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I think _______ made the money pit

  • Captain Kidd (privateer)

    Votes: 6 9.8%
  • Gangs Of Pirates (Thar be booty in that pit, arrr)

    Votes: 9 14.8%
  • The French (just to spite english or americans after their gold)

    Votes: 3 4.9%
  • The Vikings (the viking settle ment of vinland it thought to be on the nova scotia coast, which is w

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • The Spanish (If you're worried about prirates and you've lost a lot of ships to a recent raid by the

    Votes: 3 4.9%
  • British Navy (on the run with lots of lovely treasure after/dureing the american war of independance

    Votes: 7 11.5%
  • Native Americans (dosen't fit with the artifacts found but native americans could theoreticly have m

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Aliens (Aparently they made the pyramids too :rolleyes: )

    Votes: 6 9.8%
  • Another Theory?

    Votes: 14 23.0%
  • The Templars (after escaping from La Rochelle)

    Votes: 11 18.0%

  • Total voters
    61
what ever is there i doubt it is pirates gold,they divided the money up after each cruise then went on a huge piss up,but the story has interested me since i was a child. :D
 
djoltes said:
Folks should read my site at http://www.criticalenquiry.org/oakisland sometime. I've been researching this subject for years now, and in fact have been trying to get Mssrs. Sutton & co. to consider a piece I've written on the probable origins of the Money Pit legend (hint: lots of blokes were roaming about early America scamming people by claiming to be seers who could find buried treasure).

I have read it and it sounds quite convincing. Especially the re-use and re-mixing of folkloristic story "building blocks" sounds believable. It is an interesting hypothesis - especially because it's probably new to most people (including me).

And your explanation reminds me very much of the whole "airship hoax" phenomenon.
 
Thing is, the amount of money that would be required to dig down and - like all archaeology - destroy any traces of past construction far outweighs any real financial gain for the treasure seekers. Forget the wonderful yet naive concept of financing a project for no financial gain ... only those who want treasure will spend it to find it.

Frankly, I agree - those past treasure hunters have mashed up any chance of finding out the past history of the mystery let alone any remaining hoard! And this hoard's worth being based on ...? Rumour, speculation and a few secretive glimpses of that bane of rational thought ... gold!
 
Time to bump this old beast. I have loved this mystery ever since I was a kid. I saw an illustration of The Money Pit in a book of mysteries and couldn't understand how people could just go about their everyday lives and not be totally obsessed with an unsolved mystery.

Over the years, I have mentioned this to people and read a few bits here and there. No-one seems that bothered.

I've been watching the "reality TV/documentary" called The Curse of Oak Island and finding it very enjoyable but very frustrating. The two brothers in charge have ploughed millions of dollars into this and all they have for the effort are a handful of coins. I think the TV production is probably slowing down the hunt.

I'm midway through series 2 but obviously know that they haven't found the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant as no-one has mentioned anything in the press. I would love for there to be something down there.
 
If I ever get around to doing my dreamed of tour of the US/Canada I intend to start in Halifax in order to visit Oak Island. I've already planned Nova Scotia and Maine in my spare time. One day...

As for what is in there. Probably nothing!
 
I didn't realise there was a TV show about it. Could run for decades if the history of the pit is anything to go by. Are the presenters doing the digging, or is it more of a look back at the futility of it all?
 
I didn't realise there was a TV show about it. Could run for decades if the history of the pit is anything to go by. Are the presenters doing the digging, or is it more of a look back at the futility of it all?
The show is based around 2 brothers - one who has a boyhood dream of finding the treasure and the other who made his money from oil and so has the means to play treasure hunter. They bought land on the island about 10 years ago and set about finding the treasure with the help of locals and guys who had previously dug there.

I will say that they are both intelligent, articulate and well educated. This isn't just Pawn Stars/Storage Wars with shovels.

The show has no presenters - it's a fly on the wall type thing. The usual modern documentary set-up (20% new footage and 80% stock footage of the environment with voiceover asking rhetorical questions).

