Beneath the Boulder: A Breakthrough? (S13) | The Curse of Oak Island

[Rick] Hey, Jack. Fiona. -Hey, Rick. -[Fiona] Hi.
-Hi. -Look at the progress we’ve made.
[Rick] I see that.
[Narrator] The quest for answers, and treasure, continues on Oak Island as Rick Lagina begins his day on Lot 8 with Fiona Steele and Jack Begley. I think it’s interesting the way that the rocks are structured on this side, on the right side.
-[Rick] Yeah. -[Fiona] And we’re not getting the same thing on the other side at all.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only side that was actually -holding up the boulder. -Mm. Mm-hmm.
-[Scott] Here it goes. -[Gary] Here we go.
[Narrator] After removing a 40,000-pound boulder from an artificially placed ring of small stones one week ago… -[Marty] Look at that. -…the team was surprised to find new evidence that the boulder was covering a backfilled, man-made feature, or possible shaft. [Craig] Yeah, that looks like a filled hole.
Exactly. Yeah.
[Narrator] And when geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner scanned the soils with a handheld X-ray fluorescence device, he discovered evidence of possible treasure buried somewhere deeper below. [Ian] It’s showing something that I didn’t see in the other sample…
Oh.
-…which is some silver. -Yeah.
[laughter] We will remove the rest of the top layer of the soil.
We’ll go through the second layer and then, the plan is really to start removing some of these rocks, as well, to really see what’s underneath here.
-Hm. -Because there could still very well be something underneath here -that we just haven’t seen yet. -Yeah.
You just have to be patient, right?
I mean, that’s all you can do.
The two completely different sides of the hole is really quite interesting.
-Yep. -[Rick] Why that side -and not this side? -[Fiona] I know.
I can certainly say that I think it was done a long time ago.
What’s your “long time ago”?
Well, I would say before the 1700s.
So, we have to just keep going forward in gathering the information and have -a proper analysis of everything. -[Rick] Yeah.
There’s got to be something under that boulder.
-Yeah. -[Rick] But the only way to know is to continue to do the work you’re doing, so…
-Alrighty. Thank you. -[Fiona] All right. See you later.
-See you, Rick. -See you.
[Fiona] With the Lot 8 feature, I feel absolutely intrigued. It’s not like anything we see on Oak Island or-or anything in Nova Scotia, period.
This is motivating us to look through the rocks, look through the structures. We’ve got to look at everything and make sure that we’re not missing anything in this. There could be treasure down there.
[Ian] Hey, Peter. -Hi, Fiona. -[Fiona] Hi.
-What do you think of this? -Wow.
[Narrator] …Dr. Ian Spooner arrives on Lot 8, where Fiona has now uncovered a tightly packed layer of stones that were hidden beneath backfilled soil and the massive boulder. Now, I would like to know if you think I’m crazy because I don’t feel like this is natural at all.
It’s not natural, first of all.
It just can’t be ’cause of the organic matter -all around those stones. -Mm-hmm.
I’ve never seen anything like this here.
And you can also see the cradle of rocks around the top quite nicely now.
-Yes. -It’s wild. I’m blown away.
Well, you can even see a circular formation of rocks -right around the base here. -Yeah.
[Fiona] I’m gonna be removing this soil shortly and I would like to see if that pattern continues.
Right.
We’re just wondering if there’s something underneath.
-Right. -You know, was there something intentionally buried?
[Ian] Yes. You know, we did some XRF, a portable XRF.
We got high lead, and that’s interesting to me.
-Why the high lead? -Yeah.
[Narrator] Three weeks ago, after taking soil samples beneath the large boulder, Dr. Spooner found high traces of lead in the material. This suggested evidence of burning fire underground, which is a mining practice that was used centuries ago to circulate air in shafts and tunnels. So, what do you think it is?
The stone is either a marker or something -to protect something. -Yeah, I agree.
[Narrator] Is it possible that the team has revealed an artificial covering for a shaft or some kind of structure hidden below? There’s something about this, makes me feel like it’s ancient.
Yeah. And this, it’d take an extraordinary amount of effort.
It would be with incredible purpose and intent. That’s why, to me, there should be something more…
-Mm-hmm. -…here.
-Maybe there is. -Yeah. Yeah.
