Oak Island Team Discovers Mysterious Square Object in Underground Cavern

NARRATOR: Tonight on The Curse of Oak Island. Hey-- I found something besides iron. What's this? Someone used this to bury extremely high value cargo. MARTY: This will be the first remote-operated vehicle in the cavern. RICK: We have expectations that we're gonna see man-made objects. BRIAN: We're in the cavern now. CRAIG: There's something. Pretty square. That looks pretty square to me. What is that? If they're wooden that's irrefutable proof. That changes everything!

NARRATOR: There is an island in the North Atlantic where people have been looking for an incredible treasure for more than 200 years. So far they have found bits of gold chain. a stone slab with strange symbols carved into it. .even a 17th Century Spanish coin. To date, six men have died trying to solve the mystery. And according to legend, one more will have to die, before the treasure can be found. NARRATOR: As a new day begins on Oak Island, Marty and Rick Lagina turn their attention to this year's all-important goal-- to find a diver experienced enough and brave enough to get to the bottom of Borehole 10-X.

-Hey, Brad. -Hey, guys. To this end, they-- along with dive expert John Tapper-- have arranged to meet with certified saturation diver, Brad Stabenow. So, Brad, I understand you have a lot of experience with some of the things we need-- low viz, deep water, cold water. -Yeah, I've done a lot of deep stuff. -Okay Confined space diving and cold. -Well, this is confined space. -Yeah, this is confined space. -Have you seen this before? -Not this close. NARRATOR: Brad Stabenow has worked as a professional salvage diver in over 20 countries.

He is also used to diving utilizing the Tri-mix Breathing System, which combines oxygen with nitrogen and helium to ensure a diver does not experience the kind of narcotic effects associated with diving at extreme depths. So you've done saturation diving, huh? Yep. How long are you down for at a given time? The longest run was 74 days. -Holy shit! -74 days? Under pressure, yep. Wow, that's incredible. RICK: Brad Stabenow, he's been to 800 feet. We're only asking him to do 160-foot dive. He has years of experience at those depths, far exceeding those depths. So what's the status of what we have here right now?

Right now you have this size casing and concrete that goes all the way down to 181 feet. At the bottom you've got a 27-inch pipe. Then you go down 47 feet to the top of a cavern -that we know is there. -Okay. And there are at least three targets in there that we would like a human being to tell us what they are. One is a post. Uh, one is potentially a chest. And the third, believe it or not, possibly a body. -But you can leave that alone. - But you've got a cavity that's roughly ten foot by eight foot; sort of elliptical, but irregular.

-Okay. -And the other thing is, is that there two tunnels, or we think, are two tunnels. You mean down below the casing? -Into the, in the cavern. -In the cavern. And those would need to be explored as well. -Okay. -Before we do this dive, we're gonna have an ROV come out to check out whatever can be done remotely. And we'll have that information before you would go in there. -Okay. -Okay. Clearly there is a risk of-of a fatal event in diving that deep in a skinny hole with no visibility. So we have to reduce that to an acceptable risk or we're not gonna do it.

Okay, so do you want to do this? Yeah, I'll do it. Okay. Doesn't bother you? -The 27 doesn't bother you? -No. That's a pretty straight answer. -There's your answer. -All right. Did he drop from heaven? I don't know. But he is perfect. -Gentlemen. -All right, cheers. -We'll be talking. -All right, Thanks. -We will, uh, get it together. -Thanks, guys. NARRATOR: An important decision has been made.

Brad Stabenow will attempt the dangerous dive to the bottom of 10-X. But not before Marty and Rick bring in an ROV-- or Remote Operated Vehicle-- to get solid images of the 27-inch hole and the mysterious cavern below. While Rick and Marty arrange for an ROV team to come up to explore 10-X, their partner, Craig Tester-- along with his son Drake and stepson Jack Begley-- are searching for clues and possibly treasure near the center of the island, on the area known as Lot 6. Okay guys, let's get our equipment. And we'll head out on to Lot 6 and see if-- We can actually find something? When the 140 acres of Oak Island were offered as parcels for sale by the British Crown in 1762, it was broken up into 32 four-acre lots.

