Season 12

[n2mini]

Everything about this is maybe this or that. I find it ironic that some on here want to use the whole well it's not documented anywhere they ever came to the area, or that this happened or that but then when they read the early stories about all this they claim that even those aren't true, about the 3 guys digging a hole and Onlsow coming in, finding a stone( regardless of what was etched on it ) etc etc. Can't have it both ways. Even if one of the researchers found some book or ships ledger about the Templers heading that way ya'll would say it's a lie. Made up for the show, on and on...

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[Limitool]

Everything about this is maybe this or that. I find it ironic that some on here want to use the whole well it's not documented anywhere they ever came to the area, or that this happened or that but then when they read the early stories about all this they claim that even those aren't true, about the 3 guys digging a hole and Onlsow coming in, finding a stone( regardless of what was etched on it ) etc etc. Can't have it both ways. Even if one of the researchers found some book or ships ledger about the Templers heading that way ya'll would say it's a lie. Made up for the show, on and on...

Well after 200+ years of digging plus the last 14 years of the brothers digging and not a single item of anything related to treasure found.... History kind of works against the whole thing. Now all they do is dig up stuff from earlier settlers and past digs. And what possibly could they find looking at early settlers dropped items to relate it to anything buried...? I guess it's all the past that works against itself.

We all know their were different settlers and visitors there. The swamp used to be a lot different 200 years ago. But their wasting time showing "lost" items and "proof" the swamp has changed.

 

[Carl-NC]

As more holes are dug and more nothing is found, aliens will be the next Big Theory. Only they have the technology to make buried treasure move around underground, avoiding every hole that is dug.

 

[n2mini]

If the treasure buried in the 1500's to 1700's it was probably retrived before the 3 guys ever started all this. Nothing to find now.

 

[freeman]

The following is helpful for those faced with Oak Island mystery followers that have very little knowledge about what really went on there.

In particular when the argument is tried to be run by them that searchers just missed the treasure in the Money Pit, or they didn't go deep enough or the treasure is in some 'offset chamber', this just demonstrates the true depth of their research, ie. none.

The location of the Money Pit, always was (and is known) , just as what really went on there likewise was and is still known.

The common mistake made is just because one doesn't know something exists doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Or to be even blunter just because something doesn't get mentioned on the Curse of Island doesn't mean it isn't know by them; it's just they have chosen to not tell you about it.

To keep the money coming in to the landowners to allow the searches, of course the true history gets suppressed otherwise there income stops.

Next time some Oak Island zombie tries to run the line that the treasure has just been missed in the Money Pit, ask them if they are even aware the following published record exists of the search by Henry L Bowdoin. It's just one of a plethora of records that are in existence that will never be mentioned on 'The Curse of Oak Island' as they don't want you to know about such things.

"Boring for the Box​

A core drill brings up a core or continuous piece of the material through which it goes, one and a half, or more, inches in diameter. The bit will cut through metal or rock, so that in boring through a box containing gold or treasure a fine sample would be brought up. We bored in the spot indicated: through seventeen feet of course gravel and sand; then sixteen feet of blue clay, small stones, and sand, and struck the cement at one hundred and forty-nine feet, as predicted.

We cut through six inches, and withdrew the core so as to start clean on the box of gold. The core showed a solid piece of cement about six inches long. Our hopes ran high. The drill was again placed in position and started: down it went through eighteen feet of yellow clay and stones to a bed-rock of hard white clay, or gypsum and quartz, one hundred and sixty-seven feet from the surface. We had missed the box of gold that time; but try again.

We did. We put down holes vertically, and with as wide angles as possible, so that a larger space than the area of the pit was perforated with holes to depths of from one hundred and fifty-five feet to one hundred and seventy-one feet, and so placed that anything over two feet square must have been struck. We struck cement six inches to ten inches thick at depths of one hundred and forty-six feet to one hundred and forty-nine feet, but no traces of boxes, treasure, or anything of that kind.