I will say that they are using the most advanced techonology possible and are pouring millions of dollars into the hunt. They have found remarkable things (Spanish coins, coconut matting, hidden stones and messages).

For those of you who are intersted on a brief rundown, this is what we know* so far.

In 1795, a hidden entrance to a depression/shaft was discovered. The opening was consealed with flat stones.
Every 10 feet down was marked, later reported as wooden, man-made platforms.
At 40, 50 and 60 feet, coconut matting and putty was found as well as the wooden platforms. There are no coconut trees in Canada.
At 90 feet, a large flat stone with an inscribed coded message was found. There is no photographic evidence of the stone but numerous drawings of the symbols. The exact translation of the symbols is still contested.

The pit then flooded with sea water either from natural means or through man-made, booby trapped channels.
All subsequent attempts to excavate the shaft have failed with sea water refilling the shaft.

Drilling below the 90 feet mark revealed what apeared to be a wooden box/chamber. (wood, metallic objects, wood and clay) at 153 feet down.

The exact location of The Money Pit was unknown for years as there were no exact GPS co-ordinates given. Every failed expedition had sabotaged/backfilled their excavations in order to thwart future hunters, making it nearly impossible to find the shaft.

*No speculation. Just the facts.
 
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Over the years, I've read and re-read accounts of this case, and I keep just being baffled by how the original shaft was dug. 153 feet is an amazing depth, considering it is mostly sand and water keeps filling the shaft. Even with modern mining methods, this would be difficult to achieve.
My thought about this is that perhaps the original ground level was a lot lower when the shaft was originally dug, and over the years, fresh layers of sand have swept in with high tides.
 
I also have often been puzzled by this. The original description of the pit is fantastic - I can't imagine how it could have been built (if it was a man made artefact) without a substantial presence, camp, building equipment, etc. Digging a vertical shaft for 120ft plus through soft material is , as Mythopoeika says, a very major undertaking.

Normally I hate this kind of explanation, but could it originally have been invented /grossly exaggerated and all the finds are coming from failed attempts to find something that isn't there?
 
The flooding of the tunnels just as explorers were about to reach the 'gold' was always one of the most intriguing aspects but it could well be just a natural occurrence embellished for story-telling effect.
 
It's not here in Sweden yet so no spoilers, please.
It is now. Episode 1 was quite interesting. I'm hoping that the brothers get some sort of payoff - if not financially then at least some sort of closure.

But they are investing even more money and technology into it.

This first episode sw them depolying a laser scanner at the bottom of one shaft where it was able to buid a 3d model of what was down there. Two man made support beams, a square object (possibly a box or chest) and what looked like human remains. The man operating the scanner trains rescue services and police to use these things and he said that it was, IHO, human remains.
 
Geez, that throws up all sorts of questions. Was it a ritual burial... or someone they never wanted found. Or released!
 
Geez, that throws up all sorts of questions. Was it a ritual burial... or someone they never wanted found. Or released!
They discussed a possible theory. A slave involved in the construction had possibly been left down there as a punishment.
 
What about a human sacrifice?

I suppose it depends on who (if anyone) made the pit. I'm inclined to think that it was the Spanish based on coins they have already found on the island. Somebody dug a hole for something. But the previous digs have been so badly managed that nobody is really sure where the original pit was anymore.
 
Right, I've watched a few more episodes but the series is slowly truning into the same sort of programme as every ghost hunting documentary ever.

They show you what the have already shown you, then they show you what they will show you later, after the break they recap what they have shown you and then show you 5 minutes of new footage in context which bears no resemblance to what they said they would show you. Then they show show you what they are goiing to show you next time.

They have sent down an UUV to have a look at the cavity at the bottom of 10X. They saw what appeared to be a square post but then the operator started f***ing around and the vehicle kicked up so much sediment that everything became obscured. The diver who was planning to go down then came to the conclusion that he didn't think it was worth the cost of the expedition. So they just agreed and more or less gave up??? WTF???

