NARRATOR: Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island...
GARY: That is an unusual find.
But you see on the top right?
-GARY: Yeah. -LAIRD: Didn't we get those
crazy roman numerals on the U-shaped structure, too?
I got seven and a half foot of tunnel.
Yeah, it's nice, eh?
STEVE: You don't build a tunnel
like this unless you're moving something important.
Yep.
RICK: We want to take a look
down in that cavity.
Here we go.
SCOTT: Slowly.
Whoa.
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.
♪ ♪
-ALEX: Hey, guys. -PETER: Hey.
STEVE: Hey, guys.
-How you guys doing? -Oh, Peter...
NARRATOR: With the dawn of another morning
on Oak Island comes renewed hope
for brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and their team
that they will finally make the ultimate discovery
and solve the 228-year-old treasure mystery.
So, uh, what are we doing?
We're pulling the casing right now from the previous hole,
D.5N-25.5.
Right now we still have some gaps in the data,
so we wanted to move the rig another five feet
and we're gonna drill D.5N-24.5
and see if we can repeat
-and hit the tunnel again. -Okay.
NARRATOR: Today they are drilling Borehole D5N-24.5,
located some 28 feet east
of the mid-18th century structure
known as the Garden Shaft.
It is the team's hope
that they will once again penetrate a mysterious tunnel
that is believed to run directly westward
below the shaft and into an area
that has been dubbed the Baby Blob.
Over the past year,
high-trace evidence of precious metals
has been detected throughout this region,
as well as directly beneath the Garden Shaft.
However, one week ago...
There's our wood.
There's our tunnel right there.
...after once again encountering this tunnel
more than 30 feet to the east of the Garden Shaft,
the team detected additional evidence
of precious metals on a wood sample.
This means that the treasure could actually lie buried
anywhere throughout the entire region.
STEVE: If we hit it a third time
on the east side of the Garden Shaft,
I think that's probably enough to confirm
that this is our tunnel.
-Mm-hmm. -SCOTT: And we're still waiting on dating
-to come back on the wood from this side as well. -Yeah.
We want to verify that this is real,
because if it is, this is a reason to get excited.
-Right. -Mm-hmm.
NARRATOR: Now it is the team's goal
to not only continue tracking the mysterious tunnel
in the direction of the Garden Shaft
and the Baby Blob but perhaps
also make direct contact
with the ultimate source of the precious metals.
SCOTT: Once Dumas starts to work in the shaft
and they deepen that shaft, if they confirm
the tunnel below is there, we can do some lateral drilling
down the length of that tunnel as well.
-Yeah. -That's the way to do it.
TERRY: Absolutely.
We have to move things around,
but hopefully the treasure will be found
partially because of it.
NARRATOR: Currently, Rick, Marty and the team
are awaiting permission from the provincial government
to allow a mining company named Dumas Contracting Limited
to extend the Garden Shaft to a total depth of 98 feet.
This will not only help the team find out
if the legendary treasure
lies directly below the structure
but also allow them to construct lateral tunnels
toward any other promising targets.
RICK: We have almost singularly focused on
the Garden Shaft extension
and the possible tunneling associated with it.
Hopefully, we intercept the tunnel that we know
is beneath the Garden Shaft with this borehole.
Then, once Dumas arrives,
we have the opportunity to tunnel,
which we hope will get us closer to the treasure.
Gotcha.
All right. Here we go.
-Okay. -TERRY: I like this hole.
TEDFORD: I think she's going in.
STEVE: If we have enough data
to suggest that this is the continuous tunnel
that goes under the Garden Shaft,
the second phase of this is to get a sonar or camera down.
Yeah, it'd be great to get a camera in there
and see where it's going.
Perhaps this could lead to something,
and that's why we got to track this down.
-Yeah. -PETER: Yeah.
SCOTT: Hopefully we're getting closer.
NARRATOR: While the drilling operation continues
in the Money Pit area...
MARTY: Hello, guys. I'm on the edge of my seat.
-Hey, Marty. -Hey.
NARRATOR: ...Alex Lagina has
joined his father Marty
and Uncle Rick, along with other members of the team,
for a highly anticipated meeting in the war room.
We have C-14 results
from wood retrieved as part of
the sonic drill program above the Money Pit,
which, again, is closely associated
with the tunnels that we have found.