The cement was analyzed by Professor Chandler of Columbia University, and found to be natural limestone pitted by the action of water. This was also the opinion of Professor Kemp, Professor of Geology at Columbia University, and of Dr. Woolson, an expert on building materials and cement, of Columbia University.

We housed the machinery and gear, and left Oak Island November 4, 1909."



For those interested a transcript of the full article is attached.

 

[n2mini]

Just playing devils advocate here. Everything in the above post might be true. Who knows as with everything else. Not sure how many holes they drilled but if any where down there especially once they got pretty deep it wouldn't take much resistance to angle the drill off it's intended course.. This next part is an assumption on my part here but my thinking is of any core samples that did come up that only the top/bottom area of each sample would have been exposed to the elements ( water, dirt etc. ) and with their core drill being only 1-1/2'' ( size of a silver dollar ) that isn't much area to get a good reading as to how it got pitted I'd think...The sides of the core would be smooth from drilling.. 1909 or earlier technology to be drilling and testing the core... All that would be different with todays' Tech...

 

[Limitool]

Just playing devils advocate here. Everything in the above post might be true. Who knows as with everything else. Not sure how many holes they drilled but if any where down there especially once they got pretty deep it wouldn't take much resistance to angle the drill off it's intended course.. This next part is an assumption on my part here but my thinking is of any core samples that did come up that only the top/bottom area of each sample would have been exposed to the elements ( water, dirt etc. ) and with their core drill being only 1-1/2'' ( size of a silver dollar ) that isn't much area to get a good reading as to how it got pitted I'd think...The sides of the core would be smooth from drilling.. 1909 or earlier technology to be drilling and testing the core... All that would be different with todays' Tech...

But even back then in the early 20th century why drill to 150'+ deep..? What in the world would lead anybody to believe something of value was buried there by mankind at that ridiculous depth..?

 

[n2mini]

The show has shown how some of those groups from over seas did their cylinder like digs to big depths. I guess that is to show a connection somewhat, along with I think it was 9 section depths, to a line with the 10' long section depths in the MP. We think it is crazy but they were living in crazy times for them. If their ways were 9 section deep then no big deal to bury their most vsluable items that way.

 

[freeman]

Just playing devils advocate here. Everything in the above post might be true. Who knows as with everything else. Not sure how many holes they drilled but if any where down there especially once they got pretty deep it wouldn't take much resistance to angle the drill off it's intended course.. This next part is an assumption on my part here but my thinking is of any core samples that did come up that only the top/bottom area of each sample would have been exposed to the elements ( water, dirt etc. ) and with their core drill being only 1-1/2'' ( size of a silver dollar ) that isn't much area to get a good reading as to how it got pitted I'd think...The sides of the core would be smooth from drilling.. 1909 or earlier technology to be drilling and testing the core... All that would be different with todays' Tech...

You missed the point entirely trying to come up with some excuse about how they confirmed nothing was there: that there are numerous such confirmations in existence that prove nothing is there and you have been fed and accepted a false narrative that such proof doesn't exist so there is a treasure.

If you had been shown and read these would you still be trying to argue a known false narrative?

 

[n2mini]

Is it still a false narrative if it had already been retreived before that 1909 search. Assuming it is accurate itself.

 

[TruthbeTold]

If the treasure buried in the 1500's to 1700's it was probably retrived before the 3 guys ever started all this. Nothing to find now.

But what treasure was it?

 

[Limitool]

If the treasure buried in the 1500's to 1700's it was probably retrived before the 3 guys ever started all this. Nothing to find now.

I'm also interested in what treasure your talking about...?

 

[GravelTeeth]

Next time some Oak Island zombie tries to run the line that the treasure has just been missed in the Money Pit, ask them if they are even aware the following published record exists of the search by Henry L Bowdoin.

there are numerous such confirmations in existence that prove nothing is there

Thank you for posting that material freeman. I've bookmarked the article at least a couple of times before and skimmed it but never read the whole thing through. At first blush Bowdoin's account seems thorough and solid enough, but as usual with anything Oak Island related, we have competing narratives, and apparently competing facts as well.

