Am I the only one following this on History channel? Having read a couple books on the subject, I am really enjoying this, even if they keep running it at weird times. (and I know, but I’m too lazy to set up me DVR.)
After decades of being fascinated by Oak Island, I pretty much concur with the newer analyses that it started as a hoax and never was anything but that, successive hoaxes and mass delusion.
(I also quite sadly believe the Amber Room was destroyed in a fire. Growing up hurts.)
I’ve watched a few of them. Unfortunately, they rapidly went off the deep end with ghost stories and weird french guys using bible code type logic to determine locations for potential treasure sites and what’s actually there (everything from the holy grail to the treasures of the Knights Templar…and everything in between).
I don’t know about it being a hoax, but I think whatever was there is long gone by now. I’m more interested in them looking at it from an archeological perspective than treasure hunting, and I had hoped that’s what they were going to do, but I guess they have to finance the show somehow and this seems the easiest way…sensationalism sells.
I agree, a hoax is possible and probably even likely. But it seems like an awful lot of effort for a hoax, and for such a potentially small audience.
Still I would like to see definitive proof one way or the other. I believe this was filmed some time (9 years?) ago and I don’t recall hearing about finding a vast treasure, which we no doubt would have. So I guess we’ll see.
Framing the story as “the Curse of…” and not “the Oak Island mystery” was marketing genious though.
It’s what, 1796? You’re a bored teen. You find an old ship’s sheave and hang it from a rope on a branch over a natural pit in the ground. Maybe you throw some boards in the pit and spend an idle afternoon shoveling dirt in over it.
Some time later - maybe even years - you and a friend “discover” the setup.
And so it begins…
Amazing how a nothing can turn into such a big deal.
BTW, the Master did an article on this subject. It’s here for anyone interested.
If you look at all the stuff Cecil mentions, it’s pretty clear that there was a bit more to it than what a bored teen ager could have done in an afternoon of idle digging or whatever. I think it’s pretty clear that SOMETHING was there at one time, and personally I wish this show and these folks would have done a show on a real archeological exploration of the island and the waters surrounding it, instead of this sort of almost random approach to looking, coupled with off the wall woo type stuff and bizzare book code crap.
I’m not watching it. If they’d found anything, it would have made the news and Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports.
No, I think the point is that it WAS just a simple joke by some local - teen, farmer, sailor, whatever - and it well and truly got blown out of proportion. For one thing, the accounts of what was found in that first dig (layers of boards and clay and sand and rocks and so forth) wasn’t recounted until years (decades?) later. After the hysteria started, every rock, piece of wood and stratum of soil became “evidence.”
ETA: It may not have even been a joke. Maybe some farmer put the sheave there to hoist bales or logs or water barrels into a wagon. Five, ten, twenty years later it’s a “mystery.”
There is absolutely no point in any further “investigation” because (1) it’s very likely there was next to nothing there in the first place and (2) 200 years of treasure-hunting has absolutely obliterated the site. No one even knows where the original tree and shaft were any more.
I understand that you are asserting this, but you’ve provided no more proof that it was a joke or a scam/hoax than anything else…including evidence that something was there. Simply put, no one really knows, and as you say things have become rather muddled.
But there are falsifiable claims in all of this. For instance, there are numerous references to ‘flood tunnels’. Ok, that’s something that can be archeologically explored. Treasure hunters don’t give a shit about stuff like that except insofar as it prevents them from getting to the supposed treasure. One thing that they have done on this show is to demonstrate that there is a mixture of sea water and fresh water in the one bore hole they have explored thus far, so that’s a good place to start…how is the sea water actually getting into the bore hole? Naturally? Artificially? It would be interesting to find out IMHO.
This show COULD have been really interesting, and I disagree with you that there is nothing to look for, nothing to see here. Even if it was a hoax (which I doubt, personally) THAT would be interesting to discover. If it was all just wishful thinking and every anomaly just something that can be naturally explained, that would be interesting too.
Maybe that’s true. But you are just speculating freely here. Maybe God did it, or maybe it was space aliens…or maybe there really was treasure or the manuscripts of Shakespeare, the horde of the Templar’s or the Holy Grail complete with Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. It would be interesting to find out, even to trace back the various attempts (over 37 bore holes?).
I disagree that there is no point. It’s a mystery, people have died, so it’s part of history…the point would be to explore the mystery and find out what it was all about, even if it wasn’t ever about anything and it was all a mistake, a hoax, or whatever.
Read a reliable, recent book about it before you give too much credence to all the reports of layers, platforms, flood tunnels, etc. The current consensus - outside of the dismal world of TV “documentaries” and woo-slingers - is that it’s an extended case of mass hysteria with nearly zero physical evidence or basis.
The generations of searchers each found what they were looking for - “Oh, look, a layer of clay! Pirates must have put it there!” “Oh, look, huge masses of plant fiber on the beach! It must be a flood tunnel system!” They utterly dismissed - as the TV folks are doing - that these are nearly all natural occurrences and structures, no more “built” than the Giant’s Causeway.
You’re right, it has historical value… but not because there is, or ever was, any kind of man-made shaft, tunnel, constructs or “treasure” there. Nor, if you read the reports with any kind of skeptical eye, is there any valid evidence there might have been.
Based on the few comments here, it is certainly an interesting anamoly, whether hoax, naturally occuring ohenomenon or actual treasure vault. Millions of dollars, years of back-breaking labor and six lives have been lost on the money pit.
Treasure hunts bring out the twelve year old boy in all of us. These two most recent guys even admit that freely. But I would still love to know the real story. if somebody did go to all this trouble for a few giggles I have to hand it to them for a job well done. Bravo!
Other books and articles I have read claim that there are other seemingly naturally created sink holes in the area. This is the most likely scenario. And sadly, 200 plus years of people assaulting the area have eradicated much of the hard “evidence.”
True or not, it’s an entertaining hour of my time, for what that’s worth.
I have to agree with **Otis ** though, that somebody went to a helluva lot of trouble for a hoax in an era where there wasn’t any mass communications to spread the word about a ‘pirate treasure.’
There is a way that I think would show conclusively one way or the other. However, I don’t know if even the most eccentric billionaire would be interested in funding it.
[ul]
[li]Build a dike all the way around the island, at least half a mile out–preferably a mile.[/li]
[li]Pump out all the water between the island and the dike.[/li]
[li]Search the sea bed for tunnel openings or other evidence.[/li]
[li]If no evidence is visible, pour dyed water into a shaft near the money pit, and see where it comes out.[/li]
[li]If that doesn’t work, build more dikes running from the outer dike to the island, to divide the area into quadrants. Slowly flood one quadrant at a time with dyed water, and see if it turns up anywhere near the money pit.[/li]
[li]Re-drain the water, if necessary, and then do a full-fledged excavation without having to worry about flooding issues.[/li][/ul]
You’re a bored teen so you dig a 150 foot well then put a platform every 25 feet or so? Then you dig a tunnel to the ocean so that the hole floods once a certain depth has been reached?
It’s a tale that grew with the telling. Eventually, it got out of hand, and every discovery, even highly unlikely ones, hoaxes, or never verified, became “proof” of pirate treasure. Water? Must be a booby trap. Wood in the hole? Must be a platform. Rocks in the hole? Blackbeard!
That’s a lot of work. I’d just stand a bunch of large rocks in a circle. Still a lot of work, but easier than doing all that other stuff.
Wanna know what’s easier yet? Inventing stuff and talking about it. Excitedly.
With regard to the TV show, they found some brownish plant material, and immediately concluded it was coconut fiber without any analysis. It could have been anything. Not very rigorous in their investigation.