NARRATOR: Marty and Rick's business partner Craig Tester
has just received a carbon-dating report
on a wood sample from Borehole D5N-26.5,
the borehole that encountered the mysterious tunnel
on the eastern side of the Garden Shaft one week ago
and which also contained trace evidence of precious metals.
We're hoping that this data will confirm
pre-searcher activity in that area.
So, I'm going to turn it over to Craig,
and hopefully he's got good news for us all.
CRAIG: Okay. So, this is where the tunnel
is going to the west, going to the Garden Shaft, really.
And then the piece we took,
we felt was the outer edge,
which would be the date it was cut down.
The numbers come back
55.6% from 1735 to 1804.
Whoa.
That's good.
24.7%, 1656 to 1684.
MARTY: So, the unknown tunnel almost has to be depositor,
it's not a searcher.
Correct.
Wow.
CHARLES: Actually, those date ranges brings up a theory to me,
the Duc d'Anville expedition in 1746
that tried to recapture Louisbourg.
So, it's-- that certainly falls in that range.
-ALEX: Yeah. -RICK: Correct.
I agree.
DOUG: I found eight pages
of a ship's log.
NARRATOR: In 2017,
Oak Island historian Doug Crowell discovered
a portion of a French naval report
in the provincial archives
related to the unsuccessful attempt by France
to reclaim Nova Scotia from Great Britain in 1746.
According to the ship's log, prior to the French defeat,
a secret operation to hide a vast cache of valuables
had taken place somewhere south of Halifax.
DOUG: "September 8th.
"It has been agreed that a deep pit be dug
"and treasure securely buried.
"The pit to have a secret entrance
by a tunnel from the shore."
NARRATOR: It was carried out under the command of the Duc d'Anville,
a prominent member of the Rochefoucauld family,
who are believed to have connections
to the Order of the Knights Templar
dating back to the 12th century.
In my mind, there's no doubt that they're
pointing right to Oak Island.
MARTY (over video): Those dates are highly significant to me.
This is an outlier in the sense that it's much more definitive
than almost everything we get.
-ALEX: Mm-hmm. -Absolutely.
NARRATOR: Is it possible
that the team has now confirmed
that the tunnel running below the Garden Shaft,
which has also been scientifically dated
to as early as 1735,
may very well be related to the ship's log
that Doug Crowell found in the Nova Scotia Archives?
If so, could they have finally discovered the key
to solving the Oak Island mystery?
Here we have a very specific piece of data,
i.e. probability window,
that could be associated with the Duc d'Anville expedition
to recapture Louisbourg.
It has always been a player, if you will,
in terms of what happened here on the island.
JACK: I've been working over on Lot 5,
and this from 1656
to 1804,
that's the same date range that we're dealing with
of these hidden structures.
Like, that round circular feature,
and also, that really deep location,
we were calling it Site 1.
NARRATOR: Since their purchase one year ago of Lot 5--
the four-acre property
located on the western side of the island--
the team has made a number of stunning discoveries,
including three ancient Roman coins
as well as a 14th-century lead barter token
which is a compositional match to the lead cross
that was unearthed at Smith's Cove back in 2017.
However, they have also investigated the remains
of two mysterious stone-lined structures.
And within both of them, they have found
numerous artifacts that have dated back to the mid-1700s.
-RICK: You can't get enough data. -STEVE: Right.
So, two things come of it. One,
continue to explore Lot 5,
and the second thing is, you have to chase this tunnel.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
Way to go, guys.
Okey doke. We will keep you apprised.
MARTY: All right.
RICK: All right, see you.
MARTY: See you, guys.
-TERRY: Here comes the core, guys. -CHARLES: Yeah.
68.
-68. -68.
61 to 68.
-Yeah. -Thanks a lot.
NARRATOR: After their compelling meeting
in the war room,
Alex Lagina and Charles Barkhouse
have returned to the Money Pit area to monitor
the core-drilling operation
in borehole D5N24.5.
A borehole that they hope will once again reach a tunnel
that may lead directly below the Garden Shaft
and to the fabled Oak Island treasure.
Wow. This stuff is really soft.
-Yeah. -This is abnormally, unusually soft.
D5N24.5...
could be very close to the structure.
Given the softness of this material.
That's very uncharacteristic.
-Yeah, that's very soft. -Wow, is that ever soft?
Look at that.
ALEX: When we go into an area
with softer soils, saturated soils,
usually, the only time that happens here in the Money Pit
is if we're drilling near an old shaft
or a collapsed tunnel or, really,
any other area where somebody has done something.
