For Sale: Island with Mysterious Money Pit [Oak Island]

LiveScience ^ | 11/7/05 | Heather Whipps

[ZGuy]

It may look like a fixer-upper at first glance, but what is buried beneath scrubby little Oak Island might just make its estimated $7 million price tag worth the investment.

Oak Island, in Nova Scotia, is famous for its Money Pit, a mystery that has endured two centuries, claimed six lives and swallowed up millions in life savings.

The Pit was discovered in 1795 by a local boy named Daniel McGinnis who, spotting an unusual clearing in the earth under one of the island's oak trees, was prompted to start digging. The discovery of layered planks, mysterious stone slabs, and mats made of coconut fibers descending deep into the ground turned his casual afternoon dig into an all-out excavation.

Investors and thrill-seekers would eventually jump in and continue the work, kicking off one of the world's longest running treasure hunts.

Complex trap

What appears to be a complex flooding trap has thwarted efforts to reach the bottom of the Money Pit ever since. Some think the pit was purposely flooded with seawater, via a series of artificial swamps and tunnels, to hide its contents.

Through the murk, drill borings and shafts dug by the island's series of owners have detected what seem to be cement vaulting, wooden chests, and scraps of parchment paper. Radiocarbon dating of these artifacts is consistent: whoever constructed the shaft likely did so sometime in the 16th Century.

Speculation about the contents of Oak Island's Money Pit range from the treasure of the Knight's Templar to Shakespeare's original manuscripts.

Oak Island's current owners, Dan Blankenship and David Tobias, have worked on the island since the 1960s, sinking millions of dollars into the project and revealing some intriguing clues of their own. For many who follow Oak Island developments, their abandonment of the treasure comes as a surprise. As recently as December of 2003, Blankenship told the Halifax Herald that he would announce some new, exciting findings in the following months. The revelation never came.

What's it worth?

The treasure's fate -- assuming there is treasure -- now rests on the outcome of the sale. Court-appointed liquidators in Nova Scotia are currently wrapping up the evaluation of Oak Island's market worth, with an announcement expected before the end of the year.

A growing movement led by the Oak Island Tourism Society calls for the governments of Canada or Nova Scotia to purchase Oak Island and exploit its potential as a major attraction. It seems for now the governments have little interest in throwing their hats into the ring of potential bidders, and that has many who've follow the island's saga breathing sighs of relief.

"The ideal candidate would be an individual or group with a genuine interest in and means to carry out professional archaeological work", Mark Finnan, author of "Oak Island Secrets" (Formac, 1997) told LiveScience in an e-mail interview.

Finnan believes Oak Island has not seen the last of the aging treasure-seeker Dan Blankenship, either.

"He has a strong hunch about the nature of the treasure and may yet pass on his findings to the new owners of the land or even participate in a new exploration effort," Finnan said.

[skinkinthegrass]

Oak Island is the LaBrea Tar-Pit of buried treasure dinosaurs.

LOL! :D ...Where's Gary Larson, When he's needed?

[johnny7]

I'm sure it's in the Bible Codes. Look for it to be surrounded by:

S U C K E R

D U M B - A $ $

M O R O N

F O O L S G O L D

[Dead Corpse]

[BoneHead]

Ack!

Touche

[Fierce Allegiance]

A bentonite slurry mix, like that used for slurry wall construction might suffice, but a polymer chemical slurry would be best. KB Technologies has a high-end polymer slurry with an additive that can turn the liquid slurry into a gel in minutes, and it will plug any water-intrusion from screwing up the remaining excavation.

[Senior Chief]

I believe it was collabortively written by both Preston and Lincoln Child, like many of thier other great books.

[Senior Chief]

Spell check dummie!!! ...thEIr... errrrggg

[Alouette]

Do you know if any of Preston/Child books have been made into movies, other than the incredibly sucky film RELIC?

[NavyCanDo]

The Real Story of the hole was probably something totally lame, like - Year around 1614, two snot-nosed boys hiking around the island stumble on a natural vertical hole in the ground. (which happens in nature), and after about a half hour of hawking loogies down the hole they look for objects to toss down it like any boy would, just to see how deep it is and what kind of sound the object makes when it hits bottom. First Grandpas old wooded chest and a rusty pickax the boys used to widen the opening. Then some rocks, dirt, more loogies, then a wooden pickle barrel, then more rocks, some dirt, then a box of nails, some wood, more dirt, more loogies. You get the idea.

