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The Curse of Oak Island S05E00 The Journey So Far
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00:02It has been four exciting years since we first joined Rick and Marty Lagina and their incredible
00:11team on their quest to solve the Oak Island mystery. We've seen them make awesome breakthroughs,
00:21watch them face frustrating challenges and overcome setbacks.
00:30But most importantly, we cheered them on as they kept finding compelling evidence that something
00:37of great value lies buried somewhere deep beneath the surface of the island.
00:43Now before we launch back into the search with season five, we're going to take the next
00:4860 minutes to celebrate what has been an unbelievable four years. And to help us, we've invited Rick
00:54and Marty Lagina to join us and share their thoughts on the journey so far.
01:08Oak Island might not look very big on a map, but when you're standing here as I am now, 140
01:13acres
01:14seems pretty darn big. Now, I guess if I was searching for treasure here, I'd start pretty
01:21much where Rick and Marty did four years ago. The place that offered the quickest way to get deeper
01:26down below the surface than anyone had ever gone before. The infamous 235 foot borehole known simply
01:33as 10X. 10X was hand dug by legendary treasure hunter Dan Blankenship back in the early 1970s. It was Dan's
01:58belief that in order to avoid the various flood tunnels that always frustrated
02:02efforts to dig at the money pit site, he would need to find another way in, a back door into
02:09what could be an underground treasure vault.
02:13In the very first episode of the series, Dan's partners, Rick and Marty Lagina, along with their partner,
02:20Craig Tester, and Dan's son, Dave Blankenship, got right down to business. They sent a high definition
02:27underwater camera to the bottom of the shaft. All right, we ready? Go find us something.
02:36His name is Probert the Probe. Come on, baby, go find it.
02:40How are you recording? Start? Yep, we're about to hit. Splash down. We're at 90 feet.
02:50What are you seeing? It's kind of dirty.
02:52Any mermaids? No mermaids. Rick and Marty were using Probert in hopes of verifying the existence
02:59of several objects that had been captured on tape by a Canadian TV station back in the 1970s.
03:06These included a wooden post, a possible treasure chest, tunnels, and even human remains.
03:16As that camera's going down the hole, there's like a fight going on inside my mind. You know,
03:21the scientific part of me is highly skeptical about what this could possibly be. But the hopeful part
03:27of me, the part that wants to believe, Marty suspend disbelief for a while and maybe this camera is going
03:33to show us these things that Dan Blankenship thinks are there. So I'm cynical and I'm hopeful.
03:38Let's go to bottom. Rick, why don't you come look at this? What's, uh? Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop!
03:47There's something here. That first look inside the borehole was tantalizing. But one of the best
03:53moments happened later in the war room when they showed the footage to Dan Blankenship.
03:58I honestly think that that could be the top of what I say is a tunnel there. What depth is
04:06that?
04:06There's that damn anchor or something there. From that moment on, it became Rick, Marty,
04:13and the team's mission to get to the bottom of 10X. Literally.
04:20At first, they tried flushing artifacts out of the bottom by means of the powerful airlift method.
04:27This is a process where air is pumped into the hole in hopes of forcing objects up the shaft
04:33and into a nearby collection tank. Hit the air! Let's go!
04:50So we ran an airlift into the hole hoping a gold coin, a chest hinge, something comes out. I mean,
04:57honestly, even Dan's famous severed hand. We're looking for something substantive to come out of
05:04that hole. Dan believed in what he saw. He admits it's very subjective. And so the hope is that we
05:13will hold in our hands at the end of this enterprise the proof for Dan, his long-sought breakthrough. That's
05:19my hope.
05:20Kill the air for a minute!
05:23Hey, dig some out of there. Let's see what we got.
05:28Well, I don't see a lot, but I mean, the bottom line is we're getting a lot of stuff.
05:32Wait.
05:34Now that, that is very peculiar.
