Oak Island, Episode 1 - Disappoints... Again

I’m truly sorry but this show has jumped the shark more than once. Last night, as they were tearing up the swamp and finding rocks that were smooth, they keep talking about pirate ships or treasures that might have been purposefully sunk in the swamp. My question is, “Why does it have to be a treasure ship?”

Everything they find leads them to the conclusion that the treasure is real. They make no room for the very distinct possibility that the landing of ships on the island has nothing to do with hiding a treasure there. They are looking for the

Oak Island, obviously.

remains of a ship in the swamp and assume it would be a treasure galleon. They just use everything to prove their point apparently unaware of confirmation bias.

They find a button that their expert says was made sometime between 1650 and 1750. It proves that someone was on the island decades before the boys discovered the alleged money pit. It proves nothing of the sort. It just proves that someone had a button manufactured in the late 17^th or 18^th century but it tells us nothing about when it was lost on the island.

That’s the thing that I have noticed over the years. They just can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea that there are alternative explanations for what they are finding on the island. If Joy Steele is right, then what they are finding is more likely to confirm her theory than suggest a booby-trapped money pit. Her theory explains all that they are finding today. Her theory, as I have noted in the past, suggests that Oak Island was used as a repair facility for British ships in the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries. By the time the boys arrived with their picks and shovels to begin this two centuries plus search, the British had left… but their trash remains.

In the years since the Laginas began to tear up the island, they have found nothing to suggest a treasure was ever hidden there. They don’t seem to wonder about the engineering ability of those who allegedly hide the treasure. They don’t wonder how they created the money pit, how they made the booby traps, or how they would have recovered the treasure when they came back for it. In all the years and all the various attempts to find the treasure, no one had actually found anything to suggest the treasure was there. It all goes back to the teenagers who spent a summer on a wild goose chase for an imagined treasure.

As I have said in the past, I was enthused about this. I was hoping they would find a treasure because, well, that’s the most exciting solution. But I now think they have found an answer. There is no treasure but there is too much money to be had with the program. Obviously, History is making money even with the millions spent on everything they have done. Obviously, there is an audience for the show and the ratings are high. This will probably go on until the public loses interest, they start lose money, or the ratings collapse. And yes, I’ll be there at the end. I hate to say it, I’m still interested in the final outcome, but there is no treasure.