The most interesting part of the story is that, after 200 years, it still seems to be carrying on its original purpose of suckering rich investors (I would actually watch an Oak Island TV show if it took that point of view.) I don’t care a few wacky millionaires get separated from their money, but it’s truly embarrassing for prestigious institutes like the Smithsonian and the Woods Hole Institute to get involved in this Hardy Boys fantasy bull shit. Their trustees should give them hell for it.
How involved are they - in money terms, and in commitment? Assigning a researcher to keep an eye on the proceedings and giving him/her a modest budget to do so is one thing, and maybe even reasonable. Taking any major role and spending more than token funds is another.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the TV producers are blowing the role of these institutions out of proportion (and perhaps even that the institutions are milking the promotional value of their presence). As Brian Daley once amusingly put it, “Their affiliation is likely in the form of a lawsuit.”
Yeah, there seems to be a bit of a flaw in that cunning plan … 
The whole thing is (sadly) absurd. No-one, other than those making tombs for the afterlife, buries treasure in such a manner that they cannot readily retrieve it. The point of burying treasure is, usually, to hide it temporarily so that you can come back and get it later. Sort of hard to do at the bottom of a huge shaft below the water table.
If concealment is the point, why would anyone leave obvious clues like a block and tackle over a depression? The story on its face makes no sense.
My favorite treasure-story, for absurdity, is that of a woman in Japan who watched the movie Fargo and became convinced that she could find that biefcase with a million dollars in it that the villian is seen burying in the snow somewhere in Minnesota - and dies searching for it. As it turns out, that version of events is itself totally false - a result of a misunderstanding:
Which didn’t stop her story from, itself, inspiring a movie:
… all of which is really no more nor less absurd than Oak Island.
One of the supposed clues was a rock inscribed (in clear or in a cipher, I can’t recall right off hand) “At 80 guide maize or millet” - with the assumption being that dumping an absorbent down a 80-foot shaft at that point would block the flood tunnel. As the rock was seen only by a few people and has since disappeared, it sounds quite retconnish to me.
Heh, I agree - but for fun, assume it is all true.
How is that supposed to work? You dump the absorbent down the tunnel, blocking the flood … then what?
Also, assume that there exists a way to block the flood trap … what possible reason could the makers of said trap have, to leave instructions on how to block the trap?
The problem with the story is that none of it makes any sense on its face. Even when you assume all the evidence is true and exists, it adds up to nonsense. Real treasure-buriers would not go through such efforts to make their treasure impossible to get at, and if they did, they would never leave instructions on how to get through the traps!
IMHO, the funniest part of this legend is that a gang of pirates in the year 1800 supposedly built an ingenious artificially-intelligent underwater construction project that rivals the Holland Tunnel, using only the simple tools on their ship, without leaving any traces… just to hide a treasure chest. Don’t you at least need to go to college for that? 
Uh, African swallows are non-migratory. :rolleyes:
See, this is the sort of thing I’d love to do - drop some old coins, jewelry, whatever in those shafts, just to mess with people.
I figure that at this time, if you are using a metal detector in the swamp, 99% chance of it being some piece of crap someone threw away, a boat part, some broken pump part, an old shovel. Nobody back in the day seemed to really give a crap, look at the discarded trash and junk they were pulling up from one of the pits.
I honestly do not believe that there is or ever was any treasure on Oak Island, I think it was all a big joke someone was playing. Whether it was a con job to get investors to pay in money, or a bunch of sailors or even locals, I feel the original setup [tree, hoist, square shaft with assorted levels of coconut fiber batting, timber baulks, flat paving stones] was deliberately dug, possibly salted with fake clues, a tiny amount of gold [a chain, perhaps a few coins, possibly an old wooden crate as a ‘treasure chest’] and that is that. Everything else is all crap. If there were any underground channels and flagstone paved areas they were probably old attempts at draining land for agricultural purposes and assorted natural land features.
Isn’t that how Joseph Smith got his start?
The little bit of a gold chain they found looks to me more like something to “salt the mine” than pirate booty, too, especially since they didn’t find more. There’s a sucker born every minute.
What’s even easier than dropping some gold chain down the hole is spreading a rumor that gold was found.
ISTR that nothing exists of the “three gold links” except one grainy photo. Ditto for the “scrap of parchment with ‘vi’ on it.” Which is at least more than most of the other claimed physical evidence, noted only anecdotally and long after the fact.
Is anyone still watching this since they’ve started a second season? I’ve been keeping up with it, but I’m sure glad I can record it and skip the commercials, all the “infighting” and such gets old. I’m guessing they still haven’t found anything of note, though the wood could be interesting.
My Wife watches it, as do I if I’m home when she does.
Had I a pirate treasure, I would let it be known that I had buried it on Oak Island with tricks and traps, and quietly sail off to spend my money.
The fellows digging there now would seem to attract crackpots and con artists at a prodigious rate. 
[Conspiracy Theory]OR
You’re trying to hide something.[/CT]
That’s what you’d like us to believe, Musicat! :dubious:
What, in Nova Scotia? The coconut’s tropical!
The crackpots might be the best part of the show! I mean at least two of them seem to have given the same Knights of Templar sign and they both pointed to the “swamp”.
I think they’re gonna dug up the Ark of the Covenant and inside that will be the lost works of William Shakespeare.