Original subtitles

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

Look what we've got here.

This could be a piece of the treasure.

Yes!

TERRY: Oh, Charles, we have wood.

This is incredible.

We could be within feet of our offset chamber.

Doesn't that look like

-a vault to you? -LAIRD: I would expect

a lot of stuff down there.

It's giving off metallic signals.

Oh. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.

Here's something.

-Wow. -What the heck is going on!?

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,

man-made workings that date to medieval times,

and a lead cross whose origin may be connected

to the Knights Templar.

To date, six men have died

trying to solve the mystery.

And according to legend, one more will have to die

before the treasure can be found.

♪ ♪

BILLY: You want to take that corner out?

IAN: Sure.

NARRATOR: A week of great excitement

has begun on Oak Island

for brothers Rick and Marty Lagina,

their partner Craig Tester and their team.

(laughs) Now that looks like a stone road.

Why don't you do one more right along here, but a little deeper?

Okay.

NARRATOR: And that is because

in the northern region of the triangle-shaped swamp,

they have uncovered a new pair of man-made features

that may be critical to solving a 230-year-old treasure mystery.

One is a stone pathway.

The other is some kind of small cellar or vault.

We're seeing absolutely the same rock size.

-Yeah. -IAN: No gravel.

Um, if this was natural,

you wouldn't have such a tight

-distribution of size. -ALEX: Mm-hmm.

CRAIG: Gary, you want to come metal-detect?

Yeah.

Coming over.

Let's see if there's any metals in here.

Oh. Is this pottery?

-CRAIG: Really? -Or not.

-Yeah, it's pottery. Yeah. -CRAIG: All right.

ALEX: Wow. That was impressive.

GARY: That's definitely pottery.

Any ideas? Well, we got a pottery expert here, Laird.

-Did I hear pottery? -Yep. -IAN: Yep.

I predict that you'll have a-an assessment of that,

just on the basis of the pottery that I've seen so far.

I mean, it's a refined earthenware.

1860, 70. Yeah.

Interesting, though.

So, this is, like, easily Anthony Graves, right?

-Right. -ALEX: Mm-hmm.

NARRATOR: In 1857, a farmer named Anthony Graves

purchased a majority of Oak Island

and built his home just north of the swamp.

While he was never an active participant

in the searches for treasure that took place

in the Money Pit, curiously,

he was rumored to have found

a large cache of Spanish silver coins

somewhere on his property.

That might be Anthony Graves, too,

-the feature. -ALEX: Yeah. I think we should take

this opportunity to try to figure that out.

-Yeah. -LAIRD: I agree.

-Okay, let's go for it, mate. -All right.

NARRATOR: Given the fact that the Laginas and their team

have uncovered numerous man-made structures

over the past decade in the swamp,

including a potentially 500-year-old stone road

in the southeast corner

and a massive paved feature

that may date as far back as 1200 AD...

GARY: Here we go.

NARRATOR: ...is it possible that Anthony Graves

may have found a location outside of the Money Pit area

where another cache of treasure was hidden?

And if so, might this brick and slate feature

be related to that discovery?

(device beeping)

That is a great signal. Now, it's iron

and quite a decent size chunk.

It's in that area where your hand is.

That's it.

Let me get down there.

-ALEX: You got it, Gary? Okay. -GARY: Yeah.

Let's see.

When we went to the north side of the swamp,

I didn't really expect to see much.

And sure enough, as-as the dig proceeds,

there's a square vault-ish looking thing

that was submerged in the swamp. Purpose unknown.

So was it a hiding place?

Did Anthony Graves set it up himself

to hide his own stuff in? That's what we hope to find out.

GARY: Ooh. (grunts)

It's coming out.

Is that it?

-And the big reveal. -ALEX: What the heck?

-GARY: That's it. -ALEX: What the hell is that?

-GARY: Yeah... -(Laird laughs)

ALEX: That is certainly not what I expected.

GARY: Look at that. It's got something attached to it.

-That's a piece of brick, by the look of it. -Yeah.

Any ideas, Laird?

