Solution Channel, ugh.

[GravelTeeth]

Well the references to a "solution channel" in the latest episode seem new to me. I don't recall that having been brought up before. It seems like a catastrophe for the search. If such a water-filled void exists under significant parts of the Money Pit Area, and if their response to reaching it is to cease the drill effort at that point, how can they ever hope to recover stuff that has quite likely fallen in there??

And please correct me if I'm wrong, but with these huge caissons they are putting down, that only lasts for as long as that particular hole is being worked on. Those heavy-duty sections that they oscillate into place are removed again for the next target. Which implies that all that back fill gravel and dirt and stones that they bulldozed into the sinkhole around the outside of the caisson to shore up the platform will now all go straight into the shaft once they pull out the caisson sections. It will drop into the void and bury whatever was immediately below in the channel. They would actually be making any cache even less accessible!

I can't fathom how with all the detailed charts and plans with which they plan these caisson targets that they don't have a more comprehensive plan to deal with this eventuality. Surely they at least should send down an underwater camera or rover before they pull up the caisson, and attempt to get a view of what is down there and/or how far down it goes. My understanding is that the anhydrite bedrock will easily be dissolved by moving water, so every drill attempt that disturbs the water table down there will just cause this solution channel to grow even bigger. It may extend beyond the boundaries of the island itself already! What's to stop it continuing to enlarge and undermine what's up top? Bedrock can extend 20-25 miles down ... that's a long drop for things heavy enough to sink.

--GT

 

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[n2mini]

Haven't they been leaving the caisson in some of the holes and just putting a pad locked cap on it. I agree they do need to put an underwater rover of some sort down there just to see if they can see anything..

 

[Carl-NC]

I can't fathom how with all the detailed charts and plans with which they plan these caisson targets that they don't have a more comprehensive plan to deal with this eventuality.

Have I mentioned in other threads that the activities on the TV show are not designed to find treasure, but rather to sell 30 second ads? If they really wanted to find treasure, they would be going about it much differently.

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

Well the references to a "solution channel" in the latest episode seem new to me. I don't recall that having been brought up before. It seems like a catastrophe for the search. If such a water-filled void exists under significant parts of the Money Pit Area, and if their response to reaching it is to cease the drill effort at that point, how can they ever hope to recover stuff that has quite likely fallen in there??

And please correct me if I'm wrong, but with these huge caissons they are putting down, that only lasts for as long as that particular hole is being worked on. Those heavy-duty sections that they oscillate into place are removed again for the next target. Which implies that all that back fill gravel and dirt and stones that they bulldozed into the sinkhole around the outside of the caisson to shore up the platform will now all go straight into the shaft once they pull out the caisson sections. It will drop into the void and bury whatever was immediately below in the channel. They would be actually be making any cache even less accessible!

I can't fathom how with all the detailed charts and plans with which they plan these caisson targets that they don't have a more comprehensive plan to deal with this eventuality. Surely they at least should send down an underwater camera or rover before they pull up the caisson, and attempt to get a view of what is down there and/or how far down it goes. My understanding is that the anhydrite bedrock will easily be dissolved by moving water, so every drill attempt that disturbs the water table down there will just cause this solution channel to grow even bigger. It may extend beyond the boundaries of the island itself already! What's to stop it continuing to enlarge and undermine what's up top? Bedrock can extend 20-25 miles down ... that's a long drop for things heavy enough to sink.

--GT

Oceanic Crust is no where near that thick.

And as for digging a hole back then.


What is the deepest hole of any type known to have been dug by man at the point in time of question, anywhere in the world for any reason?

And just to bury something?

 

[GravelTeeth]

Have I mentioned in other threads that the activities on the TV show are not designed to find treasure, but rather to sell 30 second ads?

Yes. Your opinion is noted.

I am old and jaded, and I do plenty of judging, but generally I am not so jaded as to assume people I don't know are deliberately deceiving me, without evidence. Got evidence?