05:38Although the team did find evidence of man-made workings using this method, they knew they needed
05:44an even better look at the bottom of 10X.
05:47Send it out. Okay.
05:50Well, here we go with the emotional roller coaster again. We now have sonar in the hole. State-of-the
05:56-art
05:56sonar. When they ran scanning sonar in the bottom chamber, the results were nothing short of astounding.
06:03Oh my goodness. Look at that. Look at this gentleman. What's that?
06:07It's an opening. And all kinds of stuff starts to be revealed. It is very exciting.
06:13We did find something I think is kind of unique. There's a structure down there. It sits right in
06:20this area right here. It's roughly two and a half feet by two feet. It's got a nice curved top.
06:26What we think this box could be is a possible chest.
06:31Wait, wait. Percent confidence that that is a man-made chest?
06:37Ninety percent.
06:39Really? Yeah.
06:41I suspend disbelief because you can see these images. They're crisp. And I am very excited
06:47that maybe it is true. Maybe there are all kinds of things in 10X.
06:50He actually denoted several things that Dan had not seen. Remember those circular objects
06:55that were on the shelf? Yeah.
06:57He thought it was a pulley. Yeah.
06:58He also believed that there was a half wall and behind which he could not see. Well,
07:02what's behind the half wall? Very exciting.
07:04At that point, I'm beyond where he's at. He's still analyzing data. I'm thinking,
07:08how do I drive this up and get down there? The results of the scanning sonar convinced
07:14the Oak Island team that Dan Blankenship was right. Something strange and unknown was lying
07:20at the bottom of the 10X shaft. Something that merited further investigation. And to do that,
07:28they would have to find someone experienced enough and brave enough to make their way down the
07:34increasingly narrow, 235-foot deep shaft. For this, Rick and Marty turned to world-renowned diver,
07:42John Chatterton. You ready?
07:45I'm ready. Going down.
07:49John, that's the top of the plane's changing.
07:53Okay. Proceed down.
08:01When John Chatterton finally did reach the bottom of 10X, it was the Oak Island equivalent of landing
08:08a man on the moon. I am in the chamber. Can you see that? Yeah, what is that, John?
08:17Where? John Chatterton made an extensive search of the chamber. But because of all the silt in the
08:24bottom of 10X, he had to do it in near zero visibility conditions. I'm in this tunnel.
08:32It appears very much rectangular. Does it feel natural to you or does it feel like it could be
08:39possibly man-made? Could he walk into that? You had to crawl in or could you walk into it?
08:53As soon as the dive operation was over, it was time for the debrief. And just like everyone at home,
09:00the guys in the war room were on the edge of their seats. One of the things that you guys
09:06were
09:06definitely interested in was the box. Right about here, I had a rock that I would estimate was 10
09:17inches to 12 inches. It was very angular, had at least one 90 degree angle on it. Here's the ultimate
09:25question. Odds from your exploration of that being man-made? I think
09:37it looks like a natural formation.
09:45So Rick, can we put an X in 10X and move on to other places on that island?
09:53Not right now.
09:57We've yet to discern anything that is targetable, i.e. retrievable. All the tools we put down and the
10:03human beings we put down there have said there's nothing in 10X. In order for me to rest easy on
10:0810X,
10:10I have to go down there. We'll see how that turns out. 10X and its secrets have yet to be
10:16fully revealed.
10:17But as far as fans are concerned, the same can also be said for other places on Oak Island.
10:27This place is foul. The swamp, this strange triangular-shaped area located right in the middle of Oak Island,
10:35is believed by many to be the key to solving this 222-year-old mystery. It was early in season
10:41one,
10:41when the Oak Island team first learned that something astounding might be hiding beneath the swamp's murky
10:47surface. That's when Leigh Lamb, the daughter of famed Oak Island treasure hunter Robert Restall,
10:54returned to the place where both her father and her brother Bobby Jr. died, along with two others,
11:01while searching for treasure here in 1965. These are Bobby's journals.
