Rick Lagina Made a Shocking Find in 900-Year Old Well | The Curse of Oak Island

You have to remember that Oak Island is somewhat remote.
So, where would you put something that you fancied or that you thought was precious to you?
Well, you might hide it in an old well.

I just think there’s something uniquely strange about this well, and I hope, no pun intended, that we get to the bottom of it.
On Oak Island, history has a way of hiding in plain sight.

Many people are crazy about the legend of pirate gold, but not all things are what they seem.
Forget the booby traps and flood tunnels of the money pit for a moment.
The most explosive secret has been lying dormant in a simple 900-year-old stone well.

What’s our plan today?
We’re going to pump it out.
And then I was thinking, if you wouldn’t mind scooping out the debris, but we’re going to save it on a tarp as best we can and hopefully find an artifact.

When Rick Laena’s team pulled a twisted piece of iron from its depths, they thought it was nothing.
To put it mildly, they were wrong.
This artifact is a historical bombshell, a WTF moment that proves people were on Oak Island doing something secret long before anyone thought possible.
An artifact out of time.

For more than 200 years, Oak Island has guarded its secrets with a vengeance, swallowing fortunes and frustrating generations of searchers.
The focus has always been the legendary Money Pit, an intricate and possibly booby-trapped underground puzzle box.

But the thing nobody tells you is that the island’s biggest secrets might not be where everyone is looking.
The most game-changing discovery in the history of this epic quest came not from the money pit, but from the murky, muddy depths of an ancient well on a different part of the island known as Lot 26.

What they found there wasn’t a chest of gold, but a small, unassuming piece of handwrought iron.
And it’s a find so shocking it has the power to turn two centuries of history on its head.

Lot 26 has become very interesting.
The well is as old as the 11th century.
What do I do with that?

It was a day that started like any other.
The team was excavating the spoils brought up from the mysterious stone well, a structure believed to be an astonishing 900 years old.

While sifting through the dried mud, team members Emma Culligan and Helen Shelton spotted something.
It was a dark twisted piece of metal about the length of a finger.

At first glance, it could have been dismissed as junk.
It had a weird shape, a rounded tip, and a broken end.
It wasn’t a nail, and it wasn’t a tool they could recognize.

But, you see, on Oak Island, every single find has to be examined.
What many overlooked at first glance was the object’s incredible significance.

The team’s blacksmithing expert immediately knew this was something special.
It was handwrought, meaning it was hammered into shape by a smith, not mass-produced in a factory.
That alone made it old.

But how old?
The first major clue came from a scientific test that revealed a high sulfur content in the iron.
This is a massive wow factor because high sulfur is a telltale sign of old primitive iron-making processes.

Modern furnaces and even those from the 1800s burn much hotter and remove most of the sulfur.
This object was made in a low-temperature furnace, suggesting it was ancient, perhaps dating back to the 1700s.

This was already a huge deal, as it would predate the original discovery of the money pit in 1795.
But the story was about to get even crazier.

This certainly would be a candidate for a further investigation to allow that little item to possibly tell us a story.
Okay. Well, we’ll let you continue with your work.
We have another bucket to go.

The team sent the artifact for further high-tech analysis using a scanning electron microscope.
This powerful tool can read the chemical signature of a metal like its fingerprint.
The results that came back were stunning.

The analysis confirmed the complete absence of a chemical element called manganese.
To put it mildly, this was the smoking gun.
Manganese is a key ingredient that has been intentionally added during iron production since about 1840 to make the metal stronger and more durable.

Finding an iron object with zero manganese is concrete proof that it was created before 1840.
This artifact wasn’t just old.
It was from a much earlier era of activity on the island.

Based on the chemical composition and primitive manufacturing style, experts estimated the iron could date as far back as 1650.
This one small find proves that people were on Oak Island engaged in some kind of serious activity more than 140 years before the money pit was ever discovered.

But who were they and what were they building that deep in the ground?
A hole in the timeline.

The shocking discovery of the pre-18th century iron artifact is only half the story.
The other half is where it was found.
This wasn’t just lying on the surface.
It was pulled from deep inside a mysterious stone-lined well on Lot 26.
A structure that is an enigma in itself.

You see, the very existence of this well defies easy explanation and adds a profound layer of intrigue to the artifact found within it.
Its construction, age, and purpose are central to understanding just how earthshattering this find truly is.

I feel like I’m getting to a more gravelly, rocky layer.
Okay, good.

For years, the team debated its origin, but radiocarbon dating of materials found within the well returned a date that left everyone speechless.
It was constructed around the year 1200.
That makes it over 900 years old.

Let that sink in.
A 900-year-old man-made structure on an island in North America.
That date is hundreds of years before Columbus and centuries before the known historical timeline of European activity in the area.
This is a wow factor of epic proportions.

Who had the skill and the reason to build such a sophisticated and durable well in Nova Scotia 9 centuries ago?
The native Mi’kmaq people of the region were not known to build stone-lined wells of this type.
This structure points to an unknown and unrecorded presence on the island, a presence with advanced knowledge and a specific purpose.

Many people are crazy about the idea of the Knights Templar, who were active during that exact time period in Europe.
Could this well be their handiwork?

Excavating a structure this old and this deep, well over 100 ft, is an immense challenge.
It’s not just a matter of digging.
The well is unstable, and the team had to use massive steel quesons, essentially giant pipes, to secure the shaft as they went deeper, preventing a total collapse.
It’s a dangerous, slow, and incredibly expensive process.
Every foot they gained was a major victory.