--GT

 

[GravelTeeth]

Oceanic Crust is no where near that thick.

I had to look it up, because this is nowhere near my area of expertise, and you're correct, but I wondered if Oak Island's proximity to shore would play a part. I asked Perplexity, and this is what it told me:

----
[Me:] What kind of crust is below an island that is very near to shore, for example the islands in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia? Is it considered "oceanic" crust or "continental crust"?

[Perplexity:] Answer
The islands in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, are considered to be part of the continental crust, not oceanic crust. This is because:

Mahone Bay is located along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, which is part of the North American continental landmass.

The islands in Mahone Bay are composed of materials typical of continental crust. For example, Big Tancook and Little Tancook Islands are made up of Cambrian-Ordovician metamorphosed sedimentary rocks.

Many of the islands in Mahone Bay are actually drumlins, which are glacial formations typically found on continental landmasses.

The geological composition of the area around Mahone Bay includes a variety of soils and bedrock types, which is more characteristic of continental crust than the uniform composition of oceanic crust.

Oceanic crust is typically found far from shore, beginning at the edge of the continental shelf. It is thinner (about 6 km thick) and composed primarily of basaltic rocks.

In contrast, the islands in Mahone Bay are part of the continental shelf, which extends underwater from the mainland. The crust beneath these near-shore islands is essentially an extension of the same continental crust that forms the mainland of Nova Scotia.

It's important to note that the transition from continental to oceanic crust occurs gradually as you move away from the shore, typically at the edge of the continental shelf. The islands in Mahone Bay, being so close to shore, are well within the area of continental crust.
----

Obviously take an AI answer with a grain of salt, but either way, it's a lot.

What is the deepest hole of any type known to have been dug by man at the point in time of question, anywhere in the world for any reason?

That's an awesome question. I've seen several mentions of "Welsh miners" in relation to Oak Island theories ... I wonder how deep those Welsh mines were? Would you also include projects that started at the top of mountains or other elevations? There's that one temple in India, I think, that was dug straight down into the living rock. It's several stories at least.

--GT

 

[GravelTeeth]

Haven't they been leaving the caisson in some of the holes and just putting a pad locked cap on it.

I have seen some of these capped and locked shafts on the show, you're right. But I don't think those were the huge-mongous oscillated ones? I could be mistaken. It seems unlikely to me that they would have enough sections of that on hand to just keep lining shafts one after another.

--GT

 

[Carl-NC]

Got evidence?

The TV show is the evidence.

 

[GravelTeeth]

The TV show is the evidence.

Weak.

 

[Limitool]

Yes. Your opinion is noted.

I am old and jaded, and I do plenty of judging, but generally I am not so jaded as to assume people I don't know are deliberately deceiving me, without evidence. Got evidence?

--GT

The brothers have been at this now for 14-15 years now and this is after many others tried the same thing on the same island. Carl is right... the evidence is the TV show itself after all these years with nothing to show for it except there income from TV revenue.

You to assume they are not deliberately deceiving you without evidence is exactly why the show is still alive. I too contribute to it's existence but NEVER would I think they wouldn't deceive me. TV does it all the time... starting with O.I., Blind Frog Ranch, Finding Bigfoot and many many other made for TV shows.

I'm just the opposite of you.... I too am old, jaded and do plenty of judging... but I'm in the camp of... "SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE" after 12 years of the same thing. Do you actually believe they wouldn't on purpose deceive you....?

 

[n2mini]

I don't think they are purposely trying to deceive me/us. Do they now maybe not believe there ever was or is a treasure in the money pit? Possibly. They are still searching, it's not like if they found something they wouldn't tell us. That is the definition of deceive right there... They find stuff all the time and maybe embellish what it is or when/who it might have come from.. There's no right or wrong to that as no one knows the true answer so you have to take it as their opinion of course... Yes, they do always (especially Jack Begley) reference every little item found to the money pit treasure/depositors.. I've learned to not pay attention to that and just take the little item found as it is..