11:07It was during her visit that Leigh shared with Rick Lagina information about a mysterious
11:13mystery box that her brother Bobby was convinced lie buried in the southeast area of the swamp.
11:20I want you to look at this entry. Wow. It's like history coming to life.
11:28Jack Adams located an approximate position of his mystery box.
11:32I started cutting wood necessary for a working platform.
11:36We can't change this. We can't do anything about it. But I hope perhaps on the end of this book,
11:43you and I can fill in here, excuse me, that we finish.
11:49Yeah. Finish the search.
11:55Let's make a promise.
12:00No, you're welcome.
12:01No family has paid a steeper price in terms of the pursuit of answers regarding the Oak Island
12:09mystery other than the Restalls. And for me, it was emotionally charged visit. And I turned to Lee
12:15and I said, I promise you that we will write that last page. And we've not written it yet, but
12:22we will.
12:24In an effort to find out if Bobby Restall's theory about a mystery box was true, Rick,
12:30Marty and the team, attempted to drain the swamp.
12:33Go to the switch.
12:34I hope number two works.
12:36Better work.
12:52Only to suffer a series of setbacks.
12:56Nevertheless, the team's determination to investigate the swamp led them to a breakthrough find.
13:03Yeah, I'm getting a hit here. Definitely.
13:09Right there.
13:13There's something there.
13:21I believe this is a coin.
13:23No.
13:23You serious?
13:24What?
13:27Whoa.
13:29What's that A done?
13:30What the hell is that?
13:31It's an A. What is that?
13:33Yeah.
13:35The Spanish coin that we found in the swamp was a big, big deal to me because after we had
13:39it
13:40scientifically tested, the people who understand these things told us the condition of the coin
13:44was consistent with it being in a non-saline environment. In other words, it didn't come out
13:49of the sea. So here's a piece of evidence and it's a pretty good one. 1652. The discovery of the
13:55Spanish coin was an amazing find. It also added credibility to another intriguing theory about the
14:03Oak Island swamp, one long held by another famed treasure hunter, the late Fred Nolan.
14:10It was Fred's belief that Oak Island was once two adjacent land masses and that sometime during
14:16the 1600s, pirates sank a Spanish galleon loaded with treasure between the two islands.
14:22They covered their tracks by building two enormous coffer dams on both the north and south sides of the
14:29islands, pumped out the water, and sank the ship right where the swamp now lies. Seemed far-fetched?
14:38Well, it was just last season that the team found evidence to support this extraordinary theory.
14:45What is that?
14:46It's a large board.
14:50It's definitely not our target, but it's interesting. It's probably 18 feet long, which is an odd dimension.
14:55I'm thinking plank. Either deck planking or the side of the ship planking. The best place to hide
15:02something is in plain sight, right? Well, the swamp is in plain sight. And the other thing is that Fred
15:07has
15:08been reluctant over the years to tell us everything he has learned of the swamp. And then you add in
15:16the
15:17finds. Fred found a ship's mast, the rat lines of the ship, the scuppers of a ship, then our finds.
15:24You add all of that together, perhaps there was some thing done to manipulate the swamp.
15:33The discovery of what appeared to be a plank from a ship's deck compelled the guys to redouble their
15:40efforts to finally drain the swamp. And after they did, they made yet another, potentially greater
15:46discovery with the help of metal detection expert Gary Drayton.
15:51Now that's a good signal.
15:55Okay, I'll give it a little test.
15:58All right.
15:59It's somewhere around there.
16:00Should have gotten out of there.
16:04Oh, look at that, that's nice. That is old, it's an handmade spike. This type of nail was specifically
16:11made for putting decks down, thick decking on the old boats.
16:17The board that Tony found in the south part of the swamp looked like decking.
16:23It probably is, for sure. I found exactly the same objects as this on, off Spanish galleons from the
16:29late 1600s, early 1700s.
