a pretty barren bottom.

We're kind of out of the rocks and stuff.

What's your radius of investigation right now?

Uh, the radius is 120 feet.

And we're just trying to look for something that's a line

or a chain or boxes in a row or anything.

Like this is a really good target right here. See this?

That's interesting to me.

Marty: What is that?

Brian: I don't know. It's square.

We'll walk it in closer, we'll get better detail on it.

Alan: Oh, that's cool.

Brian: That's-- I find that unique.

Alan: So that's intriguing you, brian?

Yeah, it's got a nice acoustic shadow behind it.

It's a square.

I would definitely mark that as a target.

Nature doesn't make things that are square,

rectangular and round.

Nature has different angles

and perspectives on things.

I'm gonna drop it down in range so we get better resolution.

So we're able to go in there and look for targets on bottom

and see that it's out of characteristic

at the natural bottom.

So we're able to look at things and possibly identify them.

So that thing is three feet tall, down there.

How big are these boxes, supposedly,

-that were thrown over? -They couldn't have been too big.

-They couldn't have lifted them. -Yeah.

So we're gonna mark it on here, and then-then what?

Marty: Well, we come back here with divers.

And then if we find something really interesting,

we're gonna call the state of michigan.

At what point do you decide to send the divers down?

To me, diving is the last resort,

and I don't mean that in a bad way.

Let's get all our, uh, data, our position points,

put the divers over position,

put the scanning sonar in the water,

watch the divers go down,

then I can put them right on the target.

Martty: So I think we're intrigued enough to keep after this.

So what-what would we do next, brian?

-I mean, how would you do this? -How would I do it? I would get a side scan.

I would also think about maybe doing multibeam out here.

You know, you can get some of that better detail

with the multibeam and so forth.

But you're looking at a lot more money, a lot more time.

-Has that ever been done out here? -Uh, not to my knowledge.

-There we go. So we'll multibeam it. -So...

-There you go. Perfect. -There you go.

Marty: Well, bob, you know what?

It's an intriguing story.

We had a little, uh, poke and hope here.

-Bob: Sure. -And you're gonna mark this, right?

Brian: Absolutely.

Bob: It is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But we took a chance, and you know what?

We still know more than we knew before.

I think that this poverty island treasure,

if it is still there and nobody has gotten to it yet,

I believe we're gonna find something.

All right, well, it gets to keep its secrets for right now.

-I think we're done for this mission. -Larry: All right.

Marty: Yeah, well, what does my brother always say?

"eyes and boots on the ground," right? I mean...

Until you get a sense of it, like we did today,

you don't know what you're up against, you don't know

whether it's worth adding resources.

I mean, is there a chance there's a treasure out there

big enough to be worth the effort?

Sure sounds like it.

Marty: Hey, rick, I'm back.

Rick: Welcome back.

-What are you working on? -Oh, you know,

the frustrating part of oak island.

-All this data... -Oh, which one?

-things just don't line up,

from map to document to-to res--

-I mean, it's just inconsistent. -Yeah.

Well, speaking of reports, I've got mine.

And I'd love to hear it.

I got some good news and some bad news.

What would you like first?

-Hmm. Bad news first. -Eh, it's not that bad.

The bad news is we didn't get lucky.

We didn't put the sonar right down

on the, on the chests chained together.

-Yeah, but that would have been... -I know, I know.

That would have been beyond the pale, yeah.

But-but to some extent,

we kind of got the cart before the horse a little bit.

What we did is we used the technique you would use

after you've done broad side-scan sonar.

We did the zero in and look.

We'd probably been better off, in 20/20 hindsight,

to side-scan sonar the whole thing,

pick the ten or 15 good targets, then drop that sonar

right down on them.

If-if we go maybe a little bit earlier in the season,

you know, you could probably dive it, for one thing.

-How deep is it? -It's, like, 60 feet.

-Or he thinks it is. -But nothing on the scanner?

Oh, all kinds of problems. It's rocky as could be.

-Oh. -But the good news is, it was a great adventure.

Uh, this bob kreipke guy reminded me of the enthusiasm,

you know, I mean he's just...

-He's all in. -Yeah, he's all in.

And poverty island is scary-looking.

There's an old abandoned lighthouse falling all apart,

and the island itself

is sitting on blocks of limestone

that aren't really connected.

I mean, it is creepy.

Creepy in a real kind of spine-tingly sense.

It's also full of snakes.

-Oh. Ooh. Ooh.

the thing about going to actually look, which you know,

going to actually look at a site,

you know, you can picture it, right?

-Oh, yeah. -You can see the ship coming.

The guys are terrified

because they're being pursued by the enemy.

They know they're gonna get captured,

they're in a slower boat,

so they do what desperate people do.

There's five boxes of treasure,

supposedly containing gold and silver, as always,

-which would be the currency of the day. -Sure.

-Multimillions, for sure. -Oh, really?

Perhaps-perhaps hundreds of millions. Big numbers.

Oh, well, so the question then is,

because it's such a strange island,

do you think they set sail for that

or-or went towards that, because then they would know

where to look for the treasure, or once that was...

Yeah, uh, that-that could very well be,

that-that when they were being pursued...

In-in those days, pursuits weren't, you know,

they didn't take five minutes, they might have taken all day.

-Sure. -And that's a treacherous area.

There's a series of islands.

So they might have been trying to get in there

and get out of sight.

They would have headed for somewhere-- "let's get

to somewhere where we might be able to find this. Okay."

they chained these chests together,

they threw them overboard so they'd come back

-and drag the bottom and-and pick them back up. -Sure.

And here's the thing: Maybe they did.

Although, probably not.

I think they're still there.

He does-- obviously, he thinks so, too.

: Oh, yeah. Yeah, he does.

It's this very spirit, the very essence

of treasure hunting, right?

-You don't give up. -No.

You-- it's still there, you just haven't found it.

-Well. -You come next time.

-I-I will. -We'll find it. We'll find those boxes.

well, speaking of that, don't you think we better

-go find those boxes... -Yeah, I think that we've got

some boxes of our own to find here.

So anyway, let's go.

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