 

[Carl-NC]

Although deception might play a part, the ultimate purpose of the show is entertainment. Specifically, "reality entertainment." The ingredients for this are drama, conflict, and intrigue. The activities on the show are designed around these ingredients against a backdrop of looking for buried treasure. The activities are not designed to actually find or recover treasure, and the show itself is the evidence of all this. If they actually made a serious attempt at finding buried treasure, it would not last all that long and would probably make for a boring show that could not sell 30 second ads. It is what it obviously is.

 

[GravelTeeth]

Carl is right... the evidence is the TV show itself after all these years with nothing to show for it except there income from TV revenue.

The activities are not designed to actually find or recover treasure, and the show itself is the evidence of all this.

My first thought is that I find it odd how much negativity the show generates. Considering that its topic is not a competition between individuals or teams, it's not like people are picking personalities or sides and getting caught up in all that human conflict element. The conflict in this reality show is just the protagonists against circumstances. But somehow a show about looking for something on an island has generated a cottage industry in cynicism. There's whole monetized youTube channels that exist just to mock the show and portray it as fake. That's a lot of energy spent with a destructive motive.

Let's break it down a bit: the show is firmly in the reality TV genre. It suffers from some of those reality tropes: too much of trying to catch us up on prior episodes, too much preview of what's about to happen, kinda dumbing down the content for the masses, etc. Now there's been some notorious examples of other reality shows turning out to be scripted, I'm aware. But it does not follow that therefore every reality show is scripted. That would be the "hasty/faulty generalization fallacy".

First we should differentiate between some of these entangled concepts. You can be skeptical that there is a treasure trove to be found (and thus that the Laginas or anyone will ever find such). You can be skeptical about the Money Pit origin story. You can be skeptical that the reality show TCoOI is unscripted, and that its protagonists are actually trying to find anything. It's only this last one I'm going to tackle at the moment, though for some of you, I think your skepticism in one area biases you to be skeptical in the others.

Now let's agree on some definitions. When someone claims that TCoOI is "scripted", they mean that someone on the production end of things is writing up a document that says something along the lines of "for this episode, we are first going to have Gary Drayton find a wrought-iron spike at the south end of Lot 5, and then we will cut to the Money Pit where we will have a large hammer grab-full of wood rising up out of shaft such-and-such and lots of reaction takes, then after the first ad-break we will have Fiona Steele find a Venetian trade bead before heading back to the slicing table to watch the lads dissect the latest tube bag and find three splinters of Hawaiian sycamore." A shooting script. It details in advance which "scene" will precede which, where the cameras will be, which on-screen "talent" will be in each shot, etc. The whole thing spelled out. By necessity it will mean that the producers guide the plot and that there can be no surprises because it is all planned in advance. Right?

And you'd agree that the premise of the show is that there is a group of interested people who are searching for a trove of valuables on this island. And you'd agree that the conceit of the format is that the cameras are supposedly tagging along documenting what happens in real time as these folk do their thing. So that when someone claims "activities on the TV show are not designed to find treasure" (Carl-NC), then by definition they are accusing the on-screen folk and the production team of deceit, yes? Because in that case we were given a premise that is inherently and knowingly false. There's really no other way to parse that statement.

So when I ask for evidence, pretend I'm the judge and jury in your civil liability case. You've been sued for libel. Your accusations against the show gained traction and resulted in a reduced audience for the show, and therefore a decrease in revenue. You could be on the hook for actual and punitive damages. The primary defense to a charge of defamation in American jurisprudence is truth: you might not be liable if the statements made were true, so now you must prove that they are true. Got evidence? Go.

If you respond "the show is the evidence" ... congratulations, you've lost the case. A monetary judgment will now be rendered against you.