-But it's been down there for a long time. -GARY: Yeah, it has.

-LAIRD: I think we have to go clean it off, but... -GARY: Yeah.

LAIRD: I mean, it's a pipe of some sort.

ALEX: The question that we want to know really is:

-how old is that thing? -Yeah.

GARY: We don't know what else is down there.

We've got to get to the bottom of it.

-Yeah. -That's the only way we're gonna find out.

Yep.

All right. I'm gonna take that back to the lab.

-Okay, mate. -LAIRD: I'll let you get on

-with your work over there. -Works for me.

GARY: Okay, mate. Good work.

NARRATOR: While members of the team continue to investigate

the mysterious structure in the swamp...

...later that afternoon...

RICK: You know, thank everybody for coming.

So, we have results today from Shaft Two.

The first shaft after the discovery of the Money Pit.

NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina gathers with other members of the team

in the war room for a meeting via videoconference

with Dr. Michael Pisaric,

a professor of earth sciences at Brock University

in St. Catharines, Ontario.

If we could definitively find Two...

Steve, you can tell us,

here's where the Money Pit should be.

So, Shaft Two is-is, you know,

it's-it's the white whale, if you will.

We're digging up the first ever searcher shaft on Oak Island.

NARRATOR: Earlier this year, the team unearthed a feature

in the Money Pit area

that they believed

to be a 110-foot-deep searcher structure built

in 1805 that is known as Shaft Two.

Located 14 feet southeast of the original treasure shaft,

workers began tunneling from the bottom of Shaft Two

toward the Money Pit, hoping to bypass

the legendary flood tunnel

and retrieve the believed treasure vault.

But, unfortunately, just two feet shy of their target,

the tunnel was suddenly breached by a rush of seawater,

forcing them to abandon the operation.

Luckily, Mike Pisaric has

been able to join our group and look at these, uh, samples.

NARRATOR: For the past several weeks,

Professor Pisaric has been analyzing

numerous wood samples from the structure

using a testing method known as dendrochronology,

a process by which the size and growth patterns of tree rings

in wood can help determine the approximate date

that it was cut for use in construction.

It is the team's hope that the results will help them

verify that they have, indeed, located Shaft Two,

meaning that the original Money Pit

would sit just 14 feet to the northwest.

So, with that, Mike, if you can give the results,

we'd greatly appreciate it.

Sure. Thanks, Craig.

So, Shaft Two, I think

the results are fairly robust.

Now, uh, sample 0021.

I'm really, really confident in the dates

on this particular sample.

I determined a date of 1784.

Wow.

Yep.

RICK: If the 1784 date is relevant,

that would be 21 years

before the date of the construction of Shaft Two.

So, it may not be Shaft Two. What does that mean?

What does that say? I don't know,

but it's quite intriguing.

If this is not wood from Shaft Two,

then what do we think it's-it's from?

Logically, it almost suggests

that this shaft might be

some early depositor work.

It is important because

it may be reused wood.

Possibly.

NARRATOR: Could Dr. Spooner be correct

that the wood unearthed by the team in the Money Pit area

may have been repurposed from a previously built structure

and used by searchers to build Shaft Two in 1805?

RICK: 1784 date is somewhat confusing,

and we can't say yay or nay

that it is Shaft Two.

On some level, that's both discouraging and encouraging.

Encouraging because there's still a lot to learn

about the Money Pit.

Discouraging because there is still a lot to learn

about the Money Pit.

JACK: But from the position,

it would appear that that is Shaft Two.

Right?

RICK: It has neither affirmed

nor denied that it is Shaft Two,

but it does represent new areas for investigation,

and that's a very good thing.

So, let me just call it "Shaft Two, question mark"

for the time being.

I think a question mark is appropriate.

SCOTT: Well, I think we start out with the drill,

-see what comes up. -RICK: Yeah.

STEVE: So, if we are gonna call this Shaft Two,

we can project 14 feet out.

And now, I project it off the western wall.

You can see my anchor point is right there.

It lands on the southeast side of the Hedden Shaft.

