SEASON 8

[ECS]

That was a good one, Eldo!
Did you notice the Templar cross in King Arthur's tunic?
That must be a clue to the hidden Templar treasure in Vermont's notch of which you keep posting photos.

 

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[Eldo]

That was a good one, Eldo!
Did you notice the Templar cross in King Arthur's tunic?
That must be a clue to the hidden Templar treasure in Vermont's notch of which you keep posting photos.

You mean this guy on the right?



BTW the phonecall with the producers of Prometheus last week was pretty interesting

 

[n2mini]

Oak Island is absolute proof that people will dig for treasure based on a good story with reason behind it.

and my post you quoted on this is exactly what I said..

 

[n2mini]

I believe you are completely wrong on this. I'm not being vague. I just don't have an opinion and see no reason to create an opinion on something that doesn't appear to me to have any relavance. The fact that you want to force us to take an opinion on such an irrelevant point really baffles me.

What is your opinion on whether or not the boys were in fact transvestites who liked to wear red panties under their clothes? I demand you take a stand on this important issue! Wait.... don't be vague now! Do you see what I mean?

I have no problem given you my opinion on that, which is I don't believe it. I can't prove it nor can you but that is where I stand on it.

 

[n2mini]

No. I said that was one version of the legend - which may be total nonsense. I do not believe it to be true. Stop putting words in my mouth.

This is how foolishness gets credibility. Please stop it.

sure sounded like that is what you think. You now added the I don't believe it part.. So does that also put you into the group that doesn't think there ever was a hole dug.

 

[n2mini]

You really think this "hole" thing is pertinent to the discussion. I'm really trying to figure out how you think it proves something. I think from the statement above I MAY understand what you are trying to get at. But I DON'T want to put words in your mouth. So please correct me if I am wrong.

The only reason I can come up with for you caring about whether or not a hole was dug before the first treasure hunters decided to come dig is that you are trying to imply that treasure hunters would only come to Oak Island if the story was really good and believable. If the story wasn't believable, then why would they come to OI? And you seem to be implying that if there was no hole (or remnants of a hole) already in the ground, then it wouldn't be AS believable of a story. And if treasure hunters believe a story is believable, then there is more of a chance that it could be true. The idea of trying to pin down the "something that had to start it" is likely due to trying to again lend credence to the original story.

But here are the problems with all of that.

1. The opinions of treasure hunters as to whether or not a story is worth pursuing does not make the story true.

2. You can have a REALLY believable story and yet that story can still be false.

3. Whether or not someone already dug a hole does not ON ITS OWN make the story more or less believable because a hole can be faked. If you are deciding whether or not to spend millions of dollars digging up an area, I would hope the presence/absence of a hand dug hole on the property would be way down on your list of considerations.

4. There are literally thousands of treasure hunters in the world. If one treasure hunter believes a story and comes to dig, that means 999 other treasure hunters may NOT have believed the story and stayed home! Why are you only concentrating on the treasure hunters who came to dig and ignore the hundreds/thousands of treasure hunters who may have decided that the story was NOT credible?

5. There are a lot of gullible treasure hunters in the world.

6. All of this comes down to... "why would treasure hunters come dig if it wasn't a good story?". Answers: Because they are stupid? Gullible? Why do treasure hunters ask some stranger on the Internet to dowse a photo and tell them where to dig? Why do treasure hunters believe that a coat hanger attached to a Casio calculator can detect micro fine gold a mile away but ignore the gold ring on their own left hand? I don't think we can use the beliefs of treasure hunters as evidence of the validity of a given treasure story.

If I am off base then perhaps we could move forward if you simply try and help us understand why the heck it matters whether or not a hole was dug. "It had to start somewhere" has no bearing on whether or not someone buried treasure 100 feet down hundreds of years ago. Everything "had to start somewhere". That doesn't make everything true or worth pursuing.

Going to try to just keep this short and won't attempt to ansawer every part of it. Yes most of what you said is what I'm getting at. The had to start somewhere is in refernce to who started the dig and why. There has to be a reason. You don't just wonder onto an island and say hey lets dig for treasure here. If it was the original 3 then the story as we hear it is "probably" true on how it started. If they were not the first to dig then how did it start.. I don't understand how people don't want to say how they think it started is making 100's of posts on here and watching the show for years yet have no opinion
Also keep in mind this is late 1700's to early 1800's. No one is spending millions back then..
Treasure or no treasure leave that out of it..

