Original subtitles

Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...

I found a description of the finger drains in Smith's Cove.

These drains were made by placing

two stones on their edges.

This is new information for us.

Look between those two rocks.

There's an opening there.

It was a triangular shape.

That could be a box drain.

- It's just over here, guys. - We've never seen

another stone like this on the island.

Almost like Roman numerals.

It's mysterious, and it was found near the Money Pit.

Whoa! Looks like we have something there, Rick.

That's some kind of a structure.

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.

Just gonna take some photos from this side.

What do you guys got?

Well, we got the base, more or less.

What does that mean?

Basically, they crudely

tapered the boards,

drove them into the sea horizon

till they kind of curled up and stopped.

For brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,

their massive excavation at Smith's Cove

has started to pay off, and in surprising ways.

How deep are they?

So that's its farthest point of penetration,

right where you can see, right there.

The thing still looks real sturdy, though.

Here, yeah. They-they drove these ones fairly...

most of them fairly well.

Whoa!

One day ago, just after the team

unearthed the mysterious, U-shaped structure,

which was first discovered

by veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship in 1971,

they made an unexpected and exciting discovery.

Quite a significant wall.

That's well-built.

Oh, yeah, it's pretty impressive.

This is totally undiscovered.

Look at that.

It looks like stacked rocks.

They also unearthed further evidence

of what appears to be a French drain...

An ancient system using various sizes of rocks

to divert water from one location to another.

A couple years ago, we found

what we described as a "French drain system."

We're continuing to make assessments of what

we're uncovering, but the hope is to come

to a complete understanding of what this represents.

Somebody dug on the shoreward side of this structure.

And this, also they... It looks like

the base of it and along the sides of it, to a certain level,

they tried to pack it with clay.

You think they packed clay on this side...

The side you're standing on?

You can see it. That's all the same.

We were pulling much larger clumps

and chunks out of this side,

so, but, I believe that was the initial effort,

and perhaps that was what they packed

the initial slot that they keyed these into.

I don't know. I think there's two phases of work here.

Smith's Cove

has been... frustrating,

even by Oak Island standards.

These walls don't appear to be consistent in material.

They don't appear to be consistent in construction.

They don't give away, at least in an obvious sense,

what on earth their purpose was.

But... we're still digging in Smith's Cove,

so the answers may still be down there.

Whoever dug the trench in... uh, on this shoreward side of

the wall here, uh, they...

they would have piled some boulders there.

Start with the cross section of what we, you know,

we think, or they must have thought,

that something was probably going that way. Let's see

- if they continue up that way. - Okay.

Okay. We got our work cut out for us.

As Rick, Marty and the team continue their work

at Smith's Cove,

Alex Lagina, along with researchers

Doug Crowell and Paul Troutman, travel some ten miles northeast

- to the town of Chester. - Okay, guys.

- Off to Chester, right? - Yup. The Lordly House.

-Oh, yeah. -It's part of the, uh, Chester Historical Society's,

- uh, museum network. - Mm-hmm.

My understanding is it's quite a large collection of documents.

Oh, I think there's several thousand documents there.

After learning

that the Chester Municipal Heritage Society

may have extensive Oak Island searcher records

from the past 200 years...

See what we can find.

...Doug, Paul and Alex are hoping

to find any that could contain important clues

that will help with the team's operations at Smith's Cove.

The excitement level's building, because we're gonna be able

to see quite a collection of materials and documents.

We want to help find that one thing.

Hopefully, the research will do that.

All right, we have some information.

Just some light reading. Early history, right up

- to Triton documents. - Great.

Yeah, we have some interesting photographs in here, as well.

-Great. -Hopefully, there's something that pertains

-to the project at Smith's Cove and the Money Pit. -Mm-hmm.

- Let's get through it. - All right.

Compared to some other trips that we've made,

uh, there's a lot more manageable

amount of information at the Lordly House,

but it's still a lot to go through.

It's gonna take Doug, Paul and me a long time

to get through all this stuff.

Yeah. It's interesting right here, Alex.