STEVE: If we are gonna call this Shaft Two, we can project

14 feet out.

It lands on the southeast side of the Hedden Shaft.

NARRATOR: In the war room,

after receiving data regarding

a searcher structure built in 1805,

known as Shaft Two,

the Oak Island team is hopeful

they may have finally located the original Money Pit.

So, if the Money Pit

is mainly in the Hedden Shaft,

then you're back more to the traditional

-area of the Money Pit. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: In 1937,

New York-based treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden

constructed a 12-by-24-foot shaft

down to a depth of 125 feet,

believing that he had found

the location of the original Money Pit.

Unfortunately, he was unable to recover

any evidence of valuables.

However, if the Oak Island team has indeed found Shaft Two,

is it possible that Gilbert Hedden

just missed the Money Pit,

but they now have it pinpointed?

STEVE: So, there's a 13-foot diameter

proposed Money Pit location.

I'd suggest moving to the southeast of Hedden

-and drilling there. -IAN: Yeah.

That's really interesting to us because,

if that's the location for the Money Pit,

that's where we also think the precious metals

might be coming from.

NARRATOR: In recent weeks,

geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner and his colleagues

revealed that new groundwater testing data

indicated that a large source of gold, silver,

and other metals may be buried more than 100 feet deep

in the general area of the Hedden Shaft.

We know from all our work that there's so much

underground in the Money Pit we don't know anything about.

NARRATOR: Could this offer more proof that the team

has not only located Shaft Two,

but now also the original Money Pit

and the hiding place for the legendary treasure

that people have been looking for since 1795?

RICK: If it really is Shaft Two,

that radii draws you to where we think the Money Pit

should be, based on everything we have come to understand.

So, this area needs further investigation

with a hope that we will find the one thing that will prove

all the efforts over the 230 years have been appropriate.

So, if there's anything that helps,

we have a date range and we have a good survey on

what we're calling Shaft Two, or potentially Shaft Two.

So, now we know where to drill.

I agree. We've got really good data.

So, thank you, Dr. Spooner. Thank you, uh, Mike.

We really appreciate it,

-and thank you again. Appreciate it. -CRAIG: Thank you, guys.

STEVE: See you.

NARRATOR: Following their meeting in the war room...

-STEVE: We picked this borehole very strategically. -TERRY: Right.

If that was Shaft Two, this potentially makes it

-a Money Pit or vault location. -CHARLES: Yes.

-So, we want to explore that. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: ...Steve Guptill joins geologist Terry Matheson

and Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse

in the Money Pit area to supervise

the drilling of borehole H.5-10.5,

a borehole located at the southern edge

of the shaft that Gilbert Hedden constructed in 1937.

MARTY: We know this area is where the high metals showed up,

which incidentally would mean that Chappell

and Hedden and us,

we're basically in the right spot.

One thing we've learned here in the Money Pit area

-is that anything is possible. -Yeah.

So, it's-it's quite possible

that we could be onto something right here.

-Yeah. -TERRY: Sounds good.

See what all this means.

NARRATOR: As the drilling operation

continues in the Money Pit area...

RICK: There it is, Tom.

-After you. -Wow.

NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina leads fellow Oak Island landowner

Tom Nolan to the mysterious vault-like structure

that was recently uncovered in the northern region

of the triangle-shaped swamp.

ALEX: What do you think?

I-I don't know what to say. I've never seen

-anything like this. -Mm-hmm.

TOM: I mean, look at that slate, it's perfectly cut.

Yeah.

I want to keep fishing.

So many brick in the bottom.

(grunts)

Piece of glass.

-TOM: And that's... -See a date on that?

There's some marks on it, but there's no date.

-Hello. -RICK: Hey, Laird.

-We came up with that. -LAIRD: Interesting.

RICK: It's sharp.

It's machine-made. It would be a jar.

-Late 1800s. -Hmm.

LAIRD: Yeah.

So, it would somewhat fit with Anthony Graves?

Oh, I think it fits quite well. Yeah.

