Into the Treasure Shaft | The Curse of Oak Island

BRANDON VANDERHOOFT: Good morning, Alex, Rick.
– How you doing? – How’s it going?
BRANDON VANDERHOOFT: Perfect timing.
We’re just getting started with the probe drill.
Okey-doke.
Cool.
NARRATOR: Every new day on Oak Island begins with hope and excitement for brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, their partner Craig Tester, and the rest of their team.
[beep] Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Right there.
NARRATOR: However, today has been especially anticipated, as it marks the beginning of a new probe drilling operation that will be conducted from within the garden shaft by representatives from Dumas Contracting Limited in order to look for valuables just outside the structure.
This dilapidated 80-foot deep shaft, which is currently being refurbished by Dumas, has not only yielded high trace evidence of gold through water testing, but may also sit within mere feet of a possible treasure chamber connected to the original money pit.
MARTY LAGINA: That’s exciting.
I’m hoping for something very substantial in the garden shaft.
This is where the treasure hunt actually begins.
So Brandon, this is 55 feet, right?
Yes, sir.
So close to that depth, when we were drilling, we hit a void in this area.
So just a heads up.
Wow, heads up?
Surprise, surprise, man.
Surprise, surprise.
How much you think we’re missing out of that last 30 feet?
I’d say approximately 10 feet.
NARRATOR: Earlier this summer, the team drilled into a 10-foot high void, located several feet southwest of the garden shaft.
MARTY LAGINA: This could be the indication of an offset chamber.
NARRATOR: A void that Marty Lagina speculated may hold the fabled money pit treasure vault.
All good.
Let’s try it out.
OK.
They’re just lining up, getting it squared away.
OK.
NARRATOR: Now, since Dumas has reached a depth of 55 feet in the reconstruction of the garden shaft, they are about to manually probe drill a number of boreholes that will reach several feet outside of the structure in the hopes of reaching the void and determining just what it might contain.
If there is some sort of connection here, they need to know it and we need to know.
Mm-hmm.
If we get lucky, this will tell us.
RICK LAGINA: Drill’s going in now.
All right, brother, we’re in business.
Yep.
NARRATOR: In order to probe drill from within the garden shaft, the team from Dumas is using a powerful hydraulic earth drill equipped to penetrate hard clay, sediment, and rock.
Although they are focused on finding the nearby void, they will drill a total of three holes in each of the shafts’ four walls for a total of 12 at different angles in order to look for further evidence of man-made workings and potential valuables.
A bucket of– RICK LAGINA: You’re grabbing soil samples.
Yes, sir.
But the other thing is, when you cut through this tight lining, the whole tight lining– BRANDON VANDERHOOFT: A wood?
Yes, I would like that small piece.
BRANDON VANDERHOOFT: Yeah? – On every hole.
BRANDON VANDERHOOFT: Yeah?
RICK LAGINA: I just want to put it in our XRF because we have detected high gold values in the area.
BRANDON VANDERHOOFT: High gold values.
All right.
My thought was, wood would act like a sponge.
If we test the outside of the shaft, we know the water samples are indicating presence of gold.
Well, certainly the wood should as well.
We need to get busy. – Hi, guys.
– Charles. – Hey Charles.
Big man right here might know.
Yeah.
See they’re drilling right now.
BRANDON VANDERHOOFT: Yeah, drilling from here.
That’s where we started here.
Going clockwise.
OK.
RICK LAGINA: So I’ll tell you what, guys, I’m very interested in these wood samples and the soil samples, so I’m going to head down to the lab, bring them to Emma.
Dig her out.
Yep.
OK.
You guys are in charge.
Anything comes up, give me a call.
– Keep me posted. – Will do.
Thank you.
BRANDON VANDERHOOFT: All right, Rick, see you.
RICK LAGINA: All right, see you.
NARRATOR: The following morning– MAN: Hello!
– Oh my god, it’s a crowd. – Hello, how are you doing?
Please.
Emma’s got some news.
So you guys gave me these.
Right.
This piece right here, because it’s small, I could do a map scan of it in a short– What is that?
EMMA CULLIGAN: That’s the garden shaft inner lining that– the wood pieces. MARTY LAGINA: Yeah.
The original shaft.
EMMA CULLIGAN: Yeah.
And from this one, I detected gold.
RICK LAGINA: Wow.