Um, Gilbert Hedden wrote a letter to R.V. Harris

in 1936 here.

He's talking about finding a wood-shaped structure

with the ends of two timbers

protruding from the rocks on Smith's Cove.

And he actually includes a diagram right here, too,

of it, and it looks very similar with the Roman numerals.

A diagram from the 1936 records of Gilbert Hedden,

showing a wood structure featuring Roman numerals?

Could it be the same U-shaped structure

that the team unearthed just last week,

and that Dan Blankenship discovered in 1971?

So, this is believed by Hedden

to be made by the original workers,

so this could still be in there, so that's worth

looking into; that's a good find.

I found a newspaper article

that had a description of the finger drains in Smith's Cove.

The finger drains?

In 1850,

while looking for the source of the ocean water

that was flooding the Money Pit,

members of the Truro Company discovered

five finger-like box drains

some 500 feet east at Smith's Cove.

Constructed of flat stones, which were supported

by smaller rocks to form an opening,

these drains appeared to converge at the beach

into a single tunnel, heading due west

toward the legendary treasure shaft.

Listen to this. This-this is by far

the most, uh, detailed description I've heard.

And this comes from an article

written in The Yarmouth Herald in February of 1863.

- Mm-hmm. - So, I think this

would stand as the most early account of the finger drains.

So, it says,

"Five small drains were discovered

on the shore, due east of the Money Pit."

"These drains were each 66 feet long."

- Drains were 66 feet. - Each drain was 66 feet long.

"The outer ends of the two outside drains

"were exactly 66 feet apart... thus forming

an equilateral triangle."

Those are measurements that seem like they could fit

- within the U-shaped structure. - Mm-hmm.

So if that was indeed some kind of cofferdam,

that leaves us with two exciting possibilities.

One, that it was searcher built to explore the drains,

or that it was original works to create the drains.

Right. Either way, we should be close to the drains.

- Yeah. - And confirming

that part of the legend, anyway.

"These drains were all built upon beach stones,

and were made by placing two flat stones on their edges."

- Like this. Mm-hmm. - Closed at the top, yeah, yeah.

So, I'm picturing a triangular structure.

And then it goes on to say that

"wherever there was a joint in the stones,

"one was laid across, protecting the joint,

"and the hole was covered over with a foreign grass

like the inside of a coconut husk."

The article

describing the finger drains that were found in the 1860s...

This seems like the kind of thing

that we would've found before, so I was quite surprised.

This is new information for us.

It's a good description of-of something

that was found, and something we should be able to find,

and, uh, you know, solid numbers

and measurements that we can confirm with, don't you think?

I think so. And you know what? I think we got

to get this information back to the guys.

I agree.

Let's go.

Following their exciting discoveries

at the archives of the Chester Municipal Heritage Society...

- Hey, guys. Hey, guys. Gentlemen.

...Alex Lagina, Doug Crowell

and Paul Troutman have arranged

to meet Marty, Rick and other members

of the Oak Island team

at the Mug & Anchor Pub in the nearby town of Mahone Bay.

What have you gentlemen been up to?

A little bit of a road trip today.

We were over to Lordly House in Chester.

They have, uh, archives over there,

and, uh, we made, uh, kind of an exciting discovery.

We just were looking for anything

that might help in Smith's Cove,

and, uh, we did find an article, I think, from 1863...

-Yup. -...discussing the excavations there

and their discovery of the finger drains.

What was really interesting is,

there was a description.

It said that they uncovered five finger drains,

they were each 66 feet long,

and the two outer drains were 66 feet apart.

They all converged back up the beach

to within four feet of each other,

and then, there was a collection system there

that they found what they said was a flood tunnel.

Has anyone measured the U-shaped structure yet?

I measured it with Laird.

It is 20 meters across the leading edge.

- That's 65 and a half. - Yeah.

The U-shaped structure

measuring nearly the same width

as the legendary stone box drains?

Could the U-shaped structure have been built by searchers

as a means of disrupting the island's infamous network

of flood tunnels?

