Curse of Oak Island and Red Water

As those of you who visit here know, I have about given up on Curse of Oak Island. They had been tearing up the island for years and all they have to show for all that destruction are some crummy artifacts that are essentially worthless and a pack of speculations that are laughable in the extreme.

Oak Island, obviously.

Remember back in the early days when we were repeatedly shown that lousy video from Borehole 10X. There were images seen on that video that resembled a body, there was a hammer seen, and some sort of box that suggested treasure. When was the last time they showed that? Certainly not after they managed to put a diver down to the bottom of the hole and he found nothing of the sort. There was no body or tool or box. It was just an empty cavern that had a current in the water that suggested a connection to the ocean.

We were told they had found a mythical treasure vault because one of the holes they drilled had penetrated some sort of wooden structure. Never mind that the island is riddled with tunnels and holes and excavations in which wood was used to prop up everything. This, they said was the vault… except they haven’t been able to find it again and their one connection to it produced nothing but that wood.

They have dug up Smith’s Cove and found all sorts of structures that suggest some sort of military or nautical facility on the island. They have actually found historical records that seem to match those structures to actual installations built in the 1700s proving that someone was there in the years before the alleged Money Pit was found. In fact, everything they have found suggests an occupation that was abandoned before the boys showed up to start digging away at their imagined treasure.

I bring all this up because of something I saw in the last episode. Before I get to that, I want you all to remember that a few episodes ago they tossed some red dye into one of the holes they had dug to see where it would come up. At Smith’s Cove they had found a stone structure and by structure, I mean two stones that were tipped together to suggest the possibility of a triangle-shaped stone drain (changed from the box drain they spent years telling us about) that would lead to the Money Pit. Eventually, some red water trickled out and they all said that it proved a connection to the pit, whichever pit they’d tossed the dye into.

Now, we have them using an excavator to dig down deeper, farther inland, until they hit the water table. There was water seeping into the hole and that water had the same strange, reddish-orange color of that water that had been seen back on Smith’s Cove. What does this tell us? Well, I’d say that it showed that there was some sort of natural element that colored some of the water on the island. What they had seen in that earlier episode was not evidence of the dye migrating to Smith’s Cove, but a result of tapping into a water source that had been stained. In other, plainer words, they found nothing of interest and yet hyped it as some kind of proof of the treasure.

I was going to ask, “At what point do they admit defeat, pack up and go home?”

But the answer is obvious. When the ad revenue dries up and the show becomes a liability rather than an asset.

I believe that we have the answers here. We know what was going on, and the explanation of a military or nautical installation makes more sense than a hidden treasure of the Knights Templar, the lost manuscripts from William Shakespeare, or the French crown jewels.

But, in the positive, they have answered the question of what is hidden on Oak Island. Nothing of importance.

Oak Island - The Solution?

What ever happened to the search for the Money Pit? Wasn’t that the whole point of the show? To find the treasure that was supposed to be hidden at the bottom of the pit? Now we have them mucking about in the swamp (pun intended) trying to prove that it was manmade and that there is some sort of ship buried in the mud there.

Yes, we know that Smith’s Cove probably was created artificially and that the structures uncovered had nothing to do with the alleged flood system built to

The Money Pit, decades ago.

protect the treasure. Clearly this was a repair facility constructed in a location that was convenient in the New World. In the eighteenth century there just wasn’t the infrastructure that was needed. By the time the boys got to Oak Island in 1795 and invented the tale of a Money Pit, the east coast of the United States and Canada had built the port facilities that made Oak Island obsolete and unimportant. It was abandoned for the better facilities in a less hostile environment that sailors who’d spent months at sea would appreciate.

Remember back in the first season when they were looking for the original Money Pit? Remember Borehole 10X which supposedly revealed a long dead body, a tool or two, and a box that might hold some of the treasure? We saw, repeatedly, a video that seemed to show these things, but then a diver managed to get to the bottom of the Borehole and found… nothing. Some debris that had fallen into it from the surface, but nothing to indicate any sort of treasure. We aren’t treated to those videos any more because the dive had given us the answers about what was at the bottom of the borehole.

They continued their search to find the original Money Pit, even with the distractions of a Roman sword found in the ocean near the island that turned out to be a modern replica, the idea that the Knights Templar had somehow gotten to the New World before those in Europe knew about it so they could hide a treasure, and all the things found on the surface that suggested that people had used the island for decades before the boys began digging. But the point is that they found nothing to indicate a treasure buried deep on the island.

We keep hearing about the box drains that somehow supplied the booby traps with water that thwarted those boys when they dug too deep. But the real problem is that divers, who got down deep enough reported a current tugging at them. That indicates that the problem wasn’t a drain system, but an opening to the ocean that allowed the water in. Remember, it was reported that the depth of water in the Money Pit rose and fell with the tide. That wouldn’t have happened with a drain system created to booby trap the Money Pit.

