15: The Legend & Lore of Oak Island

[Music] [Music] n [Music] good evening hello and how the devil are you I'm your host Jamie black and without hesitation this week as we have a lot to cover on this dark and stormy night here in Wales let's set sail into the darkness tonight's subject holds some nostalgic feels for me mainly because I remember initially hearing about this story when I was around 9 or 10 years old going through that phase like most young boys do at around that age I thought of myself as holding all the aspiring attributes of a future pirate a dash in bucaneer who will sail the seven seas relieving the wealthy in the treacherous of the ill begotten Spoils of War and utilizing them for my own nefarious needs plus by my side a sword brandishing pirate with eye patch that matched mine because well Pirates being that age and still naive to the ways of the world I was of course 100% sure that buried treasure was of course still out there undiscovered and and just waiting for me and my parot to come along and claim it for our own so I remember my grandfather taking me to the local library where my gaze was met by a book about real life pirates and they buried treasure so fascinated was I with this book and the stories within and growing more and more aware of the late fees that were mounting up fees no doubt that only bury treasure could settle that I copied the entire book word for word in pencil this was so that I could always have a copy of the stories and one particular story from within the story within and the subject of tonight's Adventure is still to this day unsolved a centuries old mystery that has claimed many lives and bankrupt many others in their search for fortune and Glory tonight's Adventure is the legend and law of Oak Island in research in tonight's episode I utilized a book written by Darcy o Conor titled the secret treasure of Oak Island the amazing true story of a centuries old treasure hunt it's really a fantastic book jam-packed with facts and information from the very beginning of this story and right up to the present day should you wish to know more about tonight's subject matter I highly recommend this book above all others so our Story begins some 224 years ago in Nova Scotia Canada an area kind of northeast of the US state of Maine Oak Island is a small island very very small in fact at only 140 acres and this is where our adventure will take place originally named Gloucester Isle locals have always referred to it at as Oak Island due to the small population of oak trees on the island that interestingly are not indigenous to the area yet no one really knows how they came to grow there the island is sat in an area called Mahone Bay and is only some 660 ft from the mainland with the nearest town being Chester a few miles away to get some bearings the island is around 26 km or 16 Mi Southwest of Halifax the largest city in the county the area is known to have many stories and pirate law in its history and some of that will link into tonight's episode in 1795 a young man I say young man some accounts say he was a teenager whereas others say he was at least 40 years old his name was Daniel McKinnis he spotted strange lights among the Trees of Oak Island and knowing the islands were uninhabited and feeling rather curious he went out to investigate upon arrival at the location that the light seemed to be coming from he came across a small clearing in the woods but no lights strange what he did find though hanging above the clearing was a saof branch that hung from a tree at about 16t above the ground hanging from the branch was an aged and worn ship's pulley and some weathered rope on the ground directly beneath the hanging pulley was a 13t in diameter a circular depression in the in the ground interesting McKenna's first thought was that something was buried here the depression in the ground was clearly where Earth had settled after the digging of a hole and the pulley and rope above suggested something had been lowered into that hole mckinness was Keen to find out more McKinnis returned with two friends the following day John Smith and Anthony Vaughn their first task was to view the depression in the ground from above this was so that they could get an idea of scale from which they were working mckinness climbed the tree and out onto the branch with the pulley right away he could see where the pulley had rubbed on the branch a great deal of wear had occurred indicating that the pulley had been used to lift and lower a large weight indeed so in the center of the depression the three began digging at the Forefront of their minds the whole time was the local legend that somewhere in the vicinity Captain kid the Scottish propheter had buried a significant amount of treasure for safekeeping in the area this place had to be it right the three men got down to 2 ft and they came across a number of flag Stones the stones are laid out flat across the 13t depression they clear all the stones and dig down another 10 ft until they hit another marker closely bound oak logs laid out flat in another 13t diameter circle the logs have clearly been placed accurately as they are fastened into the walls of the shaft securely kind of slotted into the