NARRATOR: If Laird is correct

that this glass fragment may be associated

with the 19th-century landowner Anthony Graves,

could it offer evidence that he created this feature

in order to hide the Spanish silver

that he was rumored to have possessed?

Or could it be a clue

that this is actually where he discovered the riches?

What did you think of this?

It-it doesn't look like anything we've ever found here.

I mean, there was nothing here

after Graves left, that we know of.

Over the years, we-we've located

two wells on the property,

which we assumed were Graves'.

This is different.

It's square, it's not round.

It's slate and brick, it's not beach stone.

I mean, it just, it doesn't fit.

Me, I'm gonna take the treasure hunting component

and run with that.

I mean, Anthony Graves

was the real mystery man of Oak Island, to me.

Doesn't that look like a vault to you?

I mean, it's constructed like a vault.

And I guess if you're trying to hide something,

but you want to be able to recover it,

rather than putting it in an outhouse,

you'd put it at the bottom of something like this.

-Easily... easily retrievable. -LAIRD: Yeah. Yeah.

-RICK: Easily hidden. -TOM: Well, hidden's a good word

because, I mean, we've been taking this bog apart

since the '70s and never... never found this, so...

LAIRD: I think the answers,

unfortunately, are probably at the bottom.

RICK: Katya, you want to come in

and just swing your metal detector in the bottom here?

KATYA: I can try my best.

Not getting anything.

Anything down in the well itself?

KATYA: Maybe a little something.

(faint beeping)

There's little blips and beeps.

It's...

There's something in there.

RICK: I remain convinced that this square-shaped box

is a place to store metal.

The bricks on top make it appear as though there was

a wooden cover over it.

It's in close proximity to Anthony Graves' home.

And you throw the historical narrative into it

that he paid with Spanish coin.

To me, it just makes no sense

other than it's a structure built to contain something,

and I believe to hide something.

There's a lot of brick down here.

It's a very hard bottom.

Hmm. There's something.

What is that?

RICK: What is that?

May I see?

Oh.

That's odd.

NARRATOR: In the northern region of the Oak Island swamp,

Rick Lagina and other members of the team

have just found a potentially important clue

inside of a mysterious vault-like structure.

-I just can't place what it is. -RICK: A handle?

A handle off a chest.

KATYA: What a cool find.

NARRATOR: Could Rick Lagina be correct that the team

has recovered a handle from a chest

inside of the vault-like feature?

If so, might it be related to the Spanish silver coins

that former landowner Anthony Graves

reportedly discovered on Oak Island

more than 150 years ago?

Question is, what else is there to find?

This is such a weird structure.

It pulls up a lot of questions.

TOM: We need to excavate this and see what is at the bottom of it.

So, uh, we should do that right away.

RICK: Laird, why don't you come up with a process...

-Okay. -...how we can proceed.

Define the areas. How deep you want to dig.

-Yep. -RICK: And let's get her done.

-TOM: Sounds good. -RICK: Okey doke.

NARRATOR: The following morning...

TERRY: Here we go. Patient on the table.

We're into a solid section of maroon till.

-Oh, yeah. Looky there. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: ...as search efforts in the Money Pit area

and the swamp continue,

on Lot 5,

located on the western side of Oak Island...

JACK: Wow. The rock wall's

really starting to pop.

It is. And you know, it's-- we're still pretty high up.

Mm-hmm.

NARRATOR: ...Jack Begley has joined the archeology team

as they continue investigating

a large, rounded stone foundation near the shoreline.

FIONA: So, it's-it's still

a little ambiguous as to exactly where it's going.

NARRATOR: Since acquiring Lot 5

from the estate of the late treasure hunter Robert Young

in 2022,

the Laginas, Craig Tester, and their team

have been working under provincial

archaeological guidelines to fully uncover this structure.

And so far, they have made numerous discoveries

that suggest it is connected to the treasure mystery.

These include coins and Venetian trade beads

dating back to the 17th century or earlier,

handmade bricks resembling those that make up

the vault-like feature in the swamp,

and a mortar-like substance that matches soil samples

collected from over 100 feet deep in the Money Pit area.

