The Curse Of Oak Island - General Discussion

[seniorpatriot]

I just watched last night, this past week's episode of oak island. The one where the drill bit hit something so hard it started breaking bit's teeth off? Where is this going? You know how Oak Island likes to tease things that wind up never being a big deal. So time will tell, what supposedly broke the teeth of the drill bit. They claim it wasn't big rocks etc. 

Any guesses what could have done this apart from the fact that maybe they did finally hit a steel plate of the vault?? I noticed a commercial where somebody looking for treasure under lake Michigan has contacted marty about helping them. Could it be oak island IS at long last going to end and Marty starts with a new show?

They either find the treasure or admit it just is not there. (IE an empty vault, etc. ) 

[merylinkid]

1 hour ago, seniorpatriot said:

I noticed a commercial where somebody looking for treasure under lake Michigan has contacted marty about helping them. Could it be oak island IS at long last going to end and Marty starts with a new show?

I can see it now.   "Marty and Rick - Extreme Treasure Hunters."   They travel the world listening to bizarre theories of buried treasure, claim they are skeptical and need proof, dig some holes, find nothing, claim it PROVES there was treasure there but it was moved -- then next week ON TO THE NEXT TREASURE.   

[AZChristian]

4 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

I can see it now.   "Marty and Rick - Extreme Treasure Hunters."   They travel the world listening to bizarre theories of buried treasure, claim they are skeptical and need proof, dig some holes, find nothing, claim it PROVES there was treasure there but it was moved -- then next week ON TO THE NEXT TREASURE.   

Are they only going to look for treasures where the story appeared in Reader's Digest when they were kids?  ;-)

[TexasTiffany]

2 hours ago, seniorpatriot said:

Any guesses what could have done this apart from the fact that maybe they did finally hit a steel plate of the vault?? I noticed a commercial where somebody looking for treasure under lake Michigan has contacted marty about helping them. Could it be oak island IS at long last going to end and Marty starts with a new show?

I must have missed that ad. I felt a twinge of sadness that the Oak Island show might end. The History Channel ads tell us this is the most watched "whatever" (can't recall) show on TV. Sounds like they are riding high with the current show and want to add more treasure shows to their own "vault". Perhaps they are using Marty as a tie-in. I'd give a new show a chance. 

They recently showed the team going through what they think is a dump pile from decades ago. They found some bits of pottery and... oh Lord help me, not another nail spike. Why the heck hasn't anyone searched THAT pile before? These people don't make any sense. They still haven't shown the viewers all the stuff on that "Valve - Hatch" map that they were given awhile back. They've started Drake's hole but shift to dangling the swamp at us again. I don't want to watch another show like last week's PBS-style history lesson of all things Templar. 

Didn't they tell us before that one of the past treasure hunters used a bulldozer to try and dig to the money pit? He was circling the entire area with it not being cautious about what he might be messing up. I wonder if we're seeing shards of broken pottery, small pieces of bone, etc., due to everything being crushed and broken up by the bulldozer. We've been told that guy destroyed markers and clues as well. 

[speac]

Oak Island has been settled by Europeans since the 1750's (according to wiki) and who knows how many crossed its shores before then.  You are going to find all sorts of signs that people have been there for centuries. Native Americans/First Nations traded freely so even if a coin predates when people have known to have settled it doesn't mean that it couldn't have been have come from an earlier European settlement.  The careless way people have bulldozed, dug and explored the land means that bits of human bones could have come from forgotten burials.  In all of the years this show has been on, they have not discovered one thing that proves there was ever a treasure on Oak Island

[merylinkid]

10 hours ago, speac said:

they have not discovered one thing that proves there was ever a treasure on Oak Island

Now, now, now, you forgot the manmade, perfectly square depression they found.   That was PROOF there was treasure on the Island and it was moved.

OR it was a root cellar.   But you know, you gotta believe.   After all Reader's Digest said there was treasure there so treasure there must be.