clay walls to hold them in place the three men also noticed chevlin pick marks in the shaft wall from a previous dig convinced Captain kid's treasure is below the boys remove the logs and feverishly continue to dig they dig a further 10 ft and come to another Oak platform which they again remove anyone who's gone through all this trouble must be trying to hide something worth a whole lot they thought once again they dug until they get to 30 ft down and yet again another Oak platform now 30 ft is no small hole and the Three Men start to wonder if this is too much work for just the three of them 30 ft after all is a three-story building in depth by now the A and logs have to be winched out so deep is the hole and for every foot deeper they go the more laborsome the task becomes in 1796 John Smith purchases the land that the hole was on legitimacy to the treasure search and meaning that they could legally search the site although it's a further six years until a dig would resume in 1802 a partner comes on board to help with a dig his name is Simeon Lintz he was the director of the enlo company and what would be the first company to invest time and money into the search for whatever was buried at the bottom of the hole the Enzo company alongside the three men begin their dig by now a lot of the hle has closed back up kep since the three men started their dig 7 years prior but they quickly arrived back at the 30 ft level again and at another firm Oak platform they dig a further 10 ft to the 40 ft Mark and discover another platform of Oak this one appears to be sealed completely airtight and watertight with some kind of clay or putty strange below this marker the team discovered a layer of coconut fiber the fiber was used widely at the time as a packing material on ships and it as it did didn't decay in sea water it was fairly resistant to water and didn't break down as well it always floated to the top what's strange though is that Oak Island is at least 1,500 mil away from the nearest coconut tree so it's unlikely that these fibers have floated all the way to Oak Island evidence that someone has put them there possibly they continue to dig finding Oak platforms every 10 ft until they get to the 90 ft Mark at 50 ft they encountered a stone barrier here with strange marking or code written on the stones but on 90 ft they discover a 500lb stone slab marker the stone slab is about a foot by a foot and a half in size on the underside of the slab was an inscribed paragraph but it was inscribed using an unknown cryptic code of strange symbols to this day the code has never been broken and since around 1910 the stone has completely disappeared it was last seen in a house alifax bookstore allegedly sometime in the 1800s James lii a coding expert from the United States using a substitution decipher stated that the code read at 40 ft below 2 million are buried however this is widely regarded as being heay as substitution codes are at best considered a juvenile level of simplistic even for the time period cryptic codes were popular between 1500 to 1900 as a way of hiding something in plain sight and leaving meaningful messages before the digital age so even the cryptic codes could be fairly complex back then think also that if you go into all the trouble of burying something so deep and difficult to retrieve you aren't going to leave an easily solvable code for anyone to just resolve fairly straightforwardly speculation has also been R around the code over the years in that many believe that the given translation is said to maintain interest in the search but without giving away anything secret that the men searching will not want the greater public to know there was a version of the code published in the mid 19th century which again I personally don't believe is the genuine code from the stone slab I believe at one point IBM analyzed the purported code and they said it almost certainly not the genuine code from the slab and doesn't even translate the vocabulary that was used prior to the 1950s so make of that what you will I personally believe that a fake code was published this would attract investors to The Dig but also keep the momentum up amongst the men working in the pit the real code can be kept amongst those at the top of the Eno company in case the code's meaning is something fairly significant what's important to stress here though is that the actual stone slab with the original Cipher inscribed on it was seen by several hundred people over the years John Smith actually installed the stone slab above his fireplace at home it's just a shame that no one actually invested any time to actually decipher the code choosing instead to greedily dig dig dig something you will see a lot of over the years ahead so anyway the slabstone is removed and the diggers decide to insert a drill bit to probe how far down they still have to dig after 8 ft they hit something hard this excites them as the markers have all been a 10 ft intervals but this was at a random 98 ft they are convinced that this is it 8 ft below a special stone marker with a strange Cipher inscribed has to be it they thought it's getting dark at this point so the men call it a day knowing that the next morning they will