High Traces of Gold & Silver Discovered! | The Curse of Oak Island: Drilling Down (S12)

 

**MATTY**:
Well, fellas, I really appreciate you doing this. You know, every time I cross this causeway, like right now, I get the same level, if not more, excitement. It has not gone away. It’s increasing. I imagine you guys are pretty excited about this year, too.

**JACK**:
Yeah, it’s no problem, Matty. We’re— we’re glad to do it. Glad to take you around the island. Glad to take you around the island.

**MATTY**:
And speaking of which, you know, last year, you guys got so far in the Garden Shaft. An incredible effort by everybody. But then it ends with this unbelievably dramatic flooding. And that’s kind of the last we’ve really seen of you and the whole team. Uh, where do things stand right now in the Money Pit?

**RICK**:
Oh, it’s just like you said. I mean… (stammers) You’re not alone in being excited for answers at the end of last year because, yeah, we were… devastated, really, to lose the Garden Shaft. We had high hopes for more search and what we could’ve done there.

—

**MATTY**:
Right. In 2023, Rick, Marty, Craig, and the team eagerly worked with Dumas Contracting Limited to rebuild an approximately 100-foot-deep, 18th-century structure known as the Garden Shaft.

**RICK**:
If this is original depositor, there’s a good chance that there may be treasure at the end of this tunnel.

**MATTY**:
And they had incredible reasons to believe that the project might finally lead them to the fabled Money Pit treasure vault. One, because they discovered a mysterious collapsed tunnel just below the shaft. And, two, because that tunnel ran due west into the so-called Baby Blob, a region where groundwater testing in previously drilled boreholes revealed high traces of gold, silver, and other metals between 80 and 120 feet deep.

—

**ROGER**:
We ready to rock?

**MATTY**:
From there, the team began a horizontal probe-drilling operation in the hopes of pinpointing a vast treasure. But that is when disaster struck. Ocean water rushed in, forcing Dumas to evacuate the shaft and halt the operation. It also made the team wonder if they had fallen victim to the legendary booby trap that has thwarted all previous treasure hunters for more than two centuries.

—

**JACK**:
It’s hit what seems to be the flood tunnel system. Have you accidentally hit something that’s really validating the history of Oak Island?

**RICK**:
Yeah. We’ve got science telling us that there’s presence of a treasure here on the island. And then we’ve got an inadvertent, kind of accidental hit… (chuckles) …that almost confirms the flood tunnel legend.

**JACK**:
Right. Because the quantity of water, the volume of water, the speed with which it flooded the Garden Shaft is more than anything we’ve seen in the Money Pit and can’t be explained by the natural formations that we found in the Money Pit.

**RICK**:
So it really is a huge mystery.

**JACK**:
I love it.

—

**ALEX**:
So, uh, we’ll make our way out to the Money Pit. But I think first we should stop here at Lot 5, show you the latest.

**MATTY**:
Makes sense.

**JACK**:
It’s changed quite a bit since you’ve last been here.

**MATTY**:
I love it. All right.

**ALEX**:
We’re here now. You can see it for yourself.

**MATTY**:
Let’s do it. I always love Lot 5.

**JACK**:
It’s so peaceful and serene.

**MATTY**:
It is. It’s a special place. Back to Lot 5. I love it.

—

**RICK**:
Well, Matty, you remember all the different finds that we’ve had over the past two years on Lot 5 since we acquired it.

**MATTY**:
Oh, yeah. Let’s see, what have I seen here? Oh, a couple ancient structures that nobody knew were here. Artifacts dated back from the 1200s all the way to the 1700s. And ancient coins. I mean, it’s been— it’s been incredible since you have had access to this lot.

**RICK**:
Yeah, and, you know what, the structures keep getting more and more interesting. Laird and his team are back there right now. So let’s go back there and I’ll have them fill you in.

**MATTY**:
Let’s go.

—

Given the flood of evidence that suggests a treasure really may lie buried deep in the Money Pit, the team has been scouring the rest of the island for clues to explain just who was behind this incredible mystery. And Lot 5, located on the western side of the island, may very well hold the answers.

Rick, Marty, and Craig purchased the four-acre property in 2022 from the estate of the late Robert Young.

—

**GARY**:
That’s got to be a really old coin, mate.

**RICK**:
It’s like the other ones.

**MATTY**:
Yeah, pretty cool.

—

Since then, the team has made stunning discoveries that point to a number of possible suspects. Let’s start with four Roman coins that date back as much as 2,000 years. They found a 14th-century lead barter token that— just like the lead cross found in 2017 at Smith’s Cove— might be connected to the Knights Templar. And they’ve also uncovered a number of iron tools that have been scientifically linked to Sir William Phips, a 17th-century English politician who some believe buried a hoard of Spanish silver in the Money Pit back in the late 1680s.

All of these finds were made in or near two stone foundations in the northern section of the lot. One is rectangular. And a second, much larger, rounded feature sits right near the shoreline.

—

**ALEX**:
Hear a lot of digging.

**JACK**:
Yeah, there are some more trowels in play this year.

**(chuckles)**

—

**MATTY**:
No way, Laird.

**(chuckling, grunting)**

**ALEX**:
So, Matty… you know Laird.

**MATTY**:
Yeah, absolutely. Hey, buddy.

**ALEX**:
You know Fiona.

**MATTY**:
Fiona, great to see you again.

**FIONA**:
Good to see you.

**ALEX**:
You’ve met Helen.

**MATTY**:
Helen, good to see you again.

**ALEX**:
This is Ethan.

**MATTY**:
Nice to meet you, Ethan.

**ALEX**:
And this is Todd.

**MATTY**:
Hey, Todd.

**ALEX**:
We’ve got a big crew this year.

—

**LAIRD**:
It just kept going and going and going.

**MATTY**:
My goodness.

**LAIRD**:
Yeah. And then we decided to keep going to the west, but it turned to the north. So we kept going to the north, but then it turned to the west again. And then it turned to the north again. And then, as we were following it west, it turned into a semicircle.

—

**MATTY**:
So you did say to me at that time last year, you said, “There’s no telling how big this could be. It could be a lot bigger than we think.”

—

**MATTY**:
But I was thinking, like, oh, the wall extends maybe another five feet.

**LAIRD**:
(chuckling) Did you have any idea it would be like this?

**MATTY**:
Not this big and not this shape. It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen before, Laird.

**LAIRD**:
Correct.

—

**ALEX**:
Some of the artifacts that we found, the designation of this site has changed, right, Laird?

**LAIRD**:
Yeah. This is what we call a designated special place now. So, overall, on Oak Island, we have what we call a blanket permit, and then we have special places like the McGinnis site, the Ball site, two sites in the swamp. It also helps to protect these sites.

**MATTY**:
Right. Of course.

**LAIRD**:
We need to do it in an archaeological fashion so that we can find the artifacts in the context of the layer that they were dropped.

—

**ALEX**:
Actually, Fiona, why don’t you walk Matty through a little bit of what we’re suspecting about this feature?

**FIONA**:
It definitely looks like this was perhaps constructed in a few different periods. Perhaps. So, this area over here looks like it’s the older part of the structure. It’s more of a rectangular, squarish-type feature. Then as we moved over towards the west area, we started seeing different things. This area particularly is very, very different. You can tell that these rocks are much better constructed. They’re much tighter. Smaller rocks.