Or could it be much older?

Perhaps built by the original depositors

during their construction of the flood tunnel system?

But it was even more detailed, because it said that each drain

was big enough for a man to fit his arm in,

and that the drains were made of two flat stones,

they sit on edge, closed at the top and open at the bottom.

So I visualize that as a triangular shape.

We could be just about to hit

some of these box drains if they still exist.

I think you got to keep your eye out

for an abundance of flat-sided rocks, flat on both sides.

If they're just here, there and everywhere,

maybe they tore the drains apart.

All right, well, what's clear is,

we need to do more work there.

Exactly. - Look, I come back

to the same place I always land.

If there is really nothing and there never was anything here,

then how crazy is what happened on this island?

It's almost the most crazy story of all.

And in this day and age, we still don't know

what the U-shaped structure is.

- We're gonna, though. - Let's get back to work.

Let's get back to work and uncover... and find something.

Let's go.

The following morning,

Craig Tester arrives at the Money Pit site,

where he has arranged a meeting with Tory Martin,

an expert in the field of gyroscopic technology.

- Hey, Tory. - Hey, Craig.

Tory has been invited

to examine the boreholes drilled

during the team's recent coring operations

in an effort to determine just how plumb or straight

they actually are.

This will help the team know for sure

whether they are hitting their intended targets

or just missing them.

The key, we're looking for a tunnel

- at the 100 to 110 foot, - Okay.

Maybe even a little less, but right around 100 foot.

The whole idea is, back in the 1860s,

they had this shaft,

and it had a tunnel going over to the Money Pit,

and then there was a massive collapse

- in the Money Pit. - Yeah.

In 1861,

a team of treasure hunters began digging

a large shaft some 18 feet west of the original Money Pit

in an attempt to bypass the booby traps

that had foiled previous search efforts.

It didn't work.

Just one foot shy of their target,

the shaft... Known simply as Shaft Six...

Began flooding with seawater and eventually caved in.

Soon after, several loud crashes were heard,

leading workers to speculate

that the Money Pit had collapsed

and that any possible treasure it once contained

now lay scattered among tons of timber and debris.

Uh-oh, that's wood.

Five weeks ago,

while drilling an exploratory borehole

at a depth of 109 feet,

Rick, Craig and members of the team

found what they believe could be evidence

of Shaft Six.

If it is Shaft Six, it's been long sought.

If the team can pinpoint

the elusive shaft's exact location,

they should be able to use a 60-inch-wide drilling caisson

to excavate what they believe is the Money Pit debris field

and any treasure that may have been buried there.

So, the whole idea is, you know,

at 100-foot level, is part of the treasure, uh,

left in place in this tunnel? And then, uh,

depending on, you know, the ones that hit the tunnel,

how close they are, we'll probably put

one of the big caissons down there

to try to intercept this tunnel.

- Sounds good. - Okay.

Because drilling at great depths

can often result in drill bits straying several degrees

from their intended targets,

Tory will use a device known as a down-hole gyroscope

in order to gauge how plumb or straight

the borehole is from the surface.

As it descends, a specialized microchip sensor inside

will measure how far and in what direction

each hole may have deviated

from its starting position on the surface.

When they're putting these shafts down,

they do deviate quite a bit.

Wells deviate like crazy, and the smaller the pipe is,

like they used many years ago, the more it'll deviate.

So it's confusing, and we need to just take all the data

and determine, you know, what is the best possibility

for Shaft Six.

I've got the results here, if you want to take a look.

- Okay. - So, it went 8.7 feet east.

- Wow. - And four feet north.

What... and what do you have at 100-foot depth?

Uh, yeah, so at 100 feet, it looks like it walked

about 5.3 feet east

and two and a half feet north.

So quite a fair amount more than what we've seen

- in the previous holes. - Yeah.

But at least we'll know,

you know, the direction it was going,

how far off it was at that point in time.

So that's what you're here for,

is to find out where these are at.

-And we'll make our decision based on that. -Sounds good.