To confirm your theory, it’s– – Gold? – Gold, yeah.
– Gold in the wood? – Yeah.
– Gold. – Wow, that’s wild.
Wow.
EMMA CULLIGAN: Yeah.
NARRATOR: In the money pit area, archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan has just shared some astonishing news.
Yeah, I confirmed it.
I had to make sure, but there’s definite gold, yeah.
NARRATOR: The wood samples extracted from a depth of 55 feet inside the garden shaft contain high trace evidence of gold.
MARTY LAGINA: What degree of accuracy do you believe that to be?
This one’s accurate.
MARTY LAGINA: 100%?
Yeah.
Well, there you go, guys.
And it’s adhered to the organic material, the wood?
Yeah.
0.11%, so it’s point 0.1.
But still, that is enough.
This is huge.
Isn’t that, like, a big number?
That’s a big number from my– in my books, that’s a big number.
It is, because it’s a lot of parts per billion.
So, I mean, all we can do is continue, like, with the water to cross-check, like check other samples, see if we can duplicate.
This girl can find gold.
That’s a superpower round here.
Yeah, OK.
The results are incredible, fantastic, gobsmacking, to use one of Gary’s terms.
ALEX LAGINA: That’s huge, isn’t it?
Like, that’s a lot.
EMMA CULLIGAN: That’s a pretty big– that’s significant.
Yeah.
MARTY LAGINA: We could be close to the actual treasure.
We’ve got a little bit of time to pull it all together, and we’re going to work together to do that.
That’s where we are right now.
I’m hopeful.
RICK LAGINA: We’ve always said that, you know, science had to be a real component of the search, and now this analysis is incredibly invigorating.
Look at the smiles around the table.
I mean, everybody’s smiling.
So it’s a great component, and we always said that this shaft would provide a unique opportunity, if we were humble enough and smart enough, to learn from lost opportunities, right?
Yeah.
RICK LAGINA: Anyway, I think we owe Emma a round of applause.
Oh god.
[applause] Find gold around here, you get applause.
[laughter] Well, thank you for bringing the news.
We appreciate it.
It’s all good news in a search for the truth.
MARTY LAGINA: Absolutely.
RICK LAGINA: Find us some more.
MAN: Yeah, more gold.
[laughter] Everybody hold their breath.
This is getting so exciting.
NARRATOR: After finding what they believe to be one of the four corners of shaft 2– Incoming sausage.
NARRATOR: –members of the Oak Island team have begun drilling a new exploratory borehole in an attempt to locate another wall of the structure.
I don’t see any wood right there, but let’s– let’s have a better look.
[foreboding music] Let’s just see what we got.
You just got shards there.
Yeah.
Oh!
Whoa, hello.
Hold on.
OK, hold the phone.
Wow.
– Oh– – There we go.
–yeah. OK.
That’s Looks like we got something interesting there.
Oh, lots of wood.
Well, this is good.
Yeah.
This could be the day.
That’s a fairly substantial plank.
We are right up against the wall here.
So this is our third time. Yep.
We got three points now that can’t be just one wall, so we got two walls.
This is great news, gentlemen.
NARRATOR: Because shaft 2 is the oldest known searcher site on the island and the one closest to the original money pit, finding evidence of what appears to be the shaft’s second wall is an exciting development.
If they can verify their discovery and then locate a tunnel running off of it at a depth of 110 feet, the team could lock in an exact location for the fabled money pit, and hopefully the Oak Island treasure.
We’re now chasing a tunnel from shaft 2.
The best thing of all this, it’s pointing to an area that’s never been searched.
So it’s all virgin ground.
So I think this becomes our most important search to date.
It’s looking really promising.
That makes me want to collect dendro from the shaft.
Yep.
NARRATOR: In order to confirm that the wooden structure they discovered is, in fact, shaft 2, the Oak Island team will need to submit wood samples taken from the site for dendrochronology testing.
Also known as tree ring dating, dendrochronology is a scientific method used to study the size and pattern of growth rings, which develop as a tree grows over its lifetime.
The process can accurately determine not only the age of wood, but when it was cut for use in construction.
The tool that seems to have worked the best on the island really, as far as precision and accuracy, is dendrochronology.
So now we have several different samples, and we need to test it.
And if it comes back in– in a very narrow window that this is when the trees were used, if it lines up with that information, then we know definitively we located shaft 2.
