We’ll come back. What a fantastic day.

NARRATOR:
The following morning, Marty Lagina joins Jack Begley, Gary Drayton, and members of the team on Lot 8.

MARTY:
Well, it’s time to dig, right, guys?

TEAM:
Yep.

NARRATOR:
After following up with the authorities, they have been granted permission to conduct a 5-foot-deep excavation at the site of the mysterious anomalies.

MARTY:
The OKM says there is an anomaly here at 5 feet and one at 20. But if I can get you down 5, that thing might say something.

GARY:
Oh, yeah. This will get us another five.

NARRATOR:
The GPX 5000—it’s pulse induction, mate. This is Big Bertha.

If they succeed in finding evidence of human activity, they can apply for a permit that would allow for a much deeper investigation.

MARTY:
All right, what do you say we dig?

TEAM:
Yeah. Let’s do it.

GARY:
OK, mate. I’ll get settled.

MARTY:
What I would really like to see as I’m digging is something that is buried there of significance. So obviously, a chamber of some sort would be fabulous—to hit metal, to hit concrete, to hit wood, even.

To find wood here, say, five feet down, would be gigantically significant. It would be hiding something. And of course, every bucket, you’re always looking for signs of treasure.

TEAM MEMBER:
That’s a heck of a lot of rocks.

MARTY:
Or nothing but rock.

GARY:
Yeah, I noticed all those rocks coming up. Looked like someone had filled this area.

All of this here, it all looks like it’s fill. It’s disturbed. It’s just like a paved area. There’s just a big layer of rocks right across this whole area.

MARTY:
Is it disturbed more this way?

GARY:
Yeah.

MARTY:
So I should go that way.

GARY:
Yeah.

TEAM MEMBER:
It’s a pretty big rock. Come out of there. That boulder is a bit like an iceberg, isn’t it?

MARTY:
Yeah. There’s a lot going on down there. Wouldn’t you say it’s almost for sure that’s been dug before?

GARY:
It looks like it’s been disturbed there.

TEAM MEMBER:
Oh. You see all the organics below the boulder. It suggests that somebody dug, then pulled the rock and put it there.

MARTY:
I just know there’s got to be something deeper. Could be an etch. This might lead to something much greater.

Doesn’t look like we’re the first ones out here, for sure.

GARY:
Yeah.

MARTY:
The biggest issue is where did that boulder come from?

If the boulder was placed by human intervention, we’re talking about tunnels or vaults or whatever could be below that.

I think we should dig more around that rock and just go down and see what we got here.

So that’s the plan.

We have a couple clues that what happened here appears to be so extensive, it could certainly have been people hiding treasure.

So I think we have to dig deeper to find what we’re looking for.

TEAM MEMBER:
It’s unique enough to pursue it.

GARY:
That below five feet?

MARTY:
Yeah, I’d say you’re at five feet. Going in.

GARY:
Nope, not hearing anything. Try inside this boulder.

MARTY:
Nope. Quiet as a church mouse.

TEAM MEMBER:
Dang. It was worth a try.

MARTY:
All right, so what does that mean to us in our little treasure hunt here?

I’d like to find something.

The surface metal detecting finds tell us someone’s been here a long time ago.

Some of those finds were old in this area. And although we haven’t found anything today, I mean, we can’t put an X through this spot.

GARY:
Yeah, exactly.

We have an anomaly to report, in the sense that we have black, organic stuff under the boulder.

MARTY:
The deeper one, though—I think we’re at the limit.

NARRATOR:
Although the team has now dug to the 5-foot limit that is possible today, the fact that they unearthed what appears to be a purposely placed paved feature and a massive artificially-placed boulder means that they will need to apply for a more extensive permit in order to conduct a much deeper excavation of the Lot 8 anomalies.

MARTY:
We’ll head back. We need to report to my brother and then decide what else to do here.

TEAM:
All right. Cool.

MARTY:
Scott, will you fill it in?

SCOTT:
Yeah.

GARY:
So let’s go. I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of this place.

JACK:
Yeah, me, too.

MARTY:
Today’s the day, right?

GARY:
I hope so, mate.

NARRATOR:
Marty Lagina and Gary Drayton are investigating Lot 8, where CSR’s land-based magnetometry survey identified a large metallic anomaly earlier this year.