So now we get to this season and the effort seems to be to find some sort of evidence in the swamp area. They are trying to find evidence that it is man-made. I think they have that right. The swamp is man-made. I think it worked something like a dry dock for wooden ship repair. I think the site was abandoned as better facilities farther south were built.

I have been interested in the mystery of Oak Island for fifty years. I have been interested in it since I first learned about it. I was fascinated with the story. And who isn’t captivated by a tale of pirate treasure? But we have the answer. The Laginas have done everything humanly possible to get to the bottom of the myth and I believe they have succeeded. They have proved the British were there decades before the Money Pit was “discovered.” The have found evidence of maritime activity associated with the island. They have opened up some very interesting historical avenues and, ironically, they have shown there is no treasure there.

I have followed stories of lost gold, of lost mines, of lost treasures for decades. Very few of them are true but most of them have a great historic tradition with lots of people trying to find them. But, most of them are just that. Stories. Oak Island was just one such story. We have a solid solution to it, thanks in no small part to the Laginas, but it is time to move on.

Curse of Oak Island Flames Out Or I Just Don't Care Anymore

Okay, I give up. I just don’t care if there is a treasure on Oak Island or not, but I suspect there is not. I have been watching this show since it began but my interest in the subject started much earlier, as I have said before. I learned about Oak Island in a book, This Baffling World, that I bought in the early 1970s. It told of many strange things such as UFOs, which is why I bought it in the first place, but it also contained some of the more terrestrial mysteries such as Oak Island.

It told the traditional story, but it was interesting enough that I looked for other

One of the many attempts to get at the Money
Pit treasure.

information about that buried treasure. I found some magazine articles and when I found D’Arcy O’Connor’s The Big Dig: The $10 Million Search for Oak Island’s Legendary Treasure, I had to buy it. Of course, the book ended with the failure to find the treasure for a variety of reasons. Just the hints that something was there, but no real evidence of anything like millions of dollars in treasure.

In 1968, Dan Blankenship and David Tobias formed the Triton Alliance Ltd. with the purpose of recovering the alleged treasure. In 1971, Borehole 10X was enlarged and lined with steel. They wanted to put a video camera down, into a void they had discovered. According to the story, they saw a floating hand suspended in the dirty water. Another such probe picked up what looked like three chests, various tools, spikes and logs and finally what looked to be a human body. On The Curse of Oak Island, in the first seasons, they repeatedly showed this poor-quality video.

They enlarged the borehole to the point that someone could get down it and look around. Blankenship showing great courage, made a number of dives in his attempt to locate and recover the treasure. During a dive in November 1976, Blankenship heard a rumbling and demanded to be pulled up immediately. As he looked back down, he saw that some of the casing had collapsed. Access to the bottom was now blocked. They tried to reopen the borehole, but mechanical issues and other troubles finally forced them to abandon the attempt. Much later those problems would be resolved.

After this, they planned a “Big Dig” with a new shaft large enough to encompass the earlier attempts, to be lined with steel to defeat the alleged boobytraps and to protect any divers brave enough to go down there. The stock market crash in 1987 ended those plans as investors pulled out and other sources of capital dried up. You might say the money dried up with the stock market.

There is another major problem with all this. There is no real evidence that any treasure is buried on the island. There might have been, but it might have been removed by those who buried it or, more likely, there might never have been any treasure buried there at all. Interestingly, now that we have the Laginas trying to get to the treasure we learn that the things they are finding today are the same sorts of things found during all those earlier attempts. These include wood and coconut husks and iron spikes. Those spikes, according to the analysis, had been forged prior to 1790 and the wood was carbon dated to 1575 plus or minus 85 years. All that suggested someone on the island long before the boys found the Money Pit in 1795, but again, that doesn’t prove there was ever a treasure hidden there.

I’m not going to go into all the items found in those earlier years and what was extrapolated from them. I wrote about it in a book, Lost Gold and Buried Treasure that was published in 1995, which, of course demonstrates my interest going back a couple of decades, if that is necessary. Back then I wrote, “Oak Island is unique in the field of treasure hunting. Everyone knows where the treasure is. At the bottom of the pit. Modern technology should be able to defeat the booby traps…”

This was before the Laginas showed up and used that modern technology to defeat the booby traps, if there were, in fact, any booby traps to defeat. Instead it seems that the high-water table of the island, and a series of natural underground chambers and caves might have given the impression of an elaborate maze of pits and booby traps. The question that no one seemed to ask, but I will now, “Who had the technology prior to 1795 to create the Money Pit as it is described today… and even if they did, would they have been able to recover the treasure?”