[bluepiano]

What a pile of crud this show is becoming. And I'm someone who's generally been a fan. But we recently had an episode that began with 20 minutes of Knights Templar "dramatization" stock footage and warmed over Da Vinci Code theories before the show even got to  Oak Island. And now, OMG, almost an entire episode centered around Kathleen McGowan Coppens from "Ancient Aliens."

Since both shows are produced by Prometheus Entertainment and on History Channel, I kept expecting some kind of cross-over. But with this huckster they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I thought that her late husband, Philip Coppens, was one of the more reasonable and grounded "ancient astronaut" theorists on AA. But after he died, they brought in his widow, who will embrace and endorse any crazy theory. Note how the narrator and the Lagina Brothers kept identifying her as one of the world's great authorities on the Knights Templars and medieval history, without ever citing any academic credentials or published scholarly works. That's because she doesn't have any. Her Wikipedia entry identifies her as novelist who claims to be the direct descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There's a reliable source!

I've been noticing the show's gradual shift of focus from finding treasure to promulgating all kinds of "alternative history" theories about the Templars and other alleged early European visitors to North America. And the Brothers, especially Rick, are now frequently talking about how this is a quest for knowledge as much as a quest for physical treasure. Maybe this is a signal that they never actually find anything, but will end up claiming they were successful because they succeeded in rewriting a chapter of American history. Got to have something to justify all those hours of TV (and the time and money invested).

Edited February 24, 2018 by bluepiano

[merylinkid]

1 minute ago, bluepiano said:

Note how the narrator and the Lagina Brothers kept identifying her as one of the world's great authorities on the Knights Templars and medieval history, without ever citing any academic credentials or published scholarly works. That's because she doesn't have any. Her Wikipedia entry identifies her as novelist who claims to be the direct descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There's a reliable source!

Oh wow.   Since I never watched Ancient Aliens I didn't know.    All I know is when she said about the swamp or wherever they were "There is more here, I have no doubt,"   I was all "How the hell can you have no doubt?    You just have a wild theory with no evidence to back it up."   

The biggest problem is there is absolute NO SCIENTIFIC METHOD involved.   They get a theory, they dig, they find nothing, it's proof of treasure.  They find some tiny thing like a sail needle and it's proof of pirates so there must be treasure.    It's just one wild theory and confirmation bias all over the place.

[Mindthinkr]

Seems as though this show has been booby trapped much like the original money pit. 

[bluepiano]

36 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

Oh wow.   Since I never watched Ancient Aliens I didn't know.    All I know is when she said about the swamp or wherever they were "There is more here, I have no doubt,"   I was all "How the hell can you have no doubt?    You just have a wild theory with no evidence to back it up."   

The biggest problem is there is absolute NO SCIENTIFIC METHOD involved.   They get a theory, they dig, they find nothing, it's proof of treasure.  They find some tiny thing like a sail needle and it's proof of pirates so there must be treasure.    It's just one wild theory and confirmation bias all over the place.

What they do is propose a theory, then act as if that theory is fact, and cite it as evidence to support other theories, building a house of cards with nothing solid at the foundation. This is the technique used by all these pseudo-history shows on The History Channel, as well as on Ancient Aliens and various ghost and paranormal shows.

On "Ghost Adventures" and similar shows they use a device that measures electromagnetic activity in the air. And since, we are told,  ghosts produce static electricity discharges when they materialize, a positive EMF reading is "proof" of the presence of a ghost. Of course, the idea that ghosts give off electromagnetic energy is nothing but a theory. It has to be. How could that ever be proven by scientific method? But since all the "experts" are in agreement, we're supposed to accept it as fact.

The basic premise is that a theory repeated over and over, ad nauseam, is the same thing as a fact. As in the case of the fact of buried pirate treasure on Oak Island.

Edited February 24, 2018 by bluepiano

[TexasTiffany]

The Curse of The History Channel.

Edited February 26, 2018 by TexasTiffany

[merylinkid]

So they found a "ruby" brooch.   MUST be Marie Antoinette's treasure.    Did anyone check the list of known jewels that are still missing (because yes her jewels were found, just some walked away as happens when smuggling things out of a country)?   Of course not.