I have a love-hate relationship with Lot 5.

What I hate is the pace of exploring it.

It drives me mad.

I mean, it is so slow,

but I love the fact that it could help our search

by tying what happened there to the Money Pit.

We're hoping that something on Lot 5

helps us solve the whole mystery here.

-Hey, Fiona. -Yeah?

I'm coming down on something.

FIONA: Oh, that looks like one of the Robert Young pegs.

-Is there a number on it? -Yeah, there is.

5-025.

FIONA: That's really cool.

Well, look at that, so it does.

-Hey, Jack. -JACK: Yeah?

Look what we've got here.

NARRATOR: Between 1996 and his death in 2020,

Lot 5's previous owner, Robert Young,

made a number of discoveries across the property,

including iron tools and even medieval coins.

He marked each find with labeled pegs.

The question now is, just what did he unearth

near the round feature?

FIONA: Laird actually has access to the database

because every single number is associated

with whatever he found.

Nice. I'll have to give Laird a call.

FIONA: I think that's perfect.

I love that we can get that instant information

just like that.

LAIRD (over phone): Hey, Jack.

-JACK: How's it going, Laird? -LAIRD: Good. How are you?

Um, actually, quite good.

I'm digging with Fiona and Ethan, uh,

just to the north of the circular feature,

and we came across a Robert Young peg.

It has a number on it,

and I was wondering if you could look up in the database

what Robert Young had found.

5-025.

JACK: Yep.

Yes!

Wow! (laughs)

JACK: Thank you, Laird. We'll give you a call

if we find anything else.

JACK: See you, Laird.

FIONA: Okay, that's great because

that also makes me think about Anthony Graves.

The fact that-that there are stories

of him going into one of the local stores

and spending Spanish reales.

-Definitely could fit in with that idea. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: Could Fiona Steele be correct

that an 18th-century Spanish real

discovered by Robert Young

in the round feature on Lot 5

might have been related to the Spanish silver coins

that Anthony Graves was rumored to have found?

If so, could that mean that the round feature

is not only related to the vault in the swamp,

but also a vast cache of treasure that lies buried

deep in the Money Pit?

I'm super excited about this because

this could be a piece of the treasure.

Like, honestly. (chuckles) That's shocking.

Yeah.

We have to dig deeper.

We've got to see if there's more.

JACK: Definitely.

NARRATOR: While the search for clues

and valuables continues on Lot 5...

CHARLES: Here comes another one.

TERRY: Okay, here comes another one.

Thank you.

Okay, here we are.

CHARLES: Let's hope it's a good one.

NARRATOR: ...in the Money Pit area,

Charles Barkhouse and Terry Matheson

continue monitoring the drilling operation

in borehole H.5-10.5,

a borehole that the team hopes could be located

within the original Money Pit.

RICK: When you put a drill over a location,

the number one hope is you'll

bravo tango something, like a vault,

but at the very least, you're always looking for information.

TERRY: Okay, Charles, it's about 146 here.

Oh, Charles, we got wood. Check this out.

This is incredible. I'm seeing some serious chunks and slivers.

-The more you dig here, Charles, the more you get. -CHARLES: Yeah.

That's one, two, three, four...

That's, like, five fairly large chunks and slivers of wood.

-There's another one there. Okay. -CHARLES: Yeah.

Okay, that's what I'm talking about.

Wow.

You know, in the cores we had above this,

between 124 and 139,

we didn't see any wood at all.

This is 22 feet below the bottom of the Hedden Shaft.

TERRY: Oh, I know, I know.

In a place where it should not be.

Question is, how the heck did it get there?

CHARLES: That's a very good question, Terry.

TERRY: I'm seeing some serious chunks and slivers of wood.

So, this is what we've been looking for.

CHARLES: Yeah.

Question is, how the heck did it get there?

NARRATOR: While drilling a borehole known as

H.5-10.5 in search of the original Money Pit,

members of the Oak Island team have just encountered

a mysterious wooden structure nearly 150 feet below ground.

Wood at this level is incredible.