have their hands on the treasure the next morning they arrive as eager as they ever have been and as soon as the sun rises surprised and devastated they stare into the pit deflated and defeated water is flooded to the top of the 30ft mark overnight 60 ft of water is poured into the pit from somewhere and the men can't work out how the pit isn't even near the shore so it couldn't have been from the tide there wasn't rain or a storm the previous night so there wasn't a clear explanation of how water got into the pit they were baffled regardless the men needed to start bailing it out and fast they were still determined to retrieve the treasure that day the men used large bail in barrels and proceeded to remove Barrel after Barrel hours go by as they try to remove the water gallons and gallons get poured out no matter how much they try though the water level doesn't seem to reduce at all not even by an inch does the water go down there must be water coming in at the base of the pit somehow the company decided to temporarily shut down operations so that they can regroup and come up with a plan so in the Autumn of 1804 the Enzo pay Carl Moser a steam pump designer a sum of £80 to use a pump that he is designed and develop primarily for the use in mining operations it starts well pumping the water out and back down to a level of 90 ft they go but disaster strikes again and the pump bursts rendering it both unusable and unrepairable temporarily defeated the men go back to their daily lives and back to the drawing board once again so in 1805 a year later they return once again the plan this time is to dig a new pit around 14 ft Southwest of the original pit and then dig across to the original pit once they feel that they are below the water level in the original pit so they digged pit 2 down to 110 ft without any flooding or issue this was 20 ft lower than the original pit across they dig towards pit one and then it comes once again disaster as the second pit floods rapidly with water and with a digging team very narrowly escaping death in the process exhausted out of ideas and out of funds the enlo company folds in 1805 and abandon their treasure hunt it's 46 years until any further action is taken on the island but further action does indeed come the Truro company is formed in 1846 by Anthony Vaughn and Dr David Barnes lint if you recall Anthony Vaughn was one of the original three men who began the very first dig after Daniel mckinnes who is by now dead initially found the pit the Truro company don't Begin work on the pit however until 1849 following three years of planning and research initially the Truro company built a number of neighboring pits in more attempts to Tunnel across to the original but like previously attempted these all fill with water very quickly what the Truro company does not notice however is that the water in the pits Rises and falls with the tide H further to this members of the company walk down to Smith's Cove which is the nearest beach to the pit around 500 ft away they notice that after the tide has gone out there are various points in the sand where water is funneling out it appears to be spouting out from the sand like the island is expelling water somehow so to investigate the truru company erected large metal Coffer around Smith's Cove coffers are walls of metal uses a dam which is in this case to encircle The Cove they are used mainly in construction below water levels and often by the Navy in erecting artificial Harbors by constructing a dam around the Cove they can keep the water out and investigate the Cove where they suspect the water is making its way to the pit as expected this brings further Revelation the Truro company come to realize that Smith's Cove is actually artificial in itself the entire Cove is man-made they also come across an elaborate water inlet funnel system essentially a series of man-made Stone Inlet tunnels that allow water from the ocean to filter directly into the pit the entire thing the pit whatever is at the bottom The Cove is all an intelligent and elaborate Construction it doesn't get more Goonies than this the inlet system has five separate entry points with each measure about 4T X 2T in size so big enough to allow a considerable amount of water in the five pipes all recess down to a very steep 22° angle and converge at a singular Point although the company never actually found where that point was the pipes are layered with clay and studded with pebbles and Beach ston around the interior of the pipes making water flow into them smoothly but also providing support for the funnel system about 17 in into each tunnel there is a coconut fiber filtration system which keeps the sand out but allows only water through remember the coconut fiber doesn't rot or degrade in seawater no sooner have the company discovered all this however then a huge storm destroys the Coffer and the Sea floods The Cove one once again what is very clear to the Truro company is that this is a very sophisticated and well-designed booby trap system to protect something of Great Value whether that's Financial knowledge or power it is clearly cleverly designed by individuals of intelligence and great skill by 1851 the Truro company are