16:32Yeah.
16:32Cool.
16:35You know, as disgusting as it is, further exploration of the swamp really might provide us with the
16:42answers we're all looking for on Oak Island. Now, if only Rick and Marty could find someone to join
16:48the team that has no sense of smell. Nasty.
16:59On the eastern end of Oak Island sits one of its most intriguing and mysterious places,
17:05Smith's Cove. It's here that many searchers have invested major resources in trying to solve the
17:11222-year-old treasure mystery, and for good reason. It may hold the key to getting to the bottom of
17:18the
17:18Money Pit. In 1849, workers from the Truro Company found their efforts to dig in the Money Pit
17:25halted by an unexpected flood of seawater at a depth of 90 feet. After searching the island,
17:31they suspected that one of the places the water was coming from was at Smith's Cove.
17:37To investigate, they built a large coffer dam around the area. They then drained out the water,
17:44and were astonished at what they found. A network of five stone box drains that converged into one
17:52central flood tunnel, leading beneath the island towards the area of the Money Pit. Although years
17:58of digging on the island have all but obliterated any traces of the box drains, Rick, Marty and the team
18:03believe that if they can figure out which way the drains are headed, they might be able to pinpoint
18:07the exact location of the Oak Island treasure. You guys good at digging rocks? Good as you can get at
18:13that,
18:13I guess. We're slowly trying to drain this down so we can get at where the coconut fibers are.
18:28There it is. Looks like it to me. We gotta go tell Uncle Rick. When the box drains were first
18:37discovered,
18:38they were reported to have been covered over by layers of both coconut fiber and eel grass. Since
18:43coconut trees and coconut fiber aren't native to the North Atlantic, this was a major find.
18:54You guys actually found coconut fiber? That's incredible. We got proof. Yeah. Cool.
19:04Let's go down to the wet one. When the guys later took the coconut fiber to a lab to be
19:09carbon dated,
19:10they received even more startling news. Okay, got test results in on coconut fiber found in the beach.
19:22They're dating it between 1260 and 1400 AD. So it's old, old, old stuff. That's what I figured.
19:32Coconut fiber being found by our team was very important to me because coconut fiber should not
19:38be on an island off in Nova Scotia. There's proof. There's Marty's proof. Give me the proof. There's
19:44your coconut fiber. Proves the old story. And then to have the C-14 testing come back 1200s. Now,
19:51you tell me that doesn't mean something about the story of Oak Island, what may or may not have
19:55happened here, and I'll say you're wrong. But Smith's Cove isn't the only place where ocean water is
20:01brought in to fuel the island's many booby trap flood tunnels. At least two other inlets are believed to
20:06exist. And to find them took an ingenious method known as a dye test. Here we go. In season two,
20:13the guys poured an environmentally safe green dye down borehole 10X. Since 10X is flooded with ocean
20:21water, like the money pit, it was the team's plan to see if the dye would seep out of 10X
20:26and into the
20:27ocean at specific points. Finding these points might allow the team to seal up the flood tunnels for good,
20:35and in so doing, allow the money pit to be dug up without the persistent cave-ins and other problems
20:42caused by flooding. Does anybody see any dye coming out? Charles, Jack, do you see anything
20:49on the salt shore? No, man, we don't see a thing out here at all. Tony, Dan, anything in Smith's
20:54Cove at all?
20:55No? No dyeing out there? Then suddenly, a promising sign.
21:02The left-hand side, that grassy area, you can kind of see it right out there.
21:07You can see it looks like green, uh, green coming out of there.
21:11Tony, can you drive and get the boat over the Smith's Cove? Tony, copy.
21:19Tony, what do you see? Copy.
21:23Right in front of you, right now. Dan! Drop the weight! Drop the weight!
21:30Although the results of that first dye test proved inconclusive, the guys were determined not to give up.