We got to pin the next hole, so we’re going to move off of this shaft, we’re going to chase the tunnel.
Doug and I are going to take off to the research center.
I’m going to put this data into our 3D model.
I’ll come back and supply you guys with that.
So the quest for shaft 2 continues for at least one more hole.
That’s right. At least, yeah.
If we’re lucky enough to go into a tunnel, we might just chase the tunnel as far as we can actually, so.
Oh yeah.
That’s the plan. Yep.
All right, we’re going to go pin the next hole.
Super. Thanks a lot.
Hey, Craig.
Craig.
Hey, Craig.
Hey, guys.
NARRATOR: One week after sending wood samples collected at the Money Pit area off for scientific testing, Rick, Marty, and members of the team gather in the war room.
They are eager to hear a report on the structure they hope can be verified as shaft two.
MARTY: Guys, my favorite kind of war room is about to commence.
And this is a favorite of a favorite, because what has worked best for us as analysis tools has been dendrochronology on the logs.
And we’ve got a bunch of results coming in.
All right.
Got good info for us?
I’ve got the data from [inaudible] for the dendro from the Money Pit area.
It was from 98.5 to 103.5 feet deep.
Yep.
But the age he’s coming up with is 1796.
Wow.
That’s great.
CRAIG: Yep.
So in 1805 was the year shaft two was put in, so it fits great.
So we’re in the right spot.
[laughter] NARRATOR: Success.
The results of the test indicate that the wooden structure the team has unearthed at the Money Pit site is most likely shaft two.
They should now be able to pinpoint the exact location of the mysterious Money Pit treasure shaft first discovered by Daniel McGinnis and his friends in 1795.
MARTY: I’ll tell you what’s refreshing.
How many times have we sat around this table until the data comes in and says, well, could be, might be.
I think we’ve found shaft two, which means we– we are very close to the original Money Pit.
Yep.
JACK: Now we’re talking about the Money Pit’s right in this small area.
Yeah.
JACK: 14 feet away from known points.
Yep.
MARTY: 1796– what it does is eliminate that shaft from being anything but shaft two.
And I totally agree.
Because nothing’s anywhere near that old, except that and the Money Pit itself.
I think the Money Pit has to be somewhere in about a 20 foot radius, maybe even a little less.
RICK: I think we’re close to the original workings, more so than any other time.
MARTY: Do you accept shaft two and 14 feet as valid?
And I think shaft two just became completely valid.
Yes.
It’s the 14 feet we’re dealing with now.
The 14 foot arc has– I mean, that’s zeroing in.
You know what the big takeaway today is?
That the Money Pit may no longer be lost.
It has to be here. – Hear!
Hear!
GARY: We’re in the right time frame– late 1700s.
And we all believe in the dendro.
Yeah.
MARTY: We’re not done yet.
I’m really encouraged by it.
This is great news, and we need to go capitalize on it.
So let’s go do that.
NARRATOR: For brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and the Oak Island team, locating shaft two offers the promise of a potentially historic breakthrough– one that suggests that the end of their decades-long quest could be just a few weeks away.
But if and when they finally reach the fabled treasure shaft, just what will they find?
An ending to their search?
Or perhaps only another clue to solving a mystery that has so far taken more than two centuries, millions of dollars, and six lives to solve?
Well, yeah.
There it is.
It’s a whole box right here.
NARRATOR: While excavating near the southern shore of Oak Island in search of the wooden sluiceway believed to connect to shaft 9, Rick, Marty, and members of their team have just made what could be one of the most important discoveries of the year.
[water flowing] A lot of water.
It goes way back in there.
Ah, there’s the top.
Yeah, look.
There’s wood.
That’s a good sign.
It’s well preserved.
Yeah.
That’s a heavy piece of wood.
Ooh, check this out.
Puddled clay.
Oh, look at that.
That’s why the wood’s so well-preserved.
I’d say that’s your sluice.
Yep.
That’s a look back in time, boys, 159 years ago, more or less.
And still working.
And still working.
Yeah.
Oh, it’s amazing it still works.
Yeah.
They’ve engineered it properly.
You can’t say they didn’t know what they were doing.
So what are we going to do with this, Rick?
Well, we need to dig it backwards and expose it?
That’s what I was thinking.
I should mark that.
Dan Henskee is the sage.
He is the royalty, if you will, of Oak Island now.
