The Curse Of Oak Island SO CLOSE, YET SONAR 13×9 NO CAP RECAP #moneypit #swamp #lot5 #lot8 #team72

Hello everybody. Video here for today.
This is the No Cap recap of The Curse of Oak Island season 13 episode 9 called So Close Yet Sonar. Originally aired December 30th, 2025. If you missed any of my recaps of previous episodes, there’s a link to my Oak Island playlist in the upper right. Let’s get into it.
Previously on the curse of Oak Island, people have been looking for an incredible treasure for 230 years.
The opening shot shows the uplands of Smith’s Cove looking more devoid of trees than usual. Or maybe it’s just the angle.
The new boreho is BN-13.5 between the toot1 quesan to the south and the garden shaft to the north. It is 45 ft northeast of recent bore holes.
It is within an area the team discovered in 2022 to have heavily slushy material from 55 to 150 ft deep above the solution channel. The area is marked in red and the shape led Marty Lagginina to call it the peacock.
Steve describes the peacock as a solution channel above the solution channel and calls it a higher mud river.
Back in 2022, they did not drill down into the solution channel stopping higher. This follows new precious metals evidence collected by Dr. Spooner in the previous episodes this season.
For those that missed it previously, this means that there is a significant amount and that the metals still have to be there to this day to continue to be that high year after year.
Rick later says that it’s possible that an adjacent shaft or tunnel has caused the loose soils and that there is no documentation of searchers being in that exact area.
In the southwestern corner of the swamp, Katchcha and Derek join Billy as the team continues to investigate that area this season.
Billy excavates a small trench so that Katcha can metal detect any deeper artifacts.
Previously, Billy uncovered a stone structure and a possible stone road, both lined with survey stakes several yards north of the current location.
Katcha finds another survey stake and says it’s been there a long time. Billy agrees, adding that there was 3 ft of material above it.
He also points out the water that indicates a pit having been dug by something other than himself.
Katchcha says Steve will pin the exact location the stake was in. And Billy says that Dr. Spooner can carbon date the stake so they can learn the date range.
In the lab, it’s time for Emma’s report on the folded coin that Gary metal detected in the lot five spoils.
that came from what they still call the round feature despite the fact that it has not been round for a very long time now. Gary had previously explained that a folded coin is usually a good luck talisman to ward off bad luck. Lar says that the first one found in England was dated to 1290 AD.
Emma says that the CT scan did not reveal anything that would confirm that it’s a coin.
Lar says that it had to be worth something to have been used as a talisman and the triple folding is unusual.
Emma goes on to say that it’s postmedieval but premid 1800s. The arsenic and lead content would indicate at least mid700s though and it could be as old as the late 1600s. Dr. Spooner determined many years ago that 1680 was when most of the work in the man-made swamp was done and that it is 150 years before the recorded discovery of the money pit depression.
Lar does not recall any similar items being found in Nova Scotia. The Google AI overview for folded in quotes and then Nova Scotia says that multiple folded coins were found by searchers on Oak Island and otherwise mentions only the Jamestown colony in Virginia as somewhere else they were found. Back to the episode, Lar says they have not yet researched if the three folds would mean anything in particular. After Rick brings it up, the taskbar shows that it was 30 degrees Celsius and sunny this day, but does not show the date and time long since removed, likely because a lot of us check for things like that.
Since the folded coin is possibly a religious artifact, it could, like these other lot five fines, ornate buttons, and trade beads, be a link to the Knights Templar offshoot, the Knights of Malta. Gary suggests that they show it to series veteran Newsmatist Sandy Campbell.
In the overhead shot that returns us to the southwestern corner of the swamp, you can see how close the pit that someone else dug before it was a swamp to the modern road.
Katchcha finds this piece of tapered wood that she thinks might be part of an ore.
The team previously has found multiple pieces of ships in the swamp like this railing found a few yards to the east in 2020. It carbon dated as early as the 600s AD.
A bigger eight-sided stake was found in this position 4T down.
Katchcha says it’s like the ones found near the vault in the northeastern region of the swamp found last year in the Money Pits Peacock area. The looseness of the soil or possibly just water allowed the core sample if any to fall out.
Adam from Choice Drilling says the chest drilled depth was 148 to 158 ft. They continue and do get a sample from 158 to 168 feet. Nothing was noteworthy about the sample other than it being solid material after 10 ft of space filled with water.
Steve says he thinks there is an offset chamber in the area, which Marty has also long believed. This theory is that in addition to depositing treasure at the bottom deep in the money pit that a tunnel was built from the main shaft to a higher elevation man-made or natural cavern or both in which treasure was also deposited. The team decides to run a sonar scan of the void area.
In the research center, Sandy has arrived to examine the trifolded coin.
He immediately confirms that it is indeed a coin and that it has been folded three times. He says that the practice started in medieval times, but due to the larger size of this coin, it’s 16 or 1700s.
Sandy goes on to say that even though it’s not older, it still has the same religious and spiritual meaning. The dates match Emma’s conclusion after finding out the metallic content. Sandy says the Knights Templar practiced the ritual of folding a coin to trap the evil in it and then toss it away as an homage to their saints. Again, late 1600s would be peak time frame for the Knights of Malta.
While work continues in the round feature on lot five, Rick and Gotcha arrive on lot eight where Katcha’s dad Gary while following a line away from a marker stone on lot five shown here found this possible piece of a barrel.
Rick thinks there may be other things to find nearby.
First, Katcha detects what she thinks might be part of a knife. Rick says that her dad always says that square holes are older.
Next, Couch says she has never found one of these, but she knows what it is. A lead bag seal.
Her dad previously found bag seals on lot 32 British and 1500s and lot five an isotopic match to the 1300’s lead cross connected to the Knight’s Templar.
They hope that Emma and Leard can find a maker mark on the newly found bag seal in the money pit. The highdeinition cameras inserted into the bore hole before they do the sonar scan.
Visibility isn’t good, but the team sees an opening here.
They also see some boulder on boulder here.
The camera’s pulled up and the sonar is put in. The openings marked in light blue by the production team are linear, which is always an indication of man-made, especially when compared to the rest of it. Rick says they will contact a previously used video enhancement company so that they can hopefully learn more from the video that was taken.
Next time on an allnew The Curse of Oak Island, season 13, episode 10, called Boulder and Wiser, the first 2026 episode.
When the team finds an artifact on lot 8 that may date to medieval times, it leads them to another massive discovery.
And on January 13, 2026, season 13, episode 11, called A Night’s Journey, as the team makes a potentially key discovery beneath a boulder on Lot 8, new clues arise that could identify who is behind the Oak Island mystery.
And on Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, season 13, episode 12 is called A Fort Knight, and we do not have a plot or synopsis for that yet.
Recaps of all of the aired shows from every season are in my Oak Island playlist. I will be recapping new episodes as they air from now, the end of December 2025 to May 2026. That playlist is linked at the end of this video on the screen now or very soon.
I’ll also be putting out retro recaps of the secret of Skinwalker Ranch seasons 2 through 4, seasons 1, 5, 6, and the first five episodes of season 2 are already done and are in that Skinwalker Ranch playlist. Thanks so much for watching. Please subscribe, like and comment and happy new year.