What was best was every time they switched between them holding the "ruby" in the woods and the still shots of it sitting on something the stones looked completely different.   In the woods, the "ruby" was raised, in the indoor shots it is dead flat.    BTW, that thing is totally glass.   It's some women's dress up jewelry to wear to church.   

But hey, they found a "ruby" in the woods, let's go diving in the bore hole.   Not let's section off the woods and do this systematically.   Nope, let's jump back to our Templar treasure site and leave MA's jewels for some other episode.

[12catcrazy]

Man, was I ever rolling my eyes at "The Ruby" Rick was practically having an orgasm over. Number one, it looks nothing like any real ruby I've ever seen (and if it WERE a real ruby, it 's worth would be astronomical) but it looks like plenty of glass "jewels" I've seen.   The first thing I thought of was the saying "It's good to have an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out".

I really like Rick and Marty - they seem like two nice guys, and I really, really, hope they find something of worth on Oak Island, even if it's only for old Mr. Blankenship's sake.  but at this point,  it's losing the fun and becoming beyond stupid.   

[pezgirl7]

13 hours ago, merylinkid said:

In the woods, the "ruby" was raised, in the indoor shots it is dead flat.

I think the backside of it is flat. In the preview for next week, Gary said he took it to a gemologist and...

Spoiler

it's a 500 year old stone. He didn't call it a ruby but I don't think he would call it a stone if it was glass. Even if it's not a ruby, it's pretty cool that it's from the 1500's.

Edited March 1, 2018 by pezgirl7

[deirdra]

On ‎2018‎-‎02‎-‎19 at 6:13 AM, merylinkid said:

Now, now, now, you forgot the manmade, perfectly square depression they found.   That was PROOF there was treasure on the Island and it was moved.

OR it was a root cellar.   

or an outhouse

[Pingaponga]

I want to know what laundry detergent they use.  Rick insists on wearing light-coloured pants while digging holes and traipsing through the woods, and those things must be a bitch to get clean. Me, I tend to wear jeans because they don't stain the way light clothing does, but what do I know.  I'm not looking for buried treasure.

[merylinkid]

The "ruby" was a garnet that was estimated at 4-500 years old.   OMG TREASURE.   Or lost family heirloom.    One thing to do is check the lists of known missing jewels.   See if anything pops up.   But that would be too scientific.

Then on the extra show Drilling Down -- we find out they maybe found the original search shaft.    WHY was this on the extras show after the season finale.   That sounds HUGE.   That should have been better featured than the trip to France or a whole show where they debate what the casson could be hitting.   But what do I know.   No one is paying me to go digs holes all over the place.

[bluepiano]

On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 8:49 AM, AZChristian said:

Are they only going to look for treasures where the story appeared in Reader's Digest when they were kids?  ;-)

Or one's with a "curse," because of course the new Lagina-producd show about Confederate gold in Lake Michigan also has "curse" in the title. Apparently History Channel thinks their audience is mentally about 14 and can't get excited about buried treasure unless there's a "curse attached." (I should say, mentally a14 year old boy,  because I can't image too many women watched Oak Island. It all seems like such a "guy thing." And I know it's a non-PC thought, but looking at the people sitting around the table in the "War Room," I was thinking that this show may be the last bastion of white maleness left on TV.

The preview introducing the new Civil War treasure does not bode well. Looks like more middle-aged men with an active fantasy life helping to distract from their mundane jobs. And lost Confederate gold is as big a cliché as buried pirate treasure. There must be hundreds if not thousands of such stories floating around, and it's been used as a plot device in multiple fictional books and movies over the years. Also not a good sign is that apparently the impetus for this particular search was a deathbed confession. We all know how reliable those are.

Well, at least Lake Michigan is right in the Lagina's backyard, so Marty won't have to choose between running his business and trips to a remote place like Oak Island. But in terms of logistics, trying to uncover something from the bottom of a large body of water could be a nightmare. 

