The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down (2016–…): Season 8, Episode 7 - The Best is Yet to Come - full transcript

What began 226 years ago

as a compelling mystery
in the north atlantic

has now become
a pretty sure thing.

Science now indicates
that a vast treasure

lies buried deep in the
money pit on oak island.

And tonight I'm in traverse city,
michigan,

to talk with the guys who,
in season eight

of the curse of oak island,
showed more than ever

how they are going to be
instrumental in recovering it.

Get ready, acorns. This,
is drilling down.

♪ ♪



Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.

matty: Well, team,
thanks for having me back again

to beautiful traverse city.

- I've fallen in love with this city, by the way.
- Welcome.

Yeah. It's great
to be here again.

Like old times.

Matty: I'm always
amazed at how much

you've accomplished every season,
but quite honestly,

never like this because
of how it started

with you guys asking
the question to the team,

"what can we do? We don't
even know what we can do."

and what you did was a lot.

And, marty, your brother said
something early in the season.

He said, "in a sense, maybe,



"because of the
covid restrictions,

our search efforts
will be more targeted."

we might have been overextended,

honestly, without covid. You know,
we're trying

so hard out here,
and we're trying not to miss anything.

And you know how many times
we walked over that stone road?

- Matty: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- This far. Our feet were here.

- The stone road was here.
- Alex: I mean...

Every year we find
something that's tantalizing,

and this year more than any year we found,
I mean,

- things that I can't explain.
- Craig: You know,

during the year,
I kept on using the word "amazing"

about so many different
things that we found.

So, it just seemed like
there's one thing after another.

They just kept on coming in,
and, and I just kept on saying

it's an amazing year.

You know, every day,
every single day,

artifacts went to
the research center.

Matty: There are so
many finds this season

despite the obstacles.

I mean,
I-I heard someone say about 2,000 finds?

Could that be correct?

Quite a few really
significant ones.

- Jack: That was just this year, too. Yeah.
- That's just this year.

Over 2,000 finds
this year alone.

I mean,
think about all the stuff

we've found all over the island.

Matty, you know, I don't think

it's the magnitude of the finds,

in other words,
the number of finds.

To me, it was how many dated.

- You know, remember where I started.
- Uh-huh.

I said to rick,
I looked him in the eye a hundred times

and said,
"show me some concrete proof

of something
significant before 1795."

- that's right.
- Well, we have dozens of them now.

Matty: For a season that was
delayed by more than two months

and allowed for
zero large-scale digs

because of the
covid-19 pandemic...

- We're ready any time you are.
- Okay.

...Rick, marty,
craig and the team

made some of the most
incredible discoveries ever

in the entire 226-year-old
oak island mystery.

(beeps)

gary: I see it. (whoops)

oh, no way!

That's an old coin.

Gary: That's a little
beauty. Look at that.

Matty: Top-pocket finds
included a chinese cash coin,

unearthed on lot 15,
that dated back

more than 1,000 years...

You think it's some kind
of a weight or something?

Rick: It's like nothing
I've ever seen before.

Matty: ...An actual treasure
coin trade weight as well as

a gold-colored knob
found in the swamp

that may have come
from a jewel chest.

Gary: Wow. That's
bloody brilliant.

Very fancy.

Matty: We'll dig much
deeper into everything

that was revealed in the
swamp this year a bit later.

You don't want to miss that.

But the most profound
discovery that the team made

occurred where the
entire mystery started

back in 1795: The money pit.

Terry, we got wood.

Matty: It began with a
core drilling operation

designed with the
hope of locating

the original treasure
shaft and the fabled vault.

That is wood. We're probably
at the edge of a tunnel.

There's a chunk there.

Charles: And we've
done this consistently

over six holes.

Matty: After several boreholes,
the team

was stunned when
they hit a wooden tunnel

at a depth of some 90
feet in six straight holes

that was carbon-dated
back to the 17th century.

Terry: This is the top of
the tunnel. Not maybe.

So it comes from somewhere,
and it goes to somewhere.

Matty: Although they hoped
that they were tracking their way

toward the original money pit,

by fall they
suddenly lost the trail.

Terry: Not really any wood
that we were hoping to run into.

- Charles: The clock is ticking.
- Terry: We're running out of time.

Exactly.

Matty: It was then
that geoscientist

dr. Ian spooner came
up with a brilliant idea.

Ian: So the idea is to look at
water down drill holes that exist.