21:38Last year, Rick, Marty, Craig, and the team put an inflatable cofferdam around a section of Smith's Cove
21:44in an attempt to find the original flood tunnels. Instead, they were surprised to find evidence of
21:51an ancient irrigation structure known as a French drain. It is interesting, the gradation, right?
21:57You know, you got the smallest rocks at the bottom, then bigger, then big walloping great ones that seem
22:02to be holding it all in place. Based on your expertise with certainty, this is placed here. It's a
22:06man-made something. I believe so. Wow. Very significant finding in Smith's Cove that an
22:11archaeologist says this is man-made. And his best guess was some sort of French drain. French drain
22:16is to conduct water somewhere. And we have these stories about the famous water booby trap. So it was
22:24corroboration and, um, made that effort. Rick's, Rick's big effort in, in Smith's Cove, I think that made
22:31that a winner. As far as the Oak Island team was concerned, they now had all the proof they needed.
22:37Something really big had once happened on the island, centuries ago. That we have to continue the,
22:44our search agenda in Smith's Cove. There are answers there. I don't know what they are. I don't know
22:49where they'd lead us. But we have to continue. But to find out what it was would require going back
22:55to
22:55the place this epic mystery began more than 222 years ago, the Oak Island Money Pit.
23:06Somewhere right around here in this area is the location of the fabled Oak Island Money Pit.
23:12It was here 222 years ago that three area teenagers, Daniel McGinnis, John Smith, and Anthony Vaughn,
23:21found a strange depression beneath an old Oak tree. They looked up and noticed a block and tackle
23:27hanging from a limb and concluded that the depression was the result of something being
23:32buried there. They began to dig until at a depth of 10 feet, they found what looked to be a
23:39floor made
23:40of Oak logs tightly packed together. They kept digging and found the same Oak platforms at intervals of 10 feet.
23:48Well, if you've seen the show, you know the rest of the story. How in 1804, at a depth of
23:5590 feet,
23:56a stone slab was discovered with strange, almost hieroglyphic symbols on it. How the shaft then
24:03flooded, and how after more than two centuries of digging and drilling on the island, the precise
24:08location of the original Money Pit shaft, and the secret to what lies at the bottom of it, has been
24:14lost.
24:15We kind of danced around the Money Pit for a long time, you know. The Money Pit is a technologically
24:23difficult dig. And I might as well just come out and say it, it's also hugely expensive.
24:29So we were looking for enough clues to give us the correct impetus to dig in the Money Pit.
24:39In season two, the team made a concerted effort to pinpoint the original treasure shaft by drilling
24:46an exploratory borehole they named Valley Three. Earlier on, we tried drilling where those small
24:52PVC white pipes are, but we couldn't get down deep enough. So we pulled forward a little bit. We still
24:58should be in what they call that triangle area. That's where MR said his father had drilled into
25:03the boat. MR Chapel, back in the 1800s. Yeah, a long time ago. We're hoping to do that again with
25:10this hole.
25:11The triangle area is the name given to an area between two old searcher shafts that, well, forms a
25:18triangle. And it is somewhere in the center of this area where the original Money Pit is thought to be
25:24located. Drilling down to a depth of approximately 145 feet, Rick Lagina and Craig Tester made a major
25:33discovery. One that convinced them that they had found not only the Money Pit, but a mysterious wooden
25:39box known as the Chapel Vault. Look at that chunk of wood that came out of there.
25:50Definitely got wood. See what else we might have. That's definitely clay. That's what they found at the top
26:00of the vault. I think that's bedrock right there. I don't think that's bedrock. Maybe it's concrete,
26:10Rick. That is a possibility. Concrete and then wood. That's the description.
26:20In 1897, Oak Island treasure hunters Frederick Blair and William Chapel drilled into what they
26:26believed to be a seven-foot-tall wooden box encased in concrete. When they recovered their drill bed,
26:33they found what looked like flakes of gold, as well as a piece of parchment on which was written the
26:39letters V-I. But before Chapel could dig a hole deep enough to reach what he called the Chapel Vault,
26:45the shaft was once again flooded by seawater. The hole caved in, and the box and its contents were swallowed
26:53up.