TERRY: And certainly indicated
that there are shafts in this area, right?
So, again, I think we're close to something, but...
at 78 feet, we're still about
-25 feet above our target horizon. -CHARLES: Yeah.
Yep.
ALEX: Okay. Well, we will see
-what we can find out with this hole. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: As the drilling operation continues
in the Money Pit area...
GARY: This is our chance to shine, Rick.
-Lot 5. -Yep.
NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina
and metal detection expert Gary Drayton
arrive on Lot 5 to look for more clues
that might reveal who built the mysterious stone structures
located in this area and why.
-GARY: I've gone over all this stuff... -Mm-hmm.
...and I've got a lot of flags.
I've got a dozen flags in this area.
And all of these spoils came from the bottom of that hole,
so it should be the deepest finds.
NARRATOR: They are starting their search in the spoils
that have recently been removed from a circular depression.
A feature where they have found artifacts
dating between the 17th and mid-18th centuries.
-Pretty good. -Yeah, pretty good.
I'm in agreement, mate. Pretty good.
NARRATOR: After detecting and flagging
a number of potential targets earlier today,
Gary and Rick have now received permission
from archaeologist Laird Niven to dig them up.
-(detector beeping) -It's out.
Come on. Let's be something good.
(high-pitched beeping)
RICK: Yeah. That right there? Oh.
(rapid beeping)
It's in my hand, which means it's small.
It's that.
-A lead shot. -Mm-hmm.
RICK: Small caliber, too.
GARY: Yeah. It's an oldie.
-RICK: Very cool. -We'll get the lead tested.
I'd say it's period for the lot.
All the finds we're finding are going way back
to the early 1700s.
Could be anywhere in the 1700s.
Or even a little bit older.
It could be military.
NARRATOR: A lead shot?
Found in the spoils removed
from the circular feature on Lot 5?
And possibly dating back to the 1700s?
If so, could it be another clue potentially related
to the Duc d'Anville's ship's log,
which detailed a French naval mission
to hide treasure on an island in this area back in 1746?
GARY: All right.
-Let's find some more. -RICK: Okay.
(detector beeping)
That could go either way.
-There, now it's broken up. -(detector beeping)
-Sounding good. -(high-pitched beeping)
-That was it. -A shell casing.
Is it? No, it is not a shell casing, mate.
That is an unusual find.
-Yeah, what is that? -Look at that, mate.
GARY: I don't know.
-You know, the archaeologists are over there. -Mm-hmm.
-Should we call Helen over? -RICK: Sure.
Helen. Check this out.
Hey, Gary. You guys have found something?
-GARY: Yeah, look at this. -RICK: What do you make of that?
HELEN: Oh. Look at that.
-GARY: Hopefully, you have an idea... -Oh, my God.
-...of what it is. -RICK: What is that?
I would say it's, like, you know, gun-related.
-Yeah? -It almost looks like a sight.
GARY: But it's really, really special-looking,
and I'm glad you went to "gun,"
-because I was thinking old guns. -Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, to me, that looks like a gun sight, right?
-Could be. -HELEN: Yeah, that's nice.
-GARY: For sure. -Yeah.
Well, thanks for your input, Helen.
-RICK: Yep. -Okay.
RICK: We have found items
that we believe have some military context.
This may be another of them.
Again, this speaks to an enterprise here
could possibly have been conducted
by the Duc d'Anville expedition.
The good news is, they can be tested.
How about taking this lot back to the lab?
I'm really, really curious.
That copper barrel-shaped artifact, that's special.
Let's add that to the database and keep going.
GARY: Okay, mate. Back to the lab.
NARRATOR: The following morning,
while the drilling operation continues
in the Money Pit area...
TEDFORD: Looks like we'll get 'er down that.
COLTEN: Another foot and a half.
MARTY: Gentlemen.
We've assembled because we are reaching a critical juncture.
The very centerpiece of this year's work
is deepening the Garden Shaft.
NARRATOR: ...Rick, Marty and other members of the team
gather in the war room for a meeting
via video conference with representatives
from Dumas Contracting Limited.
MARTY: Okay, well, you've got us all,
uh, on the edge of our seats.
We'd like to know the latest developments,
and when you're gonna be out here making shaft.
CAMERON (over video): Yeah, very good.
As everyone's aware, uh, in order to facilitate
the work planned for Oak Island this year,
we need to have a code of practice in place
that's authorized by the Department of Labor
in the province of Nova Scotia.