convinced they have found the point where all five inlets join and block the connecting tunnel sealing it from incoming water by driving Timbers into the joint Inlet tunnel to their surprise however this makes no difference at all is there another Inlet have they got the right location of the connection tunnel as the water rushes into the tunnel once again one of the last men who evacuated notices an item floating in the Russian water and grabs it just before he gets out the item turns out to be a strange look in painted wooden plate the origin of which are not clear but it's evidence that there is definitely something down there that is man-made unfortunately the Truro company will never know as that same year the trulo company dissolves after funds run out in 1861 the Oak Island Association is formed by Anthony Groves who has legally acquired most of the land by now it's been 10 years since it was last worked on and the pit has completely collapsed in yet again the association gets Right to Work digging back down the pit this time bringing a steam powered pump to help remove water there is unfortunately a tragic accident almost right away when the pump bursts and steam skulls an unknown worker to death what's left of the body is unrecognizable this causes the Oak Island Association to fold almost from the get-go in 1866 the Oak Island Eldorado company forms convinced they have the answer to the riddle of the pit they construct a huge Dam around Smith's Cove with the intent to block all water from having the ability to reach the island and stop the pit from flooding within days of the Dam's completion and before work on investigating the pit and its watered Inlet system can begin a huge storm once again destroys the entire Dam and all the work that the company has put into the pit since they took over so after a year of work on the dam and now of funds the Oak Island Eldorado company goes bankrupt in 1867 thus far nearly $2.5 million have quite literally been sunk into the pit and all treasure handers involved remain at Square One the pit goes by the Monica The Money Pit for the first time for there might be a wealth at the bottom but there is certainly a great wealth being poured into the further excavation of the pit 25 years later in 1893 after a relatively quiet period in Money Pit law comes Fred Blair Blair researches the money pit heavily and tries to gain as much factual information as he can before taking any physical action and spending any money he forms the Oak Island Treasure company the plan is to block the water in the tunnels so that they can dig without water flooding into the pit they dig a new shaft about 30 ft east of the original pit and this floods at 40 ft so this pit is quickly abandoned they then return to the original Money Pit and bring in a steam pum to remove the water they drain the pit and are now at the 97 ft level it is at this point in March 1897 that the pit claims its sack in life when a pit worker by the name of mayard Kaiser is being winched out of the pit and as he's nearing the top falls the length of the pit to his death that's almost 10 stories the death Spooks a lot of other workers and there remains a few weeks of stagnation where no one will go back into the pit superstitious times as it was during this quiet period however the company locate the exact location of the five inl tunnels they drop Dynamite into each one in the hope of caving them in and preventing the water from reaching The Money Pit so work resumes on the pit and a drill is Bored down to 154 ft at which point it hits what seems like concrete or stone then oak then loose pieces of metal so it appears there is a wooden box encased in a cement surround the Box appears to be about 7t thick under the box and cement there is 11 ft of clay before the drill hit solid iron at 170 ft the drill is unable to go through the iron however and that's as far as they can go at this point What's significant here is that when the drill comes back up it has brought with it a small 1-in piece of parchment paper with the letters wi or VI written on it this is analyzed by Harvard University you confirm the paper to be parchment and that the writing was added by quill using Indian ink they are unable to date the paper though in 1898 the company conducted the first dye test on the pit they added bright red dye to the water so that when the tide goes out they can see where it filters from by the coloration in the water this is to ensure they have located and destroyed all the inlets so sure enough the tide goes out and die appears in Smith Cove as expected but also on the opposite side of the island this lets them know there is actually another Inlet they weren't aware of it's at this point in 1900 that the Oak Island Treasure company runs out of money and ceases to exist even though his company has failed Fred Blair continues to lease the land over the next few years Fred would work with several investors who claimed that they had the solution to get in the hands on what was at the bottom of the money pit including a Manhattan lawyer by the name of William Bodwin who had on his staff a young Franklin D Roosevelt who had later become president of the United States he worked a pit for