 

[gazzahk]

You really think this "hole" thing is pertinent to the discussion. I'm really trying to figure out how you think it proves something. I think from the statement above I MAY understand what you are trying to get at. But I DON'T want to put words in your mouth. So please correct me if I am wrong.

The only reason I can come up with for you caring about whether or not a hole was dug before the first treasure hunters decided to come dig is that you are trying to imply that treasure hunters would only come to Oak Island if the story was really good and believable. If the story wasn't believable, then why would they come to OI? And you seem to be implying that if there was no hole (or remnants of a hole) already in the ground, then it wouldn't be AS believable of a story. And if treasure hunters believe a story is believable, then there is more of a chance that it could be true. The idea of trying to pin down the "something that had to start it" is likely due to trying to again lend credence to the original story.

But here are the problems with all of that.

1. The opinions of treasure hunters as to whether or not a story is worth pursuing does not make the story true.

2. You can have a REALLY believable story and yet that story can still be false.

3. Whether or not someone already dug a hole does not ON ITS OWN make the story more or less believable because a hole can be faked. If you are deciding whether or not to spend millions of dollars digging up an area, I would hope the presence/absence of a hand dug hole on the property would be way down on your list of considerations.

4. There are literally thousands of treasure hunters in the world. If one treasure hunter believes a story and comes to dig, that means 999 other treasure hunters may NOT have believed the story and stayed home! Why are you only concentrating on the treasure hunters who came to dig and ignore the hundreds/thousands of treasure hunters who may have decided that the story was NOT credible?

5. There are a lot of gullible treasure hunters in the world.

6. All of this comes down to... "why would treasure hunters come dig if it wasn't a good story?". Answers: Because they are stupid? Gullible? Why do treasure hunters ask some stranger on the Internet to dowse a photo and tell them where to dig? Why do treasure hunters believe that a coat hanger attached to a Casio calculator can detect micro fine gold a mile away but ignore the gold ring on their own left hand? I don't think we can use the beliefs of treasure hunters as evidence of the validity of a given treasure story.

If I am off base then perhaps we could move forward if you simply try and help us understand why the heck it matters whether or not a hole was dug. "It had to start somewhere" has no bearing on whether or not someone buried treasure 100 feet down hundreds of years ago. Everything "had to start somewhere". That doesn't make everything true or worth pursuing.

Very well said...

 

[mts]

Going to try to just keep this short and won't attempt to ansawer every part of it. Yes most of what you said is what I'm getting at. The had to start somewhere is in refernce to who started the dig and why. There has to be a reason. You don't just wonder onto an island and say hey lets dig for treasure here. If it was the original 3 then the story as we hear it is "probably" true on how it started. If they were not the first to dig then how did it start.. I don't understand how people don't want to say how they think it started is making 100's of posts on here and watching the show for years yet have no opinion
Also keep in mind this is late 1700's to early 1800's. No one is spending millions back then..
Treasure or no treasure leave that out of it..

Ok. I'm glad we are now on the same page. And I believe we can now stop concentrating on who dug the first "hole" because that really is irrelevant to how it got started. And I think the whole issue was that you had decided that "who dug the first hole" was an overriding factor and the rest of us don't see that as being relevant which is why we weren't answering. And given your clear penchant for twisting our words and trying to catch someone "flip flopping" no one here really trusts you enough to even give you our opinion. And the fact that your reputation has come to that should give you pause.

So instead, let's concentrate on "how it all started". But keep in mind that "how it all started" will not tell us whether or not it is true because treasure hunters will believe anything. And just because a treasure hunter believes it does not lend the story any credence.

To me it keeps going back to "with a compelling story". Someone told a story. True or false, a story was told. And that story only had to be compelling enough that it brought the first treasure hunters to the island. If you tell a story to 1000 people and only 1 person believes it, that is enough to give the story wings. But remember, the other 999 may not believe the story. So getting the first treasure hunters to believe it isn't saying much because treasure hunters will believe anything simply because they WANT it to be true, not because it really makes any sense. And I don't think the original story was terribly compelling because not much had been discovered yet. But the story morphed over the years into something compelling enough that it brought the Lagina brothers to the island hundreds of years later despite the fact that nothing concrete has ever really been found.

But you want more, so I'll give it to you. Here is my OPINION. It is not based on facts. But it IS based on common sense, human nature, and how so many treasure hunters on this very forum seem to behave.

The story had to start somewhere..... So....