Bowdoin was quite the character, having been a moderately successful and well publicised inventor before he became involved on the island. He gave several rather boastful interviews in prominent outlets before he and his Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company arrived to search. In one of these he promised "I expect to have the treasure inside of two weeks, and if we cannot get it in a month it will be because there is no gold there" [1]. The company's prospectus claimed the task of recovering treasure would be "ridiculously easy" and suggested a 4000 percent return on investment [2]. One might be forgiven for thinking he was motivated to produce results or else dispel the mystery entirely ... a mere failure on his part, adding his name to the growing list of former searchers who came up empty, may not have suited his big personality. In other words, might he have suffered from a sense of "If I can't find it, it can't be found, ergo it must not exist" ? Not to mention he would have needed to appease investors whose money was now wasted. Then there's the peculiar point of him wanting to extend his search lease, and only when denied by Fred Blair (who demanded proof of the syndicate's liquidity before he'd commit to another season) did he follow through on a threat to publish a piece attacking the legitimacy of the mystery [3]. If he'd been as thoroughly convinced of the non-existence of anything worthwhile as he sounded in that essay, why did he want to keep looking? This is not to say that I think the data he provided for the drill holes was falsified per se, only that we need to approach his whole chronicle with a slightly jaundiced eye.

The Oak Island Treasure Company under Blair had also had the "cement" chemically analyzed prior, by A. Boake Roberts & Co., Ltd. of London, and their report identified it as man-made [4]. OITC's reports of drill findings are every bit as detailed as Bowdoin's, but in a positive direction.

These dueling sets of data leave us kind of back where we started, no? I see no reason to cherry pick this one result over the others and call it "proof" of anything. It's merely data, to be taken in the full context of all the rest of the data.

One last point: are there any practical reasons why Bowdoin's drilling may have had different results from what was reported by earlier syndicates? In fact, there may be ... Bowdoin's group dynamited the lower reaches of the caved in Money Pit before they started their drill program. It's quite possible that the blasts caused further collapse of the targets into the anhydrite bedrock or a nascent "solution channel" (as they are calling it now), or caused them to move laterally out from directly under the shaft.

--GT

_____
1. "Seeking Treasure: American Syndicate with Diving Apparatus After Lost Fortune of Captain Kidd" - The Evening Examiner [Peterborough] 30 August 1909, p.1

2. The Secret Treasure of Oak Island by D'Arcy O'Connor, ch.7

3. Ibid

4. Ibid, ch.6

 

[freeman]

Thank you for posting that material freeman. I've bookmarked the article at least a couple of times before and skimmed it but never read the whole thing through. At first blush Bowdoin's account seems thorough and solid enough, but as usual with anything Oak Island related, we have competing narratives, and apparently competing facts as well.

Bowdoin was quite the character, having been a moderately successful and well publicised inventor before he became involved on the island. He gave several rather boastful interviews in prominent outlets before he and his Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company arrived to search. In one of these he promised "I expect to have the treasure inside of two weeks, and if we cannot get it in a month it will be because there is no gold there" [1]. The company's prospectus claimed the task of recovering treasure would be "ridiculously easy" and suggested a 4000 percent return on investment [2]. One might be forgiven for thinking he was motivated to produce results or else dispel the mystery entirely ... a mere failure on his part, adding his name to the growing list of former searchers who came up empty, may not have suited his big personality. In other words, might he have suffered from a sense of "If I can't find it, it can't be found, ergo it must not exist" ? Not to mention he would have needed to appease investors whose money was now wasted. Then there's the peculiar point of him wanting to extend his search lease, and only when denied by Fred Blair (who demanded proof of the syndicate's liquidity before he'd commit to another season) did he follow through on a threat to publish a piece attacking the legitimacy of the mystery [3]. If he'd been as thoroughly convinced of the non-existence of anything worthwhile as he sounded in that essay, why did he want to keep looking? This is not to say that I think the data he provided for the drill holes was falsified per se, only that we need to approach his whole chronicle with a slightly jaundiced eye.