26:55This is the core? This is the first core? This is the core.
26:58Looked like concrete, didn't it?
27:01It kind of does look like concrete.
27:03Yeah.
27:08You're right. The odds on is that that is cement.
27:11Yeah.
27:13That's, you know, like the top of a wood vault, is that what you're thinking?
27:16Yeah.
27:19Craig is, you know, he has always been my science guy.
27:23Very smart guy, very technologically adept.
27:27So this core comes out, and it's exactly as described to be the top of the vault.
27:34I mean, Craig was over the moon about it, and I was pretty excited.
27:38It looked like we'd come down on the Chapel Vault. It was what caused us to dig a great big
27:43hole there.
27:45Finding evidence of the Chapel Vault is one thing. Getting to it without hitting the booby-trapped flood
27:51tunnels is another. At the end of season three, as the team tried to figure out a way of reaching
27:57the
27:57Chapel Vault, Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse convinced Rick to try looking for the original
28:03money pit at a different location, one that was later named C1. And it was here, after drilling down
28:11to a depth of approximately 170 feet, that the team made another astonishing find.
28:19There's no rock there anymore.
28:21No?
28:22No rock?
28:23Zero.
28:23Zero rock.
28:24No rock.
28:25That's just dropping.
28:28Huge cap.
28:30That's huge.
28:33Perfect.
28:34Okay.
28:34Here we go.
28:35When Rick and the team put a camera down C1, we all saw something so awesome, we just couldn't
28:42believe our eyes.
28:44Approaching 50 meters right now.
28:47That's a cavity right there.
28:48I'm thinking I'm in a cavity there now.
28:51What's that?
28:53That right there?
28:54Yeah, exactly.
28:55Looks like it might be.
28:56What is that?
28:57It looks shiny, like metal.
28:59Yeah, it looks metallic.
29:01A shiny gold-colored object, more than 170 feet deep underground?
29:07As we continued to look at it, I think we all became convinced that it was something.
29:12But what was it?
29:13Are we going to do everything we can, within reason, to try to retrieve it?
29:18Absolutely.
29:18It was at this moment that Rick, Marty, and the team believed they were finally getting
29:22close, perhaps closer than anyone before them had ever been to getting to the bottom of the
29:28Money Pit and solving the Oak Island mystery.
29:36During season four, the Money Pit was the site of many epic moments,
29:40not just in the Curse of Oak Island series, but in all of Oak Island history.
29:49It began when Rick, Marty, and the team brought in more than 700 tons of heavy digging equipment.
29:56No, there it is.
29:57There it is, right there.
29:58The oscillator.
30:12Time to let the big dog eat.
30:13Come on, Dan.
30:14Show us your stuff.
30:19Beautiful.
30:21Here we go.
30:23To dig the team's three target shafts, a casing oscillator was used to rotate a 40-inch wide
30:29steel caisson back and forth down to target depth. Then, a seven-ton hammer grab was used to dig out
30:37the earth and, hopefully, evidence of a treasure.
30:45Target number one, the Valley Three Borehole, better known as the place where Rick and Craig found what
30:52they believed to be the so-called chapel vault.
31:01Wood.
31:02You got wood in it.
31:03Wood.
31:03All beat down.
31:05Look at that.
31:06At a depth of some 145 feet, they found wood, and not just any wood,
31:12but the exact same wooden beam that they had obtained a core sample of from two years before.
31:20This is a six-inch hole.
31:21That's our core.
31:23That is your core from two years ago.
31:25You core it from a hole that's wandering off, and then you put this big can down, and you get
31:29it.
31:30Man, did we bingo that.
31:31I mean, come on.
31:33That's pretty impressive.
31:34But then, a heartbreaking realization.