I think most of the story is made up. But I think there were three men. And I think they had heard rumors of pirates or some other activity on the island. And I can imagine that they found an area on OI where there was a depression in the ground under some tree(s) that looked like someone had put a rope around it at one time or another. And being predisposed to believing something could be on the island, they started digging because it looked like a promising spot. I think they got 10 to 15 down, found some wood scraps or old iron relics along the way and then stopped. And that was the end of it. They filled the hole back in. No treasure and no reason to really believe there ever was a treasure there.

Being human, they wanted attention and they wanted to be able to tell a good story to their friends. And so, like so many treasure hunters we could point to (cough, cough... Franklin), they told people that they believe they had found a great treasure. So they told their story to a few people and embellished a few of the details to make it seem like they were great treasure hunters. And like so many treasure hunting stories where no treasure can be produced to back up the story, they had to make up a reason for why they truly did find a treasure but couldn't show it to anyone. Now if you've spent ANY amount of time out here on this forum listening to treasure hunters telling you about the treasures they've "located but can't dig up" you will see common excuses. And the most common one is, "I know it's there, it's just too deep for me to get to". And this is exactly the excuse they used. And other treasure hunters bought it. Not "smart" treasure hunters, just treasure hunters.

How it went from there I don't know. But I think once they started that story, others found it compelling enough to give it a try. But when they failed too, they made up new aspects to the story about platforms and stones at 90 feet. Why? Because they had to give an excuse for why there MUST be a treasure there but they couldn't get to it. It's always just out of reach or whatever the excuse of the day is.

And as more and more people dug deeper, instead of giving up and admitting that they were wrong and had wasted their time, the excuses just got wilder and wilder. And before long, the excuses and explanations are fueling on each other because there has been so much destruction and backfilling that no one could possibly say what is original and what is from other treasure hunters' failed attempts. By the time it reaches critical mass, lunatic cat ladies are appearing on TV shows in front of millions of people to tell wild theories about alien succubus vampires from the dark realm of the Templars. And because she ended her theory with the word "Templars", people are willing to ignore the fact that she is obviously just a crazed attention seeking whor*...... Ok, you get the point.

That is my opinion. It is not based on facts because we have no facts. But it is based on human nature and what I have seen countless treasure hunters on this very forum do. There is always a treasure story. And it only takes one idiot to believe it and go searching. And when he can't produce a treasure, he makes up an excuse about how it was deeper than he could dig. And some other hopeful idiot believes him, and it just keeps going and going and going.

 

[mts]

Important Disclaimer About Previous Post

I just want to be clear that the "opinion" given above is an opinion about one possible way that this all could have happened. I'm not married to it. It is an example. I do NOT think that the example I gave above is EXACTLY what happened. If you came back and told me that there were never "three men", that's totally fine.

It is not "flip flopping" to change your opinion. And I have no real need to argue any of the details above because I have no idea if they are true or not. But you wanted an explanation of how it all got started so I gave an you example of a possible and highly plausible explanation. And given that I can come up with such an explanation that is so plausible, I don't think we need to spend a bunch of time on the notion that "how it all started" has any bearing whatsoever on whether or not there was ever a treasure buried 100+ feet down on Oak Island. It simply doesn't matter how it all started. What matters is that we are hundreds of years later and no one has ever shown any decent evidence that a treasure was ever found or ever existed.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[n2mini]

Just a short cross examination. My flip floping comment was manily geared towards the couple of folks who recently gave someone else a hard time about what he said/believed not being written down anywhere. Then a week or so later to defend what they were saying, both made the comment about everything historical isn't written down some where..That is Flip Flopping..

The beginning of all this is one of the most important parts. Regardless of treasure. Without it we're not talking about it. You don't start a ballgame in the 2nd quarter.. not knowing what happened in the 1st..

 

[mts]

Just a short cross examination. My flip floping comment was manily geared towards the couple of folks who recently gave someone else a hard time about what he said/believed not being written down anywhere. Then a week or so later to defend what they were saying, both made the comment about everything historical isn't written down some where..That is Flip Flopping..

The beginning of all this is one of the most important parts. Regardless of treasure. Without it we're not talking about it. You don't start a ballgame in the 2nd quarter.. not knowing what happened in the 1st..

I agree that without a beginning we aren't talking about it. The issue is that we are still talking about it long after the game was over and our team lost.

And you keep wanting to hash out what happened in the first quarter when the rest of us don't see much point in concentrating on the first quarter instead of the game as a whole.

 

[n2mini]

its that ya'll don't think the 1st quarter happened at all... and or if we know what happened in the 1st quarter we'd better know why the next people were searching..Gives us a better understanding of The Story... I know some don't care about that, which is why alot of us wonder why ya'll are still here and watching the show...