And the water in those
wells should reflect

the chemistry of the
ground that they interact with.

And how would we identify

whether or not
there was treasure?

Alex: Okay. Well, let's do it.

Matty: Using the
boreholes drilled this year

as well as the c-1 shaft first
excavated five years ago,

dr. Spooner conducted his tests.

The results were
nothing short of historic

and more than validating
for the faith rick lagina has had

in the oak island mystery
for more than 50 years.

Ian: The data says,
down in those holes,

a very large amount of
what I call billon silver.

And to hear the word "silver"

at depth in the money pit...

I mean, I'm trying to stay calm.

Marty: I've made
this comment before.

When the data
tends to underscore

what rick has always believed,
I can't just discard it

- because I'm a skeptic.
- Right.

- Alex would concur. I mean...
- Yup.

Marty: I'm sure
craig would concur.

But what ian spooner does

really and truthfully... The
main part of what he does

is to go around to look for
environmental contamination,

and so at the end of the year,

he goes and does what he does,

and he comes back and he says,
"look, there's a lot.

(There's a lot of silver
leaching into this water, a)."

(b) it was a big
surprise to him.

- Mm-hmm.
- Rick: Your eyes perked up.

- Oh, yeah. - When he said...

- You asked him how much.
- Dump truck loads,

I believe, is what is was.

(laughter)

and then right about the time

I'm... I'm about to say,

"guys,
let's just quit with this core drilling.

We're just... It's
a fool's errand."

- right.
- This is the first thing we've found

that is a direct
indication of treasure.

Everything else has been second tier,
indirect.

And so,
is that significant to me?

- You bet it is. - Wow.

Yeah,
but didn't dr. Spooner also say

you wouldn't be
able to detect gold?

Which means if
there's a giant pile

of silver somewhere under there,

and you can't detect gold,
how much gold might there be?

How many other
things might accompany

that silver, precious metals?

Yeah, I mean,
and he'd also detected...

- I believe it was copper, wasn't it?
- Mm-hmm.

I mean, copper, of course,
is in brass and bronze,

which is often the setting
for some other things,

certainly could be for
religious type artifacts, right?

I mean, you-you... they
wouldn't all be gold or silver.

- There'd be brass and bronze.
- Matty: Right. That's right.

It's a stunning find, guys.

You know, we're going back
and looking at old artifacts

and we came up with that leather
that came from the money pit.

It's obvious, I think,
now that there is a treasure hunt.

You know, people were doing
something deep in the ground,

'cause how else did
that leather get there?

- Matty: The shoe leather?
- Jack: Yeah.

Matty: Now, over the years,
numerous compelling discoveries

have been reported
in the money pit.

Like when frederick blair's crew

drilled into a believed
seven-foot-high vault,

buried some 150
feet deep in 1897,

recovering traces
of gold as well as

the infamous parchment
with "vi" written on it.

Well, another curious find that

rick, marty, craig and the team

made this year came

while alex lagina
was helping to search

the preserved spoils
excavated in 2019

from borehole 8-b.

- Alex: Oh! - What is that?

- Alex: That's leather.
- Dan h.: Looks like a heel

- from a shoe. - Alex: Yeah.

Matty: A piece of leather
that was determined

by rare documents and
artifacts expert joe landry

to be from a high-end bootheel.

It was a cool find that
became a critical clue

once the team
had it carbon-dated.

1492 to 1662.

- 1492? - Isn't that amazing?

Craig: So, we tested it

and determined that
it came from europe,

and, uh, most likely,
most likely France.

I mean,
I-I-I'm so excited by that,

that shoe leather,
so we have possibly

a french very important person,
a vip,

standing on a north
american island

a very long time ago.

Jack: The lead cross is french,
too, and from

around kind of the same time period,
a little bit earlier.

Matty: So, with-with the
backdrop of this find of silver,

I want to back up a little bit

and ask you about the
money pit in general.

Where we're thinking
we're going to search?

Instead of going east to oc-1,
maybe we look west of c-1.

Is that still the case?
Are we thinking west

or are we going to stay back
where you thought it was?

I think we know less
about the money pit

than when we started
the sonic drill program.

- I think we're more confused.
- More confused.

- I don't think we know less.
- No, we know, we know more,

- but we're more confused by the data.
- Yeah, I buy that.

But I think... I think
there's significant interest

to the north and east

- more than anywhere else.
- Hmm.