NARRATOR: While the team continues their core-drilling effort
to track the tunnel that is believed
to run ten feet below the Garden Shaft,
they are eager to know just when Dumas will be authorized
to deepen the structure by some 20 feet
so they can personally find out just where the tunnel leads
and what it may contain.
CAMERON: Most recently, we've been updated
by the Department of Labor,
where they have suggested segmenting
the scopes of work this year
into one code of practice that would govern
the deepening of the existing Garden Shaft,
and then a second code of practice
that would enable us to go laterally
and perform our tunneling work.
-Yeah. -TONY L.: The plan would be to split up
the-the code of practice,
and we're definitely shooting for a-as soon as possible to get
everything, uh, submitted to them,
uh, with respect to the shaft deepening.
Okay.
Dumas needs permission from the various authorities
here in Nova Scotia, mainly involving safety.
They have to get approval on the code of practice,
which basically sets out all the conditions
upon which they will be allowed to deepen the Garden Shaft
and possibly tunnel out from it.
What is your expectation
regarding issuance of the code of practice?
This code of practice, we anticipate it being issued
certainly before the end of the month,
related to, uh, the shaft deepening.
Otherwise, our crews are prepared,
and we are operationally ready to come out
and operate on the island this summer.
Okay. That's all my questions.
-Anybody else? -RICK: No, I'd just...
-keep your fingers crossed. -Yeah.
RICK: We have to respect
and honor the requests of the government authorities,
but if the code of practice is delayed much further,
I think it's certainly is going to affect
all aspects of our work in the Money Pit.
Well, we look forward to getting you guys back out here.
-Yeah. -This, uh, some exciting times, and, you know,
we welcome your participation and efforts.
CAMERON: Thank you very much to the entire team.
We're gonna do this safely.
-Sounds good. -Okay.
-Thank you. -You got it. Bye.
-MARTY: We'll be in touch. -RICK: Thank you.
TEDFORD: Looks like we'll get 'er down that.
NARRATOR: As members of the Oak Island team continue
drilling in search of a possible treasure tunnel
in the Money Pit area...
JACK: Hello, everybody.
-Wow. -JAMIE: Look who's here.
NARRATOR: ...on Lot 5, Jack Begley
joins Helen Sheldon, Jamie Kouba,
Lindy Martin and Fiona Steele
as they investigate a mysterious rock foundation
that was first discovered one year ago.
Last year, when we found that deep wall,
I've been wondering what this place is.
-Yeah. -NARRATOR: Curiously,
when this feature was found in 2022
by Rick and Gary Drayton
while they were metal-detecting in the area,
the team uncovered numerous artifacts
such as pottery and pipe stems that are believed
to date back to approximately 1750.
The same time period as the Garden Shaft
and mysterious tunnel that they are currently investigating
in the Money Pit.
So, the plan is to get the entire surface of it uncovered.
-Mm-hmm. -NARRATOR: It was also believed
by the archaeology team
that this feature was deliberately buried.
Any idea yet on what this might be?
-HELEN: It's early days yet. -Maybe it is some sort
of a homestead, but why would they bury it
-under so much soil? -There was a lot of soil
-on top of it, I agree with you. -Yeah.
JACK: Like, this isn't typical for any settler to do, right?
To just bury their homestead?
No, normally, it would be naturally buried.
With the passage of time, it would've filled in.
See, I kind of feel like someone was--
might have been trying to hide something.
And why? We're so far away from the Money Pit.
People did used to bury their things as well.
-Mm-hmm. -Right? You know, their stash of precious items.
JACK: Yeah. Hopefully, there's a bunch of items in here
or maybe it leads deeper.
There might be clues once we get to the bottom of this.
HELEN: And if this is as early as we think, like, even say 1750,
this predates the discovery of the Money Pit.
So, it may tie in to more than that. Who knows?
Maybe it's an encampment.
-Yeah, it's possible. -And they buried them
to hide evidence of them being on this lot.
But there's so many coins.
And from what we found,
it could be connected directly to the Money Pit.
We've only just started digging up this feature,
so, hopefully, the finds
just continue to explain exactly when it was first dug
and what it might have been used for.
NARRATOR: As members of the archaeological team carefully excavate soil
from within the mysterious foundation,
Fiona Steele sifts through spoils with a fine screen
to look for clues and potential valuables.