31:39Are we seeing saw marks on there?
31:41Yeah.
31:44If that really is a circular saw, then it's surely not 1600.
31:49Correct.
31:50What the team thought might be a piece of the original chapel vault was actually a part of a
31:56searcher tunnel built by William Chapel's son in the 1930s.
32:03Undaunted, the team moved on to their next target site, four-hole C1, where Rick and Charles
32:10spotted what appeared to be a glittering metal object some 170 feet below the island's surface.
32:17After widening the hole, diver Mike Huntley then made the harrowing 170-foot descent to the bottom.
32:27Copy that.
32:28You're in the cavity.
32:29Find the shiny gold thing.
32:32Yeah.
32:34Oh, hey.
32:36You hear that?
32:37Oh, yeah.
32:38I hear something, yeah.
32:42He's got something on the metal detector.
32:45Despite the zero visibility conditions in the heavily silted bottom chamber of C1,
32:52Mike Huntley obtained a number of hits with an underwater metal detector.
32:56How many hits does he have?
32:59It sounds like three to three, three hits.
33:01Really?
33:01That's what he said.
33:03Due to poor visibility, Mike was unable to find that elusive glittering gold-colored object.
33:09And the team's third hole, T1, turned out to be a bitter disappointment.
33:17We're done.
33:18It also triggered one of the most memorable and emotional moments in the series.
33:24And led to the digging of a critical fourth hole.
33:28I want to leave here with having done a damn good try, but your criteria has always been,
33:33you don't want to leave here with regrets.
33:36Mm-hmm.
33:38Charles has picked a hole.
33:39Craig has picked a hole.
33:40I think the final position of this one should be yours.
33:45No, I think we do it for Laginas. You, me, Alex, and mom, and dad.
33:53So let's name it for our parents. Let's call it the Georgian and Lagina number one.
33:59Gal.
33:59Gal number one. You all right with it?
34:02Mom was quite a gal.
34:04Okay, I like that a lot. That makes me feel a lot better.
34:07You get to choose a hole on Oak Island. I mean, nobody deserves that more than you.
34:13Nobody has put their soul into this like you have.
34:16Nobody has been less self-aggrandizing than you.
34:21Look, you deserve it. It is as simple as that.
34:27Well, thanks.
34:30So, anyway, you do it together.
34:37I had great promise for picking the gal location, and it had nothing to do with my insight or even
34:44intuition or anything. It was based upon the archival records. I've read a lot about Oak Island.
34:50I know there's an understatement.
34:52And so, you know, I tried to puzzle things together, and I thought, you know what?
34:56I just want one thing. Hold in my hand, pre-date searcher activity, below searcher depth. The one
35:04thing that says to the most hardened skeptic that this is real. Here, here's your proof. And to go to
35:12Dan and say, Dan, here's your long sought after breakthrough.
35:19All right, talk to me. Where are we at?
35:21We're 151 feet with the casing, 150 feet with the excavation.
35:25We would be, by all accounts, right at the top of the vault then, right?
35:28Yep. All right.
35:32Come on, bring something up. Right here, right now.
35:36Look at that.
35:37Yeah, baby.
35:39Gal 1 turned out to offer some of the most impressive finds of the entire season.
35:48Wow, what's this?
35:50What the hell is that?
35:52That's metal.
35:53After drilling down to a depth of 160 feet, the team began pulling up everything,
35:59from bits of old wood, to a mysterious piece of sheet metal, a metal bracket,
36:05and even a gold-plated 18th century British military button.
36:08What's it doing deep in the money pit?
36:11I could not come to an understanding of what that sheet metal was doing down there,
36:14unless it was part of the original works. And I was impressed by the retrieval of those
36:21pieces. And they were, I mean, they were big pieces. They're big.
36:24And to me, when we first looked at them, I think we all commented, they looked hand-hammered.
36:28They did.