The real point is that I don’t believe there is a treasure there and I don’t think there ever was. We have been treated to breathless finds that turn out to be nothing extraordinary. A coin dated 1695 that proves nothing other than someone with a coin with that date on it had been on the island… not that it was dropped in 1695 or 1795 or even 1985… it could have been dropped two days before it was found.

We have iron artifacts, which are not gold, but iron, and these sorts of things have also been found on the island a half century ago. They prove nothing and worse yet, they were found close to the surface. Little has been pulled up to suggest any

Marty Lagina

hidden treasure. You might say that it just the trash left by human occupation.

I could go on, but I’ve written about this in the past on this blog. They have nothing to prove a treasure is there. But the real clue might have been in the last episode on April 2. Marty Lagina, in talking about the treasure and the history, seemed to be less than candid. His body language suggested, at least to me, that he was discouraged and might not even believe there is a treasure here anymore. Oh, I’m sure he did at one point, but he seems to have lost his enthusiasm for the search.

After six seasons of this, I’m tired. I can’t take more excitement over wood structures that were built by those looking for the treasure over the last two centuries. I’m tired of things found on the surface that prove human occupation but do not prove a treasure is buried there. I’m tired of guesses that have no real basis in fact and leaps of logic that tell us nothing but lead off on tangents. If the ratings remain high, I’m sure we’ll be treated to a seventh season, but those of us who pay attention know that the answer has already been found. If there ever was any treasure on Oak Island, it is long gone… and the more likely answer is that there never was any treasure to begin with.

Curse of Oak Island - Season 6, Episode 1

So, yes, I watched the first episode of the new season of Curse of Oak Island and have to say that nothing seems to have changed. We’re still teased with what is being found, including a gold coin but we don’t know if it was found deep inside one of those holes they have dug, or if it was discovered on the surface as

Oak Island

practically everything else has been. In other words, without some sort of context, this means little and is just one more example of what we have seen season after season.

In the preview show that ran in the hour before the new season started, we saw the coffer dam that they will erect at some point. That is an impressive structure but I have to ask, how would pirates, or British sailors, or whoever, do that in the 16^th or 17^th century? If we are to believe that these long-gone people built some sort of drainage system that would flood the Money Pit, we have to wonder how they could have done it so long ago with their state-of-the-art shovels and pulley systems that would have been all they had. And, we’ve seen that the Laginas boys have scraped down, below what was the surface of the beach, and there was no evidence of that boobytrap or drainage system. In years past, we did see they found some sort of channel or stone lined ditch that didn’t seem to be the legendary boobytrap that we’ve heard so much about. It’s not really the same thing though.

Anyway, this episode didn’t give us much in the way of new data. They did test the lead “Knights Templar” cross they had found, on the surface, last year. The tests seemed to show that the lead didn’t originate on the North American continent, but we didn’t find out where the lead had been mined. But then, we do know that ships from Europe had landed on the island in centuries past, not to mention people living on the island so the cross really doesn’t tell us much of anything.

I didn’t really expect much from this first episode. They weren’t going to solve the mystery or find the treasure. In fact, I had heard or read somewhere that this season will be longer than those aired in the past. That means they’re going to drag this one out for a lot longer.

However, I have to say, that I don’t think they’re going to find the treasure. I have been interested in this since the 1960s when I first heard about it. I have read many of the books and articles about it, and for a time believed that there was a treasure hidden on the island. Since that time, I have watched each season of Curse of Oak Island and I think the Laginas accidently solved the mystery long ago. I think, once they got to the bottom of Bore Hole 10X, which Dan Blankenship had explored so long ago, and which held some interesting images, we had the answer. There was no chest down there. There was no body that seemed to be lying down there. Everything seen in those old videos or photographs turned out to be nothing more than optical illusions of the rough bottom.

They also have put a diver down, in a new hole they drilled, and he found that there was a current down there. It seemed that the area was connected with the ocean, and that the reason the Money Pit flooded was not really a boobytrap, but they had tapped into that underground water source. The flooding was the end result of tapping into the source of the water that filled the pit.

But we also have to ask, once again, who had the technical ability to build a structure of that nature. While the engineering capability might have existed in Europe or China in that time frame, it wouldn’t have existed on a pirate ship or a British man-of-war. They simply couldn’t have dug down more than 90 feet, created the elaborate drainage system that boobytrapped the Money Pit, and certainly wouldn’t have been able to block the boobytrap to get back at the treasure if and when the wanted to retrieve it.