Edited March 8, 2018 by bluepiano

[merylinkid]

8 hours ago, bluepiano said:

Well, at least Lake Michigan is right in the Lagina's backyard, so Marty won't have to choose between running his business and trips to a remote place like Oak Island. But in terms of logistics, trying to uncover something from the bottom of a large body of water could be a nightmare. 

My SO and I are from Michigan (with funnily enough both having a Georgia connection).   We are LIVID these yahoos will be mucking around in Lake Michigan.   We hope the Ojibwe get right irked and invoke tribal rights to protect the area.   They have shown they just dig and move on.   Remember they were supposed to have a certified archeologist before they did anything further on Oak Island?   Have we seen him lately?

[mybuddyspence]

On 3/8/2018 at 7:47 AM, merylinkid said:

My SO and I are from Michigan (with funnily enough both having a Georgia connection).   We are LIVID these yahoos will be mucking around in Lake Michigan.   We hope the Ojibwe get right irked and invoke tribal rights to protect the area.   They have shown they just dig and move on.   Remember they were supposed to have a certified archeologist before they did anything further on Oak Island?   Have we seen him lately?

I'm from Michigan too and have never heard of confederate gold in the lakes. Maybe this "treasure" will be done by dives?  I also think that the archeologist (Laird?), doesn't appear too involved with much of the excavation. Is this because the island is owned by the Lagina brothers?   

[Mindthinkr]

23 minutes ago, mybuddyspence said:

Is this because the island is owned by the Lagina brothers?   

Good point. Does anyone know if it is? Another exploitation to keep this vehicle running. We never seem to get to the bottom of anything much less get real answers. Ho hum. 

[AZChristian]

35 minutes ago, mybuddyspence said:

Is this because the island is owned by the Lagina brothers?   

According to this article, the brothers are 50/50 owners with Craig Blankenship.  

[Mindthinkr]

Just now, AZChristian said:

According to this article, the brothers are 50/50 owners with Craig Blankenship.  

Thank you for the insight as to where this is going. Nowhere fast if ever. 

[Mindthinkr]

Update: I thought I’d watch a “new” drilling down. I’m having enough trouble adjusting to Daylight Savings time and thought I’d be asleep so I had to beg off. 

[mybuddyspence]

7 hours ago, AZChristian said:

According to this article, the brothers are 50/50 owners with Craig Blankenship.  

Sounds like Marty's gotta a lot on his plate. That 90/10 "treasure division" sounds like a potential legal nightmare.

[Mindthinkr]

6 minutes ago, mybuddyspence said:

Sounds like Marty's gotta a lot on his plate. That 90/10 "treasure division" sounds like a potential legal nightmare.

Especially if they’re splitting the value of one item. 

[mybuddyspence]

5 minutes ago, Mindthinkr said:

Especially if they’re splitting the value of one item. 

How would one go about enforcing that, too? I mean, if I find a cool item, like the cross, maybe I'll just slip it into my pocket. And how is the monetary amount figured? I really need to stop drinking caffeine in the evening.

[Mindthinkr]

59 minutes ago, mybuddyspence said:

How would one go about enforcing that, too? I mean, if I find a cool item, like the cross, maybe I'll just slip it into my pocket. And how is the monetary amount figured? I really need to stop drinking caffeine in the evening.

Is the caffeine or the darn daylight savings time? The latter has me all off kilter. Ok. Say I find an object worth $100 and I’m scrupulously honest. The tax man comes in and takes $40. Now we have to split $60. The choice is who wants it more. If you are so in love with it then I can sell my holdings to you for the (whichever side of the percentage that I am on or Vice versa) There’s always the risk that the country will want it for a museum. Look up Mel Fischer and see how hard he had to fight to keep the Atocha. Not to mention the money he had to spend in legal costs. Your right. It may not be worth all the hassle. Unless we are getting 3 figures year to be filmed hunting for it. Maybe we both find a secret coin for our own pleasure and agree that it’s fair and never allow its discovery to be filmed. You get the idea but you do raise a valid point. 

[Quilt Fairy]

Isn't the island divided up into something like 24-36 plots?  I thought Marty had bought the plots containing the money pit and the swamp but I didn't think he owned the entire island.