- I'll move to the second one. - Okay.

- Thanks, Craig. - Talk to you later.

As Tory Martin continues to survey

the team's boreholes at the Money Pit site...

Oh, wow, the excavation's

- really coming along. - Yeah.

...Doug Crowell and Charles Barkhouse

head to Smith's Cove

to drain the newly excavated area

surrounding the U-shaped structure,

which has filled in overnight.

You got to wonder what that's for, Charles.

To me, since there's no other structure around it,

I think this was an attempt to try to block off the drains.

Well, if this is the cofferdam

to close in those five finger drains,

- that's almost dead center. - I know.

I'm gonna have to get that pump lower once it

- goes down a little bit. - Well, I got boots on here.

I can get in.

Charles, you see that?

Look between those two rocks.

There's an opening there.

There is some water coming out of there.

Well, that's what that 1863

Yarmouth Herald article said.

It said it was two flat rocks laid together like that.

Like, almost like a triangle.

That's curious.

That is curious.

A triangle-shaped opening?

The same shape used to describe

the stone box drains in 1863?

That looks like the apex of an opening right there to me.

It-it does.

We get this down a little bit more, maybe we can get in here

- and take a look at that. - Why don't we give Rick a call

and have him come down and have a look at this.

I think he'd be quite curious about this. I agree.

Look at that... look at that water, you see?

It's a steady trickle of water coming out.

Hello? - Hey, Rick. It's Doug.

I've got Charles here with me.

We're down in Smith's Cove.

We've got a couple of curious stones here

that have an opening in them... We thought maybe you

- should take a look at it. - Okay. Yeah, I'll be down.

The call from Doug was... was quite exciting,

because everyone has thought that the box drains

well and truly existed.

And for Doug to be excited to see that feature,

obviously necessary to go down and investigate.

Hey, Rick.

- Hey. - Hey.

Over in this wall here, there's two stones.

- Right there. See the opening? - Yeah.

Two flat rocks laid together like a triangle.

Hard to imagine Mother Nature laid those stones like that.

Have you seen water

- come out of there? - Yeah, there's been

a steady trickle of water down through that whole area.

You can see it, see it right here over on this side,

coming right down the other side of that rock.

To me, it looks like...

- it's a box drain. - Yeah.

- It's hard not to get excited. - Absolutely.

That could be a box drain.

While investigating near the U-shaped structure

at Smith's Cove...

Real curious as to whether that extends deeper

and widens as it goes.

...Rick Lagina, Charles Barkhouse

and Doug Crowell have just made what could be

a historic discovery:

evidence of a possible stone box drain,

one of five believed to feed ocean water

deep into the Money Pit

as part of an elaborate booby trap system.

Definitely see a layer.

Yep. - Then another layer.

You haven't probed it or anything, or...?

No.

If that's a flood drain,

what we might find is signs that the rocks were worked

- to make them fit. - Yeah.

I think what we need to do, then, is...

maybe slowly, gently wash that, at least preliminarily.

All right.

If this is a feature that was once constructed

to allow water to pass

from Smith's Cove to the depths in the Money Pit,

it'd be more than huge,

it'd be the "aha" moment.

Gentlemen.

Hello. How you doing?

- Morning. - Good morning. Hey, Rick.

Between those two rocks there, guys,

you see there's an opening like an apex of a triangle.

That description of the old finger drains

- from 1863. - Yes.

I thought maybe if we just wash it a little bit

- to try to get the orientation. - Certainly. Yep.

Just curious to how far in that opening may go.

Yeah.

Of course, the question:

placed by people or... nature?

Hey, what's this?

Doug, is this coconut fiber?

I just pulled it out of right here.

There's a whole bunch of it right in here.

Like, a level of it.

Coconut fiber?

When the box drains were first discovered in 1850,

treasure hunters from the Truro Company

reported finding the stone structure

covered by layers of coconut fiber,

which served as a filter to prevent debris and sediment

from clogging the flood tunnels.