Helen, I actually found a shard,
uh, which I'm surprised at, in that top layer.
-Did you really? -Yeah, it's not very big, but...
It was just in that top layer.
-Just a little one, but... -Yeah.
...nonetheless, it is a shard.
HELEN: Yeah.
Uh, possibly creamware.
Because it has that slightly yellowish tinge to the glaze.
NARRATOR: A possible piece of creamware pottery?
Because this type of clay earthenware
could date back to the mid-1700s
and predate the discovery of the Money Pit
by nearly half a century,
could it be another critical piece of evidence
to help identify
who may have constructed this feature?
-So, we'll definitely... -Slightly out of place.
-...keep this separate, then. -We'll keep it separate.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Great find.
FIONA: I just wasn't expecting that.
HELEN: Yeah.
JAMIE: It's exciting.
NARRATOR: Later that afternoon,
in the Interpretive Centre...
CRAIG: So, what do we have today?
This artifact came off of Lot 5,
not too far off the round feature.
It may be gun-related.
NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina, Craig Tester
and other members of the team
meet with archaeologist Laird Niven
and archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan
to get their analysis of the artifact
found one day ago on Lot 5.
So, it's a ramrod guide for a musket.
This would be in there,
and the ramrod would come through the front tube.
This would be the center tube,
and it would be held in with the third one.
NARRATOR: The smoothbore long gun, known as a musket,
was invented in Europe near the beginning of the 16th century.
A feature known as a ramrod guide
was designed for aiding the operator
in the loading of lead or stone projectiles
into the muzzle of the musket.
And what type of musket, mate?
-That's the million-dollar question. -Exactly.
If it's a musket, that would make it pretty old, then.
Yeah.
GARY: Anywhere from 1600s
-to 1800s. -LAIRD: Yeah.
But you got to love that patina, mate.
-Yeah. Yeah. -That tells you it's really old.
LAIRD: The only strange thing is that
-there's a little tiny hole here... -Yeah.
...which I haven't seen in-in others.
Well, it seems fancy.
RICK: But it'd be nice to know...
French, British?
-LAIRD: Mm-hmm. -ALEX: Yeah.
You know, some nationality to that.
EMMA: Do you want to see the CT image?
ALEX: Sure.
NARRATOR: Earlier this morning, Emma processed the artifact
using the SkyScan 1273 CT scanner.
By emitting nondestructive X-ray radiation,
the device can penetrate built-up corrosion on objects,
revealing clear 3D images of them,
along with their finer details.
EMMA: So, it's just loading.
-LAIRD: The little hole just turned big. -GARY: Yeah.
LAIRD: That's a clean scan.
-EMMA: Yeah. -Yeah.
LAIRD: But you see on the top right?
-ALEX: Yeah. -GARY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: It looks like there's Roman numerals.
Yeah. Didn't we get those crazy Roman numerals
-on the U-shaped structure? -Yeah.
Yeah.
GARY: That is really cool.
ALEX: It looks like there's Roman numerals.
GARY: That is really cool.
It looks like "VIIII."
NARRATOR: In the Interpretive Centre, Rick Lagina,
Craig Tester and members of the team
have just discovered that the potentially ancient
musket artifact, found one day ago on Lot 5,
curiously bears Roman numerals.
The only thing I can think of is that could be a...
...it could be a regiment, I guess.
-It's an odd thing to mark. -CRAIG: Yeah.
GARY: Yeah. Looks like a "VIIII," doesn't it?
Yeah, and we saw that in Smith's Cove.
-Right. -On the U-shaped structure.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: In the early 1970s,
Rick, Marty and Craig's late partner Dan Blankenship
built an earthen cofferdam that surrounded Smith's Cove
on the eastern end of Oak Island in order to drain the area
and look for evidence of the legendary flood tunnel system
that acted as a booby trap for the original Money Pit.
Dan was amazed to uncover a 65-foot-long
U-shaped wooden structure that featured Roman numerals
and which he believed was constructed
as a surrounding barrier for the flood system.
There's probably a ramrod
waiting for us somewhere in that area.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the U-shaped structure,
along with the other features and artifacts
that have been found on Lot 5
may be connected to a 1746 ship's log
which detailed how treasure was "securely buried"
in a deep pit on a wooded island?
RICK: Finding the Roman numerals
carved on that little bit of ramrod guide,
it brought back memories of, certainly,
the U-shaped structure.
We've never found Roman numerals before
on any other artifact to date.