[airedale]

I don't think so and I really don't understand why. Most of them would make very good techno thrillers. I just finished Tyrannosaur Canyon. It's not one of their best but it would make a fair to good movie. Lincoln Child's Utopia would make a good movie as well.

As movies I think the best choices would be Thunderhead, Riptide, and possibly The Codex. The other ones with Pendagrast that start with Relic would make fine movies but you'd have to redo Relic properly possibly combining it with Reliquary. The first movie was awful so it would be tough sledding to get Hollyweird to remake it. If you could be guaranteed a decent box office I'd probably make Relic/Reliquary, Brimstone, Still Life with Crows at the same time with the same actors playing the main roles.

I'd also like to see someone make Dan Simmond's Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion into a TV show like Babylon 5.

[Alouette]

RELIC was destroyed by 1) writing Pendergast out of the script and 2) changing the location from NY to Chicago.

[airedale]

They had two separate flooding systems. It required a ton of work to build those. For those who aren't familiar they built a cofferdam across a bay, drained the bay and then dug a series of fan shaped trenches into the bay connected by a tunnel to the shaft. Then the trenches were lined with stone and capped with stone. On top of that was coconut fiber and then fine sand. The cofferdam was then removed and the bay re-flooded. One flooding tunnel went into a bay on one side of the island and the other. They didn't find a triggering mechanism for the flooding. When they hit a certain depth the water flowed in at an enormous rate. I forget how many gph. Of course when your pumping the water out your trying to pump the ocean dry since it constantly refills the bay.

[airedale]

Pendargast is such a neat character. So is his brother, Diogenes. You need them both for most of the following books. Diogenes is Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast's Moriarity. Do you think Pendergast is actually dead or will he be back? The characters in The Codex are back in Tyrannosaurus Canyon so they may have gone as far as they can with the prior cast of characters. Smithback of course being the Douglas Preston character (G)

BTW have you noticed their love of the word preternatural? It's in every one of their jointly written books except Tyrannosaurs Canyon at least once.

[Alouette]

Do you think Pendergast is actually dead or will he be back?

He was not dead at the end of Dance of Death which I think is the most recent of the Pendergast series. I have not seen Tyrannosaurus Canyon, is that a sequel to The Codex?

[airedale]

It uses a lot of the characters from Thunderhead and Codex. One of the Broadbent sons who survived their father. It added a new female scientist who in the end is moved to New Mexico. That signals that she's probably going to be another recurring character.

You're right I was thinking of Brimstone.

Any idea of what they are going to do with Pendergrast's ward, Constance? It would be neat to read the details of their meeting and her early years with the family.

This is the URL for Preston & Child's webpage. http://www.prestonchild.com/default.htm It's a little out of date. They are working on a new book together called Book of the Dead as a follow on to Dance of Death. Apparently Brimstone, Dance of Death and Book of the Dead are to be a trilogy per Douglas Preston.

[Axenolith]

I did one of those (QA/QC part) on a RCRA site back in '97. ~4500 feet long and up to 55 feet deep. Used the bentonite to mix backfill (10^-9 permeability criteria) and keep the trench open.

BTW, throw me on that civil ping list, engineers always need a geologist around... Keeps em honest ;-)

[cyn]

fyi --

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks! I think I'd rather live on this one though:

Completely irrelevant, although one could garden there, if one had the cash (it's for sale):

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Mutton Island Off Atlantic Coast of County Clare, Ireland: The island itself comprises of 185 acres of grassland with a freshwater lake and several springwater wells. It slopes gently from sea level on the east to a height of 110 feet over two kilometers to the west where the watchtower is situated. The east of the island contains the ruins of two cottages, a disused graveyard and the site of a cross and oratory as well as several walled fields.

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[ApplegateRanch]

No trees?!? NEVER!

Besides, the salt air is hell on the arsenal.

Hmmm; 185 acres. 25 for a cow-calf pair; ditto for 4 ewes & a ram. 1 acre for fruit & 1 acre for mixed varieties of grapes. 1 acre for veggies, half in onions, garlic, neeps, & taties.

Second garden to feed the illegal immigrant gardeners...

[SunkenCiv]

I can't wait until you spring that one on the alien gardeners. "You're moving with me to an island off Ireland that is directly exposed to the Atlantic. Oh, by the way, you get to learn how to compost from any dulaman who will consent to teach you. ;')