For more than two centuries, the fabled treasure sites have been thought to exist on Lot 18, Lot 19 and on Lot 20-- in addition to the swamp, and the area known as Smith's Cove. But today, Craig, Jack and Drake have decided to explore one of the lots that has never been associated with the Oak Island mystery-- Lot 6. Where the clearing is here, you can see more of an opening. Uh, that is the border between Lot 5 and Lot 6. NARRATOR: Lot 6 is also of interest to the team for another very intriguing reason.

Was this Samuel Ball's property? Yeah. Samuel Ball was born into slavery in South Carolina in 1764-- just 10 years before the start of the American Revolution. After fighting on the side of the British forces, he won his freedom before emigrating to Nova Scotia in the late 1700s. In 1786, Ball purchased four acres of land on Oak Island for eight pounds sterling-- a huge amount for what was considered nothing more than rocky farm and grazing land. What makes Samuel Ball's story of particular interest to treasure hunters is that at the time of his death in 1845, the former slave, turned cabbage farmer had purchased several more acres of land, both on the mainland, and Oak Island-- including Lot 6.

In fact, Samuel Ball became one of the richest men in Nova Scotia. But how? Could he have found part of the Oak Island treasure, some 200 years ago? Okay, let's get after it. Just looking for anything old, whether it's a structure, rocks, uh, anything. We're hoping to find gold and something very old. But anything that-that takes us the next step forward towards finding the treasure would be great. (grunts) (detector wailing) I got something here. Okay, let's dig her up. It's down. like in one of the roots, Craig. -Underneath the tree? -Yeah.

JACK: It seems like it's grown, like, into the tree. -Just watch out. -Take a swing at it? Just make sure you're not behind me. Oh. There we go. Wow. That thing is huge. Look at that. What do you make. what's on the tip of it? The, uh. the head of it, the-the other end. -Oh, the other end? -Yeah. -Well, it looks like a hexagon. -Yeah, it does. Do you think it's a stake or do you think it used to be some sort of bolt?

-It looks like a. -DRAKE: A stake, I think. CRAIG: The iron nail, obviously significant, but is it 50 years old or is it 250 years old? Should I keep moving? Just move back in that way a little bit. -Clear it out. -Okay. NARRATOR: Suddenly, Jack gets another "hit" on his metal detector. And this time, it's indicating the presence of a non-ferrous-- or possibly precious-- metal, such as silver. or gold.

Hey, I found something besides iron! -Okay. -DRAKE: Coming. -JACK: All right! -CRAIG: Okay. JACK: Yeah, this is a real good signal, now. It's not conductive. Right about here. -How deep? -Six inches. -CRAIG: Okay. -It's all roots. There we go. It's right. right there. Get it. JACK: What is it?

I don't know what that is. NARRATOR: On Lot 6, near the center of Oak Island, Craig Tester,his son Drake and his stepson Jack Begley, have made an exciting discovery. Maybe a piece of chest hinge? Handle? Maybe. Yeah. CRAIG: Some sort of handle, looks like. JACK: Yeah, it is a handle. Good call. -Okay. Let's keep checking that area a little bit. -Mm-hmm. NARRATOR: If Craig and his sons have found an object that was once owned by Samuel Ball, it could be that there are others in the vicinity. If so, perhaps they will provide important information

about the former American slave who became one of OakIsland's largest and wealthiest property owners. It's that. What is this? DRAKE: I don't know. -The other side to that? -Maybe. -Possibly. -Yeah. All right. Look at that, Craig. CRAIG: It's definitely curved. You know, it's a little bit ornate. Nothing super fancy, but some sort of handle, buckle, something along that line. -Okay, let's hit it with the metal detector. -Yeah.

CRAIG: It's hard to tell exactly what we found. But, to me, it looked old. So we're hoping we find something here that tells us the who and the when, but-but we don't know. Hey, Craig? -CRAIG: Yep. -Come here. You getting a hit? I just haven't seen this before. It looks a lot like rock walls, though. Got a boulder here, boulder there and it looks like it's kind of going off right along the lot line. Is there a stone wall that's supposed to be here?

CRAIG: Not that I know of. What's this one? Look at how sharp this corner is on this one. That's, like, cut, Craig. -Dig it up a bit. -Yeah. It's a straight edge on this other side, too. I'm not finding an end to it yet. I just thought it was a small rock, to start with. What's up with triangular rocks around here? NARRATOR: A triangle-shaped rock? Could it be a natural formation? Or might it be a clue. one of many triangle-shaped formations that have beenfound throughout the island?

