[music playing]
[heavy machinery backing up]
TERRY: Try taking those boulders out.
I think it ends right here.
Seems to end.
Yeah.
NARRATOR: It is an exciting time on Oak Island--
That's the end of it right there.
NARRATOR: --as Rick Lagina, Craig Tester,
and geologist Terry Matheson continue to unearth
new and possibly important wooden
structures at Smith's Cove--
structures that might help them solve a 223-year-old treasure
mystery once and for all.
They got to the bottom of it?
TERRY: No.
This one here-- these ones go much deeper.
You see how it's laid back up?
Yeah, it's all tilted this way.
Do you see that?
Right there.
See the opening?
Yeah.
NARRATOR: Two days ago, the team uncovered
what could be a piece of a stone box drain,
one of five that are believed to feed seawater
into the Money pit, thus protecting it
from would-be treasure hunters.
But today, while continuing their careful excavation
of the area, Rick and the team were
stunned to find yet another mysterious wooden structure.
TERRY: Looks like we have something there, Rick.
RICK: No idea how deep that is, eh?
TERRY: Got no feel for it yet.
RICK: I mean, you wouldn't think it'd just be one single wall.
Either there's another wall here,
or there's one over there.
Like--
It had a structure like that, didn't it?
RICK: Yeah. TERRY: Or was it--
More like an L.
TERRY: An L, so is that probably--
This wall, and then headed straight
for the U-shaped structure.
Yeah.
This is the L-shaped structure here, right like that.
NARRATOR: The L-shaped structure?
In the early 1970s, while conducting
his own extensive investigation of Smith's Cove,
veteran treasure hunter Dan Blankenship
built a 400-foot wide coffer dam made
of earth and large boulders.
After pumping the cove dry and beginning to excavate it,
Dan uncovered not only the massive U-shaped wooden
structure, but also a second formation
running parallel to it made of wood and small stones.
The unusual, 50-foot long feature
appeared to be laid out in the shape of an L.
However, before Dan could fully expose
the so-called L-shaped structure,
a massive storm washed the coffer dam
away, forcing the operation to be halted indefinitely.
Could the wooden structure the team
has just unearthed be connected to the L-shaped structure
in some way?
Does anybody have a clue on the use
of the L-shaped structure, or what it might have been?
No.
CRAIG: We're not sure.
Not at all.
Just another structure we know nothing about.
Whoever did this went to a lot of work.
I'm wondering, as we expose it, was it an abortive attempt?
Was it just too much work for the result
that they were attaining?
RICK (VOICEOVER): This is gonna be a very interesting
enterprise trying to figure out what the L-shaped structure
represents.
TERRY: Oh, look at that.
Oh, looked like it might be packed, doesn't it?
Lot of clay up against, it looks like.
It looks like they might have packed clay.
Look at that.
This is not the good stuff, though.
It's quite granular.
Yeah.
Yeah, look.
There's a lot of rock in it, too.
They might've just used what they had on hand.
CRAIG: I don't know if they drove it into the sand
and then took rocks up against it.
RICK: Sure seems that way because I mean,
it's an inordinate amount of rock.
Looks like they tried to pack it.
Similar construction.
That is a lot of clay.
TERRY: It's definitely a clay-rich till.
You know, if one of the searchers
felt they are outside of the old coffer dam,
and it was mainly sand, they drove it into sand
a little bit then start--
RICK: But to what end, Craig?
It's an open-ended structure.
It's not connected to anything.
If this is some sort of water prevention system or water
infiltration prevention, then, like, why couldn't the water
just come round that end?
Or this one?
CRAIG: Yeah.
I don't know.
I agree.
RICK: The more work we put into this, the more
and more questions there are.
Yeah.
U-shaped structure, Billy's Wall.
Now we have this.
We were hoping to get answers down here.
I was.
Welcome to Oak Island.
Let's keep digging.