And to have them found here,
I think the two are strongly connected.
GARY: Absolutely fantastic.
This has given us hope that there's more finds on Lot 5.
I say we give it another shot.
I want to find the rest of it.
-I'm in. -I'm with you. -All right. Good luck.
-RICK: Thank you, Laird. -GARY: See you, Laird. Cheers.
ALEX: Thanks, Emma. Thanks, Laird.
NARRATOR: Following the meeting in the Interpretive Centre...
TERRY: We're just at 98 feet below grade.
NARRATOR: ...Alex Lagina has joined
other members of the team in the Money Pit area.
STEVE: So, the next core
-is our, uh, is our core. -CHARLES: Yep.
If it's there, we'll see it in our next core.
NARRATOR: After nearly two days
of slowly drilling through previously disturbed soil,
the team is about to reach the target depth of 105 feet
in borehole D5N24.5,
where they hope to once again encounter the tunnel
that is believed to run directly below the Garden Shaft.
(metal grinding)
This looks interesting.
STEVE: Well, we have a core coming.
ALEX: The core is up.
-TERRY: Oh, my. -Yeah.
-CHARLES: I think we hit wood. -Wow. It looks like
a chunk of something coming right out the base.
Looks like we got wood right off the get-go here, guys.
CHARLES: You know, oftentimes, when we find wood in cores,
there's not much there.
-Oh, yeah. -TERRY: Wow.
That is excellent. That's really interesting.
CHARLES: However,
this time, we pull up a timber.
It's a vertical timber. This is really odd.
TERRY: It looks like we've got a section of beam.
-STEVE: Oh, yeah. Look at it. -Vertical support.
Oh, that-- yeah, that was the top-- that's up towards the top.
-Thank you, Colten. -What is that, Colten?
-CHARLES: 108? -COLTEN: Uh, 108.
-108? This is the bottom. -Thank you.
Oh, wow. That's a lot of wood.
That's a lot of wood, for sure. My gosh, guys.
What do you think it is, Terry?
TERRY: I think it's just uprights of a tunnel.
STEVE: The main point of this borehole is we're looking for that tunnel
that goes under the Garden Shaft.
Hitting wood helps confirm
that that is our tunnel.
TEDFORD: Little bit more.
And the very top.
TERRY: Oh, my.
That's a pretty significant chunk of upright.
-That's a big tunnel. -That's a big tunnel, for sure.
Six.
Seven.
So, I got seven and a half foot of tunnel.
-ALEX: I would agree with that. -STEVE: Seven and a half feet of tunnel?
-Seven and a half foot. -Oh, that's a lot longer than I thought it was.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
ALEX: This core is almost 100% wood,
which is really great, and it means that we hit the tunnel.
If that's true, then this tunnel,
and anything it's connected to, becomes our next best target.
Maybe the tunnel leads to the Money Pit.
CHARLES: Let's get Rick up here.
-TERRY: Absolutely. -ALEX: I'll call him.
Sounds good.
Uncle Rick.
Hey.
So, I'm up with the guys at the drill table.
Uh, we just hit our target depth.
We were looking to hit a tunnel, and what we did hit
was approximately seven and a half feet of upright.
ALEX: Yeah. But it does really,
really well define the height of the tunnel.
if it's a tunnel.
-ALEX: Sounds good. We'll see you soon. -TERRY: See you, Rick.
TERRY: We've got wood right there.
And it stops cleanly right there.
That's the cut top right there.
I knew if I stayed away long enough, you'd find something.
-Yeah. Exactly. -Hi, Rick. How you doing?
-Hey. -There it is.
NARRATOR: After being informed by his nephew Alex
that the team has just drilled
into a seven-and-a-half-foot tunnel more than 100 feet deep
in borehole D5N24.5...
-RICK: It's quite remarkable. -ALEX: Yep.
NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina has arrived in the Money Pit area
to assess the potential breakthrough discovery.
TERRY: There's the bottom right there
at 108 feet below grade.
I think we hit a whole section of a support beam.
RICK: That looks like it's hand-cut.
I see, yeah.
I see hand-shaping there, for sure.
-STEVE: That's a good sign. -Yep.
-Yeah. -STEVE: Yeah, that's a really good sign.
-Right here. -Absolutely.
TERRY: You can see an adze cutting in there.
In here? Yeah, it's...
-CHARLES: Yeah, you can see right there, too. Look, see? -TERRY: Beveled edge here. Yep.
