4 ASTONISHING SWAMP FINDS | The Curse of Oak Island

NARRATOR: It is winter on Oak Island, a time when the island is determined to keep its secrets hidden beneath layers of ice and snow.

DAVE SPENCER: Feast your eyes. Isn’t that lovely? Over where you have land like that, we can get in there with CTX 3030 right up along the bank. It’s got to be well worth going out looking at.

NARRATOR: Kellyco Representative Dave Spencer has come to Oak Island from Florida with the latest in metal detecting equipment.
I like the look of that ridge. That’s a great vantage point. Really looking forward to metal detecting in there, for sure.

NARRATOR: And with him are fellow treasure hunters Gary Drayton and the father and son team, Bob and Robert Leonard.
While they’re putting the coil together, we’ll go out and start marking these grids.

NARRATOR: By gridding and scanning the frozen swamp, the team hopes they will get more precise data than they collected last summer.
Trying to scan through layers of muck while walking on slippery plywood had made the task nearly impossible.
Once the data is collected, it can be analyzed in a three-dimensional map.
If all goes well, the map should indicate exactly where items of interest and possibly treasure could lie hidden.
Well, I’ll get four people on the corner and lift this thing up. You do the ground balancing on that.

NARRATOR: Although the team is using the Deepmax X6, the same high-tech metal detector they used last summer, Kellyco’s Dave Spencer has now equipped it with a larger frame coil and mounted it to a sled.
As the team pulls the coil along the ice, it sends a powerful magnetic pulse into the earth, enabling it to find metal objects up to 40 feet deep underground.
Get me some data, all right? Mush.

NARRATOR: There are those who believe what lies deep beneath the Oak Island surface may not be just one treasure but several.
[electronic beeping]
Big brother’s relentless over there.
There he is, no hat, no gloves.
It’s freezing cold out here.
But he’s intense, and I think that’s a good thing.
That’s as high as it’s gotten so far.
Let’s see, yeah.
Look at it, it just keeps climbing.
Big spike here, big spike.
Still spiking.
What’s going on then.
See for yourself.
It went to over 90.
And these graphs in here, if it hits like 60% of the potential graph, you’re in maybe a ferrous material.
And if it goes beyond 60, up to 80, 90, you’re in– you’re in highly conductive metals– gold, silver.

NARRATOR: Finally, the team has found signs of something buried beneath the ice. But what?
Gold, silver, precious historical artifacts?

MARTY LAGINA: Rick was over the moon because he’s getting big numbers out there in the swamp which is what we were hoping for.
But I’m not sure that means anything til it’s processed through the computer.
I’m excited, but I am cautious about getting too excited.
It confirms everything I believed last year, that that data was good and this data confirms it.
I’m happy as I can be.
Let’s go back and run it. We’ll find out where we stand.
And then we dig.
Then we dig.
[music playing]

RICK LAGINA: Holy shimoly.
Look at that.

NARRATOR: At the northern point of the swamp on property belonging to the family of Fred Nolan, Rick Lagina has just found a large wooden stake.
Does it look old to you?
It’s tough to tell, isn’t it?
It’s hacked.
It looks like it’s been hacked.
It’s ax cut. there’s no question about that.
Yeah, it’s not sawed.

NARRATOR: A wooden stake found in the swamp?
In 1969, Oak Island landowner and treasure hunter Fred Nolan set out to drain the swamp after becoming convinced that the answers to the Oak Island mystery were located within it.
During his investigation, Fred was astonished to discover several uniform lines of wooden stakes, which were carbon dated to the 1500s.
A land surveyor by trade, it was Fred’s professional assessment that these stakes were evidence of centuries’ old survey markers used to plot out the boundaries in a massive construction project.
This led Fred to the astonishing conclusion that Oak Island was once actually two islands artificially joined together by means of the triangle-shaped swamp.

How many cuts are there?
Fred and Tom both told me there were four or five on every one.
1, 2–
(IN UNISON) –3, 4.

GARY DRAYTON: Yeah, five.
That’s exactly what they described.
Fred actually did show me one.
It’s certainly got the proper look to it.
It’s got the proper size, diameter.
And thus, one could speculate– again, it’s speculation– that the swamp had been created.
Dan and Fred, they pulled one up together, cut the tip off.
And [inaudible] sent it off to be carbon dated.
Carbon date came back 1575, plus or minus 85 years.
Finding a survey stake is important because it’s corroborated.
Is this really a man-made activity that is associated with the swamp?
You know, it’s items like that that may provide answers.

MARTY LAGINA: Yo.
I think I find one of the survey stakes.
Why don’t you come over and take a look.
Hey, that sounds great.
We’re on it.

ALEX LAGINA: It’s a pretty big deal, right?
Yeah, well, that’s what he was looking for.
All right, let’s see it.

ALEX LAGINA: What you got?
Oh, yeah.
Well, that’s for real.
Oop.
That’s not a natural shape.
No.
And remember how they said it was preserved.
Yeah, from the bottom.
From the bottom.

ALEX LAGINA: Well, it’s definitely been in place a while because you can tell if you look at preservation here and how much it’s decayed up there.
So you get a kind of sense of time with the top being so much–

MARTY LAGINA: Oh, yeah, this looks virgin.
ALEX LAGINA: Right, but this looks old.
MARTY LAGINA: Very much so.
I agree with you.
It’s pretty cool.

RICK LAGINA:
Hm.
What?

MARTY LAGINA: OK, so I don’t get it.
Why aren’t you over the moon about this survey stake?
Why aren’t you doing a stake dance?
[chuckling] Because I don’t do stake dances.
I’m very interested in it.
To me, they look–
Exactly right.
Exactly right.