Watch out. Anything? CRAIG: No, obviously, a huge difference between this side and the other side. JACK: Completely flat on one side. And then the opposite side. I'd say this is not natural. NARRATOR: According to many Oak Island theorists, the presence of pyramid-shaped markings and stones is significant.

Some even suggest that they offer proof of adirect connection between Oak Island and Freemasons, who often use the symbol of atriangle to represent the great pyramids of Egypt, as well as a symbol for theGreat Architect of the Universe. Is it possible that Craig and his sons have located a clue that will help them solve the Oak Island mystery? Should we just stop where we are now, -fill back in the hole? -I think we ought to get back -and show them what we found. -All right. NARRATOR: Before the end of what has been a long and productive day, Rick and Marty Lagina have one large task to perform.

-You got it surveyed in the other day, right? -Yep. NARRATOR: For safety reasons, they need to fill in the 20-foot-deep hole they recently dug in order to find the Hedden Shaft. So we know exactly where the Hedden Shaft is. Which should help us orient as we further explore -where the original Money Pit was. -Mm-hmm. NARRATOR: For brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, the recent discovery of the Hedden Shaft-- the searcher shaft dug by treasure hunter Gilbert Hedden in 1937-- has become one of the team's biggest accomplishments so far. RICK: Looks like it's right here! There's a beam. That, Rick, is amazing. We have found it. That is clearly the exterior wall of the old Hedden shaft.

NARRATOR: Because the Hedden Shaft was known to be in closeproximity to the original Oak Island Money Pit, finding it confirmed what Rick and Marty discovered last summer when drilling core samples in the area. Drilling down to a depth of an estimated 145 feet, they found evidence of a wooden box covered in whatlooked to be a kind of concrete. That's definitely cement. NARRATOR: Upon closer examination, the box seemed to match the description of a seven-foot-tall so-called treasure vault first reported by treasure hunter William Chappell in 1897.

Concrete, and then wood. That's the description. DAVE: That's what they found, at the top of the vault. NARRATOR: Finding both the Hedden Shaft and evidence of the mysterious wooden vault confirmed that Rick and Marty have found the exact location of the Money Pit-- a location which, because of excessive and careless digging during prior excavations-- had been lost for more than 100 years. All right, let's fill it back in! Coming at ya, big boy! NARRATOR: To properly excavate the Money Pit will mean digging a hole that will need to be approximately 40 feet wide and 150 feet deep, and with equipment much larger

than what the teamcurrently has at their disposal. They will also need to shore it up in such a way as to prevent the kind of flooding and cave-ins that have plagued treasure hunters on the island for more than 200 years. -So we got this filled back in. -Yeah. But we still need to explore this bugger. This went into a cavity, covered by a cement-like material, -so we need to image it. -Yeah. Brian has to come back. Brian Abbott, the sonar guy? Yeah, absolutely. NARRATOR: Rick and Marty are hoping a sonar scan of the Money Pit-- similar to the one Brian Abbott did of 10-X earlier this year-- will verify once and for all that there really is

a treasure vault buried some 145 feet below. We need to get that down there. I mean, look, I got high hopes. The only way it will be worth digging here to 145 feet is if we see something, otherwise we're not doing it. NARRATOR: As the sun sets on Oak Island, Rick Lagina joins up with Dave Blankenship, Jack Begley, Oak Island historian Charles Barkhouse and veteran treasure hunter Dan Henskee at the nearby Fo'c'sle Tavern. Okay, guys. I don't know about you, but I'm glad to be here right now. It was a long day. You know, Jack, you guys, -actually did some work on Lot 6, right? -Yeah.

I mean, as you know, we've been running some pretty strict grids, trying to figure out if we can pinpoint a spot where there could have been a supposed encampment. Okay. Well, let me, let me stop you there because Lot 6, we've not looked at. This is the first go around for Lot 6. So, you know the progression of ownership? We do know that at one time Samuel Ball owned Lot 6. Jack, kind of primed it here. -Have you found something? -Well, as I was saying, I started looking for anything non-iron.

