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. 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.

View: Full Article | Source: Live Science

So the pit is that long that they haven't reached the end yet?

There has been a lot of spectucaltion about what actually is hidden in this pit but whatever it is, the people who created it made sure that nobody gets to it. Even if they don't find anything, I would love to get to the bottom of it.

Let's have a wet 'round.

If I had $7 mil to spare I'd buy it in a minute.

You'd have to think that in the 16th century (1500's) that hiding something on a remote island on a newly discovered continent deep deep under the ground would be a great hiding spot... i don't think someone would go through so much trouble for nothing.

and as well, in order to accomplish such a task in the 1500's one would have to have either deep pockets or high connections.

good point....

thats lots of money!

well... what if the guy was being smart and made decoy holes, and hid the treasure elsewhere on the island. I mean, if i were to bury treasure, i'd make decoy holes, line then up with suspicious material and then laugh at the people digging in the wrong area when i die.

Doesn't the legend state that a certain number of people have to die before the treasure can be found?

Maybe they built all these decoys and booby traps to make you think that the treasure is there. Maybe the whole island is a decoy and he took the treasure to his house. In reality, it's laying right over there by that th.....

^ *gets there before you do*

hey i could buy it my grandparents are millonaires ( they have 40+millon dollars to be exact and maybe i could convince them

also it could be viking plunders they were actullay pretty smart

^^* stabbed by a CIA Agent *

Does anyone know of any actual evidence relating to the initial discovery of the supposed Money Pit? What is the actual evidence that McGinnis and his friends actually found the layer of flag-stones and subsequent layers of oak logs and coconut matting?

As far as I'm aware, all that stuff was "found" during the first two excavations in 1795 and 1804, but no mention of it was ever made until a fund-raising effort almost 60 years later, by which time all those involved were dead. No subsequent excavation has found any evidence of the supposed oak platforms etc. Can anyone shed any light on what may turn out to be a case of blatant lying?

Also, would it be possible to get some details about the radio-carbon dating of recovered artefacts? One of the big flaws in most of the theories about what (if anything) lies at the bottom of Oak Island is the question of time. If something was buried in the 16th century then it is unlikely in the extreme that any immediately visible trace of the pit would survive for McGinnis to discover it between 2 and 3 hundred years later. How fast does your garden get overgrown? The chances of McGinnis spotting a 2-300 year old clearing in the undergrowth are so minute as to make it laughable. My questions then are: a; was the radio-carbon dating carried out by reputable experts and are they available to back up their findings, or was it carried out by some kind of private firm who might well have told their customers what they wanted to hear? and b; were the artefacts dated definitely recovered from the Money Pit (whose location is now completely unknown due to 2 centuries of excavations and bore holes), or were they recovered from uncertain locations?

I'm not a skeptic, I just don't like to believe everything I'm told without questioning it - or does that make me a skeptic?

I would assume whatever is at the bottom of the oak island is concealed in a vault, otherwise it would all be sucked up, and fall victim to the ocean. If it's sealed in, then obviously there is going to be no vegetation inside. When they made the first discoveries, I would assume they kept everything hush hush, and did not jump to conclusions. Later they told the press, when there was obviously no apparant way for them to get to the bottom of the pit. At that point they NEEDED someone in the world with a decent fortune to try and get to the bottom of the pit, so it's secrets had to of been revealed. It's not much different how the government still changes their mind on what happened at Roswell.

The point of my question though is that there is no apparent connection between McGinnis and co who supposedly made the discoveries of platforms etc., and McNally who is (as far as I know) the first person ever to mention. McNally was not even born when the first excavations were taking place, and everyone involved in those excavations was dead by the time McNally told the story. McNally didn't offer any explanation as to how he came by the information, and even went so far as to say that he couldn't say with any certainty what had been found in the early excavations. If we want to be more picky, there's no actual evidence that I know of to show that those early excavations even took place at all. McNally clearly had a very good ulterior motive for making the pit seem as interesting as possible, so there is a very high chance that he was making up all the stuff about oak platforms etc.

My question is not "why might the original excavators have not gone public?", but "is there any evidence of what was supposedly found in the pit prior to McNally's highly suspicious plea for funds?"

As far as I can see, the whole thing looks extremely fishy - take a detached viewpoint, forget pre-conceived ideas, and you can't fail to agree that the whole story is suspicious at best - but any evidence from people who were actually present on those early excavations would alter that considerably. Is there any?

Personally, I have never seen the site, so I cannot make my assumptions. However, I do know that The Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel and In Search Of T.V shows have all gone there and done their documentaries on the location. I would assume they would do their research and get the information thats needed. I do see your point, but I cannot say for sure, perhaps logs were left behind that included the findings. I know that material was found when doing the dig, and whether to see if it was carbon dated to check the validity of it, im not sure, I just assume it was done. It is an ancient historic site, so archaeologists, and universitys world wide would do such tests to have it archived in the history books.

Nope, as far as I know no logs or reports were left by the original excavators, nobody claims to have seen them and certainly nobody knows of their whereabouts today - if they ever existed.

TV companies are notorious for not checking their facts. They want to make an exciting TV show and because they aren't bound by the same requirements of evidence that serious researchers are they are more or less able to say what they like without necessarily needing proof to back it up. McNally told tales about oak platforms and such, everybody believes it without question, that's good enough for the TV people!

As far as I'm aware no archaeological expedition to examine the money pit itself has ever been made. The fact that we don't know where the money pit is any more as I alluded to in my previous post means that scientific study of the pit (if it ever existed) is near impossible.

I'd really like the money pit to be true, which is why I'm hoping someone knows of some decent evidence to support the findings of the early excavations. Without that evidence, sadly, the whole thing looks like a colossal mistake.