a number of months and followed the progress of the island for the rest of his days just before war broke out he was actually scheduled to return to the pit to pay a visit in 1931 Sophia sales dies and she leaves her land to 12 of her ears Sophia cers was the daughter of Anthony Vaughn who if you recall was one of the three members who originally found the island she was the owner of most of Oak Island her a were not interested in leasing the land of fredbear any longer and just wanted to sell it to get it off their [Music] hands so in 1935 Gilbert hen comes along and purchases the land for $5,000 hen an engineer industrialist from New Jersey is Keen to explore the island when he takes over and while his digs don't amount to much he did make two pretty big discoveries in his time in The Cove at the east of the Island shadam Cove he finds a boulder with Roman numerals for the number two and the letters g i n carved into it further he also finds what became known as the H Stone Slightly North of The Money Pit in its location the HED Stone was a stone Square slab flat on one side with Masonic symbols carved into it hen knew they were Masonic as soon as he saw them because he was a Freemason himself he was also well researched into the Mason's history the symbols on the Rock were a letter h a circumpunct and a Christian cross symbol in Masonic symbology the H represents the Creator while the circumpunct can either mean eternity or the solar system finally the cross refers to the Holy Trinity according to Masonic scholar and 33rd level Freemason Manley P hall the key to all knowledge is contained in the dot the line and the circle of the circumpunct the dot is universal Consciousness the line is universal intelligence and the circle is universal Force by 1941 30 separate tunnels have been dug over 100 B holes to take drill samples and a large amount of dynamiting so work has gone down in fact that the original pit that was dug back in 1795 is now lost and no one is 100% sure of its exact location anymore also at 1941 all work comes to a stop as all available labor is needed for the war effort in 1959 a further attempt at the pit is made by Robert restl business partner KL graer and restall's 18-year-old son Robert junor again not much progress is made however they do come across a small pile of rocks near Smith's Cove piled in a small pyramid formation the top rock has 1704 carved into it in August 1965 while working down a new shaft that they had dug Robert restle succumbed a hydrogen sulfide gas and fell to his death down into the pit seeing this Robert's son Carl Grazer and one of their diing team seral graser all rushed into the shaft and they too would all perish perish due to the deadly gas the island has now claimed six lives this now brings us up to modern times in 1966 following the death of the restol group the lease for the island was quickly taken over by Robert dunfield a California geologist who made his money in the petroleum industry right away he went to work in constructing a Causeway from the mainland to the island this is so that he could bring heavy machinery onto the island and bring it he does several bulldozers and a 70 ton digging crane are brought to the money pit and huge amounts of Earth are removed dunfield digs out the pit to 134 ft in depth and a width of 100 ft pumps are used to keep all water out during the excavation dunfield for all of his bombastic approach does actually make a few discoveries firstly at the Island's Southern Cove dunfield while trying to locate and block the second entry water inlet finds and destroys in the excavation process a large Stone what appears to be a Sextant of some kind or navigational [Music] tool we don't know exactly what it was or for that matter what it looked like as nothing sadly remains any longer further while sinking a bore hole dunfield hits a 2ft thick wooden beam before the drill bit identifies a 42 ft cavity or Cove this is at 140 ft bath the surface so the initial thoughts are that there is wood or an artificial seal into the cavity be it man-made or natural that is supported so there's almost certainly a man-made element to this cavity even if it is just a reinforce a natural expanse the core sample hits metal at the cavity floor however in August 1966 dunfield's lease runs out and a further excavation is halted in January 1967 a new team take over the picture they called the Triton Alliance led by Dan blanken Ship a construction engineer from Miami Beach in Florida Blankenship was actually one of the investors of the previous team led by Robert dunfield but blankin ship was quite critical of dunfield's methods and he had his own ideas he was backed by a multi-millionaire investor by the name of David Tobias so they very much had Deep Pockets to work with blanken ship's first task is to drill 65 bore holes all over the island in doing so a number of discoveries are made in the way of Fine China Oak cement and charcoal all at depths of between 160 to 200 ft they have the oak carbon dated which gives a year of 1575 as its creation date pollen samples taken from the B holes also return a carbon date of around the same time so the team have confidence in their estimations they also recover a