-Got to go deeper. Yeah. -Yeah.
Anyway, I’d love to come back when it’s further developed.
Great. Thank you for your set of eyes on this.
I think it’s really cool, you’re involved in one of the coolest things I’ve seen.
-It is very cool. -Yeah. Yeah.
[Peter] Uncle Rick needs to take a look at this. [Fiona] I agree. [Narrator] As a new morning dawns on Oak Island… [Fiona] This is cool, Rick. So, what do we think?
I think this is culturally significant.
-Yeah. -[Fiona] It’s either here to cover something or it’s here to mark something, and we can’t rule out a number of ideas for this at this point.
I mean, it could have been ceremonial.
[Laird] Standing alone, this doesn’t make sense, because for all intents and purposes, it’s in the middle of nowhere.
-Have you ever seen anything like this before? -No. No.
[Rick] I’ve worked with stone for a number of years. I see it and I think how in the world would you do that? Why would you do that if you’re not going to inter something underneath it?
And if there is something underneath it, then it’s got to be valuable to those persons. This is done by somebody who has sufficient resources that they can pour everything into it in terms of manpower.
-It’s almost certainly European. -[Fiona] Yeah, that’s what– I would agree. I think it’s European as well.
This could be changing -Nova Scotian history. -Mm-hmm.
I’ve done a lot of research on different megalithic structures and megaliths across North America and even in Europe. I believe strongly that what we’re seeing is a European megalithic construction. The Indigenous people, I don’t think, would have the technology to do it. You’d need an intimate knowledge of physics and geometry, nor would they bother to move a boulder like that. So it has to be a European construct. That makes the most sense to me.
[Rick] Well, this is very interesting.
You all know -that Marty had a keen interest in this. -Yeah.
We should show him what this feature is beginning to develop.
I think he’d like to be brought up to speed on that, so I’ll give him a phone call.
[line ringing] Hey.
Big brother, what’s going on? Well, we’re about to show you.
You can guess where we are.
You got that exactly correct.
I’m gonna hand the phone to Fiona, and she can give you a visual of the work they’ve done.
Oh, Marty, I can’t wait to show you this. I’ll turn it around.
Okay.
You’re looking at the– a rock-lined, cradled area underneath the boulder.
It’s entirely rock-lined, absolutely man-placed and extremely intentional.
-[Laird] Yeah. -[Fiona] Well, that idea– I certainly think it’s absolutely intentional and purposeful.
[Narrator] Could Marty be correct that the stone feature on Lot 8 might have the same design as the stone road that was uncovered in the southeast corner of the swamp back in 2020? A road that may be at least 500 years old and of Portuguese origin. If so, could both be connected to the 14th century silver Portuguese coin believed to have been recovered from the Money Pit back in 1849? [Marty] The boulder on Lot 8 doesn’t appear to have been manipulated by any of the known earlier searchers. There’s nothing in the record, which means we might be dealing with something that we know is untampered with.
We’re the first people to look at this thing in a modern sense. We found what might be the most significant thing. It’s just not anything you could make up. I’m hoping there’s a breakthrough.
[Fiona] Yeah, I mean, sometimes you’ll have a rock-lined, um, feature if you have a cache of something underneath.
It could be a marker of some sort, but I think it’s old.
I feel like it’s probably European.
Yeah, I think we’re, we’re all feeling the same with it.
[chuckles] I know.
[Rick] Yeah, it-it’s– No artifacts yet.
That alone is also indicating that either somebody was really trying to hide what they did here or they really didn’t have things to lose, which is also giving us implications that this could be really, really old.
I’ll give this back to Rick.
Well, once it’s fully exposed, we may have some more insight for you.
-[laughter] -[Rick] Bye.
Okay.
[Fiona] So, we just need to go around this in a very, very careful way and not miss anything.
What are the next steps here?
[Laird] We have to draw this cross section first very quickly, uh, and then take out the rest of the soil because the, the rocks are quite dramatic.
[Rick] We all want answers, but I don’t want to accelerate the process in a destructive or invasive way just to get an answer.
Let’s keep at this work.
So let’s see what comes of it.
There might be a secret right there.
-Please continue. -[Laird] All right. Thank you.
-[Rick] All righty. -[Fiona] Yeah.