Moved the detector around, and got some more hits right in the general area. We finished digging everything up, and at first, we thought, well, maybe these are pieces of some old nails. Right. Well, were all these found in one spot? Yep, in the same hole. And I went, "Well, maybe that's just a bent nail." But then we found another one. From the pieces we found, I think it looks like some sort of a chest handle. Oh, for (bleep) sake, Jack. I mean, we don't give a (bleep) about the handle, Jack. It's what's inside the chest. Well, I'm doing my best, David.

Well, let's get a little bit better than that. How do finds like this tie into, you know, your understanding of Lot 6. As far as we know, no one's ever done anything on it, and nobody's farmed it. The curious thing, you know, you've told us some of the Samuel Ball story, but it's quite singular in the history of the island that this person comes. You know, freed slave, and at some point he becomes probably one of the largest landowners on the island, right? Nine lots.

The fact that he's associated with that is interesting. Why was Lot 6 left undisturbed? Might that have been his treasure vault? I don't know. None of us know, and thus we're looking. Was there anything else over there, Jack? Yeah, there was this pyramid or triangular shaped rock that came up and we dug it up. I don't know if it's a stone marker, or if it's significant or not, but it was surrounded by a bunch of granite boulders, and then this stone was different, and it looked like it may have been man-made.

You two investigate that rock, whatever it is. See if you think it's relevant. You know Dan's theory, a little bit of Fred's theory, that these marker stones, if you will, are important to the so-called, map above the ground. So, go back, the three of you, and investigate it. -See what you come up with. -We will. -Sounds like a plan. -Okay. What do you. what does Nova Scotians say? Sociable. ALL: Sociable.

NARRATOR: It is the start of another day on Oak Island. Like most, it is filled with the promise of new information. and possible discovery. -So, we're at Lot 6, and there's, uh. -Right.there's a couple stones that we found, and it's an odd shape. -Well, let's have a look at it. -All right. NARRATOR: Jack Begley and Charles Barkhouse have returned to Lot 6 with stone researcher and area historian, Terry Deveau.

They are hoping that Terry can tell them whether or not the triangle-shaped rock they found, is a natural formation. It's just right up here. All right.or if it might have been intended as some kind of ancient marker-- one that will help them solve the Oak Island mystery. We were running lines back and forth with the metal detector, and clearing a lot of brush away. And as we were clearing the brush, -I saw this point sticking out, -Okay. and I came over and dug it up.

This type of greywacke, which is common in this part of Nova Scotia, does tend to naturally fracture with this type of prismatic shape, and to make very clean cleavage at times. Is there anything that stands out to you? This one is pretty interesting 'cause there seems to be kind of an added piece to it. This is almost like a cast of some kind that's been added on to make a point. NARRATOR: An added piece? One designed to make the stone form a perfect triangle?

Could this strange triangle-shaped stone really be some sort of clue? CHARLES: That's interesting. TERRY: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't look normal. I mean, it might have been used for a marker of some kind. I mean, you couldn't rule that out. Stone markers are usually not just one stone. They are usually a pile of stones. For example-- what about this stone over here? -This one? -Yeah. It also has a flat surface. If it was used either as a cover over here or as, uh, -the back wall, and then somebody later. -Oh.

.took it apart to see what was in there, if there was anything in there. -What stood out to me was that this was a depression. -Right. And that it was surrounded by rocks. Right. Someone may have come here and used this to bury treasure or something valuable. We do know that there was a lot of smuggling going on both during the American War of Independence and the War of 1812. This was the hotspot of smuggling-- -was Mahone Bay. -Absolutely. -Mm-hmm, yeah. If it was a smuggling type cache, it would have to be an extremely high-value cargo. If I had a treasure, or something, that I wanted to bury in the ground

I'd be looking around for a spot like this. NARRATOR: Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries-- and even much earlier-- the area in and around Nova Scotia was notorious as a haven for smugglers and privateers. The numerous small islands, just off the mainland, provided cover-- and offered the perfect places to bury, and hide stolen goods and even treasure with little fear of detection or discovery. Jack, have you run the metal detector through here? -Yep. -You didn't find anything? -Not a thing. I don't know exactly what a treasure cache would have looked like, you know, some people have the idea there were several of them all around the island.