Joy Steele

Joy Steele, I think, have provided the true story of Oak Island. I think her theory, that Oak Island have been some sort of way station, a place where British ships could go for repairs, is the correct one. Her theory explains everything that has been found to this point without inventing a treasure. Her theory is based on history rather than speculation. I have reported on this in other blog postings. You can read more about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-mystery-of-oak-island-solved-by-joy.html

When we get to the end of this season, which will probably be the last season, there will be no treasure found. Given all that we have seen in past seasons, and all the speculation that has not panned out, there really is nothing more to learn. I hate to say it, but I don’t think there was ever a treasure. I think the story evolved from a trio of boys who had heard tales of pirate gold, found something that they didn’t understand on the surface and wildly speculated on what they would soon dig up… They found nothing, family legends notwithstanding, but that didn’t mean that others didn’t buy into the story. We’ve had two centuries of digging, mythmaking, and speculation but we’ve had nothing in the way of real evidence. At the end of the season, I think that everyone will agree that even if there was a treasure at some point, it is no longer there.

Curse of Oak Island - Season Six Guesses

As I was sitting around, waiting for summer to officially begin in a couple of hours, I realized that the Lagina boys would be back at Oak Island if there was really a plan for Season Six. I had noticed, at the end of Season Five, as they sat around in their war room, that Dan Blankenship didn’t seem to be too enthusiastic for another assault on the island and said that it wasn’t his money to spend. They also had laid out all the treasure they have found over the five seasons that looked somewhat impressive until you realized that most of it had been found on the surface and not buried deep in the ground. Some of it was completely irrelevant. In those five seasons they hadn’t found much of anything to support the idea of a treasure on the island.

I had said that Season Six might not happen because it seems they had exhausted nearly every possibility of a treasure and without some positive results, they might just chuck it in… unless, of course, the ratings suggested something else. High ratings might be producing a bit of a treasure for those involved with the show.Anyway, I queried a friend in Nova Scotia and asked him if History and the Laginas had returned to Oak Island because, if they were going to return, they should be there by now. Remember, last year they showed up in May and here we are in the middle of June. He told me, “I believe they’re gearing up for yet another season, although I haven’t seen any recent funding announcement from the government.”

I also learned that The Curse of Oak Island is History’s Number One program and that it is the top cable program in its Tuesday night time slot. I know that I was there each week, yelling at the TV because I couldn’t believe the conclusions there were drawing on the material they were finding. But even with those negatives, meaning not actually finding anything of value, the ratings would dictate another season and that seems to be a good guess now. There will be a new season.

Excavations at the Money Pit.

But remember the hype from the beginning of Season Five. They “found” the actual “money pit,” which meant they thought they had located the original hole, though it was hinted at something better and more exciting. And, each week we were left with something of a cliff hanger as they teased about important discoveries to be revealed later. For me, when the season ended, I was disappointed because they had not found the pot of gold (or vault full of gold, or whatever) but just some trinkets close to the surface that in and of themselves weren’t really valuable.

So now, maybe they’ll build that great coffer dam to find out what secrets are hidden on the beach that had been created with the coconut husks and that supposedly contained the drains that booby trapped the Money Pit. Maybe they’ll find the rest of the human bones that suggest two people had died on the island in the late 17^th century. I don’t know what they really expect to find, other than high ratings and sponsor’s cash.

Yes, I’ll be watching each week and I expect to be disappointed each week, but on the bright side, I think they are solving the mystery of Oak Island. It’s just not the answer they had wanted.

Curse of Oak Island: The Fifth Season

I was cruising the net, looking for something interesting to read and came across a story entitled, “Michigan Man Unearths 220-Year-Old Hidden Treasure.” Quite naturally I clicked on the story and came to another headline that said, “Have Two

Oak Island

Brothers Cracked the 220-Year-Old Oak Island Mystery?”

Well, looking at the calendar, I could see that winter was coming (thought in Westros, winter has come) and the treasure hunting season in Nova Scotia would be winding down. I hadn’t heard anything, but maybe this was telling me that the Lagina brothers had finally succeeded in penetrating the Money Pit and put their hands on the treasure. In fact, on the first page leading to the second, there was a picture of a chest that seemed to be filled with old coins that suggested they had found more than just the couple of coins that the last several seasons of The Curse of Oak Island had produced. You can read the whole story (all forty pages to click through if you’re so inclined) here:

http://www.icepop.com/brothers-crack-oak-island-mystery/?utm_source=talas&utm_campaign=M_TS_IP_US_D_OakIsland_v2_1809-Michigan+Man+Unearths+220+Year+Old+Hidden+Treasure-https%3A%2F%2Fstorage.googleapis.com%2Fcaw-uploads%2F67e1fe1e-5f53-4ea5-925a-4199194ecdbe.jpg&utm_term=msn-defaulthomepage&utm_medium=M_TS_IP_US_D_OakIsland_v2_1809&utm_content=newnext

That is if this incredibly long link still works (and no, I didn’t convert to a tiny.url because this one is more fun... sort of).

