Curse of Oak Island -Season 3 Final or "Why I decided to come back next year when I haven't found anything yet."

Well, we’ve had the season finale and we now know more than we did which is not to say that the episode wasn’t disappointing or that we learned much. (Spoilers Ahead) We got the final report from the diver who made what I think was an incredible journey down the Bore Hole 10 X to stand on semi-solid ground. He wandered around down there, telling us that the ground was “silty” and that it was uneven. He said that he saw no marks on the walls to suggest it was man made and said that the roof was uneven as well as the floor. It was his impression that it was a natural void they had tapped into when they drilled 10 X and that he found nothing down there to suggest human activity other than that which had happened after they bored the hole.

The pillar or post that had been seen on the sonar was apparently some of the debris left by modern men in their attempts to discover what was hidden down there. Or, in other words, it seemed to be a length of pipe that fell down and stuck in the mud. The body was an impression in the floor of the void and the box was a large rock that had one side with a nearly perfect right angle on it. None of the things that they believed were down there, and kept them coming back, turned out to be what they thought they were. Wishful thinking and an interpretation formed by their preconceived notions caused them to see things that weren’t there. To be fair, the video that had been made, what, forty or so years before, wasn’t very good anyway. No matter how often they aired it with their overlays to show us the various artifacts and body it didn’t change the outcome. Those things were not there.

Next the Lagina boys were visited by three McGinnis sisters who were direct descendants of one of the boys who originally found the “money pit” (I put that in quotes because I don’t think there is any money down there but all these treasure hunters have thrown a great deal of money into the pit). They certainly had a story to tell. First they mentioned a family legend that neither they nor anyone else in the family had ever revealed. According to them, the three boys found three chests with treasure in them. Each of the boys got one of the chests. Think of all the time, money and lives that could have been saved.

Here’s why I’m dubious of that story. In 1803, those boys, along with others, formed the Onslow Company and invested more time and money into digging deeper in the pit. If the boys had already removed three chests, they might have gotten it all and there would be no reason to look any deeper. Oh, I know what you’re thinking. If they found the chests buried each one deeper than the last, they might believe there was a fourth or a fifth, but to this point there is no evidence of that…

Which makes me think that tablet found at the 90 foot level was a hoax created by one of the land owners to increase the value of his land or by an investor to keep people interested in providing more money and coming back to the island. That tablet no longer exists though there are pictures of it but no photographs.

Second, the sisters had a small wooden box they kept in what looked like a velvet bag. Inside the box was a small golden cross that was said to be part of the treasure found by McGinnis so long ago. The Lagina boys thought that this was the first tangible evidence that there was treasure hidden in the “money pit” but all it really proved was that someone in the family had this cross that had been handed down through a couple of generations. There was nothing to attach it to the “money pit” other than family legend which could have been nothing more than family legend… or in other words, we don’t really know that it was found in a box of treasure removed from Oak Island. The Lagina boys didn’t seem to consider this. They accepted the story at face value but given their reactions to other important discoveries that isn’t much of a surprise.

After the sisters left the war room, the Lagina boys and their pals returned to the hole they had bored a couple of weeks earlier and by that I mean it was a couple of weeks for the show but might have been more time for them. Anyway, they brought out a guy with a small, HD video camera that he used to inspect pipes for damage. They lowered the camera into the hole and into the void their drilling had found. In the end, they saw some glints in the murky water that seemed to have a golden glow to it. This, they thought, was evidence of treasure down there, in the original “money pit” that had been buried too deep for the boys with only shovels to get in 1795 or too deep for the others who had been digging there because of the water that suddenly flooded the pit at about the 90 foot level.

And let’s not forget that when they drilled this hole they pulled up a bit of metal that excited them but looked more like a tiny piece of shrapnel than anything else. It didn’t seem to be made of a precious metal. Just a tiny bit of debris that could have easily been the result of other attempts to find treasure.

In the end of the show and the end of the season, they were sitting in the war room, trying to decide if it was worth the effort and money to attack the main money pit. They talked about throwing in the towel, but why do that when History was ready to fund another season. Although they tried to draw out the suspense but to no one’s surprise, they all voted to return next season… I mean next year to dig up the money pit. It is a fun summer vacation and you have the bonus of being on TV. What I don’t understand is why they wasted all this time and effort to explore Bore Hole 10 X when the treasure was allegedly in the “money pit.” Well, it did make for some dynamic television if nothing else.