Because coconut fiber was also found

in the various layers of the original Money Pit,

and considering that the nearest coconut tree

is more than 1,500 miles from Nova Scotia,

researchers have speculated that it was originally brought

to Oak Island as packing material in the cargo

of the numerous ships that made their way into Mahone Bay.

The story of the box drains,

the story of the flood system in Smith's Cove,

all of it revolves around this central issue,

i.e. coconut fiber,

massive amounts of coconut fiber found in Smith's Cove.

To find that in close proximity to the wall

may indicate original work.

That 1863 account,

it said that the rocks

that form the drain were packed in coconut fiber.

So, if you're finding coconut fiber

at that level, that's really curious, too.

It is curious.

- Lots of water. - Yeah.

- Definitely coming out. - Look at the water

- coming out of that. - Yeah.

Does that alignment look natural to you, Laird?

No. It actually does look strange. Yeah.

And this certainly is not a glacial rock.

You could ask Terry,

- but, uh... - In your opinion,

all the work you've done, all the digging you've done

in the general locale,

does this look normal to you?

It's a substantial conglomeration of boulders

with very little matrix between them.

If somebody was trying to build a drain, this is...

This is the type of construction you might see.

But, uh, you know,

the-the proof will be, you know, as we move back.

As we follow it back, it'll turn into something...

Uh, you know, we should see a pattern then,

uh, that type of a thing, going upward.

Right.

It seems to be going this way.

Let's follow it.

Not only do you have this...

description in the newspaper,

which we now see in front of us,

but we have this gate,

which aligns with the U-shaped structure,

which aligns with this construct,

this stone formation.

That can't be a coincidence.

We have to proceed very cautiously,

very slowly, very disciplined,

because the last thing we need to do

is to be highly disruptive

in an area that we now find so compelling and intriguing.

You got to figure they're moving

in the general direction of the Money Pit,

if they're what we think they are.

If they're what we think they are.

Why don't we just...

turn this little mini around.

One or two of us start shoveling

the majority of that material away.

You know, I think you're right, Rick. Let's...

- track it where-where we know it is. Okay, Billy,

-you want to hop in, scrape that off, -Yeah.

And-and Laird can follow behind us.

Later that day

and as the team continues to excavate

the possible box drain at Smith's Cove...

There's just a stone by itself,

and it looks like there's some old etching on it.

- Down here? - Yeah.

...Rick Lagina, Craig Tester,

and Dan Henskee join gyroscope operator Tory Martin.

He has just informed them of an unusual discovery

he made while assembling his equipment

near the woods surrounding the Money Pit.

- Okay, let's-let's see this guy. - It's just over here, guys.

I wonder how long that's been there.

This is what caught my eyes, really.

This flat edge here.

It seemed like this almost looked like it was...

Cut.

That just doesn't seem natural to me, anyway.

No.

I don't know if it's anything of interest, but...

just the way the light was shining on it, I was like,

- "That doesn't look normal." - Hmm.

-Figured it'd be worth mentioning, anyway. -Absolutely.

-And we thank you. That's for sure. -Appreciate that, yeah.

You know, when Tory Martin called

and he mentioned that there was a strange stone,

uh, close proximity to the Money Pit,

well, that's an "aha" moment, right?

We had walked by that stone many times,

and yet it took Tory,

the fellow from Reflex,

who is doing the inclinometer work in the Money Pit,

to notice it and to bring it to our attention.

It brings back what Dan Blankenship told us long ago:

keep your eyes open on Oak Island.

It's hard to tell right now, but if you put water on it

and even you run your hands along it, but...

splash some water on it.

Definitely not natural.

Splash some water on it.

While examining a mysterious stone

found near the Money Pit site,

Rick Lagina, Craig Tester and Dan Henskee,

along with gyroscope operator Tory Martin,

have just discovered what appear to be man-made carvings.

It just doesn't seem natural to me, anyway.

- No. - Definitely not natural.

Look at that, Craig.

There's these. These raised ridges.

Mm-hmm. - And then, inside

the raised ridges, are these carvings.