It is with his help and his insistence alone that we have uncovered the sluice.
It will go a long way towards hopefully pinpointing the location of shaft 9.
It’s not that deep.
With us, we can hand dig it, you know, and try to get it back to where it’s not all broken and busted.
And then see where it goes.
Yep.
That’s pretty cool.
That last scoop is like taking the cork out.
Yeah.
Well, this is the first step in re-establishing that landmark up the hill.
Yeah.
I think this is a successful day.
Good.
I have a pin, so let’s find the other end tomorrow.
Good deal, Steve.
Hey, good work.
Thank you.
NARRATOR: For Rick, Marty, and the team, a week that began with a frustrating setback now ends with a discovery that could offer a major breakthrough in their quest to finally pinpoint the original Money Pit.
But once the long-lost searcher shaft is found, will it really lead Rick and Marty to a centuries-old vault filled with priceless gold and jewels?
Or will it take them down a different path, one that will reveal just why Oak Island’s secrets have been so fiercely guarded for more than two centuries and protected by a curse that predicts that seven must die before an incredible treasure can be found?
NARRATOR: Near the Money Pit area, members of the Oak Island team have called Rick Lagina and Craig Tester to see what they hope will be one of this year’s most important discoveries.
Thanks to information supplied to them by veteran treasure hunter Dan Henskee, they have unearthed what they believe to be an 1863 searcher structure known as Shaft 9.
So where are we?
We have one of the uphill corners, I think, cleared over there.
So should be further that way.
I would dig all four of them.
Why not? – Yeah.
CRANE OPERATOR: Yeah.
Well, we want to measure it, that’s for sure.
You know?
Well– It’s one way to corroborate, you know, if it really is 9.
Right.
OK.
Well, we’re getting in your way.
Yep. Yep.
Is that wood struck in– He’s got a ton of– hey, tell him to stop, stop.
What?
He’s just drug a ton of wood.
We’re here.
That looks like it’s part of the shaft.
The shafts, it should be 6 by 12.
So it’ll be interesting to see what the sizes turn out to be on this.
You guys want a tape measure?
Yeah.
Coming in.
Your 6 by 12 measurement may not be too far off, Doug.
12 feet inside.
RICK LAGINA: Is it?
That is huge.
Now we’ve got the edge of it here, and it’s 6 by 12.
We’ve got those 1850s accounts that say that all the open shafts were 6 by 12.
CRAIG TESTER Let’s keep digging.
NARRATOR: Although the team is encouraged by the fact that the wooden structure they’ve uncovered appears to match the historical dimensions of Shaft 9, they are also understandably wary, as over the centuries the Money Pit has been the site of more than 40 tunneling operations.
Find anything yet?
I think we’re getting closer now.
Tunnel that goes down in the sluice goes through that bank right there.
Where’s it going to appear, though, Scott?
In that way?
Yeah, yeah.
Kind of like this.
Whoa.
Whoa.
MAN: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
CRANE OPERATOR: Water’s coming in now.
RICK LAGINA: Wow, look at that.
CRAIG TESTER: Yeah, there’s water coming in over on the bank right here, coming down through.
That’s the cross beam right there.
MAN: We found the tunnel.
Yep, there it is.
NARRATOR: The team has finally unearthed the connection linking the shaft to the sluiceway.
This proves they have successfully discovered Shaft 9.
[laughs] Not too often to see a tunnel– you know, a horizontal tunnel like that, right?
Yeah, no.
And then you could see that the beams– cross beams on top of it right now.
Yeah.
SCOTT: This here was nice to see though, because now we know the tunnel comes back to this shaft.
So beyond the dirt is the one Dan Henskee read about.
It’s an aha moment in the history of Oak Island.
We’re staring at a shaft that was done over a century and a half ago.
It’s incredible to stand there and look at what they accomplished.
They persevered.
They were committed.
They wanted answers.
We do, too.
So hopefully their work will allow us to finally do what they sought to do– find the Money Pit, understand what’s there, and hopefully retrieve it.
This information is critically important to coming to an understanding of what we may do here in the Money Pit in the near future.
Best information is physical evidence, physical information that we have. RICK LAGINA: Absolutely.
Yeah.
Going to take this data and bring it back to the research center and analyze it, have Steve input it.
Let’s go do that right now.
And maybe before the end of the day we’ll have an X on the spot.
OK.
Sounds good.