What many overlooked is the sheer engineering feat required just to safely explore this shaft.
The fact that the iron artifact was found deep within the spoils from this well means it wasn’t a stray object dropped on the surface centuries later.
It was part of whatever was happening at this well during its period of use.

Pretty heavy, right?
You can see from the patina that rust is the main ingredient, but it’s also in pretty good condition.
And like the rust itself, there’s not much buildup of it, right?
Doesn’t really surprise me much.
Metal should last almost forever in that.

The thing nobody tells you is that this well is strategically placed.
It’s on high ground and its purpose might not have been for fresh water.
Some theories suggest it was an air shaft for a much larger, deeper underground operation, perhaps a tunnel leading to the money pit.
Others believe it was a secret deposition shaft, a place to lower valuable items for safekeeping.

The presence of the handwrought iron artifact, possibly a clinch nail from a large sailing vessel of the era, strengthens the theory of a major maritime operation.
Someone with a large ship needing to make repairs or build something significant was on Oak Island centuries before the history books say they should have been.

The well isn’t just a hole in the ground.
It’s a hole in the official historical record.
And if this one artifact was found, what else still lies buried in the depths?

A web of ancient clues.
One ancient artifact on its own is a curiosity.
But on Oak Island, nothing exists in isolation.
The discovery of the pre-1700s iron piece in the 900-year-old well is not just a standalone clue.
It’s a critical piece of a much larger puzzle.

To put it mildly, this find acts like a lynchpin, connecting other mysterious discoveries across the island and lending new credibility to some of the most famous and fantastic theories about the Oak Island treasure.

When you place this artifact into the wider context of what the Lega brothers have found over the years, a chilling and exciting picture begins to emerge.
It suggests an operation on the island that was older, more sophisticated, and better funded than anyone ever dared to imagine.

Consider the other major finds or more sulfur content in iron this year.
It just means it was made within a furnace of lower temperatures.
So that indicates that it is older iron.
Just from that alone, I’m thinking around the 1700s.

One of the most significant was the lead cross discovered in the mud of Smith’s Cove.
Scientific analysis of the lead showed it was sourced from a mine in Europe and was manufactured between the years 1200 and 1400,
the exact same time period as the stone well.

What are the chances of two major artifacts from the medieval period originating from Europe being found on a tiny island in North America?
This is a wow factor that is hard to ignore.

The iron artifact and the lead cross together create a powerful narrative.
They are twin pillars of evidence pointing to a medieval European presence.
This is where the Knights Templar theory, which many people are crazy about, gains incredible strength.

The Knights Templar were a powerful religious and military order who amassed immense wealth in the Middle Ages.
They were master builders and seafarers.
Following their persecution in the early 1300s, their fleet and their treasure famously vanished from the historical record.

The theory suggests that they used their advanced maritime skills to flee Europe and transport their sacred relics and vast fortune to a remote location for safekeeping.
Oak Island, with its natural harbor and strategic location, would have been a perfect hiding spot.

The 900-year-old well and the medieval cross fit the Templar timeline perfectly.
The iron artifact could be a piece of their ships or the tools they used to build the intricate treasure vault.

The thing nobody tells you is the sheer scale of the investment the Lega family has poured into this quest, running into the tens of millions of dollars.
This isn’t a weekend hobby.
It’s one of the most technologically advanced private archaeological digs in the world.

They have used seismic testing, ground-penetrating radar, and advanced drilling techniques to map the island’s underground geology.
What many overlooked is that these modern methods have confirmed the presence of man-made tunnels and large underground chambers.

The discovery of the iron artifact now gives them a tangible, datable piece of evidence to connect to these mysterious voids.
It’s no longer just a legend.
It’s a working theory backed by both incredible lore and now hard science.

But does this growing web of clues bring them closer to treasure or just deeper into the mystery?
Are we missing something?
So, let’s talk directly about this.

After all the science, the history, and the speculation, what does this piece of iron really mean?
For those of you who have been following this mystery, you know that Oak Island can feel like a roller coaster of hope and disappointment.

Is this shocking find the breakthrough everyone has been waiting for,
or is it just another piece of a puzzle so complex it will never be solved?

The truth is, the answer depends on how you look at it.
The thing is, this artifact forces a decision.
You either have to believe that the accepted history of North America is missing a major chapter
or you have to find another explanation.

Let’s be down to earth for a moment.
Skeptics would argue that it’s just an old piece of metal.
It could have come from an early unrecorded settler or a shipwreck.

They might say that dating it is an inexact science and that calling it a Templar artifact is a giant leap of faith.
And you know what? That’s a fair point.
There is no inscription on it that says “Templar treasure this way.”

The mystery of Oak Island has been filled with false starts and dead ends.
What many overlooked in the excitement is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,
and a single iron artifact, however old, may not be enough for some people.

Are we and the team letting our desire for a magical story cloud our judgment?
But then there’s the other side of the coin.

For the believers, for the team, and for Rick Laena, this find is everything.
It’s physical, tangible proof that validates their entire quest.
It confirms that the stories are not just myths.
Real people from a distant time were on this island building something secret and profound.

The Iron Piece is not just an object.
It’s a message from the past.
It transforms the hunt from a treasure search into a legitimate historical investigation.

The question is no longer if something amazing happened on Oak Island, but who did it, and what did they leave behind?
You see, the artifact gives them a solid point in time to anchor all the other strange clues.

So, what do you think?
Is this iron artifact the key to unlocking the Oak Island treasure, or just another tantalizing but misleading clue?
Let us know your theories in the comments below.

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Was Oak Island home to the Templar Knights?