[merylinkid]

They don't own the entire Island.   They and Blankenship own about half.   Fred Nolan's heirs own another chunk.   That's why for years they couldn't follow clues, Fred Nolan wouldn't let them dig on his land.   He wanted to find the "treasure" himself.     

The Laginas and the Blankenships also own "Oak Island Tours" so they make money luring people out to see the Island where "treasure" is buried.

I think it is so sad that Mr. Blankenship spent most of his adult life looking for treasure and Fred Nolan spent a good part of it doing the same.   There's nothing there, yet they spend time and money chasing after a mirage.   Time they could have spent with their famililes.   Now the Blankenship kids are carrying on.   Looks like the Nolan kids were all "I'm out.   This is stupid.   Here's dad's maps, you keep digging holes."

[Mahamid Frauded Me]

On 2/18/2018 at 9:49 AM, AZChristian said:

Are they only going to look for treasures where the story appeared in Reader's Digest when they were kids?  ;-)

They probably would have better luck finding lost treasures from their old Mad magazines

[Quilt Fairy]

On ‎3‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 2:04 PM, mybuddyspence said:

I'm from Michigan too and have never heard of confederate gold in the lakes. Maybe this "treasure" will be done by dives? 

I only saw one little bit of that show and there were a crowd of people digging on a beach at a spot they identified with a metal detector.   And then - wait for it - the pit they dug filled up with water.   Sound familiar?

[merylinkid]

4 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

I only saw one little bit of that show and there were a crowd of people digging on a beach at a spot they identified with a metal detector.   And then - wait for it - the pit they dug filled up with water.   Sound familiar?

It was booby trapped.   

[mybuddyspence]

On 3/19/2018 at 2:37 AM, Quilt Fairy said:

I only saw one little bit of that show and there were a crowd of people digging on a beach at a spot they identified with a metal detector.   And then - wait for it - the pit they dug filled up with water.   Sound familiar?

 

On 3/19/2018 at 6:52 AM, merylinkid said:

It was booby trapped.   

Don't forget about the curse!

[Mindthinkr]

10 minutes ago, mybuddyspence said:

 

Don't forget about the curse!

Does that mean that I should stay away from the beach this summer as I don’t want to be one of the next seven to die? 

[mybuddyspence]

2 minutes ago, Mindthinkr said:

Does that mean that I should stay away from the beach this summer as I don’t want to be one of the next seven to die? 

I don't know-it's awful risky.

Do you think there's also a Templar connection? 

[Mindthinkr]

17 minutes ago, mybuddyspence said:

I don't know-it's awful risky.

Do you think there's also a Templar connection? 

No. In my area it would be a pirate connection. But the pirates could have stolen a Templar ship and the treasure...

[Mindthinkr]

That wasn’t even a joke. There’s a book written on the subject:

Pirates & The Lost Templar Fleet (the secret naval war between the Knights Templar &the Vatican)

by David Hatcher Childress

”When the Templars were disbanded by the Papal order in 1307, their massive fleet disappeared from its base at LaRochelle”. The author maintains hat a portion of the fleet became the first pirates to fly the skull and crossbones and went marauding first through the Mediterranean and later ones that were returning from the rich posts in America. He also claims that the Templars first went to Canada in the year 1398. The Laugina brothers seemed to have based a lot of their show on this book. 

[Mahamid Frauded Me]

I am starting to call this show the Curse of Dumbo Island.  

[AZChristian]

Trailer for the new season is posted on the Oak Island Facebook page.  Won't put any spoilers here, but it's interesting.

[Mindthinkr]

9 minutes ago, AZChristian said:

Trailer for the new season is posted on the Oak Island Facebook page.  Won't put any spoilers here, but it's interesting.