Here's a little thought experiment. For a moment, put aside your cynicisms and just imagine how it would proceed, given the following: there is a historical search, that has rendered no treasure; a new group wants to take up the same search; we don't know in advance whether there is treasure to find; the new group agrees to be filmed by a TV production company who airs the footage as an episodic show; the show is popular and profitable; over the 12+ year run of the show, the treasure is not found; there is no scripting, and the protagonists are free to direct the search the way they want, they just simply fail, perpetually. When you hit play in your mind and watch this scenario spool out, how does it differ from what we have on TCoOI? If you can't articulate any substantive ways in which this would be distinguishable from what we actually see, maybe it's time to reconsider why you feel compelled to make those cynical assumptions.

Multiple things can be true at once. A bunch of people can be looking for something that may or not be there. A documentary production of the search can be quite profitable. The group may find something or they may find nothing. The idea that the failure to find therefore proves the premise was a lie from the beginning is a non-sequitur. Sometimes grand plans just fail. Maybe most of the time. It's weird that given no other evidence, this should have to be argued for, and that people prefer to believe in plots and schemes.

Do you actually believe they wouldn't on purpose deceive you....?

Sure, any given entity made up of humans -- given the right combo of pressure and enticements -- could and would deceive. The question is, did this entity do so, and if so, what evidence is there of this act? That's all. There's an old saying, supposedly memorialized on plaques in places like the Jet Propulsion Lab: "In God we trust. All others bring data." Bring me your data. I mean, maybe I have missed something out there that would convince me. But so far I've seen nothing, and I don't think that you can sway me to believe that after 12+ seasons there's never been an intern, production assistant, cameraman, SOMEONE who left the show and wouldn't have been motivated to spill if it were truly the case. I'm not apt to join in casual defamation in the absence of proof.

--GT

 

[Carl-NC]

I never said that COI was scripted. Probably the stuff they find is relatively unscripted, but the reactions by people when shown the items? I would be surprised if a lot of that isn't somewhat scripted, or at least discussed and rehearsed before taping. In any case, it doesn't really matter. COI presents itself as a reality show of people really looking for a treasure. Given that so many "reality shows" are fake, this will naturally bring the naysayers out of the woodwork. It doesn't help that the activities on the show don't seem to be much related to a serious treasure hunt, or that a lot of the expert opinions should be accompanied by a Harpo Marx clown horn. And don't expect anyone to let the beans out of the bag -- no doubt they have all signed an airtight NDA and would face serious legal consequences.

It is what it obviously is.

 

[Limitool]

Agree Carl... The reactions are not "normal" and many are "on cue".

 

[TruthbeTold]

I never said that COI was scripted. Probably the stuff they find is relatively unscripted, but the reactions by people when shown the items? I would be surprised if a lot of that isn't somewhat scripted, or at least discussed and rehearsed before taping. In any case, it doesn't really matter. COI presents itself as a reality show of people really looking for a treasure. Given that so many "reality shows" are fake, this will naturally bring the naysayers out of the woodwork. It doesn't help that the activities on the show don't seem to be much related to a serious treasure hunt, or that a lot of the expert opinions should be accompanied by a Harpo Marx clown horn. And don't expect anyone to let the beans out of the bag -- no doubt they have all signed an airtight NDA and would face serious legal consequences.

It is what it obviously is.

I beleive the show is scripted like other fake reality shows on cable.

Each episode follows the exact same format and order of sequence.

It’s especially funny when they find a “bobbydazzler” on an episode that may change the history of the world and then the item is never mentioned again.

 

[GravelTeeth]

I never said that COI was scripted.

Granted, you did not. It's been stated by others in the "it's fake" camp in several other threads, so I put it under the same umbrella.

BTW, "cast" members readily acknowledge that they do occasional on-the-spot recreations if they did not get adequate footage in the actual moment of discovery, or, I'd imagine, if there were other imperfections (lighting angle, lens flares, extraneous noise ...). Rather than diminish my view of the production, this honesty actually enhances it.

Also, there are treasure skeptics in the Lagina group. Laird Niven, for one.