ALEX: This is cut here.
Oh, yeah.
The adze cut is really quite interesting.
-TERRY: Hand-shapen rather than milled. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: Believed to have first been invented
more than 2,200 years ago in ancient Egypt,
an adze is a type of construction tool
featuring a sharp blade
that runs perpendicular to its handle.
They were widely used to shape wood
for structures and sailing vessels
until being phased out during the 18th century
by mechanized saws.
ALEX: Somewhere, there is a shaft...
-Somewhere there is a shaft. -...from which this tunnel was dug.
And a big shaft, because you think, if you're,
if you're bringing down seven,
-eight-foot-tall pieces of lumber... -Yeah.
-...you don't have a tiny little shaft you're going down into. -That's it.
Right. (chuckles)
NARRATOR: If the team has truly found a large tunnel
that was constructed with adze-cut timbers,
could it mean they have once again encountered
the same tunnel that has been dated to as early as 1735?
Or might it be an even older structure?
STEVE: For me, you don't build a tunnel like this--
-I mean, it's a seven or eight-foot tunnel... -Yep.
...unless you are moving material.
-Yeah. -Or you're moving
something important.
My opinion would be, unless you were depositing something,
I don't see why you would build a seven-foot tunnel.
'Cause you could very easily walk down this.
Yeah.
RICK: Given the 228-year history,
no searcher did this kind of work.
The only other thing I've seen that's that scale
-is when we were in Italy last year. -Yeah.
Which, at the time, I thought were absolutely enormous.
NARRATOR: One year ago, Rick and Alex Lagina,
along with other members of the team,
traveled nearly 3,700 miles to Italy
in order to investigate possible ties
between the Knights Templar and the Oak Island mystery.
-ALEX: Boy. -RICK: Stunning.
-ALEX: Everything is just so well built. -Yeah.
NARRATOR: While there, they visited two man-made cave systems
that were used by the Templar order between
the 12th and 14th centuries.
ALEX: We have seen this symbol before.
-RICK: H+O Stone. -PETER: Yeah.
NARRATOR: One of the massive labyrinths located
in the town of Osimo
contained a carved symbol that was also found
on Oak Island in the 1920s.
ALEX: Now, that's a direct tie to Oak Island.
This arm should be
a bit longer than this one.
NARRATOR: And another cave system that they visited
in the nearby town of Camerano
featured an entire section that, incredibly,
was an exact match in design to the 14th-century lead cross
that was found on Oak Island in 2017.
RICK: 3,000 years later, it still stands.
This, I think, is a twist,
-and that's the worked inside edge. -Yep.
RICK: When all of the other searcher tunnels
that we've discovered have been
four or five feet tall,
certainly nothing taller than that,
why seven feet tall?
And the enormity of the labor associated with that.
Will it prove to be something dramatic?
Let's get some cameras in there, and then,
develop a strategy by which you can
possibly physically access it.
So, here's what I think.
I think we should get Paul up here with the camera...
-Absolutely. -...because we want to take a look.
The drillers, at this point, are very important.
They did the work, right?
And they might be able to tell us how they would proceed.
And, uh, Paul can start putting--
Well, there they are right there.
BRENNAN: Hello. How are you doing, guys?
Well, you tell us. That's-that's what
I was just telling everybody.
You guys did the work.
So, we want to be able to take a look,
if possible, down in that cavity,
if it is a cavity.
-How do we proceed from here? -BRENNAN: Probably best
to pull back that casing to expose
a relatively open hole.
And that probably would be your best chance of getting
-an open hole to physically see something. -ALEX: Right.
BRENNAN: That's a good piece of wood that you pulled out of there,
-so there's a bit of a void there. -Well, it's...
it's hand-cut, which is quite interesting.
-BRENNAN: Oh, yeah? -TEDFORD: Oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's nice, eh?
TERRY: So, we should have an open section of tunnel to look at.
Okay. We're in your hands.
-BRENNAN: All right. Let's go for it. -TEDFORD: Sounds good.
-All righty. Thank you, guys. -Thank you.
STEVE: This is exciting.
PAUL: We have, uh, 30, 40 feet before we get to that area.
Then we'll have to zero it out when you're right at the top
of the casing and put it down.
NARRATOR: In the Money Pit area...
-Hey. -Hey, guys. How are you? -RICK: You guys ready?
