In this video, we’re going to take a look at the developments that took place in Season
7, Episode 21 of ‘The Curse of Oak Island’. But first, I’d like to ask you to please
subscribe to this channel, which you can do for free by clicking the Subscribe button
below. Season 7, Episode 21 of ‘The Curse of Oak
Island’ begins in the War Room, where geoscientist Jeremy Church reveals the results of the seismic
survey of the eastern half of Oak Island conducted by Eagle Canada in Season 7, Episode 6. Church
shows the treasure hunters a representation of the subterranean makeup of the Money Pit
area and points out a 13’x13’ anomaly located at a depth of 160 feet. He calls this
feature the “Teardrop”, and reveals that the H8 shaft intersected its southern end.
The narrator then reminds us that the original Money Pit was said to have a diameter of 13
feet, and attempts to equate the Teardrop with the Chappell Vault, which H8 is believed
to have grazed and possibly pushed to the side.
If this scene gave you a sense of ‘déjà vu’, there’s a good reason for it. Back
in Season 6, Episode 3, Jeremy Church showed Rick and Marty Lagina similar diagrams based
off of seismic survey data collected in Season 6, Episode 1. In that episode, Church pointed
out a 10-foot-tall anomaly in the Money Pit area which lay at a depth of 160 to 170 feet-
essentially, the same feature as the “Teardrop” anomaly introduced in this episode. This formation
appeared to be a cavern in the hard limestone, the edge of which Borehole H8 apparently clipped.
Oak Island Tours Inc. searched for this supposed cavern via exploration drilling in Season
6, Episode 4. Although their first hole apparently missed the target, a second drillhole, dubbed
H7.5, yielded fragments of possible coconut fibre and pieces of wood which might have
been hewn with an axe at a depth of 170 feet. In Season 6, Episode 12, Mike Roberts and
Joey Rolfe of Divetech Ltd. attempted to subject the H8 cavern to a sonar scan by lowering
a sonar scanning device and a camera-equipped ROV into H8. At a depth of 170 feet- the bottom
of the alleged cavity- the scanner picked up what appeared to be the right-angled corner
of a void. Before the operation could be completed, both the scanner and camera malfunctioned
and the ROV filled with water, these frustrating setbacks becoming the most recent additions
to a long list of unexplainable equipment failures on Oak Island.
After the revelation of the Teardrop anomaly, Rick Lagina, Doug Crowell, Billy Gerhardt,
and Scott Barlow meet with botanist Dr. Roger Evans of Acadia University at the Eye of the
Swamp. There, the treasure hunters show the scientist the largest of the three oak stumps
unearthed in the area in Season 7, Episode 16. Dr. Evans extracts some bark from the
stump and promises to examine it at his lab, remarking that the ease with which he removed
the material reminds him of cork oak, a tree native to Portugal. The narrator proceeds
to suggest that Portuguese explorers, or perhaps the Portuguese Knights of Christ- groups around
which various Oak Island theories revolve- may have planted cork oak trees on Oak Island
for some purpose. Scott Barlow then discloses that he has always believed the mysterious
canopy oak trees which once grew on Oak Island were intentionally planted as markers by the
original treasure depositors. The next day, the Oak Island crew meets in
the War Room with Lee Lamb and Richard Restall, the children and siblings, respectively, of
former Oak Island treasure hunters Robert and Bobby Restall. Lee tells the treasure
hunters about an incident which took place during her family’s Oak Island tenure. As
Lee tells it, Robert and Bobby Restall’s first operation on Oak Island was the excavation
of a trench on Smith’s Cove. On the morning following their first day of digging, the
Restall father and son found their trench filled with water. Floating on the water’s
surface was an oak leaf and a cluster of acorns. For some reason, Robert Restall formed the
opinion that the leaf was not from one of the so-called “canopy oaks” for which
the island was named, but rather a piece of the mysterious coconut fibre-eelgrass filtration
system believed to prevent the Smith’s Cove box drains from becoming flooded with sand
and debris. “It was part of the filtration system,” Lee says, “and it was coming
from underneath. They used eelgrass, coconut fibre… and sometimes branches.” Lee then
presents the treasure hunters with two envelopes, one of them containing leaf in question, which
the Restalls had pressed so as to preserve it, and the other containing some of the acorns
which Robert and Bobby had recovered from Smith’s Cove.
The next day, the Lagina brothers, Craig Tester, and Dr. Roger Evans meet with Lee Lamb and
Richard Restall in the Oak Island Research Centre. There, the treasure hunters show Dr.