I mean, no question. We're 20 feet below the Hedden Shaft,

and Hamilton hit wood

-below the bottom of... -CHARLES: Yeah.

-The Hedden Shaft. -TERRY: Exactly.

I think we may have hit what Hamilton hit in the early '40s.

NARRATOR: In the summer of 1940, New York University

professor and treasure hunter Erwin Hamilton

constructed a six-by-six-foot extension

onto the base of the Hedden Shaft.

While conducting a drilling operation

from within the so-called "Hamilton Extension,"

he and his team were stunned when they intercepted

a mysterious wooden structure at a depth of 153 feet.

Was he looking for the vault, you know?

-Something drew him here. -TERRY: Yeah.

This is very, very loose and almost disturbed.

There could be a treasure vault left or right of this

exact point that we're drilling in here right now.

The actual treasure vault

could be within a matter of feet from this point right here.

It's certainly possible, Terry.

NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Oak Island team

has now encountered that same structure?

And, if so, could it be the legendary Chappell Vault?

We're gonna carry on below this point.

-173, you said? -Yeah.

CHARLES: What you got, Leighton?

-LEIGHTON: 173. -173.

That's pretty much in situ.

You can see beautiful bedding there.

And that is what we would expect to see.

That's over ten feet of solid material.

This hole is over.

NARRATOR: Because the coring drill is now

only recovering in situ-- or undisturbed-- soils,

that means they have found no more evidence

of man-made workings.

However, because they did encounter

a mysterious wooden structure at nearly 150 feet

that may be the elusive Chappell Vault,

could that mean that they are just mere feet

from recovering the fabled treasure?

MARTY: Somebody was down in that Money Pit well before 1795.

Maybe more than one somebody,

maybe somebodies;

depositors, prior searchers.

It means that something really did happen.

We have been searching for this for years.

RICK: This area needs to be searched further.

We have to confirm, and then we have to try to understand

what shaft or shafts, what tunnel or tunnels

would've reached those depths

during what period of possible search

and possible original work.

We do know that precious metals are coming from somewhere.

It's a complex story that's being woven here.

TERRY: We've drilled and drilled

and finally we've contacted something.

Yeah.

TERRY: Let's identify another target,

and then we'll move on.

NARRATOR: Later that afternoon...

-TOM: Hey, guys. Wow. -RICK: Hey, Tom.

-You can see it more today than yesterday. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: ...in the northern region of the swamp,

Rick Lagina, his nephew Alex,

Craig Tester, and other members of the team have uncovered more

of a mysterious brick and slate container.

Over here, it seems to be surrounded by rocks.

NARRATOR: A container that may have been created

in order to hide something of great value.

They're all seemingly placed together deliberately.

(device beeping)

RICK: Katya, you want to come over and do a little better scan?

NARRATOR: Now that the feature has been partially drained

of water, it is the team's hope that

metal detection expert Katya Drayton

can find important clues as to what

it was designed to contain,

and also, perhaps, help identify

just who created it.

That is...

about eight inches.

There's something down eight inches?

It's looking like it.

And there's a short signal right over here.

I definitely think there's something in here.

Hmm.

KATYA: The brick inside,

it's giving off metallic signals.

So, it just brings up a whole new question of

-what's in there? -ALEX: Mm-hmm. -Yeah.

It's odd.

KATYA: We won't know

-until we fully drain it. -LAIRD: Yeah.

We'll get a Shop-Vac.

Get it drained out. Have a look.

Okay.

-You want to scoop this side out? -Yep.

CRAIG: I'll get the Shop-Vac.

RICK: Certainly, I always believed that

there were some answers in the bog.

To find these features,

it affirms our belief that

there are answers here.

They just have to be ferreted out

and try to understand what they mean.

You want to get after it?

(Shop-Vac whirring)

It's probably full.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Yeah.

Okay, here's something.

TOM: What's that?

RICK: Okay, here's something.

What's that?

RICK: It was stuck way under there.

A hook?

-Looks like wrought iron, maybe. -CRAIG: Yeah.