set of Spanish American scissors which the smithsonia museum ES estimates were from around the mid 1600s also at Smith's Cove they find a stone that is fashioned into the shape of a heart they believe this to be a marker hearts and turtle shaped Stones were common markers used by Pirates and propers throughout the 16th and 17th centuries they would place them to be able to identify a location or tell others of a location of items that they had buried for safekeeping there is a well-known story of a heart-shaped Stone being used in the discovery of a stash of Captain kids treasure in Haiti several piles of stone were also found in Smith's Cove which hadn't been seen before and beneath each pile was some strange kind of black ash which they didn't recognize so they sent the Ash off to be analyzed after the results came back they discovered that the ash was actually ground burnt human bones but possibly the most important and biggest find came when they drilled borle 10x at 230 ft they decided to send a camera down to see what was down in the cabern on the camera they identified two wooden chests with handles on each side an Axe and a severed human hand they conduct a second camera drop into the same shaft and this time they see two tunnels leading out of the cavern and slumped in the corner believed to be pickled due to the saline and lack of oxygen a appeared to be a dead human slumped over potentially standing guard by now it's 1971 and for the first time in a great many years real progress seems to be being made however between then and the mid 1990s there was a great deal of disagreement on how the team should progress and any progress essentially grinds to a halt once again there is also a feud between the Triton Alliance and a surveyor by the name of Fred Nolan which goes on throughout this period and results in many code cases and legal battles which gets in the way of the progress so who is this Fred Nolan Nolan first came to Oak Island in the early 1970s a land surveyor by trade who hailed from Halifax Nova Scotia Nolan grew more and more interested in Oak Island with the more stories and law that he had hear Nolan was levelheaded however and more of a thinker than any of the treasure Hunters that had come before him he studied old maps and investig every story and legend about the island that he could find he requested permission from the tritan lines to access the island and take part in the Treasure Hunt but he was denied failing that he notified them that he was a qualified and experienced land surveyor and offered to survey the entire Island for free the Triton Alliance granted him permission to do this as it had never been undertaken before tension Rose between Nolan and the Triton Alliance grew in the late 1970s when Nolan noticed some anomalies in the land purchasing paperwork and discovered that Triton didn't actually loan the land that they thought they did so Nolan craftily bought up the land on the island himself and thus began a legal war that would go on for nearly 30 years today blanken ship owns a 50% share in the island along with newcomers Rick and Marty legina it's the Lenas through their Michigan group who continue to search the location for what's buried at the bottom of the Money Pit to this day no one knows for sure what's at the bottom of the pit there are many theories but no evidence as yet during the 224e search to date it is only Fred Nolan who has researched and attempted to decipher the clues and codes left on the island unfortunately much of what Fred deduced went to his grave with him when he passed away in 2016 unfortunately since the discovery of the pit man's greed has fueled his lust for Treasure and riches and and completely overtaken any rational approach or intelligent thought on how to overcome the complex system that Lies Beneath the surface of Oak Island what's certain is that over $15 million have been spent trying to reach the bottom possibly more wealth that is even at the bottom of the pit during the 19th century Word of Mouth got around that a curse had been placed on the island by whoever built a pit and that curse stipulated that seven must die before the mysteries of The Money Pit will be solved well as we stated earlier thus far only six men have died in the search of buried treasure at this point so what are the most realistic theories of what might be down at the bottom of the money pit aside from the usual suspect featuring aliens the lost city of Atlantis King Arthur and numerous other fast Legends of the crazy and unlikely there are actually a few credible contenders to the law Pirates so as fantastic as this might sound buried pirate treasure being at the bottom of the pit is a very strong Contender early theories that were spoken of in the area attributed the treasure as being that of Captain kid the world famous Scottish Privateer who Legend has it used Oak Island as a community bank with Legendary Pirate John Avery further Tales have stated that one of black Beer's largest treasure Halls could also be buried on Oak Island for Blackbeard the pirate stated that where he buried his loot only him and Satan will ever find it given the time period it has also been suggested that the pit was created by