- See? - Oh, yeah.

There's a carving, a raised ridge,

carving, raised ridge.

And then there's definitely a straight line, as though it's...

- See that line? - Oh, yeah.

It's not actual letters, is it?

It's not in a writing

that we would recognize, but...

almost like Roman numerals.

Roman numerals?

The same kind of characters that are carved

on the mysterious U-shaped structure at Smith's Cove?

Could this strange stone

found near the Money Pit and the U-shaped structure

be connected?

When I first saw

the characters on the stone,

uh, below the Money Pit,

I thought they were Roman numerals.

They're very linear carved features.

Uh, very straight lines, if you will.

There's not much curvature to the...

To the orientation of the characters.

You know, that's interesting but not definitive.

Did you flip it over?

We just... we just kind of leaned it like this.

No, there's nothing there.

But this is pretty clean-cut here,

as though this went further.

Maybe this is a square here,

you know?

Maybe it went like that.

Interesting.

Yeah, definitely.

- Somebody might be able to know - Yeah.

- What that is. - Yeah.

Hopefully, something comes of it.

I hope so, too.

- It'd be very interesting. - Yeah.

- Right. - I mean, thanks for being

- so observant. - Yeah.

Certainly worth a look.

After a day of exciting new discoveries

both at the Money Pit and at Smith's Cove,

Rick Lagina has asked his brother Marty,

along with geologist Terry Matheson,

to join him at the Oak Island Research Center,

where he has set up a meeting

with island historian Paul Troutman.

- Hi, Paul. - How you doing?

Good. What you got here?

Who's on your operating table here?

The new stone that was found near the Money Pit. I know nothing

about this. Somebody explain this to me.

Tory told me about it, but I haven't seen it yet.

- So that's... - Tory brought me down there

and, uh...

you know, it was sitting by the old well.

And just in plain sight.

And...

you know, first thing you notice is

- flat... this flat feature - Mm-hmm.

And then these ridged areas.

Looks like a-a metamorphosed graywacke.

And what is a graywacke? What's the...

- What's the composition? - It's, uh,

basically the second most common boulder

we found on the island.

Most of them are rounded, uh, granites.

For Nova Scotia, there's all kinds of it.

But, you know, upon further inspection,

we put some water on there.

And you'll see it looks like carvings?

- Come down here and look. - Yeah.

You see them?

I just thought they were two Hs.

There was an "H" there and an "H" there, I thought.

Now they're gone.

Well, uh, right here,

here, here, here,

here, here,

- here. - Anything close

to the Money Pit that is unexplained

needs to be investigated.

And this is an unexplained rock

with strange inscriptions on it,

strange characters, found close to the Money Pit.

Now, then if those characters say something,

it could be a breakthrough.

Well, here's my question, Terry.

Do you think this could be natural?

Natural?

I mean, this one, in particular,

looks like it's cut.

And then that looks like, I would have thought, maybe

chiseled, as... seems like

it might be a decorative piece

at the base of a... Of a building block.

It almost looks like it's underlined from this side.

And that is s-such an appearance of being patterned

or just randomly, not... Semi-randomly struck,

as in semi-decorative or decorative stone.

Got some kind of a-a relatively flat-ish surface here,

which really gives me the impression that it was worked.

Well, I don't know what it means.

But it's, uh, odd.

Nice find.

Yeah, we should probably do a laser scanning of this, too.

There's a 3-D mesh technology we can apply for this

- and, uh, bring up, - Without question.

Possibly, through, um, raising up the letters,

-to be able to make out any details. -Yeah.

The exact same we did on the stone

from the bookstore, right?

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. - Yeah.

But bottom line,

not natural. Man-made, right?

Y-Yes, I would... I would say,

on balance of evidence, it seems to be...

touched by man.

Okay. Here's the thing. - Yeah.

It's odd,

it's interesting,

it's mysterious, and it was found near the Money Pit,

which means we got to chase it.

Which means, you know, let's find a expert in...

Languages. Yeah. - ...languages. Carved languages

- or whatever. - Ancient script.