To aid in a more thorough search for clues, the team has recently cleared the area of large trees and foliage.

GARY:
Interesting little area. I’m excited, mate, because I could never, ever get in here. I mean, we’ve cleared it out. Got some flags, mate.

And I think today is going to be a heck of a good day, mate.

MARTY:
What’d you find here?

GARY:
The only thing that we’ve found on this lot was that magnificent garnet brooch.

MARTY:
Oh, back up there. Yeah. Look at that. Oh, man.

NARRATOR:
In addition to the large metallic anomaly that was detected on Lot 8 earlier this year—

RICK:
Rick, we just found a jewel.

GARY:
That’s gorgeous. That is a bobby-dazzler.

NARRATOR:
It was in this very same area that four years ago, Gary and Rick unearthed a semi-precious garnet brooch. A garnet brooch that gemologist Charles Lewton-Brain believed could be more than four centuries old.

GEMOLOGIST:
Now, that is a super ancient way of making wire.

MARTY:
I want to go back and search on Lot 8. We’ve run magnetometers on the island, and there are various anomalies, so we’re going to go have another look because there could be other things there.

And yeah, I want to see. And you never know what’s going to come out of that hole.

GARY:
All right. Well, let’s get after it. Let’s dig these things up.

MARTY:
All right, mate. Let’s go for it. See what we got.

GARY:
All right, mate. Here, see what this sounds like. Just do it again, so I can hear it.

[metal detector beeping]

GARY:
Good two-way repeatable signal. There. It’s just—yeah.

MARTY:
Oh, yeah. Jeez.

GARY:
Weird. It’s a love tree roots, a lot of forest stuff. Mix it in with a few rocks. Quite a thick layer.

MARTY:
I can’t think of a single thing that’s easy for this one. Everything’s difficult.

GARY:
Hey, good things are worth working hard for.

MARTY:
Do that? See where it is. Look at that. Look at that. That’s a big chunk of iron.

GARY:
Look.

MARTY:
Oh, you know what that is, Gary? That’s an old chain, isn’t it?

NARRATOR:
While investigating Lot 8 on the western side of Oak Island, Marty Lagina and Gary Drayton have just made a potentially significant discovery.

It’s a chain of sorts, but it’s not just a series of links. This is one piece with two brackets.

GARY:
That’s unusual, isn’t it?

MARTY:
It’s very unusual. I’ve never seen anything quite like that. I don’t know what it means.

GARY:
Can you shed some light on it? Have you seen anything like that?

Yeah, it kind of reminds me of that piece of chain that comes down to a horse’s bit, maybe. A piece off a bridle.

MARTY:
Well, it explains the angle to it, actually.

GARY:
Yeah. Well, and it’s more significant being here because, like you observed, this was not farmed. It’s not possible.

MARTY:
So why is a horse over here?

NARRATOR:
A possible piece of a horse’s bridle found on Lot 8.

Because the documented history of Oak Island, which dates back to the mid-18th century, only indicates that farmers utilized beasts of burden, such as oxen, to plow fields mostly on the eastern end of the island.

If this object really is a horse’s bridle, then who could have brought it here?

And could it possibly be connected to the garnet brooch that the team found in this area four years ago?

Or perhaps the large metallic anomaly that they plan to excavate as soon as they’re granted a permit.

GARY:
That’s a first. I love it when we find unusual artifacts like this.

You haven’t found a lot of horse stuff on the island, have you?

MARTY:
All kinds of oxen.

GARY:
I’m not quite sure what that means, but it makes it a little bit more unique.

MARTY:
Yeah, that’s why I went towards maybe the bridle bit, I think it’s called.

GARY:
OK.

MARTY:
I bet you’re right. Maybe. Yeah.

Horses are a little bit more upper class, I guess, than oxen.

And that’s massive.

GARY:
Yeah. It could have been one of those great big horses.

MARTY:
Yeah. Conquistadors didn’t come ashore with a little horse.

GARY:
Right. If it’s for a big horse, those were used for big reasons—either war horses or horses that pulled big things.

But the very fact that it’s rare—we haven’t found such things on the island—makes one think that there’s something special about this area.

MARTY:
Nice find, Gary.

GARY:
Yeah, that is really, really cool.

MARTY:
Go find something else.

GARY:
All right. Next flag is just here.