 

[mts]

its that ya'll don't think the 1st quarter happened at all... and or if we know what happened in the 1st quarter we'd better know why the next people were searching..Gives us a better understanding of The Story... I know some don't care about that, which is why alot of us wonder why ya'll are still here and watching the show...

I'm no longer watching the show. Nothing new to see and it was clear to me that the game was over and they were still milking it. I haven't watched since the start of season 4.

I know the first quarter happened. I can't tell you exactly what happened. But what I know is that if you try to imply that the likelihood of the story being true is somehow tied to how entertaining or compelling the original story was (or how easily early treasure hunters were duped by it) then we aren't going to let that slip by without push back.

 

[n2mini]

The story is true in that people are searching for treasure. Might not be any of course or maybe it has already been found.. The "story"/ article written in 1866 might be true is well all ya'll just choose to not believe it... Would be nice to some how know for sure how it truely got started for who ever the first person to dig a hole was...

 

[mts]

The story is true in that people are searching for treasure. Might not be any of course or maybe it has already been found.. The "story"/ article written in 1866 might be true is well all ya'll just choose to not believe it... Would be nice to some how know for sure how it truely got started for who ever the first person to dig a hole was...

Yep, it would be interesting to be able to go back in a time machine and see how it all started.

I think there were a lot of extenuating circumstances that helped this story along. The fact that it was an island with some potential pirate history around it probably sparked some imaginations. You can imagine that I could tell a story with the exact same initial circumstances (found a depression, tree with block and tackle, dug down 15 feet but couldn't dig more, etc.) but taking place in a farmer's field in Ohio and it probably never would have gotten off of the ground. There could be other cultural aspects that contributed to it as well. Perhaps people at that time or in that area were more likely to believe in ghosts, templars, superstitions, etc which caused them to latch onto that particular story more so than some other treasure stories that may have seemed more mundane.

 

[Singlestack Wonder]

I believe I have solved the mystery of the rocks forming a roadway across the swamp.

People had to move items from one side of the swamp to the other. They quickly found that when attempting to cross they sank and got stuck in the mud.

They devised a solution involving piling up rocks to create a path across the swamp that would allow them to cross without sinking into the muck.

I can’t be absolutely be sure if the rocks used were templar or not....

 

[Singlestack Wonder]

You mean this guy on the right?

View attachment 1898332

BTW the phonecall with the producers of Prometheus last week was pretty interesting

So another fictional drama show not unlike blind frog ranch using your faked photo shopped images of rocks?

Probably won’t last a season....

 

[Al D]

Yep, it would be interesting to be able to go back in a time machine and see how it all started.
.

I know just the person you need to talk to,

 

[DaveVanP]

That's not true ECS......he moved to Vermont and started a Flour Company

Pretty Successful Guy Actually

View attachment 1898306

He came over with Henry Sinclair, did he?

 

[DaveVanP]

A friend of mine had to deal with treasure hunters several years ago, trespassing on his farm, digging holes, damaging fences, letting his livestock get out...all because "True West" magazine published an article about "Outlaw Buried Loot", which included a story of the Dalton bank robbery attempt at Coffeyville KS in October 1892. The story told of how the Dalton Gang had camped the night before the attempt at Onion Creek, near where it flowed into the Verdigris River. During the previous summer, the Gang had accomplished several train robberies, their haul totaling probably 15 to 20 thousand dollars...so they MUST have buried it at their campsite before pulling another job, right? Well, my friend owns land along the Creek, and for several years after the article came out had major problems as described above. He still has occasional folks show up wanting to detect, who have seen the article on the Internet. Oh - and Onion Creek has changed its course in the past 130 years - doesn't even enter the River at the same spot. The creekbed from the 1890's was filled in, the land levelled, and continuously plowed, raked and harrowed since the 1940's. Nothing has ever been found except arrowheads.

But die-hards still claim the treasure is there...

After he was shot and captured, Emmett Dalton stated that among the 5 members of the gang, they had a grand total of 900 dollars left from all their robberies that previous summer. They had spent all the rest, and needed the money from "the Coffeyville job" to get out of the country. When Emmet was released from Lansing Prison in 1907, he returned to Coffeyville only to purchase a headstone for his brothers' grave. He managed to earn some money by writing and giving lectures on "crime does not pay" - yes he coined that phrase. Once he earned enough, he moved to Los Angeles where he talked investors into risking their money in a scrub-covered hilly region north of Los Angeles now called "Hollywood".