--GT

 

[n2mini]

Of course the show is atleast somewhat scripted. Like any other show they have to take multiple shots/takes on some stuff. Wording gets changed, ideas pop up about saying this or that.. As they metal detect and find something then start filming with certain cast members etc.. Do you really want to watch Gary metal detect for half the show and NOT find something. You think there is talk on here about the show being boring, imagine it then.. Same as with the War Room talks. Everybody is ready for what their part is to say to speed it along and no dead space of who's talking next who else has something to say...

 

[GravelTeeth]

Of course the show is atleast somewhat scripted.

I tend to think not, at least in the way you mean it. I know it might sound silly to say "this reality show among them all is different" but I actually think it may be. As others have noted the Laginas were already well into their personal investments and efforts on O.I. before the show existed. Kevin Burns (creator) visited them in Michigan [1] to pitch his idea, and at first he was rebuffed. Rick Lagina, in particular, was not keen on the idea of being on camera, etc. Over time they were persuaded. I'm thinking, though, that a guy like Marty Lagina, who had a very successful business life way before O.I., is not the type to be someone else's marionette, and would probably push back on having their daily agenda be at the mercy of an imposed script. Perhaps it's naive, but I think they literally just do their own thing and let the cameras tag along, with some accommodations to the showrunners like the aforementioned reshoots. Yeah, I'm sure they coordinate well for something like a war room meeting, but that's not the same as "next we will pan over to Jack for the following snippet of brilliant dialogue". What we see in the final product, with perfect framing and focal length and all, is largely the result of editing tons of footage in post production.

Writing credits are for things like the voice-over narration.

I've no inside info, though, and am only a fraction of the way into my quest to consume all the peripheral media, so of course I could be wrong. It would be great if someone on the production crew would chime in here, but I won't get my hopes up. Perhaps over time the show has evolved more into one vein than the other. If I'm mistaken, pretend you are from Missouri and show me.

1. The Secret Treasure of Oak Island by D'Arcy O'Connor (2018), chapter 21

--GT

 

[Limitool]

I tend to think not, at least in the way you mean it. I know it might sound silly to say "this reality show among them all is different" but I actually think it may be. As others have noted the Laginas were already well into their personal investments and efforts on O.I. before the show existed. Kevin Burns (creator) visited them in Michigan [1] to pitch his idea, and at first he was rebuffed. Rick Lagina, in particular, was not keen on the idea of being on camera, etc. Over time they were persuaded. I'm thinking, though, that a guy like Marty Lagina, who had a very successful business life way before O.I., is not the type to be someone else's marionette, and would probably push back on having their daily agenda be at the mercy of an imposed script. Perhaps it's naive, but I think they literally just do their own thing and let the cameras tag along, with some accommodations to the showrunners like the aforementioned reshoots. Yeah, I'm sure they coordinate well for something like a war room meeting, but that's not the same as "next we will pan over to Jack for the following snippet of brilliant dialogue". What we see in the final product, with perfect framing and focal length and all, is largely the result of editing tons of footage in post production.

Writing credits are for things like the voice-over narration.

I've no inside info, though, and am only a fraction of the way into my quest to consume all the peripheral media, so of course I could be wrong. It would be great if someone on the production crew would chime in here, but I won't get my hopes up. Perhaps over time the show has evolved more into one vein than the other. If I'm mistaken, pretend you are from Missouri and show me.

1. The Secret Treasure of Oak Island by D'Arcy O'Connor (2018), chapter 21

--GT

"this reality show among them all is different" but I actually think it may be."

Agreed... This show was not based on a hoax... but it turned into a con over time. This meaning they'll do about anything to keep the cash cow alive and they do. Wild new theories, possible new treasures and artifacts from the "original depositors" all. The verbiage describing the connects and the narrator all sound silly now. That's why I personaly watch the show is to see/hear how they make each connection back to the original depositors. Depositors of WHAT...? There "treasure vault" discovery on the edge of the swamp is probably an outhouse base...?