I mean,
you're so focused in this one area,

and there are so many finds
coming out of that eastern area,

and then all of a sudden
maybe we're thinking west of c-1,

but now we know there
might be silver down there.

Is it time for a big dig?

Matty: So,
guys. I just got to ask you...

Is it time for a big dig?

By c-1, we drilled a number of wells,
like ten.

They all hit tunnels at
about a hundred feet.

If those are true tunnels,
where are they going?

And-and, to me,
they could easily be leading off,

and-and if the tunnel's
somewhat open,

we're getting water coming
through and it's bringing

the potential silver
with the water.

So I have no idea

where-where this
treasure is buried at.

So, for me, a big dig...

Absolutely not at
this point in time.

Matty: Now,
the original money pit,

discovered in 1795,

was reportedly
13 feet in diameter.

But because it was lost to
history over a century ago

from all the searcher activity
and subsequent cave-ins,

the oak island team is
now looking for it in an area

that covers almost
three square acres.

This year their
drilling operation

that stretched from borehole c-1

to borehole oc-1,
nearly 50 feet to the east,

produced evidence of tunnels

and structures that
dated anywhere from 1706

all the way back to 1648.

That's some pretty significant

- beam going on there.
- Charles: Yeah.

Matty: So,
as incredible as it is to now know

there are massive
amounts of silver down there,

they're still looking for
a needle in a haystack.

So,
in terms of what you just laid out,

a big dig could potentially
do more harm than good

and you could be
making the mistake

that other people have made,
just trying to go in there

- and just access it.
- Marty: How big is the big dig?

That's not even defined,
matty. I mean, a hundred-foot radius?

- Mm-hmm. - Marty: 120? 150?

And we could spend an
enormous amount of money

digging up a 150-foot radius

and miss everything.

- Right.
- Marty: I mean, that's how

- maddening this thing is.
- So, if we're going to,

at least for now,
kind of put the big dig idea aside,

what other technology...

Is there anything else
that you could use,

given this new
information about the silver,

- to access or try to access?
- Rick: I've always

been interested in
possibly exploring the...

The option of bringing in
a tunnel boring machine

and getting underneath
the money pit

and doing some
diagnostics at depth.

Now, it's a bit of a stretch,
very expensive,

but every searcher before us,

every one of those people,
including mr. Blankenship,

were down at depth
in the money pit.

We've never been there.

And I think there would
be some diagnostic tools

that we could put down at depth.

Well, rick,
I like what you're saying.

I think... I think you
better get elon musk

on speed dial because
I think that's going

to be an expensive one.

I-I just want to take
one quick step back

and talk about this
technology you're talking about,

this elon musk technology.

Tell me a little bit about
that so I can understand.

Rick: We get a
tunnel boring machine,

and they can do a... as
small as one and a half meters.

They shotcrete as they go.

They can make
about 40 feet a day.

They can do tunnels
at a one-to-six

or one-to-eight
ratio in a decline.

- Marty: Can they handle water?
- Rick: It absolutely

can handle the influx of water.

It just chews away.
The-the material is

automatically excavated
out on a conveyor belt.

It dumps into whatever
vehicle you have,

- it's trucked away.
- But, I mean, that would be pretty cool.

Yeah, but exactly what
are we going to do with it?

- Just start tunneling around in areas of interest?
- Rick: No, I know.

I'd just try to get
to a depth where,

you know,
instead of doing cross-borehole tomography

you'd be at depth,

and you might be able to put down,
like,

the dual-induction
system at depth.

In an uncased... no steel...

In an uncased environment.
And who knows?

You can pull the boring
machine back out.

You can literally walk in.

- You want to walk down there.
- Alex: I mean, I got to be honest.

Me, too. (laughs)

yes. It would be cool as
hell. The little boy in all of us

wants to go down in that tunnel. Yes,
but to what end?

- Oh, you'd have to...
- You'd have to figure out what,

- what instrumentation goes in there.
- Yeah.

I think maybe an easier way
to do the same thing would be...

We ought to do
something with 10-x.

10-x has been sitting
there since we started, right?

And it's... it'd be really
cool if what dan built,

with all that herculean effort,
actually helped solve it.

Right now it's a mess. You know,
we-we can put some divers in,

we know we can clean it out,
and then, you know,

it's unstable right now,
no one wants to...

No engineer will
certify that thing.

So,
let's say this year we cased it

like we do in the oil field

and maybe even cement
around the outside so we got, uh,

uh, something with integrity.

