"Curse of Oak Island"

[gran398]

The History Channel showed the first episode of their new show....and it's not the Oak Island some of us are familiar with.

It is one of the most amazing stories you'll ever hear. In the late 1700's on an island in Nova Scotia, someone dug a 200 foot shaft straight down to hide treasure. And to protect it, they rigged two side tunnels designed to flood the main tunnel with seawater should it be tampered with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island

A talented engineer designed it...but who, why, and how?

Many of you have engineering backgrounds, thought you may be intrigued by this.

Next episode Sunday night at 10.

In the meantime, an old clip from Canadian Broadcast Company

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/s ... works.html

[Capt. Bob]

To begin with, engineers, talented or otherwise never make enough money to bury so I'd side with the natural phenom, not unlike the area around Tallahassee only colder.

As to what's in the hole

My guess is that Jimmy Hoffa sleeps there.  8)

[MarshMarlowe196]

Looks pretty interesting Scott.  I'm downloading the 1st episode from Pirate Bay (how appropriate), and I have the rest set to record on the DVR.  

I'm thinking it's just a sink hole too, but it will still be entertaining to learn about the lore.  The real treasure will probably be ratings.

[icemanbryan]

I believe I read about this at one time.
There was a guess that it was a vacuum sewer?

[gran398]

The casual observer may consider it a sinkhole.

The existing archives suggest otherwise.

Every ten feet down...or the exact portion of a hectare...there is a horizontal row of tightly-fitted logs. Covered by palm hair and pine tar. Palm hair isn't indigenous of course, and neither is pine tar in a usable quantity.

At the 80 foot mark...a stone lay on the timbers. Engraved by human hand,  it stated in code the treasure was forty feet below. This stone was found and recovered  over 100 years ago.

The island features strange rock formations referencing the Knight's Templar and Masonic Order. One is a large, carved boulder of a man's head at the epicenter of a cross 800 feet in length. In terms of symmetry, and by recent measurement....the cross has exactly zero variance over the course of it's length and width. These formations are easily viewed on Google Earth.

This only scratches the surface. Check the Wikipedia entry thoroughly, and research the credits. They roll back to 1790.

The brothers from Michigan who in 2006  bought  50% ownership of the island... and spent millions....don't think it's a joke.  One is an early-retired petroleum engineer with 40 years of experience.

Fact or fiction....neat stuff

[wingtime]

I missed the first episode of that..... but it's not about about the Oak island in Nova Scotia?

[gran398]

Yes it is

Here's the History Channel link

http://www.history.com/shows/the-curse-of-oak-island

It probably will end up about ratings, and good with that. But as far as interest.. beats alligators, pawn shops, old attics and old barns hands-down

[GoneFission]

Yes it is
It probably will end up about ratings, and good with that. But as far as interest.. beats alligators, pawn shops, old attics and old barns hands-down

 

But not Oprah...    :queen:              

[gran398]

Yes it is
It probably will end up about ratings, and good with that. But as far as interest.. beats alligators, pawn shops, old attics and old barns hands-down

 

But not Oprah...    :queen:              

NOTHING beats Okra.

Except maybe "The Housewives of Slutsvillle"  

[FJStretch]

Cool show. I looked and it was available "on demand" from my cable company. It's a series on the history channel. Definitely a very interesting mystery. Odd the stone tablet ... found during the dig that indicated 200 lbs of something was buried 40 feet below the tablet.... disappeared before any tracings or photos were made.  Humm... Convenient? However, It seems simply too expensive and too big of an engineering feat for that time period (<1800) to be a hoax. (Unless, the thing isn't really that old). I would think it was built either to bury/secure something of great value or something "they" didn't want to ever be dug up. Being they are doing a "series" on it and it is geared toward entertainment and we haven't heard any remarkable news, I would guess its empty.

What's in the thing?:
Empty (as in, whatever was there was already plundered).
Hoax.
Some kind of engineering artifact that never panned out or was abandoned (i.e., no story).
Buried treasure of some sort (religious. wealth, or other).
Something someone wanted to hide forever (a dead body or something).

[MarshMarlowe196]

I just watched the first episode, and all I've got to say is, forget what's down there in that hole, what's going on with that slightly out of place driftwood on the beach!!??  :)  It's clearly yet another booby trap!!

The show is entertaining overall, and I'll stick around to learn about the history of the island, the theories and the expeditions, cause that stuff is really interesting.  Like FJ said, it will likely be a lot of buildup to an anticlimactic series finale since we haven't read any news to the contrary.  It's still better than the tired scripted pawn stars fodder, and it's leaps and bounds better than the ridiculous Ancient Aliens and MonsterQuest shows.  History channel has really gone downhill...

[gran398]

   

Great stuff guys

To be straight up....I'm infatuated with the mystery. Not the show, but the mystery.

SOMEONE did a terrific job engineering that shaft. Especially the feeder tubes.

Read thoroughly the Wikipedia entry. One theory is French Naval engineers were involved.

The engraved stone was recovered, deciphered, and sat at the hardware store in town for many years, or so say the townfolk.

The palm hair glued down on the timbers every ten feet??? That's thought provoking. How far away was the closest palm tree in 1785?

Whatever they buried is still there. The booby-trap flood tubes did their job, 100+ years back.

[seabob4]

I, too, am curious as to what is down there.  Unless there was a good group of practical jokers with a lot of time on their hands and a lot of knowledge to boot, there is something of great value down there.

The tech is there to go get it, it's just a matter of who wants to spend a few $$ to get $$$$...or maybe nothing...

[gran398]

In order to pump the shaft....they must seal the seawater feeder tubes. One enters the vertical shaft at seventy feet, the other at ninety feet.

The easiest method is to find and plug the inlets out in the bay. But...how many inlets, and by estimate (paint discharge from the money-hole)  the two tubes enter the bay a couple thousand yards apart.

[FJStretch]

Could keep doing the dye trick and plug em up as u find them. At every step, better watch for booby traps.