To save everyone the aggravation of having to click through 40 pages of limited text and piled high with ads, I’ll point out that the story is mostly about the history of Oak Island from the alleged finding of the Money Pit through the various attempts to defeat the booby traps including those encountered by the Lagina brothers. We all know that story, and we even know some of the variations of it that suggest more legend than fact. Eventually we get to the Laginas and their attempts to get deep into the Money Pit.

I had hoped that the tale would tell us something about what they had found this summer, but, of course, that would wreck the ratings for Season Five… apparently the ratings for Season Four were good enough, in fact the highest of the series run, that there will be a Season Five. But I learned nothing about what they had found, if anything, and since the news of a discovery would be difficult to contain, I’m thinking they had no more suggest this summer than they did last… other than the ratings. And if they had found something, I’d think the ratings would be even higher.

The only thing I know, that some of you might not, is that Season Five will begin airing in November… which is, of course subject to change. But they are beginning the buildup, which I think is the point of the article. They’re letting us know that there will be a new season, and, of course, I’ll watch (and be disappointed). I still hope they’ll find a treasure, but I’m pretty sure that if there ever was any treasure there, it’s long gone… but I don’t think there ever was any treasure to find.

The Mystery of Oak Island Solved by Joy Steele

While the Laginas begin to power up for a new assault on the treasure hidden beneath Oak Island, a new theory about the Money Pit has been revealed. Joy Steele, in her book, The Oak Island Mystery Solved, has provided an interesting idea. According to her, there is no treasure, never had been, and the alleged Money Pit is nothing more than a tar kiln, used in the early 18^th century to produce material to repair ships. And, given what has been found on the island by the Laginas and some of those others, this does make some sense.

According to the history, back in the early eighteenth century, the British received their naval stores from Sweden which apparently included tar. But that supply was cut off and the British looked to their colonies in the new world to replace that source. They induced colonists in the Carolinas to create the tar kilns because of the dense pine forests (Can you say Tar Heels?). It would seem on my quick research that they built dozens of these kilns in the Carolinas, but it seems they also built them up and down the east coast of North America.

The question becomes, “Would they have built tar kilns on Oak Island?”

I have learned that pine trees are considered resinous trees, but oaks are not. They don’t produce resin when cut or “injured” which makes them good for furniture, cabinets and fire wood. Pines do produce the resin which can be rendered to tar which makes them bad for furniture and fire wood.

Would the British have established a camp on Oak Island and used it to produce tar? Well, oak trees aren’t any good for that, but there are pine trees in Nova Scotia. Would Oak Island have been a place where the British would build these kilns even if the pine trees were not in abundance on the island?

We know there was a British camp on the island. That was established by those guys the Laginas brought in and who, using metal detectors, found British coins and other debris that suggested a camp. So, there was a British presence on the island that predates the discovery of the Money Pit. And remember that the residents of Nova Scotia reported seeing lights on the island in the early eighteenth century.

I don’t know all that much about sailing ships of the eighteenth century, but it would seem that docking at an island for repairs might have been simpler than sailing all the way to the mainland (and yes, I know it’s not all that far, but the tides and depth of water might have made it somewhat problematic). That might also explain the artificial nature of that swamp that the Laginas are always attempting to drain, might explain some of the debris found in the swamp, and might explain why some believed that a ship had been scuttled in the area. It would might also explain the artificial beaches, the coconut fiber and the alleged coffer dam.

I also know that some of you might say, “Yes, but what about that stone with the strange carvings found 90 feet down in the Money Pit?”

I would say, “I believe that was created as an inducement for selling stock in another attempt to penetrate the Money Pit. They could say that they had found this plaque proving that there was a huge fortune just a few feet down. Buy stock in my company to recover it.” I would note that no treasure has been found a few feet below where it is the alleged stone was found.

There are those out there who will complain about this debunking of the Money Pit, but I have to say that you need to follow the evidence. The Laginas have provided some of that evidence from their searches. They have found coins on the surface, have pulled iron nails out of the swamp that suggest they had been using on sailing ships, and they have found evidence of lots of tunnels… but they have found absolutely nothing to suggests there is a treasure hidden anywhere on the island.