And then we'd have
a 181-foot platform

where we could put
muon technology...

The detectors and the
equipment rick's talking about.

That's-that's pretty much
close anyway to deeper

than anywhere we think
this treasure could be.

- Got it. - Mm-hmm.

Matty: What marty is proposing

would be to install
a new caisson

within the
eight-foot-wide 10-x shaft

in order to stabilize it
down to the 181-foot level.

Then,
the team would lower a device

to conduct muon tomography.

This cutting-edge technology
detects cosmic rays,

or muons,
as they penetrate the bedrock.

This could help identify voids,

chambers, and,
hopefully in this case,

the money pit treasure vault.

It's just an item
for consideration.

I... we don't know
what the cost would be

or anything,
but I-I like the idea,

like his idea modified.

Rick: But dr. Spooner
and matt luckman

are focused on perhaps
applying their science

and figuring out a location,
"x" marks the spot.

They're going to figure
out which way the waters

- are moving underground, okay?
- Okay.

And then they're going to look
at the relative concentrations.

They won't be able to say,
"I don't think it's there."

they'll be able to say,
"it's coming from that direction."

but then, once we're close,
you know, it might be up

over here and then
you can do a big dig.

It might work better than that,
actually.

Possibly,
right? It does with contamination sites.

- Really?
- They can, they can get you

right to where it's coming from.

- Craig: Right.
- Like, how close? -Ten feet.

- Oh.
- This is dr. Spooner's area of expertise.

Yeah,
it's what he does. It's what he does.

You're making it
seem like dr. Spooner...

He has the ability,

despite what we've
not been able to do,

to zero in on where
this treasure site is

- away from the money pit, or even if it is there.
- Possibly, possibly.

He can get within ten feet?

Possibly.

- Oh, man. - Mm-hmm.

We might find this thing, marty.

- (laughter) - like... I-I mean,
like...

I mean, he's-he's convinced
me we're going to find it.

Remember it's three-dimensional,
too, jack.

- Yeah.
- Is everybody open to the potential that

that source could
come from somewhere

that you haven't even looked?

- Oh, absolutely. -It better, it better.
- Matty: Mm-hmm.

Because we've looked awful
hard in certain areas, yeah.

Now,
to be sitting here in season eight

and talking about
silver in the money pit...

Just from standing
outside and looking in,

it's-it's pretty cool.
We're trending

in the right direction
here as far as treasure.

You saw... you must have watched

when dr. Spooner presented
that. That was pretty, uh,

that was pretty definitive.

So in typical money pit fashion,

the money pit steals the
show at the end of the season

and says, "hey,
don't forget about me,"

but there's another area
of this island that carried us

all throughout season eight

with find after find after find,
and it's right there.

Matty: There's another
area of this island

that carried us all
throughout season eight

with find after find after find,

and it's right there,
and it's the swamp.

Every week this season,
this swamp came up

with a new showstopper. You
guys spent a lot of time in there.

Look, I... much to my chagrin,

uh, every time we've dug
significantly in the swamp,

I think without exception,
we've found something.

Yeah. Right.

Matty: This year,

the triangle-shaped
swamp took center stage,

revealing unprecedented clues

in the fellowship
of the dig's quest

to solve the oak island mystery.

Ian: I think we're sort of on
to something right in here.

- There's a lot of rocks.
- Yeah, they're fitted.

- Ian: Oh, yeah. Something was built here.
- Yeah.

Matty: It all began with the
discovery of a massive stone road

believed to have once
been part of a ship's wharf.

- Marty: Wow.
- Rick: It's quite impressive.

Marty: It's incredibly
impressive.

Stand right there,
and you'll get a real

- good perspective.
- Marty: Unbelievable.

Matty: This historic find not
only offered more evidence

that the swamp was
once an open harbor

but also led to the
discovery of numerous

other clues suggesting
that an operation to unload

cargo onto oak island
took place centuries ago.

- Rick: Wow. - (laughter)

gary: Oh, wow indeed.

Rick: That is incredible.

Matty: These
included iron ringbolts...

Check that out.

- Top of a keg.
- Gary: This is really unusual.

Matty: ...Pieces of
wooden keg barrels

dating back to as early
as the 15th century,

and a cobblestone pathway

that may be leading to
the ultimate discovery.

Which way do you think
we should chase this?

Everything's telling me it's
turning up to the money pit.