Ancient script.

Things what are normally carved on stone.

See what it might mean.

-Alright, great, guys. Very cool. -Okay.

Very cool. Let's keep finding stuff.

Let's, uh... let's get back out there and get to work.

As Rick Lagina and members of the team continue

to uncover what they believe could be

a potentially ancient box drain at Smith's Cove...

This was found near the well.

...Oak Island historians Doug Crowell

and Paul Troutman gather at the research center.

That one's really worn away.

That's where I hope the-the guys from Azimuth can

apply their lidar.

I know Rick's really intrigued

- by this stone... Hey, guys, come on in.

- Hi. How you doing? How are you? -Hey, Rob.

- Good to see you. - They are meeting once again

with Rob Hyslop and Ryan Levangie

of Azimuth Consulting Ltd.

To have them examine the mysterious carved stone

the team located near the Money Pit.

Just two weeks ago,

Rob and Ryan conducted a comprehensive laser scan

of an artifact the team believes

could be the legendary 90 Foot Stone.

We collected 40.5 million points.

There we have it. There's our stone in 3-D.

That's amazing.

Using the data collected,

Rob and Ryan were able to enhance the images taken

of the stone's surface, revealing details

not previously visible to the naked eye.

We've got another stone for you to look at.

Very good. What do we have here?

There seems to be a pattern

running right across here.

But we can't make out what it might be.

It's all, uh, vertical striations into the rock.

We're hoping your technology might help us

- figure out what that is. - Absolutely.

We'll, uh, we'll make this our focus area then.

- That's our primary, yep. - Okay, cool.

Let's, uh, get set up with you guys here.

Very good, we'll go out and get our gear.

Okay, awesome.

Using a Trimble CX scanner, Rob and Ryan

will now survey the stone for any hidden clues or markings.

By emitting a series of rapid laser pulses,

and measuring the light

as it reflects off the object's surface,

the device will be able to simultaneously record

66,000 points of data per second.

These scans will then be used to generate

a three-dimensional computer model,

allowing any fine details captured in the image

to be digitally enhanced.

Now, it'll be easy to define these with the scanner,

and, uh, we should be able to look at it from a perspective

that, hopefully, we can extract any kind of geometry from this,

see if they're letters or inscriptions or what they are.

So, for this, I'd like to put a little bit of powder

on the surface, just of our area of interest,

just to brighten it up.

We'll try to put it across the entire face

just to make sure we can gather as much data as possible.

By all means.

So the guys from Azimuth, they suggested that perhaps

we use talcum powder on the surface of the stone.

By lightly coating the surface of the stone

with the talcum powder, it increases the reflectivity,

and it gives a better image to the laser.

So I think that's good for coverage.

Um, start the scan.

There you go, Paul.

It's going across the stone now.

Oh, look at that.

Okay, so we're all finished.

- Eager to see this, Doug. - Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I'm very excited. I mean, there's a lot

of technology being brought to bear this year.

And I hope it gives us data

that we're going to be able

to data mine, if you will, and apply to the hunt.

Now we're gonna zoom in here, and try to isolate the stone.

So there's our stone.

So what we're looking at right here

is just kind of a preview of the points,

and, uh, as it gets rendered later,

you'll have more, uh, detail?

Yes, but it looks here that we've got great coverage

- on the top of the stone. - Oh, yeah,

- there's markings right there. - We can certainly see

-undulations all throughout the face. -Oh, yeah.

Once we get this base data, we can manipulate it in many ways.

We'd like to extract this specific area,

and see if we can vertically exaggerate it,

get more detail out of it.

Yeah, that'd be perfect; that's, uh, exactly what we need.

Now that Rob and Ryan

have taken scans of the mysterious stone,

they will need to process the data

before they can make any kind of determination

of what the characters carved on it may be.

Thank you very much, guys. We hope to see you soon.

- Thank you, Rob. Ryan. - Thanks again, Paul. Doug.

See you soon.

As the team awaits the results of the laser scan taken

of the mysterious carved stone...