For those interested in seeing the other side of the coin, might I suggest you take a look at Joy Steele’s book, The Oak Island Mystery Solved, which can be found in many places including Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.com/Oak-Island-Mystery-Solved-ebook/dp/B00Y3BGVDM 

Curse of Oak Island - Season 4 Finale (sort of)

Well, that certainly was a disappointment. After a week of teasing us with the discovery of a gold coin from deep in the fourth hole they dug, and with their archaeological expert (Dr. Lori and whose last name I didn’t write down) saying that it was an important discovery, we finally learn the truth. It wasn’t a gold coin but a gold-plated button and Dr. Lori wasn’t talking about the button when she talked about the amazing artifact but about the cross that a couple of the McGinnis sisters had which had been handed down through several generations. We’d seen it before.

Or, in other words, the tease had been deceptively created to give a false impression that something very important had finally been found during their dig, pointing to a treasure in the Money Pit. That wasn’t the case.

In the two-hour season finale, we got the same old tired rhetoric that they were on the verge of finding proof that there was a treasure hidden in the Money Pit. And when the two, somewhat boring hours were over, they had found nothing to prove there was a treasure, only that lots of people had spent lots of time, lots of effort and lots of money to come up with just a few, tiny gold relics, some old British coins, and lots of wood that had been used in all the other attempts to find the treasure.

The most important revelation, which had been made before, was when the McGinnis sisters returned. One of the three had died of cancer and the remaining two had a small, glass globe with some of her ashes in it to be buried on the island. And while I certainly emphasize with them for their loss, it wasn’t actually relevant to the hunt for the treasure.

They also brought with them that small, gold cross that they had shown to the Lagina boys some time ago, saying that it was part of the treasure recovered by their ancestor. But here’s the thing, or rather two things. First, if what they say is true, then the treasure is gone, found by that ancestor and his two pals, and second, there really is nothing to prove that the cross came from a huge treasure trove. Their expert, Dr. Lori, said that it was old, of a style that suggested it was of Spanish origin, and that at one time it was covered by jewels (emeralds) that had been removed.

Once we have disposed of this, and seemingly forgotten about the gold-plated button, they returned to continue their digging which reportedly has cost three or four million this year alone. They keep pulling up wood until they hit a metal obstruction that others had reported in the past and had failed to penetrate. But in the world today there are methods that weren’t available a century ago and they break through. They had pulled up pieces of metal that might have protected or been part of equipment used in those earlier excavations. They don’t know what they have other than it doesn’t seem to be modern and a suggestion that it is not from a treasure but from the search of others for the treasure.

Having penetrated the metal obstruction, they continued down but had to stop because their casing which guided the equipment wasn’t long enough to protect the equipment. In other words, they could lose a valuable piece of equipment and the owner/operator didn’t want to take the risk. Digging, for the season, was over.

They did pull up another bit of metal that was bent in the middle and had several holes in it. Again, they thought it looked old. They returned to Dr. Lori who told them that the piece of metal was just the sort of thing they would use on treasure chests back in the time of pirates and chests of gold. The problem, as I understood it, was that the metal would be used on all sorts of chests including those storing clothes and other personal but not necessarily valuable items. On Oak Island, everything is related to pirates, treasures or the Knights Templar.

Dr. Lori looked at other things they had found including the spike that she identified as part of an old sailing ship which also suggested pirates, the old coins which were established as British, and then learned about the wooden planks and parts found in the swamp. This seemed to underscore the theory that a ship had been sunk into the swamp centuries ago which bolstered Dan Blankenship’s theory that they hid the treasure, or parts of it, in plain sight.

So, let’s recap the four years of digging, diving, traveling, exploring (and maybe throw in some stuff that went on decades and centuries ago). They have found lots of wood from other attempts to find the money. They remind us that there was a stone found at the 90-foot level that had strange makings on it but that no one bothered to photograph and that has since disappeared. There was a three-link gold chain of which we do have pictures. And then all the stuff that is not particularly valuable or relevant for us. Nothing that proves there is treasure on the island, only that people have been there for centuries, many of them looking for the treasure.

I don’t know how much money has been spent, I do not know what the Laginas or any of the others are paid for being on the show and I don’t believe they will ever find anything of value because there is nothing of value to find. Had they taken the money and invested it in blue chip stocks or even money market or savings accounts (and with the amount of money they had, they could have hit some very favorable rates) they would have made a great deal more.

Next season they will be back but I’m not sure (with the exception of the Blankenships) if they still believe they will find anything of value. It might just be for the excitement of doing a TV show, getting a nice summer vacation without having to pay for it, and getting a nice check for being a reality TV star. If there is money to be made on Oak Island, it is in the TV show and in any books that are written about it and not treasure from the Incas or the Aztecs or the Knights Templar or the Spanish pirates or British pirates. As I have said, the real treasure is in the TV show and not the ground.