That's great.

So we have this confounding road

in the southeast of the swamp,
basically, that looks like

it's heading... looks like it's
heading off to the money pit.

How can we follow it?

Dr. Spooner thinks that,
and aaron,

dr. Aaron taylor,
they believe they found

where it appears to turn back

towards the money pit uphill.

And that's as far as we've
taken it. And that's not a certainty.

I think it does lead
straight to the money pit,

but not in a straight direction.

I mean, sure,
it might meander a little bit now,

but it's pretty much bang on.

I mean,
we want to continue following

the road towards
the uplands here.

So, there's some significant
work yet that remains.

That's the deepest part too,
right?

So if there are artifacts,
they could all...

There could be a
plethora of them there.

Matty: To that end,
let me sum this up by asking directly.

In a season nine,

will we be trying
to follow that road?

- Oh, absolutely. - That's a...

- That's a certain yes. - Great.

You know,
one thing I wanted to talk about,

dr. Spooner comes up with a date

with this newly
discovered stone road.

Uh, you're talking mid-1700s.

Right? But if you
go to last season

up by the eye, the paved area,
that's a much older date...

- Mm-hmm.
- ...Than mid-18th century.

Marty: Guys,
we're in the eye of the swamp now.

- Gary: That's solid.
- Yeah, that's a good one.

Matty: In season seven,
the fellowship

investigated the
northernmost point

of the triangle-shaped
swamp in an area

where vegetation never grows.

An area they dubbed
the "eye of the swamp."

after discovering stacked
rocks above packed clay

deep within the eye,
the team expanded their search

and discovered something
even more incredible.

A man-made stone feature
that stretched all the way

from the eye of the
swamp to the eastern edge.

And after carbon-dating
organic materials found there,

the team was in for
an even bigger surprise.

Ian: The dates are
rather extraordinary.

- There's the dates we're getting. Yeah.
- Wow.

Around 1200 ad.

- Medieval. - Medieval, baby.

Come on. Where is it?

The paved area was 1200.

- 1200 ad. - Craig: Yeah.

So that's
pre-christopher columbus.

So,
we definitely need to look into that more.

So that, yeah,
way back to the 1200s there.

And then 1600s

and 1700s for the
stone road and the path.

Just to add to those is that in the eye,
remember, dr. Spooner,

doing his sediment analysis,
came up that there was

some kind of industrial activity

in the 1680s to 1690s.

- Right. - Yeah.

That's kind of
when it started there.

Unfortunately, matty,
your confusion seems correct

- because none of those tie real well.
- Matty: No. Well, it-it...

- If I may... - Certainly.

Someone comes here around 1200 ad,
does something.

And then someone comes
a few hundred years later

and does something else and then
someone comes in the mid-1700s

and does something else

in relation to what
those people did.

Is that the story

that's being told
here in the swamp?

I like that story.

Rick: That's what
I think happened.

I've always said this
was done in stages.

As our discovery process,
I believe, is incremental,

I believe the depositional
work was incremental.

Matty: You found so much
in the swamp this year,

artifact-wise,
beyond just the stone road

and in the stone road and
to the uplands a little bit.

We found a lot of stakes
that were definitely carved,

you know, cut by man.

Well,
when you get multiple samples,

and they all start coming
back the same dates,

you get a lot of
confidence in those dates.

Now,
we're-we're from the 1600s to about 1800,

so it's a... It's a
big time period.

We have things in the swamp
that are a few hundred years old.

We have dates that are going back 700,
800 years old.

Are there any other
dates that you have

that might help us
understand it more?

We've got one
artifact that came back

- you'd be very surprised with.
- Really?

Matty: We have things
in the swamp that are

a few hundred years old.

We have dates
that are going back

700, 800 years old.

Are there any other
dates that you have

that might help us
understand it more?

You know, right towards the
end of the year, they came up with

a-a piece of wood that-that
we thought was a ship's railing.

And it was down about ten feet deep,
about the deepest thing

we found in the swamp.

So we tested it and retested it.

The date was 660 to 770 ad.

(all laughing)

jack: Wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait.

So will you... I'm sorry.
I'm almost speechless.

We have a railing that's fluted

from the six to 800s.

Like, that's amazing!

There's no post 770 number?

- Even-even a small percentage after that?
- No. No.

This is the earliest
thing we've found.

- What the hell happened on this island?
- Yeah, I...

What the hell
happened on this island?