The Oak Island Treasure Company under Blair had also had the "cement" chemically analyzed prior, by A. Boake Roberts & Co., Ltd. of London, and their report identified it as man-made [4]. OITC's reports of drill findings are every bit as detailed as Bowdoin's, but in a positive direction.

These dueling sets of data leave us kind of back where we started, no? I see no reason to cherry pick this one result over the others and call it "proof" of anything. It's merely data, to be taken in the full context of all the rest of the data.

One last point: are there any practical reasons why Bowdoin's drilling may have had different results from what was reported by earlier syndicates? In fact, there may be ... Bowdoin's group dynamited the lower reaches of the caved in Money Pit before they started their drill program. It's quite possible that the blasts caused further collapse of the targets into the anhydrite bedrock or a nascent "solution channel" (as they are calling it now), or caused them to move laterally out from directly under the shaft.

--GT

_____
1. "Seeking Treasure: American Syndicate with Diving Apparatus After Lost Fortune of Captain Kidd" - The Evening Examiner [Peterborough] 30 August 1909, p.1

2. The Secret Treasure of Oak Island by D'Arcy O'Connor, ch.7

3. Ibid

4. Ibid, ch.6

I'm not sure how you can manipulate that in black and white it says the site was drilled and overdrilled and nothing was found.

Bowdoin was pissed with them all in the end. He was promised there was a treasure to be recovered at the spot marked by a 'treasure map' that was being promoted by the land owners. After he dug the spot and found nothing it revealed how much he had been lied to.

So it's not some 'dueling set of data', His is just one of a number of reports over the years of those who excavated the site and found nothing.

You can include the data by the Lagina's themselvses: their drilling, sonic (explosive) analysis and then muon detection analysis.

By they way, what did the Laginas announce for the muon analysis regarding it locating chambers in the Money Pit site etc? Did they announce it or was it just, sort of never mentioned again?

It is known why the search started. It always has been. It was published, spoken about and recorded at the time. The Laginas are just the latest in a long line of people who went there following a story that had salient details removed in the promotion of it to keep the landowner's money flowing in. Like everyone before them, they eventually found out the details of the true story.

It wasn't even a secret as it was recorded in books and reports all the way up until the late 1960s.

Don't continue the mistake of thinking that just because you weren't told about something on The Curse of Oak Island that things aren't known or there is no record of it in existence.

Dacry O'connor? It's up to you now to work out which of the following possibilites apply.

Was it;

a. He knew the truth but deliberately omitted it to keep the mystery going like many of the locals did and do, or;

b. His research was so shallow it never even went as far as opening a contemporaneous newspaper of the time to read it.

But you don't even have to believe me. You can look up all the reports and history spelling it out what went on there, they are pretty easy too find now. If you look yourself ad not rely on those who have a vested interest in not letting things slip.

You can also contact Doug Crowell youself and ask him about his research about why the search started but also why it isn't spoken about in the War Room for the viewing audience.

Also ask how many other islands there were being searched there also by those looking for the same treasure.

Tell us all his reply.

 

[freeman]

A warning to all:

Just because you aren't told about something existing or occurring on The Curse of Oak Island doesn't mean it didn't exist or occur.

 

[GravelTeeth]

So it's not some 'dueling set of data', His is just one of a number of reports over the years of those who excavated the site and found nothing.

Of course it is. We've got (at least) Truro finding multiple species of wood and OITC finding cement, wood, iron filings, etc. at or above the depths where Bowdoin says he found nothing, all using the same basic technology of enclosed auger drills. Data for and data against. You have picked a favorite and you are running with it, but why?