Evans the leaf and acorns with which the Restall siblings provided them during their War Room
meeting. The botanist compares the Restall acorns with local red oak acorns and concludes
that the two derive from different species of oak, conceding the possibility that the
Restall acorns may have derived from a type of oak which someone brought to Oak Island
and planted long ago. When prompted by Richard Restall, Dr. Evans expresses his belief that
the Restall acorns could not have floated across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe or Africa
due to their poor resistance to the deleterious effects of salt water. Unfortunately, the
botanist declares that it is unlikely the team will be able to extract any DNA from
the Restall acorns for identification purposes due to their advanced age.
Rick and Marty Lagina then drive the Restall siblings to the Money Pit area, where the
rest of the team is preparing to sink a caisson on the Teardrop anomaly introduced at the
beginning of the episode. Rick informs Lee and Richard that the team has decided to name
this caisson ‘RF1’, an acronym for “Restall Family 1”, in honour of the Restall family’s
contributions towards the Oak Island treasure hunt. The team looks on as Lee and Richard
start up the oscillator, initiating the sinking of RF1.
The Fellowship of the Dig resumes the excavation of RF1 the following day. At a depth of 86
feet, the shaft encounters timbers, which Craig Tester suggests are part of the Chappell
Shaft. When the shaft reaches a depth of 100 feet, Gary Drayton begins examining each load
of material removed from the caisson with his metal detector. Following Gary’s preliminary
examination, the spoils are transferred to a wash table, where they are manually washed
and sifted through by Jack Begley and Steve Guptill. At the wash table, Steve Guptill
finds a shard of red pottery. “That’s really old pottery, Steve,” Jack says. “Look
at how thick it is! The thicker, the older, too, and that’s the thickest pottery I’ve
seen at this wash table.” Shortly after Steve’s discovery, Gary Drayton
finds the upper half of an old pickaxe in a batch of RF1 spoils brought up from a depth
of 90 feet. Gary shows Terry Matheson his find before calling over Rick and Marty Lagina.
Gary remarks that this artifact appears to have the same style as the pickaxe he discovered
at the Eye of the Swamp in Season 7, Episode 13, which Carmen Legge, in Season 7, Episode
14, dated from the mid to late 1700s. “It’s a cool artifact,” says Marty of the pick
in a later interview. “I can tell you without going to the venerable Carmen Legge. It was
probably built long ago.” Unfortunately, since the pick was found at a depth of 90
feet, it probably constitutes the leavings of a previous searcher rather than that of
an original depositor. Below the 100-foot depth, the hammergrab brings
up loads of large hand-cut timbers, which the treasure hunters set to the side. One
of these timbers has a wooden dowel protruding from its end, evoking the wooden pegs found
in the U-shaped structure. The artifact’s resemblance to the Smith’s Cove feature
is further enhanced when Gary Drayton discovers what appears to be the Roman numeral ‘II’
carved into the wood. The treasure hunters speculate that this timber and the others
like it might have been left by the original Money Pit depositors and agree to have them
dendrochronologically tested. Before I wrap up this video, I’d like to
give you a little update on the mysterious ring found in the Oak Island swamp in Season
7, Episode 19. As I mentioned in my video on that episode, master goldsmith’s Charles
Lewton-Brain’s preliminary assessment that the ring’s central flower motif was hand
chiseled was challenged in the days following the episode’s airing, when several fans
of ‘The Curse of Oak Island’ posted photos of very similar yet modern-looking rings to
various Oak Island-related Facebook groups. The notion that the swamp ring might be a
modern artifact was bolstered by a Facebook comment left by an expert who has appeared
on ‘The Curse Oak Island’ in the past, noting that one of the fan’s rings, which
bore an uncanny resemblance to the swamp ring, looks “like stamped costume jewelry with
a silvered copper alloy core.” About a week after the first ring owners came
forth with their jewelry, an American Oak Island researcher named John Frick announced
on various Oak Island-related Facebook groups that he had determined the swamp ring’s
manufacturer to be Joseph Esposito, a jewelry manufacturing company established in 1910.
Frick purchased a ring of the same model on Ebay and found that, allowing for tarnish
and corrosion, it was virtually identical to the ring found in the swamp. Although Frick’s
claims initially drew some criticism from fans of the show, an expert who has appeared
on Oak Island in the past came to his defense, writing the following as a reply to his post:
“John Frick did his homework well. Scientific analysis results on the metals that comprise
the ring, performed after the filming wrapped and which I read constantly, pointed to a
unique plating method that was developed after 1930. Knowing this, even though the earlier
opinion that the fabrication method could allow the ring to be much older, it became
obvious this year that it was not. What you don’t often see on TV is the real lag time
in receiving test results. The show tells the story of the hunt, and sometimes test
results come in too late to be of impact to the show.”
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