Doug: Is that a piece
of cut wood there?

Oh, look. They got something.

- Scott: What do you got?
- Looks like a piece of finished wood.

Matty: It was certainly
a moment of wonder

and excitement for the team
when they made this find.

It seems like a pretty
solid piece of wood.

Matty: But what makes
the discovery of a possible

piece of very
ancient ship's railing

in this part of the swamp
even more compelling,

is that it was in this
same area two years ago

that the team conducted a
seismic scanning operation

across the entire swamp,

which revealed a
200-foot-long anomaly

eerily resembling
the size and shape

of a massive sailing galleon.

- Very cool. Very cool.
- Gary: Yeah.

- Good eyes. - Top-pocket find.

(all laughing)

so,
we've got the 1600s with the stone road.

We've got the, uh,
1200s with the paved area.

Now we're jumping
back to about 660 to 770.

Are we sure it's a ship's railing,
craig?

No,
that's the other thing we need to do.

That was the assessment...
That it was a "ship's railing."

not just an odd stick.
Definitely worked by man.

It was,
it was consistent in appearance

and-and, uh, texture,

and not "damaged," per se.

- I remember it had two flutes.
- Marty: Like a railing.

- Rick: Like a railing. - Yeah.

I'm thinking, you know,

the fact that it was retested,
once with normal parameters

and once with solvent cleaning,

and it came back
exactly correct...

That I'm a big
proponent of that.

What I'm unsure
of is: We know that

that swamp collects stuff,
right?

- True. - Yes.

- So it could just be a wash-in.
- True.

So,
it's-it's something that throws us

into maximum uncertainty
with extreme certainty.

- There you go. Yeah.
- Of course, right?

Well,
who in... Who in the heck was even

on the ocean at that point?

Vikings.

Jack: I mean,
it's phenomenal, though.

Where else are you going
to find a piece of wood

from six to 800s?

Like, where... do you just
have one of those sitting

- in your backyard somewhere?
- No. That's exactly the point.

This island just
collects old stuff?

Jack has touched on
something very key.

And that's a date like that,
a piece of wood like that

on its own,
you might be able to dismiss as something

that floated in or just an
anomaly or maybe a mis-test.

But on oak island,

it has to be compelling
because of all the other things,

the totality of weird things

you guys have found on this island,
you can't dismiss it.

So,
we-we drilled down a little bit about

what the future of the
money pit might look like.

With all this preponderance

of wild evidence in
the swamp this season,

what might the future
search in the swamp look like?

I'm very much looking
forward to that road dig where

we put sheet pile in and try
to make a connection between

the stone road,
as we call it, and the ocean.

We can re-dig this area
where we found that wood.

Matty: Similar to
what was constructed

around smith's
cove two years ago,

this coming year, rick,
marty, craig and the team

are considering installing
a sheet piling cofferdam,

creating a watertight seal

so that they can find out just
what might be buried there.

You guys happy with that plan?

I'm glad everyone's
come around to that.

(all laughing)

well, you know,
there's... We found the-the paved road

on the east side. Let's
look on the west side.

- Yes.
- Craig: I mean, with what we found,

maybe that's another road.
And then the road I mentioned

that's more closer to the eye

that we found two years ago.

- Right.
- There's a lot more to look at in that swamp.

Alex: Yeah, there's the stone
road in the corner where we don't

know where that leads.
We followed the path,

and-and you and I right at the
end of the year were down there

taking artifact after artifact

out of the ground in the swamp.

But even then,
we thought maybe that turned

and went uphill,
so we don't know

where either of the two lead.

Exactly. And the two
could have nothing to do

- with each other, too. Really.
- Right.

- They could be at different time periods, couldn't they?
- Yeah.

Not to mention we just barely
scratched the surface of it,

so there should be
more artifacts around it.

We should have more information
as we dig up and expose,

you know, and-and do more tests

around this structure to
really pin down dates and-and

who was there and
what it was used for.

So, the swamp was a workhorse
all through season eight.

Then the money pit
comes and steals the show

at the end of the
season with that silver.

Uh,
but there's other parts of the island

that really came through
with incredible finds.

I want to talk about those.

Matty: So, we really were able

to explore other parts of
the island north and west

and some new areas,
some incredible finds.

I'm so excited by that.

Rick: When we first came
to the island long ago,

both dan and fred
always said to us,

"this thing is bigger
than you think."

- yes.
- It's across the width and breadth of the island.