If I'm following your reasoning correctly -- and maybe I'm not -- there is a thread of deceit running through the Team Yes camp going all the way back in history to the initial dig in the Money Pit spot. So they are bad. And the Team No camp is all righteous and good, and incapable of exaggeration or misdirection? Aye? So you are Team No all the way, because of their Light. And when H.L. Bowdoin starts out as Team Yes, but then switches allegiances to Team No, you support him all the way, no questions asked. And no questions answered either, apparently, including my uncomfortable one about why he wanted to continue looking if he supposed there was nothing there.

By they way, what did the Laginas announce for the muon analysis regarding it locating chambers in the Money Pit site etc? Did they announce it or was it just, sort of never mentioned again?

I don't specifically recall but I'll assume that, like many facets of the search strategy on that show, it was built up to be a Thing and then frustratingly left to drop. I don't see how that's relevant to Bowdoin's "proof".

It is known why the search started. It always has been. It was published, spoken about and recorded at the time.

You seem to have placed great emphasis on this notion of the map which may or may not have started it all, and the idea that because it's no longer spoken of it somehow casts shade on every endeavour of Team Yes. Whereas I don't see how it makes a bit of difference why they chose the spot they did, only what they find once they get there. Some of the news reports from the old days mention the map, some don't. I don't care. Why do you?

Don't continue the mistake of thinking that just because you weren't told about something on The Curse of Oak Island that things aren't known or there is no record of it in existence.

Clearly if I'm quoting to you from outside sources then I'm not relying on the show to be the font of all wisdom for this topic. Let's face it, the show presents a simplified version to match the attention span of the average TV viewer.

a. He knew the truth but deliberately omitted it to keep the mystery going like many of the locals did and do, or;

b. His research was so shallow it never even went as far as opening a contemporaneous newspaper of the time to read it.

Okay, so now comes that pesky conspiratorial thinking that seems to infect you Team No guys. Now the plot extends to include third parties like D'Arcy O'Connor, eh? So never mind that O'Connor is largely quoting from Blair and Chappell's own journals and correspondences, and the men themselves in interviews, but he is distorting the account of what they found? So that it's no longer data but just a fabricated story? And when other authors reach the same conclusions from the same sources, I guess they are part of the plot as well? And that's why Bowdoin wins? Weak man, very weak.

I suppose you have curated a list of authors pure enough for me to rely on, then? Well by all means, out with it, don't leave us in suspense. Also, please cite the sources you pull your quotation screencaps from. I've asked for that before without, I believe, a response.

--GT

 

[n2mini]

But what treasure was it?

I'm also interested in what treasure your talking about...?

I said "IF" there was a treasure.. I have no idea what it is, if it was one to begin with with.. Just that it is possible that it was there and gone before all this got started.. and yes if someone did retrieve it they'd have reason to cover it back up so no one knows anything was dug up.
Best way to keep it a secret is to not let anyone know you did it..

 

[Limitool]

I said "IF" there was a treasure.. I have no idea what it is, if it was one to begin with with.. Just that it is possible that it was there and gone before all this got started.. and yes if someone did retrieve it they'd have reason to cover it back up so no one knows anything was dug up.
Best way to keep it a secret is to not let anyone know you did it..

Maybe you see that as a valid reason but I don't. It makes sense to me if a hole was dug on a remote island and a treasure pulled out they didn't leave it on the island. And to fill the hole back in would be the LAST thing I'd worry about. Who cares if someone see's a dug hole? They'd have no idea why or what or who dug it.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Not sure that I've seen it mentioned, but what is the "treasure" supposed to be? Gold, jewelry, Jimmy Hoffa, bearer bonds?

 

[Limitool]

Not sure that I've seen it mentioned, but what is the "treasure" supposed to be? Gold, jewelry, Jimmy Hoffa, bearer bonds?

Nobody knows D.D. because nobody has ever seen or found one on Oak Island. But there's folks who swear there is one and based on what is beyond me.