MARTY LAGINA: Yeah, I was impressed, honestly, because to me, it looks identical to what he’s described.
And my skepticism level diminishes.

NARRATOR: For Rick, Marty, and the team, finding new evidence that the mysterious triangle-shaped swamp is man-made could soon lead to another major breakthrough.
It also means that the access they now have to Fred Nolan’s property could allow them to gather a host of even more important clues.

NARRATOR: Rick and Marty Lagina have invited a group of paranormal investigators to join them in an effort to find out if the Oak Island legends about ghosts and curses have any basis in fact.
This is the first one that I had taken at 10X and wasn’t really sure what this was.
So I zoomed in on it.
Hm.
Hm?
Let me see that.
Ooh.
Still not really sure what it is.

RICK LAGINA: Looks like a skull, doesn’t it?

LINDA HARDY: [laughs]
Well, let me ask you this question.
You do this all over the place, right?

LINDA HARDY: Mhm.
Is this place different?
LINDA HARDY: Yeah.
There’s a mystery and an aura.
There’s an energy to it.
Yeah, there is.

Some of you play the skeptic?
LINDA HARDY: Harold’s a skeptic.
Yeah, and I did hear what we thought were footsteps.
I was down by the swamp area.
Over to my right side, I could hear these footsteps.
And I was shining the light in the swamp, expecting to turn around and see somebody there, but there was nothing.
We got a boogie man.

NARRATOR: The investigators lead Marty, Rick, and the team to the swamp, one of the places where many of them have experienced strange, unexplained phenomena.

JENN MORROW: Out of all the spots on the island, this is the spot that I get creeped out the most in.
I actually don’t even really like being down here.
Can you articulate why you don’t like it?
It’s just the energy that’s down here.
I’m focused on these trees over here.
We tend to do extensive work here in the swamp looking for clues to what happened.
Who knows what that activity will engage?
So you’re gonna make it creepier for me is what you’re saying.
[laughter]

RICK LAGINA: Yes.
Yes.
We have our K2s.

LINDA HARDY: One of the little green lights light up.
There’s five little indicator lights on it.
So what does that read?
Electromagnetic?

JENN MORROW: Yeah, any energy or power sources.

NARRATOR: There are those who believe that if something really is buried on Oak Island, it is something best left undisturbed.
I feel very, very creeped out and uncomfortable, like I was constantly looking over my shoulder.
Like there’s something watching behind you.

• Yeah.
• Watching you from [inaudible].
  Yeah, exactly.
  [electronic beeping]
  Oh, we got a hit on the K2.
  Yeah, that’s a big one.

NARRATOR: What exactly have the researchers on Oak Island encountered?
Could it be just a simple mechanical malfunction?
Or is it something much more profound?

JENN MORROW: That is an indication that there is something here trying to communicate with us.

MARTY LAGINA: Is the curse valid?
I don’t know.
Do strange things happen on Oak Island?
Yes, they do.
There’s another hit there.

NARRATOR: Did Rick and Marty Lagina just experience one of the mysterious forces that are rumored to exist on Oak Island?
Perhaps, but that isn’t enough to prevent them from trying to solve the 200-year-old mystery.
They’ve invested too many years, and too much money, to stop now.
[music playing]
[crow calling]

NARRATOR: For Marty Lagina, if there really is an Oak Island curse, then it is located right here, at the Oak Island Swamp.
For the past several months, he and the team have gathered miles of data and conducted numerous tests.
And all have indicated the presence of something strange beneath the acres of dark brackish water.
But when the data is tested, the results are often inconclusive or disappear altogether.
This is crazy.
You get a hit.
It goes away.
And you come up with nothing.
How is that possible?

NARRATOR: Marty is also concerned that, just like last year, time is running out, and that the precious few weeks the team has left to spend on the island this summer would be better spent by exploring other potential treasure sites.
I wish this were the treasure path.
And it might yet be.
You know, we’ve run two types of GPR.
And we’ve run the X6.
Let’s go out here, and we can see all the targets.
At the point we’re at right now, give me your top four.
Show me where they are.
You know, the top four are– well, this one for sure.
And then there was a hit there on those recessed areas– you know, the earthen berm.
And then we have mercy right there, where the flags are waving.
And then we have the new theory, the Enochian chamber right out there.
And we have hits on each of these.
But inconclusive data on any of them, right?
So far?
Really?
We’re confirming hit here, confirming hit there.
And only one hit off of the GPR there.
And we have data.
We have data in the can which we have yet to receive.
You know, basically, Rick, two years in a row, we kind of did the same thing– with slightly different devices and slightly different methods, slightly different targets.
But you know, I mean, that’s why I’m ready to– ready to say stop.
I am sick of the swamp.
I don’t want to run any more data.
We’re getting into analysis paralysis.
If you want to keep going on this swamp, let’s dig something.
Let’s do it right, and let’s dig something.
And I’m going to leave it to you, as far as I’m concerned, where.
Do you agree?
Yeah, I agree.
I used the Q word.
He hates the Q word.
I say, I want to quit.
I mean, it’s like I hit him with a two-by-four, right?
I don’t want to quit investigating.
I just want to quit with the remote sensing.
And he was fine with that.
He’s right.
I don’t like the Q word.
He doesn’t like the Q word.
In anything.
We’re not quitting.
No, and we’re a team.
So we’re not quitting.
OK, we’re not quitting.
I– I’m with you.
I am 100% with you.
OK, fine.
We’ll look at the data.
That’s in the can.
That’s in the can.
We’ll pick two sites.
Let’s do it.
Let’s dig.
It’s time to dig.
Without question.
That is a given.
All right.
Good.