NARRATOR: While investigating the mysterious

vault-like structure

in the northern region

of the Oak Island swamp...

TOM: I don't think it's a pry bar.

RICK: No.

You can see the striations in it.

Yep.

NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina and other members

of the team have just discovered

a potentially important clue.

ALEX: What do you think of that?

CRAIG: Looks like a hook.

BILLY: It's a hook, yep.

TOM: Almost something you could've used, sort of,

if you were raising or lowering something in.

BILLY: Yeah, for hoisting something out that

you want to leave down there, right-- Unless you're, you know,

retrieving something that's down in there,

-right? -TOM: Yeah.

NARRATOR: A possible hook?

Could Billy and Tom be correct

that this iron hook may have been used to place

or retrieve something from the brick and slate structure,

which was hidden beneath the muck and water of the swamp?

You've got a rope on one end, hook on the other.

-It's old, for sure. -RICK: Yeah.

NARRATOR: If so, was it used

by 19th-century landowner Anthony Graves

to hide a cache of Spanish silver coins

that he reportedly found on Oak Island?

Or could it have been left here

by someone many years earlier,

who created a vault

in order to hide Spanish treasure

in the triangle-shaped swamp?

RICK: Want to start it up?

(Shop-Vac whirring)

The hook's quite interesting.

Certainly looks like wrought iron,

meaning could be quite old.

Looks like something could hang off of it.

But, certainly, Emma needs to do a metallurgical analysis of it.

That's pretty much all I can feel down there,

is that one metal piece, and that's it.

The hope is that we can actually

really define what this

feature represents, in terms of a timeline.

Was this was built by Anthony Graves

to safeguard a subsurface treasure that he found?

Or does it represent something else?

Well, I mean, if it is Graves' work,

and he did use it as a hiding place,

it was a pretty good one.

You know, hope springs eternal,

but for this evening, I think we're done.

Right.

RICK: We'll let Emma do her work,

and... (stammers) it was a great day, a dirty day.

And we all need to go clean up and get ready for tomorrow.

-ALEX: Yep. Okay. -KATYA: Let's do it. -RICK: Yeah.

NARRATOR: The following afternoon...

RICK: I want to thank you, Emma and Laird, for inviting us down.

Everyone knows my fascination with the swamp,

and we did extensive work there

and found the three items here in front of us.

NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina and members of the team

join archeologist Laird Niven

and archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan

in the Oak Island laboratory.

RICK: What are these things?

The who, what, when, where, why, and how?

Right.

NARRATOR: After the recent discoveries

of a mysterious metal pipe, a handle,

and a believed hook inside of the possible vault

in the northern region of the swamp,

Laird and Emma have completed

preliminary scientific analysis on them.

So, yeah, I've done XRFs on all three artifacts.

-RICK: Great. -EMMA: So, with the handle,

it is encrusted,

so I did take a CT scan just to make sure.

NARRATOR: Prior to their meeting,

Emma scanned all three objects

using an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, or XRF.

This device works by emitting non-destructive radiation

that can identify an object's composition.

Additionally, she scanned the handle-shaped artifact

using the Skyscan 1273 CT scanner,

which emits X-ray radiation

to produce magnified, three-dimensional images

of artifacts and their finer details.

EMMA: When you look at the handle,

you do see the wood grain-like structures,

which is wrought iron.

Let me go to the CT.

And you do see that grain-like structure on the handle.

Right here, you can see it as well.

LAIRD: The square hole to me implies

you're-you're moving something else.

-EMMA: Mm. -LAIRD: Yeah.

I think it's a crank.

-CRAIG: Yeah, it is. I agree. -EMMA: Yeah.

I mean, when you look at

this section over here, you can see just where

the wood handle would've ended.

-CRAIG: Yeah. -EMMA: Based on the metallurgy,

I can narrow down a possible date range.

So, the hook in the center there,

it does have a slight manganese content.

So, that one kind of fits more towards

the early to mid-1800s.

LAIRD: Yeah, so, Anthony Graves was on

the property in the mid-1800s.