That triangle rock shape was a tremendous find.

...Rick Lagina and Craig Tester check on

the progress of their massive excavation at Smith's Cove.

You'll probably be interested since you haven't been here,

you'll probably want to put eyes on the drains.

-We're peeling off a foot at a time, -Mm-hmm.

Working our way northwest.

After discovering what they believe

to be the remains of one of five stone box drains,

the Oak Island team is eager to continue their search,

in hopes of finding a direct pathway

between Smith's Cove and the original Money Pit.

So you can see,

here's where the points are.

Uh, so here's the, uh,

convergence of the drains according to the Restalls.

- Okay. - And if you see...

it's lying like this.

The wall, the gap.

- Oh, the triangle? Yeah. - The triangle.

And this, yeah.

That is odd.

I can't figure what that wall's for.

So, anyway, the idea is to keep excavating,

it'll slowly pull this way.

There's a lot of material to go yet, but we'll dig down

- for sure and see if we find it. - Yep.

Just when we dig, we got to be a little careful.

- That's all. - Okay.

The cover over the rocks and boulders

seems to be fairly regular sand

and then when you hit the black sand, I'm thinking maybe

that seems to be... Oh, whoa.

Yeah, that could be something.

Maybe hit an organic layer.

I don't know.

It's definitely different though, that's for sure.

Looks like we have something there, Rick.

Yeah, okay. That's some kind of a structure.

Completely boulder-ridden.

It'd be interesting to see if it continues.

Well, it's to here.

- To here, for sure. - Yep.

That seems right up against some wood.

Have Rick and the team

just found another man-made structure

buried beneath Smith's Cove?

If so, who built it?

And for what purpose?

But I've definitely hit wood here.

So I think if you just start there.

- Start... - Pull this?

Yep.

You got it.

You got a couple boards going this way.

Well, they're like this, but...

You got three boards, but here's, here's the biggest one.

It's a wedged bottom.

It is?

- See it? - Oh, yeah.

And then right behind it is just solid rocks.

Yeah.

Is that just a one-off or do the boards go that way?

This is the last one I see, right here.

Interesting to get a piece of wood, hopefully,

to tie the whole thing together.

In the same phase of work, perhaps.

Thing is, is that, you know,

they're all roughly the same size stone.

- Is that... normal? - Mm. Uh...

I mean, look at, look at this pile, right?

- I mean, they're all... - No, I know.

-...that size. -Yeah, it's a little tantalizing.

-They're all about... easily manhandled. -Yeah.

Men and Mother Nature can do

some similar things, but not everything.

Whoever did this went to a lot of work.

I'm wondering, as we expose it,

was it an aborted attempt?

Was it just too much work

for the result that they were attaining?

This is going to be a very interesting enterprise

trying to figure out what the structure represents.

Do you want to go deeper just in that one spot?

I'd like to see... I'd like to see if we hit

that modern sea horizon.

Because then you know

that there's nothing going on beneath it.

When you hit that, and it's undisturbed,

then you know nothing's happened beneath it.

For Rick, Marty and their team,

recent discoveries near the Money Pit site

and at Smith's Cove,

may soon provide significant clues.

But will they lead to an incredible treasure?

Or are they merely decoys,

intended to confound those who come searching for it?

One thing is certain.

Marty and Rick Lagina are not giving up

until the last piece of the puzzle is found

and fitted into place.

For them and their partners,

the answer to the Oak Island mystery still lies hidden,

not only in the objects they've discovered,

but in those that still lie buried

waiting to be found.

Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

Lookie here, David. The oscillator. Yep.

- So, boys, we're here. - Make some hole.

There's some peculiar markings.

- It's a runic language. - This is the Vikings.

We're finding structure after structure

- in Smith's Cove. - That's the end of it,

- right there! - There's another wall here.

Ooh! Check this out.

This could be a friend of the cross.

Has that got... It's got a design on it.

Okay, are we ready?

The real treasure hunt actually begins, again. Now.

- The hunt is on. - Here we go!