And at the time,
I don't think any of us...

We were certainly skeptical of that,
even myself.

And now,
what are we talking about?

That we're expanding the search

to areas that we paid
no attention to before,

have found things that have
never been found before,

and we continue to
expand the search westward.

Absolutely.

Matty: Now, even though the swamp and,
of course, the money pit

remain the most treasured
areas to target moving forward,

dan blankenship and
fred nolan's sage advice

really paid off for the
team in season eight.

Wow, laird! You've been busy.

(laird chuckles)

- whoa! - Laird: We're trying.

Matty: On lot 25, they performed

an extensive investigation
of the homestead once owned

by samuel ball,
the 18th-century former american slave

turned mysteriously
wealthy oak island landowner.

I feel something there.

Oh! Yeah, that's nice.

Matty: This revealed numerous
potentially valuable clues

such as an early 19th-century
british naval officer's button

suggesting samuel ball had
some very powerful friends.

Alex: There's a couple of
wharfs on samuel ball's property.

Matty: And then, just off the shore,
the team discovered

the remains of a massive
100-foot-long wharf,

meaning that someone
needed a place to dock

large galleons on
the property long ago.

Wonder what they were up to?

- Marty: Right in there?
- Doug: Yeah, just on the other side here.

Matty: On lot 15,
north of the money pit,

the team made two more
archaeological discoveries

that may hold the keys

to unlocking the mystery
of the money pit itself.

- Marty: What is this?
- Rick: I don't know.

Matty: One with the
strange snake-like mound

that revealed not
only a rosehead spike

dating to the early 1700s

but also charcoal that went
back as far as the 1400s.

So, what is this thing?

Something was
intentionally built on this.

- You're sure?
- We're positive. -Absolutely.

That's a hundred percent.

Matty: It was also on lot 15

that the team investigated what
archaeologist david mcginnis

believed to be a
16th-century pine tar kiln

that fellow archaeologist
laird niven speculates

may have been used to
construct the original money pit.

Laird: We always assume that
this was used for marine purposes,

but it could have been used
for construction of the money pit.

Right off the top of my head,

I'm thinking of
that pine tar kiln.

That little feature
has a huge history.

David mcginnis
has established that

he believes it
is a pine tar kiln.

Again, the science speaks,

and they ran, uh,
organic residue tests on it,

and it came up zero.

(chuckles): I have no idea.

It's a strange feature,

certainly human beings built it.

We just don't know.

That should be investigated,
though, because pine tar,

I suppose, is not like,
um, oil-based,

crude oil-based tar.

You know,
it's-it's an organic product

that might decay a lot more rapidly,
perhaps.

Apparently, though,
if it is a pine tar kiln,

it's very significant in that we
heard from the archeologists

that you just don't find
them in the maritimes.

So, you know,

if it is,
it once again is something

very unique to oak island.

Yeah, we've-we've heard
laird say that a lot on oak island.

"I've never seen
anything like this." right?

That is true.

Matty: You know,
I'm thinking of other things, too.

The serpent mound,
although it turned out

not to be a "serpent mound,"
some really cool things

were found in and
around its environment.

Did that tell you guys anything,
what was found there?

I mean, to me,
the serpent mound looks like it's a-a dump

that people used over the years. But,
like they've said,

the-the really exciting thing was,
you know, aaron taylor

finding an-an area
that he felt was intact.

It was moved there but intact,
and it had

the iron in it,
and it had the charcoal in it.

And the iron, you know,
indicated it was old,

and then the charcoal
was in the early 1400s.

So, also,
you got this super early date

before christopher
columbus is here.

It seems to be tied with iron.

Iron was not associated
with the mi'kmaq people

at that point in time,
but it's in a dump pile.

So where did it come from?

And that's what we've
been kicking around.

- It is a strange feature.
- It's a strange feature.

I mean, okay,
I'll say this: Even the dumps

on oak island aren't
nor... Aren't normal.

- (laughter) -we had other parts
of the island, as I mentioned,

- where incredible finds came up.
- Yeah.

- But we also went a little off island into the water.
- Alex: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

You were diving this year
and found some weird stuff.

We found evidence of some
wharfs that we didn't know were there,

one fairly substantial one

by the ball foundation
which indicated

a much larger, um...

I guess I would say presence,
um, in the ocean

at the time. From
the story that I know

of samuel ball,
it doesn't seem that

he would've needed
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