the British with Naval Marines dig in the pit to store the loot acquired from the British invasion of Cuba in 1762 valued at about1 million pounds of loot back then or about 180 million in today's value this would certainly be a valuable sum to find William Shakespeare in his 1953 book The Oak Island Enigma author pen liri wrote that the pit was used to hide manuscripts indicating that Francis Bacon was the real author of William Shakespeare's works and also a leader of the rosac crucians a spiritual and cultural movement that arose in the 17th century Europe for me this Theory doesn't hold that much water however Shakespeare was indeed popular at the time of his death in April of 1616 however he was certainly not regarded in the category higher than most others in fact according to the British Council of culture it wasn't until the mid 1700s that the reputation of Shakespeare became one of General Universal Acclaim and by this point carbon dayon has indicated that the money pit would have already been constructed and possibly for some time so what has Shakespeare's reputation and wide regard Got to Do With The Money Pit well if there was indeed evidence at the bottom of the money pit proven that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays then there would have had to have been speculation enough that Shakespeare didn't write his plays further and as We Know The Money Pit took some time expertise knowledge and intelligence to create do you think such resources would have been spent to hide the fact that a playwright considered at the time to be just one of a crowd would have been likely would Francis Bacon have been this presumptuous all this aside of course it wasn't until 184 48 that Joseph P Hart First questioned Shakespeare's authorship he was the first to do so at a time when to question famous authorships was fairly common place to name just a small few both Homer's epics and the Christian Bible were two other works where literary Scholars challenged their true authorship the Knights Templar like the speculation of pirate treasure I think this is an outcome that holds significant credence the Knights Templar were a Catholic Christian military order founded in 1119 they were created by a French Knight who fought in the Crusades created with the support of King Baldin of Jerusalem the reason for the creation was originally as a protectorate of Christian pilgrims making their way to the Holy Land which was often fraught and dangerous and littered with Bandits as they became more established the Templars as well as given protection to pilgrims also founded possibly the world's first bank in system pilgrims would deposit their wealth at one of the many European Templar locations and be given a ticket this ticket would guarantee their deposit pilgrims could then travel without the fear of being robbed and cash in the ticket at other Templar locations such a success was the system that the knight's Templar would become one of the wealthiest organizations in the world accountable only to the Pope in 1307 King Philip IV of France who was heavily in debt to the Templars had many of the Templars rounded up arrested and tortured into giving false confessions this would lead to many of the order being burned at the stake Pope Clement V would officially order the disbandment of the Templars in 13312 but many escaped initially to Scotland which had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church there are numerous Legends and stories that have been handed down through the generation ations that say the Knights Templars may have also escaped to other parts of the world in a vow to protect their holdes of artifacts knowledge treasures and mystical items one of the locations they were rumored to have also fled to is what is now Nova Scotia which interestingly means New Scotland a few of the artifacts that were swore to protect of course was the Holy Grail the cup of Christ from The Last Supper that caught his blood while he was nailed to the cross further and after taking it under the protection from the Temple of Solomon was the Ark of the Covenant a solid gold chest which was said to hold God's ten commandments amongst an array of fantastic powers to whoever possessed it what do you believe sits beyond the booby traps lurking in the darkness between the Sands of Oak Island whatever it is remains there to this day entwined in a system that has baffled men for over 200 years and who knows knows maybe we will have to see the death of one more man as the legend goes before we will uncover the Island's answers and Mysteries thanks for listening tonight everyone we'll be back soon so make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode this week we're also launching the first of our midweek short episodes that we will called the midweek mosum 10 to 15 minute short stories and current events in the media hopefully you'll come back and check those out with us anyway find us on Instagram _ Souls podcast for daily Mysteries and dark history and of course podcast updates and check out our patreon for cool extras and rewards at patreon.com for/ dead Souls so take care of yourselves everyone and sleep tight and remember stand f as you enter the darkest night