36:29So, if we're retrieving these modern metals, we know we're close to the money pit,
36:33because the chapels believed.
36:35Yeah.
36:36So, you know, what's going on here?
36:38The finds in Gal 1 convinced the team they were finally getting closer than ever
36:43to solving the Oak Island mystery.
36:48Let's dig. It's time to dig, without question.
36:52That is a given.
36:53All right.
36:53We've already shown many of the Curse of Oak Island's most popular moments.
36:56I'm sorry, I doubted you.
36:59How's that?
37:00How's that, brother?
37:01That's a good deal.
37:02But for fans, the real Oak Island treasures are our two treasure hunters, Rick and Marty Lagina,
37:09two brothers from northern Michigan who shared a special dream for more than 50 years.
37:14You're making me feel bad.
37:16Do you want me in there?
37:18Yes.
37:18Fine.
37:20Oh yeah, this is just freaking magnificent.
37:25We hadn't come up with that coin.
37:28I was going to ask you to call it quits.
37:31I'm not sure what the answer is.
37:39Okay, but here's the thing, I'm still in.
37:43It's a good day, Rick.
37:45Not just a good day.
37:47It's a great day.
37:48It's one for us.
37:49Rick and Marty, while I've got you here, talk about the journey you two have shared together
37:54over the last four years on Oak Island.
37:56I'm grateful in the sense that who gets to do that, right?
37:58I mean, we're, let's face it, we're old guys now and we're off playing like when we were young brothers.
38:04You know, I've said it before, we trust and respect each other and we're getting to do this together.
38:09And, you know, who gets to do that?
38:11I'm exceedingly happy that we came to Oak Island from completely different perspectives.
38:16You were quite skeptical, you know, still are to a degree.
38:22But it's important, that's an integral part of this process as it evolves.
38:26But you've come a ways, and I find that probably the happiest part of this for me.
38:35Looking back on four years, what's your main takeaway from Oak Island thus far?
38:40I have learned an enormous amount in this quest.
38:43You know, I learned a lot about history I was unaware of.
38:46I've learned a lot of scientific things.
38:47I've learned about the limits of science.
38:50But it's been a hell of an adventure, and it's not over yet.
38:55Rick?
38:56I don't know how or why the story bit me when I was a little boy, but we sit here
39:02now.
39:02It's the affirmation that there was something about it.
39:05And it's also affirmed by the fact that such a wide community of people now are engaged in this process.
39:11And we love it.
39:12Finally, guys, I'd like to get your thoughts on your hopes for the future of Oak Island.
39:19To, of course, solve the mystery.
39:21Secondly, to leave a positive footprint if and when we left.
39:25And to try to heal the island physically and emotionally.
39:29Marty?
39:29I don't want to fail.
39:31And what I mean by that is I want to have taken the best attempt we could make here.
39:40So that we, you know, at some point we'll be done.
39:43Who knows?
39:44We may put a period at the end of the Oak Island story.
39:47Well, guys, I always love spending time with you.
39:50And I always appreciate your openness and your honesty.
39:52Thank you so much again.
39:53Thank you, Matty.
39:54It's great.
39:54Always a pleasure talking with you.
39:57Bring your shovel next time.
39:58Thank you, guys.
39:59You got it.
40:00After four awesome seasons, I think it's safe to say that just like Rick, Marty and the team,
40:06we the fans feel exactly the way they do about Oak Island.
40:09Once in, forever in.
40:12Yes.
40:13Cheers, guys.
40:14But now, after four years of finding clues, compiling evidence.
40:19Wow.
40:19And gathering pieces of an enormous puzzle.
40:22Humans built that.
40:23It's time to look ahead to Oak Island's future.
40:27The question is where we go from here.
40:30Will this be the year that the mystery is finally solved?
40:33Or will the island continue to guard its secrets?
40:36There's only one way to find out.
40:38We have to keep digging.
40:40And of course, keep watching The Curse of Oak Island.
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