He died in 1888.

But the pipe

and the crank handle,

they're definitely late 1700s.

That's before we have a record

of Anthony Graves on that lot.

So, right now, we're looking at

a feature and artifacts that pre-date

the recorded Anthony Graves

occupation of that lot.

-Interesting. -Yeah.

LAIRD: The feature itself

is even earlier than these artifacts.

And, you know, I'm a treasure skeptic.

-Right. -Is it a hiding place?

-You can't-- certainly can't dismiss that. -Yeah.

NARRATOR: In the Oak Island laboratory, Rick Lagina,

Craig Tester, and members of the team

have just been informed by Emma Culligan and Laird Niven

that a metal pipe and handle that were found

in a possible vault at the northern point of the swamp

could date back to the late 1700s.

That means that the believed vault

may have been created prior to the discovery of the Money Pit.

You certainly have a hint of some sort of secret.

-Right. -RICK: It's curious enough.

I'm quite interested in it because,

I've said many times, to me,

the mystery person of Oak Island is Anthony Graves.

-Right. -RICK: Pays with Spanish coin

and lives his life rather secretively.

Yeah.

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that the team has uncovered

a treasure vault in the swamp,

where former Oak Island landowner Anthony Graves

reportedly discovered Spanish silver coins

more than 150 years ago?

If so, then who created it?

And what else might be buried deeper within it?

RICK: The strangest thing of all is Anthony Graves.

EMMA: Mm-hmm.

He positions his house

in the lowest part of the island, right?

And the only explanation is

he watched the open ocean on two cardinal directions.

He protects the back way to the Money Pit,

and he is close to, possibly,

where his treasure lies.

Which his children suspected.

Which his children, indeed, suspected.

-Yeah. -KATYA: I think that would've been the perfect spot,

and I think there was something very important to him in that.

I'm hoping that it's, uh, some sort of vault,

but I hope to find a little more.

(laughs) We all would.

NARRATOR: If Rick and the team's notion is correct

that the brick and slate feature was a hiding place

used by Anthony Graves to protect

his rumored Spanish treasure,

is it possible that it could be connected

to the 1781 silver Spanish real

found by Robert Young on Lot 5?

There's a purpose to this feature.

I think it has to do with Anthony Graves.

I think it was his safety deposit box.

We know there was a Spanish coin that was found on Lot 5,

and then there's the story of Anthony Graves

using Spanish coin

as his currency to buy his goods.

So, I think we need to do more work in the swamp.

So, there's all kinds of reasons to try to

further our understanding here, in my opinion.

And... what is it? Who built it?

When was it built? Why was it built?

Right? I know you're not a big fan of the bog, but...

I'm trying to find this treasure.

Sometimes, you got to get dirty.

-(laughter) -I'm willing to do it.

-It's in your blood now. -RICK: Okay.

Mm-hmm.

All righty, well, again, thank you.

-We'll go find you some more curiosities. -LAIRD: Excellent.

RICK: Hopefully, next time, we'll all have some answers.

-KATYA: Thank you. -CRAIG: Thanks. -LAIRD: See you later.

NARRATOR: For 230 years,

people have been trying to recover

a vault of untold riches in the Money Pit.

And while the clues suggest

that something of great value remains hidden there

deep below,

Rick, Marty, Craig, and their team

have discovered evidence

that treasure may lie hidden all across Oak Island.

Now, as the intrigue

of this mystery grows richer,

the Fellowship of the Dig

may be closing in on rewards

that will be greater than they ever imagined.

NARRATOR: Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...

RICK: This is the perfect size for a treasure chest.

KATYA: There's something there, we'll find it.

(device beeping)

We found something already.

EMMA: The presence of arsenic

could push the date back to the 1600s.

Wow.

TEDFORD: It got loose halfway through that run.

-ALEX: Could we be in a void? -Yeah.

That's tantalizing.

We could be heading through a treasure zone

-right now. -CHARLES: Absolutely.

STEVE: I'm gonna propose we put a caisson right there.

Let the caissons roll out.

-Proceed. -Let's go.

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