This seems more and more staged. They have spent years and millions of dollars to get down there - buying bulldozers, diggers, clearing out the debris, making it safe, welding and cutting, cranes and cages etc. They finally send in a sonar which shows signs of man made structure. They send in an UUV which sees a square pillar. And then the diver who will make the dive says it's not worth it. What does he know?

So now they are back to The Money Pit. The sonar reveals nothing from their test drill. And so we're back to sticking shovels into any random point in the soil because yet another crackpot has a theory.

"Hey, these two stones are in a line. This must be a secret marker! What do you think, Dan Blankenship? You who have invested your entire life, energy and finances into this hunt and become a little too obsessed with it. Do you think that this could be something? Should we dig here?" AARRGGHH!!! I love this mystery and I loved this TV show but it's getting on my tits now.
 
The series " The Curse of Oak Island" starts again on free view 83 Blaze on
Sunday 23rd Oct, the series is also on the net for anyone interested.
 
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Right, I've watched a few more episodes but the series is slowly truning into the same sort of programme as every ghost hunting documentary ever.

They show you what the have already shown you, then they show you what they will show you later, after the break they recap what they have shown you and then show you 5 minutes of new footage in context which bears no resemblance to what they said they would show you. Then they show show you what they are goiing to show you next time.

They have sent down an UUV to have a look at the cavity at the bottom of 10X. They saw what appeared to be a square post but then the operator started f***ing around and the vehicle kicked up so much sediment that everything became obscured. The diver who was planning to go down then came to the conclusion that he didn't think it was worth the cost of the expedition. So they just agreed and more or less gave up??? WTF???

This seems more and more staged. They have spent years and millions of dollars to get down there - buying bulldozers, diggers, clearing out the debris, making it safe, welding and cutting, cranes and cages etc. They finally send in a sonar which shows signs of man made structure. They send in an UUV which sees a square pillar. And then the diver who will make the dive says it's not worth it. What does he know?

So now they are back to The Money Pit. The sonar reveals nothing from their test drill. And so we're back to sticking shovels into any random point in the soil because yet another crackpot has a theory.

"Hey, these two stones are in a line. This must be a secret marker! What do you think, Dan Blankenship? You who have invested your entire life, energy and finances into this hunt and become a little too obsessed with it. Do you think that this could be something? Should we dig here?" AARRGGHH!!! I love this mystery and I loved this TV show but it's getting on my tits now.

LOL .. I enjoyed it although you've just saved me writing the same review. It was a bit like watching Most Haunted: you know they're not going to find anything again but you keep watching until it gets tiresome. It is addictive though like feeding a fruit machine for that one big win. I'll watch a few more episodes or perhaps the last one when they haven't found the treasure/ark or whatever and the big brother still tries to convince us he only did it to bond with his little brother again.
 
They show you what the have already shown you, then they show you what they will show you later, after the break they recap what they have shown you and then show you 5 minutes of new footage in context which bears no resemblance to what they said they would show you. Then they show show you what they are going to show you next time.

It's infuriating, isn't it, to sit through what you think might be an entertaining hour of TV, only to end up with about 15 minutes of unique footage. Of course, shows like Ice Road Truckers have relied on such techniques for years, and even the new BBC series of Coast is doing something worryingly similar...

So-called documentaries like that (and there are many) really get on my wick. If they can't make a full 1-hour show, without repetition, about something as potentially interesting as the Oak Island Money Pit, then maybe it's not worth making the programme at all.
 
They keep saying someone else has to die before the treasurer will be found, so why not just cut to the chase with a sacrifice?
Perhaps whoever invented the concept of a TV "recap" segment ought to be offered up?
 
What they need is a new guy with a red shirt (like on Star Trek TOS).

"Guys, this is Bob. He'll be joining our team from today. So Bob, have you ever used a chainsaw before?"
 
reading the "vote" at the top, wasnt it TOM HANKS and SHELLY LONG who made THE MONEY PIT ?? funniest bit is when he was filling the bath... lol
 
Likely making more brass out of the TV side than they ever will digging holes.
But I do find it intriguing how the pit and passages could have been built in the first place
 
I'd like to see them find somthing but people have looked for years and nothing much yet,
fascinating though.
 
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