Just small caches here and there, and this really could be the remains of one of those. NARRATOR: When Samuel Ball died on December 14, 1845, he left behind a wife and grandson, but, curiously, he left his property on Oak Island to his servant, Isaac Butler, along with a series of instructions that Butler was ordered never to reveal. Could it be that both Ball and Butler knew the secret of the Oak Island mystery? A secret they ultimately took to their graves?

It's really heavy. NARRATOR: Today, Rick and Marty Lagina are hoping to take another important step forward in their goal to get a diver to the bottom of 10-X. Good morning. But before letting professional diver Brad Stabenow make the difficult and dangerous-- descent down the narrow 235-foot deep borehole, they have decided to take one more precautionary measure. Are you the ROV pilot? -I am. One of them. -Hi. -Hi. -Rick. -LaRae. -Nice to meet you. I'm Craig. Hi, I'm LaRae. You got a better looking pilot.

Way better looking. NARRATOR: They've hired Jake McNaughton and LaRae Davies-- from Dominion Diving in nearby Dartmouth-- to send the VideoRay Pro 4, Remote Operated Vehicle-- or ROV-- to the bottom of the 235-foot-deep shaft. Armed with a high definition camera, as well as sonar, the ROV will, for the first time, be able to capture high-quality images of any dangerous obstructions that could undermine a dive. It will also be able to move freely throughout the mysterious underground chamber and photograph any evidence of man-made objects or tunnels.

JAKE: So everything here is measured in feet, isn't it? LaRAE: Yeah. As we contemplate putting a diver in the hole, they're gonna want every little bit of information possible that we can give them. The ROV insertion is-is simply gathering more data. Why wouldn't we try it? These are the lights, I take it here? Yep. Those are the L.E.D. lights. -Camera here? -Camera there. Okay, great, and, um, you're highly skilled, and can do acrobatics with it and everything, right?

Um, yep. -The whole thing is all controlled from this. -Okay. NARRATOR: The ROV will use its horizontal thrusters along with vertical propellers to navigate down the eight-foot-wide portion of 10-X and then through the narrow 27 inch section-- all the way to the bottom. This is exciting. -Let's do this. -Yep. -Okay. -Yeah. Good to go. Okay, let's put her in. We haven't had ROV data in the past. This will be the first remote operated vehicle in the cavern. We're gonna get a state of the art machine in there, and let it tell us, what it can tell us.

-Just about. -Keep going. There, it's in the water. -Splash down. -In the water? -Splash down. -Lights on. Okay, I'm gonna go look at the screen. From our standpoint, we'd like to see some distinctly man-made artifacts in there. Heck, we'd like to see a treasure chest in there. Dan thinks there's one in there. We'd love to see it. That's pretty good visibility. Yeah, it's a lot better than I thought it was gonna be. -Yeah. -Standing platform. -132? -Yep. Now you're right on the ladder.

We're at 158 here. Keep going down, LaRae. Oh, there's some debris. It's 181. -RICK: Hold there. -CRAIG: Let's stop there. -Hold there. -LaRAE: All right. Take a look-see. A lot of debris down here. There seem to be a lot of boards going across, or steel or.? Okay, why don't you look directly down? Is that the 27-inch? Yeah, that's it, Rick, right there. -That curved shape. -Is that the lip?

-That's what I'm thinking. -That's what I'm thinking, too. -Here, right here? -Yeah, that's the 27. You're right on top of it there. MARTY: Is that.? You're thinking that's the edge of the hole, there, then? JAKE: It's a tight space. Well, just put it in there. -JAKE: Okay, here we go. -MARTY: Here we go.

Given Dan's belief, and the stories about the hole, and our expectations. I think we both have expectations that we're gonna see man-made objects down below. JAKE: We're, we're in the 27-inch right now. MARTY: Wait, What's that? JAKE: That's metal, for sure. What is that though? Is that a drill b--? Is that the drill bar? David, is that the drill bar? That's what it looks like. NARRATOR: In the 1970s, when Oak Island resident and treasure hunter Dan Blankenship was digging 10-X, a member of his crew dropped an approximately

20-foot-long drill bar down the 235-foot borehole. Despite many attempts to retrieve it, the drill bar was never found, and opinions have varied on where it could be. Many believe it could be lodged in the 27 inch wide hole. But no one has tried to enter the cavity since the bar was dropped. If it turns out that the drill bar is blocking the narrow shaft and cannot be removed, it would end any notion of sending a diver down to explore the mysterious underground chamber. MARTY: The drill bar is just such a complicated factor for this whole thing becauseit's bad enough we got a 27-inch hole.