I’m not on Facebook and therefore can’t see it. Could you put it in spoiler hiding or PM me please? I googled it but only got a YouTube video of the men in the war room. Was that it? I didn’t think that there were any spoilers. Thx

[AZChristian]

2 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I’m not on Facebook and therefore can’t see it. Could you put it in spoiler hiding or PM me please? I googled it but only got a YouTube video of the men in the war room. Was that it? I didn’t think that there were any spoilers. Thx

The video is a Facebook video, so I can't link it to someone who doesn't have FB.  Here are some hints (in spoiler tags):

Spoiler

They have started using a new process involving controlled blasting, as well as a piece of equipment that appears to be a ground-searching radar which "allows them to look at anything that's below the surface of the Money Pit."  There are voice-overs of Marty looking really closely at something and saying, "We have found our first gold on Oak Island" with Gary (the metal detector guy) saying, "FANTASTIC."

I am on the FB page, and there are several people who live in the area of OI.  They are reporting more heavy equipment than they have seen before, and are also reporting that they are still working, long after the normal end of the filming season.  It's got to start getting cold up there pretty soon, so they seem to working as fast as they can on something.  There appears to be a lot of activity, both at the Money Pit and Smith's Cove (where they found the iron cross).

[Mindthinkr]

@AZChristian Thank you for the information. I’m really hoping that they do find something so that I can get a payoff for watching the show. 

[merylinkid]

When is the premier date so I can calendar it?

[Russian Bolero]

On 9/23/2018 at 7:40 PM, merylinkid said:

When is the premier date so I can calendar it?

November 13th at 9 pm est

[merylinkid]

Thank you.

[Mahamid Frauded Me]

Cool, the show is coming back.  I do hope they find something of value, they seem like cool people. I wonder why the dive teams can't have bigger tanks or something to stay down longer. Seems like a waste if they descend for 20 minutes/search for 15/ and then have to ascend for 40 minutes.   What was that other show with the guy and his son out on a boat in the Atlantic, I think he killed his ex-wife's boyfriend or husband and they search for sunken ships.. that was pretty good 

[mybuddyspence]

On 9/23/2018 at 1:35 PM, AZChristian said:

The video is a Facebook video, so I can't link it to someone who doesn't have FB.  Here are some hints (in spoiler tags):

  Hide contents

They have started using a new process involving controlled blasting, as well as a piece of equipment that appears to be a ground-searching radar which "allows them to look at anything that's below the surface of the Money Pit."  There are voice-overs of Marty looking really closely at something and saying, "We have found our first gold on Oak Island" with Gary (the metal detector guy) saying, "FANTASTIC."

I am on the FB page, and there are several people who live in the area of OI.  They are reporting more heavy equipment than they have seen before, and are also reporting that they are still working, long after the normal end of the filming season.  It's got to start getting cold up there pretty soon, so they seem to working as fast as they can on something.  There appears to be a lot of activity, both at the Money Pit and Smith's Cove (where they found the iron cross).

I wonder if the locals are getting sick of the heavy equipment and commotion. Does anyone else notice the absence of females involved with this? Whenever they refer to their "war room", I can't help but think of The Little Rascal's He-Man Woman Haters Club type of gathering. 

[Quilt Fairy]

On ‎10‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 4:32 PM, Mahamid Frauded Me said:

I wonder why the dive teams can't have bigger tanks or something to stay down longer. Seems like a waste if they descend for 20 minutes/search for 15/ and then have to ascend for 40 minutes

I think there have been 2 main issues.  The first is that they have to descend through a fairly narrow pipe, and any scuba gear has to fit in it.  Also even when they avoided tanks by pumping air from the surface (don't remember what they call that), there seems to be a permanent problem with murky water that doesn't seem to have a solution.

[AZChristian]

7 hours ago, mybuddyspence said:

I wonder if the locals are getting sick of the heavy equipment and commotion. Does anyone else notice the absence of females involved with this? Whenever they refer to their "war room", I can't help but think of The Little Rascal's He-Man Woman Haters Club type of gathering. 

There are only two full-time residents of the island itself - and they are Blankenships, who are heavily involved in the search and filming.  From what I see on the Facebook page, those who live across the causeway on the mainland are very pleased with the stimulation of the local economy.  There are boat tours, restaurants, and hotels . . . all run by locals, and profiting from the show and the work being done.