The Curse of Oak Island: An Expanded History - Part One

Longer ago than I care to admit I bought a book entitled This Baffling World (for those who care the copyright was 1968 and it sold for $6.95 in hardback… I think I bought it in 1970). It contained a section on Oak Island and that is where I first learned about the Money Pit. There are very few cases where the exact location of the treasure is known. Most of the time, it is a shipwreck where the depth of the water, or the shifting of the silt on a river bottom has created problems for those trying to recover the loot. In one case, on Oak Island, the exact location of the horde is known down to the millimeter. Everyone knows precisely where the treasure is, even how deep it is buried, but no one knows how to get down to it or rather, I suppose, we should say that it was once known to the millimeter and people didn’t know how to retrieve it.

The story begins, for us, in October 1795 when three boys rowed across Mahone Bay to land on the shore of tiny, and at the time, heavily wooded Oak Island. Anthony Vaughan, Dan McGinnis and Jack (John) Smith decided to look around before eating their lunch. They found a clearing where a single oak towered over the open area. They noticed that a limb had been sawed off, that the stump showed evidence of ropes and tackle, and directly below it was a circular depression about twelve or fifteen feet in diameter. To the boys it looked as if something had been buried there long before or that is how the legend began.

Or, the story might have begun as early as June 1795. D'Arcy O'Connor reported in The Big Dig: The $10 Million Search for Oak Island's Legendary Treasure, that John Smith purchased Lot 18 on June 26, 1795 for something like twenty bucks... well not exactly that, but it shows how land values have increased (and given what has been recovered so far, that might be the real source of treasure). Lot 18 is, of course, the location of what was to become known as the Money Pit.

The boys knew that pirates had once roamed the area or so they had been told by their elders. They thought of buried treasures, chests filled with gold, and pots of gems collected from around the region or maybe from around the world. There were stories of lost treasures in the area and it might even be said that Captain Kidd was the man who buried the treasure on Oak Island. The boys believed they might have found one of his hidden caches.

The next day, the boys returned to the island, but this time they brought shovels and picks so that they could become rich. As they began to dig, they realized that someone else had dug there sometime before. The shovels slipped into the earth easily suggesting a hole or chamber that had been filled in. That would suggest that whatever was hidden there, hadn't been there long, certainly no more than a decade or two, at least to their way of thinking.

Only two feet down, they ran into the first real proof of something extraordinary. They found a layer of flagstones, which later investigation suggested had come from the Gold River, about two miles up the coast on the mainland. Someone had brought them to Oak Island, or so it seemed.

Ten feet down they came to a layer of oak logs. They broke through it, but found nothing below other than more dirt. They continued to dig and according to some sources they discovered a boatswain's whistle and a copper coin dated 1713 though some say they found it thirty feet down. Sure that they had were on the site of a buried fortune, they continued to dig.

At twenty feet, they hit another layer of oak logs. They broke through it quickly and were once again disappointed because they found only more dirt. They noticed that that the sides of the pit were of made of hard clay that showed pick marks, while the dirt in the center was soft and easy to dig through. Below that wooden platform, the ground had settled leaving a two foot gap.

At thirty feet they found another layer of logs but below found only more dirt. At this point they knew that the task would require expert help. They had dug down as far as they could without some kind of assistance and it seems amazing that they had managed to dig a hole so deep.

On the mainland, they failed to find the help they needed, because the farmers and fishermen already had enough work to keep them busy. Besides, many of those living on the mainland had seen strange night lights on the island for many years and they were afraid of what might be hidden there. Or they were afraid of those who might be watching. Either way, they weren’t all that interested in digging a hole for a rumored treasure when winter was approaching and they needed to prepare for that.

Smith, who later married, moved onto the island, where he would farm for many years and where he could keep an eye on the money pit. His fellow treasure hunter, McGinnis also farmed on the island. Both hoped to one day solve the mystery and be wealthy by recovering the treasure that just had to be there.

Syndicates Enter the Search

Nothing happened after the initial interest in 1795 until Simeon Lynds heard the story of the pit and the wealth it promised. He was so excited by what he learned that he formed a company, the Onslow Group, to excavate the Money Pit and that was financed by thirty fellow businessmen.   They began their assault on the Money Pit in 1803. Their first task was to dig out the debris that had fallen into the pit in the eight years since the boys had been there. In short order they were down to the thirty foot level reached by the boys and by the middle of the summer, had dug out another sixty feet reaching down nearly ninety feet.

Every ten feet, according to the legend and the records left, they hit a layer of logs, but now they began to find other debris as well. Some of the log layers were reinforced by charcoal and putty and a strange fibrous material that was later identified as coconut husks. The closest coconut tree is more than fifteen hundred miles from Oak Island.