We have a drill bar, which is basically a four-inch piece of, more or less, solid steel 20-some-feet long, wedged in there. So it's off to the side, right? It's not in, it's not in his way? Could be. I think we're in the cavern now. -We're in the cavity. -We're in the cavity. This is a big open space. What's that? There's something. -There's something there. -There's something right there. That looks pretty straight, doesn't it?

What is that? Pretty square. That looks pretty square to me. BRAD: There it is. DAVE: That there could be your post, Rick. I think it's a post. DAVE: Could be your post. There it is. DAVE: That there could be your post, Rick. Let's hope it's a post. DAVE: Could be the post. NARRATOR: At 10-X, an ROV in the 235-foot-deep chamber has just revealed something of potential significance

to Rick and Marty Lagina and members of their team-- the image of what could be a man-made wooden post. What's that? It looks metal, doesn't it? That's metal for sure. There is also a second vertical structure-- which appears to be an old metal drill pipe. -Can you follow that up? -Up? Yep. What is that? That's a piece of pipe coming out from the roof of the cavern there. -Is that the top? -Yep, yep. Wow is that's a clear image. MARTY: There are very distinctly two posts or columns, and certainly they didn't grow there, and I thought that they were almost certainly pipes.

Rick is convinced they're not pipes. So that's another mystery we have to pull those things out and see whether those are posts or not. If they're wooden and appear to be placed there without coming down that 27-inch hole, well, then, that's irrefutable proof of workings there. -There it is, on the sonar. -Yep. Well, if there's indication that post goes up in the ceiling, and it's embedded in there, well, then, that's indicative of the first real thing that's. reinforces that there's any man-made association down there. It looked square. Yeah, it definitely looked square. NARRATOR: Suddenly, the post-like object and the metal drill pipe disappear from view.

We've lost the post. Okay, go find it again. Where's our posts? I don't know why it's so hard to see. I mean, it was so obvious. From where I'm sitting, according to the sonar, -the post should be just off to my left, right? -Right. How come they're not showing it, though? Yeah, I don't know. That would have to be pretty proud like all the way top to bottom. They were. They were in the sonar, unless we pulled that pipe and that's all there was. No, it can't be. That's not in the cavity.

No, no. We pulled that eight-inch. -That was in there. -Could be. MARTY: Lay it down right over there. NARRATOR: A few weeks ago, the team removed three rusted riser pipes out of 10-X. Is it possible that the two posts they saw in the cavern were simply old riser pipes? If that's true, then why did one look square? And even more curiously. where did they go? -CRAIG: Daniel. -RICK: Come on and set eyes on your cavern. NARRATOR: For 92-year-old Dan Blankenship-- the man who constructed 10-X with the help of his son Dave and friend Dan Henskee. today's activities mean more to him than anyone.

Marty, I don't want to take your seat. I know you don't want to, but I insist. NARRATOR: Because, for him, finding something of value at the bottom of the 235-foot borehole would serve as a validation for his more than 50 years of dedication and hard work trying to solve the Oak Island mystery. MARTY: Any certainty of exit tunnels? Have you seen anything that makes you think those are there? Not yet. I've headed towards them with the sonar, and it always just seems to end up in a corner. The big key is to find it on the sonar, -and then swim towards it, right? -Yeah.

Is that a tunnel? What's that? Can you go in there? It's just a wall. Without tunnels it's impossible to be a man-made work. No question about that. What? Did they come through the fissures in the rock? Absolutely. They didn't come from the surface. You see openings here, right, like right there. Now, I'll turn and go towards that. And it kind of looks like a defined tunnel heading off, right?

Hey, no, that's a wall again. I don't see anything that makes it seem like it's a man-made structure down there so far, aside from maybe a little bit of concrete over pour, it look like a natural cavern that's been scoured. That's probably going to be it for the day then, isn't it? I would say so. The ROV results were, you know, I hate to keep using the word disappointing, 'cause it's probably the wrong word. They are what they are. The driver of the ROV did bounce it off all the walls best he could. What do you think, Brad? So our purpose in this is to kind of ascertain whether there is anything down there.