NARRATOR: ...after drilling into a seven-and-a-half-foot high,
potentially ancient wooden tunnel
more than 100 feet below ground
in borehole D5N24.5...
-I'll start dropping this down. -Yep.
NARRATOR: ...Rick Lagina and members of the team
are about to lower a camera down into it,
in the hopes of seeing what it might contain.
-STEVE: Alex, can you pull me tight? -Yep.
STEVE: Okay. Now I'm gonna take a little bit more slack.
Here we go. I'm gonna put it in and we'll zero it.
PAUL: The lights are on. There you go.
-All right, do we still have a clean image? -SCOTT: We do.
-Yes. -STEVE: Here we go.
Okay, so we're going down the casing.
Clearly see the edge of it here.
NARRATOR: In order to investigate the mysterious structure--
or tunnel-- the team is utilizing
the Inuktun Spectrum 120 high-definition camera.
The device features a lens that can pan 360 degrees,
and is designed to operate in low-light conditions.
BRENNAN: What are you at now?
-ALEX: Five meters. -Okay.
ALEX: The last time we drilled into this tunnel
on the east side of the Garden Shaft,
there seemed to be an opening, a cavity.
We couldn't use a camera at the time,
but we're hoping, with this borehole today
that-that we'll get one more shot at it.
The number one thing is to get a camera down there
and see what we've hit,
and hopefully, after that, we can get a clear image.
-ALEX: I don't-- I don't... -SCOTT: Whoa!
-PAUL: Whoa. -Okay. In water.
Yeah. We just went pitch-black.
We can't even see the casing.
So, that's seven and a half meters.
-RICK: Right there. -SCOTT: Yeah.
Pull it, pull it back up out of the water.
Let's watch the transition going in.
-STEVE: Yeah. -Look at the dirt on the lens.
SCOTT: Go in. Back down in.
Slowly.
There.
As soon as we go into the water, we're black.
The second it drops under an inch, the light's gone.
-Like, pitch-black. -Yeah.
RICK: Well, that pretty much writes the tale right there.
-SCOTT: Yeah. -Oh, I can see the water.
It's murky. Really murky.
RICK: I-I don't know that we need to go any further here.
-SCOTT: No. -ALEX: Yeah.
RICK: I am really struggling a bit
for one simple reason:
the peculiarity of the construct,
i.e., being seven feet tall,
it presents all kinds of "What's here?"
-It's all stirred up, for sure. -SCOTT: Very fresh.
It's-it's very recently disturbed.
RICK: Where's the beginning? Where's the end?
Who was down here?
There was a tremendous amount of material
to be removed from that.
Why go to those efforts? And that's a key question.
Why do you need seven feet?
What's in there?
SCOTT: Let's get the drill out the hole
-so we can keep it moving. -Yep.
RICK: I agree.
We hit wood, we hit a void.
It almost certainly is a tunnel. It's at the right depth.
It appears to be that the tunnel from the Baby Blob area
passes directly under the Garden Shaft and continues east.
A lot of data points to the likelihood
that there is something there,
and I'm speaking about the metals in the water.
This tunnel we're trying to follow
and this chamber we've found
might be the source of the high metals.
If there's a tunnel, we'll follow it.
So, all in all,
I think we're closer than we've ever been.
PAUL: So, how far are you gonna go over
for the next hole after this one?
SCOTT: We can pull ahead and drill
-around the 27 line... -ALEX: Yeah, okay.
...and look for connectivity between the two tunnels.
Okay. Sounds like a plan.
-ALEX: All right. -STEVE: See you, Steve.
STEVE: We'll see you later.
NARRATOR: For more than two centuries,
generations of searchers have made discoveries
on Oak Island suggesting that they were on the verge
of solving the mystery,
only to have their dreams dashed by unforeseen events.
Rick, Marty and their team have also once again experienced
the firm grip that the island has long kept on her secrets.
And while all of their predecessors
eventually had to give up or move on,
one thing is certain.
The Laginas have no intention of stopping
until they hold the ultimate answers in their hands.
Next time on The Curse of Oak Island...
-CHARLES: Here it comes. -RICK: The Garden Shaft project
is finally underway.
BILL: This way a bit.
GARY: Time to open Pandora's box.
ALEX: Oh, boy.
-Wow. -Wow.
HELEN: I'll tell you, Jack,
it's the first time in 40 years of fieldwork
I have seen something like this buried.
They're hiding something.
Ooh. Interesting.
Brilliant.
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