At ninety feet, on the log layer, they workers found a stone slab that legend suggests contained a strange inscription of symbols and dots. The slab was described as about two feet long, fifteen inches wide and ten inches thick. It weighed about 175 pounds eventually found its way into the publishing industry where it was used in a way that probably eroded the inscription if there actually have been one. It disappeared in sometime after 1919 without anyone photographing it.

Some sixty years later, about 1865, a professor claimed to have finally decoded the message on the stone. It said, "Forty feet below, two million pounds are buried." The code wasn't particularly clever and it's not explained exactly why it took so long to decipher but the reason might be an attempt to raise money for another try at getting the treasure. Descriptions of the stone have been reported in all the early accounts of the Money Pit, and hundreds, if not thousands, were reported to have seen it so there is no doubt that such a stone did exist; it’s just the inscription that is in dispute.

They pulled the slab out of the pit, broke through the wooden platform and kept on digging. The pit had originally been dry, but now water was beginning to seep into it. The workers were taking out almost as much water as dirt, but no one was concerned about it at that time. They probed the bottom with a metal rod, and at ninety-eight feet, hit something that a few thought might be a chest. With darkness coming, however, they were forced to stop work for the night. Remember this was in a world that didn’t have electric lights and without light there wasn’t much they could do.

When they returned the next morning they found the pit now filled with water. They began to bail, working steadily until sometime around noon. After several hours they noticed they were making no real progress. The water level had not been lowered at all. With this failure they abandoned the efforts for the year. It was late summer and the men had to return to the farms and fields. The company officers planned to return the following year and finish their quest for treasure.

In 1804, they returned and confirmed that it was impossible to bail out the pit. They decided to dig another hole, not far from the original pit and then tunnel over to the Money Pit. They thought would defeat the water by sneaking up on it from another direction.

They dug down more than one hundred fourteen feet and then began to tunnel. Before they could break through to the Money Pit, the ground began to seep water slowly and then began to flood. The men were forced from the new pit as the wall between their pit and the old collapsed. Soon the water stood at the same level in both pits. With that, they were forced to abandon their attempts. They realized that no amount of bailing would ever drain the pits. The treasure, which they were sure was still down there, and not very far away, was just out of their reach.

Smith, who still lived on the island, went back to farming. At some point he filled in both the pits. Although there were local legends about the treasure, and it seems that almost everyone in Nova Scotia was aware of the stories, no one could think of a way to defeat the booby traps that protected the Money Pit.

The Search Continues

In 1849 another corporation was formed to try to recover the treasure. Called the Truro Company, they thought that they could get down to the treasure. Dan McGinnis had died, but both Smith and Vaughan were still alive. One of them, probably Vaughan, showed the Truro Company engineers where the original Money Pit had been.

Once again they began to dig. In less than two weeks there were down about eighty feet. At that point, the water began to seep in again, and the workers were forced out. In an hour or two, the pit was again filled to the same level as before. The Truro Company was forced to abandon the attempt, but returned a few days later to erect a platform about thirty feet down, just above the water level. From there, using an auger, they explored, as best they could, what lay at the bottom of the pit. They confirmed a layer of wood at 98 feet that was five inches thick just as the early Onslow Company had found. Below that was an open space and then came the interesting discoveries.

According to a letter sent by Jothan (yes, that is the correct spelling) B. McCully he said:

...the auger dropped 12 inches and then went through four inches of oak; then it went through five inches of metal in pieces, but the auger failed to take any of it in except three links, resembling an ancient watch chain. It then went through eight inches of oak, which was thought to be the bottom of the first box and the top of the next; then 22 inches of metal, the same as before [meaning loose], then four inches of oak and six inches of spruce; then into clay seven feet without striking anything else...On withdrawing the auger, several splinters of oak, such as might come from the side of an oak stave, and a small quantity of a brown fibrous substance, closely resembling the husk of a coconut, were brought up.

For the first time there was real evidence that something had been hidden at the bottom of the Money Pit, and, that it was still down there. The gold chain links suggested a treasure, as did the loose metal, possibly coins or maybe jewelry. They were unable to recover anything else from the Money Pit, but the findings did excite them.

With these results, the Truro Company drilled several addition holes in the bottom of the pit but didn't find anything else as intriguing. Or rather something was found, but the two men who knew what it was never reported publicly on it. They took it away.

John Pitbladdo was the foreman on that crew. He inspected the bit and the core samples each time they were brought to the surface. John Gammell, a major shareholder in Truro, visited the site one afternoon and saw Pitbladdo slip something from the drill bit into his pocket. Gammell asked what it was but Pitbladdo said he would provide a full report at the next shareholders meeting. He didn't want to provide one man with an advantage over his fellow stockholders he said. He left it at that, but it wasn’t the stockholders he was worried about. It was something or somebody else.