Between me and you, that's been my quest for the last ten years. I would love to find something on this island that definitively says that there were man-made workings underground, -prior to 1790. -Yeah. That's what I've been looking for, for ten years. Potentially, a wood post, which you haven't seemed -to be able to locate. Potentially. -Okay, again. Yeah. Nothing is indicating it so far that we've seen here. So. How does that impact you, though, Brad? I wouldn't put anybody in the water here.

MARTY: Let's see what big brother is doing over here. NARRATOR: What started out as a simple operation to confirm information about 10-X has suddenly brought the entire Oak Island treasure hunt to a standstill. Because diver, Brad Stabenow, did not see any evidence of man-made tunnels, or structures at the bottom of 10-X, he has informed Rick and Marty that there is no reason for him to make such an expensive and potentially deadly dive. MARTY: Brad felt that there was insufficient data revealed to warrant a dive, and I kind of felt that way, too. I hate to say it, but my feeling is that what I saw today does not warrant putting a human being down there.

What do you guys think? There's nothing I could get excited about, that's for sure. Well, we didn't see the floor. You can't make that statement. He-he ran into the wall everywhere he went. And the rover, I mean, the water kept getting clearer and clearer. And this is a problem obviously, but I just. I don't see risking a human life to go down there right now. I don't. Well. It's sad in a sense, but I'm seeing 10-X off the list. That's what I'm seeing.

I didn't see enough to say cross it off. To me the answer is not definitive, and that was always the criteria. It's never gonna be definitive, you can always make up something, you know? I disagree. I think what's gonna have to happen is what I said was gonna have to happen long ago. There's gonna have to be human eyes in that cavity. I think we should get David in on the conversation, too. That would be fine with me. David! What? We're debating what we should do next with 10-X.

What'd you see? That's just it, not what we expected to see. You willing to cross this off? I don't know, Rick. I really don't know. NARRATOR: Could the ROV data be enough to convince the team that the search for what might be at the bottom of 10-X should now be abandoned? I'm close to crossing it off because where are the tunnels? They're not under sediment. Where were the tunnels? Are you absolutely convinced there were no tunnels?

I don't know. We didn't see the column, we didn't see the tunnels, we didn't see the chests, um, we didn't see any shoring. We didn't see any bodies. Yeah, we didn't see any bodies. RICK: From my perspective, I seem to see that it was basically showing the same area in the cavity all the time, and I never saw the floor, very rarely saw the floor. I think it was an incomplete study, if you will. The data was insufficient, surly insufficient for me to say we're done here.

We're all saying, we postpone the dive, at least. That's it for me, and I'm really close to putting an X in 10-X and saying we did our job. -That's where I'm at. -Well, I'm not there. Like Marty said, we have a disagreement. I'm not there. I'm not willing to do what he's willing to do, put an X through that shaft. I'm not. 10-X. -I'm not. -I'm close. We have a disagreement. We'll work it out. MARTY: I think we've come as far as we can today.

Let's call it a day. What say you? I say the operative word is today. I am not finished with 10-X. MARTY: He's never varied from where he's been. I've never varied from where I've been, which is show me concrete evidence of human activity pre-1795, and then my enthusiasm level goes way up. But it's his passion, and part of my decision-making process involves what matters to him. You know, Rick matters. But with Brad out of the picture, we're looking for a new diver. NARRATOR: For Rick and Marty Lagina and their partners, the Oak Island mystery remains just as complex today as it did when it began 220 years ago.

Although they continue to make progress at the Money Pit, they have, for now, had a major setback in getting to the bottom of 10-X. But will bringing in a new diver help the team get the answers they're looking for? Or will it force them to turn their attentions back to the Money Pit, the swamp, or other even less likely places on the island where a mysterious treasure may lie hiding. Next time on The Curse of Oak Island. RICK: That famous stone, is it on the island? It was in concrete when I saw it. MARTY: If these are part of a bigger puzzle, we've got three new pieces.

RICK: Let see what we found here. -An X? Look at that. -You're right, wow. CHARLES: These two pieces seem to be part of the same stone, which means you can probably match them right up. What are we gonna find when we drill these holes? MAN: The chambers where the real treasure's hidden. RICK: He put an X on the spot. MAN: This was the work of the Aztec empire. CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS