Is "Curse of Oak Island" totally fake or just partially fake?

[zeebo]

I was always intrigued by the mystery of Oak Island, ever since I first came across it as a kid - I believe it was on In Search Of.  This show on History Channel is pretty dorky with the two brothers looking to solve the island's secrets, and looks obviously staged. 

Just wondering if you guys think anything on it is legit, or is it just an excuse to come up with new wild speculations and dead-end discoveries each week to keep people coming back.  The whole thing has an Ancient Aliens ring to it, which does not bode well.

[WhiteCrow]

Current shows on History Channel are pretty dorky. They spend 3 eposodes talking about some next to worthless Spanish copper coin that could of easily been planted. I'm nuts for watching it, but like you, I am familiar with the Oak Island Money Pit legend since I was kid.

More of a mystery, is how much can someone make from these type of shows?

I got an idea for a show... Each week we go out and search for a new Bottomless Hole. (Mels Hole)
That would be more interesting than those two goofs that are looking for Giants, or the 3 a few season back chasing Bigfoot.

[zeebo]

Haha yeah I also end up watching these kinds of shows even with the high dorkiness factor.  Remember that one called MonsterQuest from some years ago?  That had to have been one of the dumbest shows ever, and yet I watched it sometimes. 

There was one where they searched for these "monsters" called "rods" which kept only showing up on cameras for some reason.  One guy was convinced they were interdimensional beings that only the cameras could detect.  Well they milked this ridiculous premise for the whole show until they figured out it was just moths flying by the camera with a slow shutter spead.  Moths.  A whole friggin show.  A show about monsters.  Monster moths.

[FightTheFuture]

Like a lot of other people here, I have always been fascinated by the Oak Island mystery. There is definitely something to it. But as far as the show goes, who knows.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe they consulted with one of the old timers that worked on this thing for many years. I believe his name was Blankenship -- nothing screwy about that guy. He's the real deal.

[Mind Flayer Monk]

The story behind Oak Island is that the Templar were hiding gold here looted from the New World/Crusades?

[PB the Deplorable]

The story behind Oak Island is that the Templar were hiding gold here looted from the New World/Crusades?

The Templars were the first modern bankers - deposit gold with them in France and 'withdraw' it from them in Jerusalem, for a fee.  So a traveler wouldn't lose everything to bandits on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  Those fees and other money they made added up to a lot, and they ended up loaning it out to the nobility and others and charging interest.  At least that's my understanding from watching these History Channel shows

When they fled France, everything including the gold disappeared with them.  So it being buried at Oak Island is one of the theories.  I think that's a recent one from the Ancient Alien crowd.

No one really knows what's down there, but it's quite the engineering puzzle

[coaster]

I am really interested in Oak Island, but the History Channel is garbage. Remember, this is the same station that had staged fights between lumberjacks on the show "Ax Men" and overweight actors on Pawn Stars. Forget learning anything on that channel. The brothers seem ok, but they have the folks at History Channel urging them to do stupid shit for ratings. Planting a coin for instance. Fuck I hate what that channel has become. You can thank Nancy Dubuc, the President and CEO of History, who also owns LMN and a slew of other garbage stations. She would rather get a paycheck making cheaply produced scripted "reality" shows than make an honest genuine television show.
/rant

[Centurion40]

I live very close to Oak Island and have been there, not that there is much to see.  I honestly don't know what to make of the show, although I dig it (no pun intended).  No one around here is really talking about the show much- so, again, I really don't know what to make of it.  I would think that if they REALLY found something of significance, it would make the news... and they haven't made the news.

[VtaGeezer]

I think that the Templar stuff is "hOakum". Knights Templar are a lot more colorful than the dreary Masons, and have become the current go-to-guys for all pre-Colonial conspiracies and lost treasure tales on cable TV.  I think a pirate connection is romantic nonsense too. If there's a treasure there, it's a damned odd place for it.  The only "treasure" that makes sense to me would have been hidden there by Tories who fled to Nova Scotia in the American Revolution. Or some Lunenberg merchant's store of salt cod and turnips.

[albrecht]

I remember this mystery from some books as a kid, maybe "Strange But True?" But I always reckoned the most likely explanation/theory was piracy (buccaneers, freebooters, filibusters or those on there own) burying their loot prior to going into a legit port or for safe-keeping. I never seen the modern show or recall the date when it supposed to be buried but that would make more sense, to me, than Viking/Templars. (Though Viking Hordes are found frequently in Europe and the UK and the vikings did come to America I don't think they brought treasures with them. They were searching for same. But?)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/13/us-britain-treasure-idUSKCN0I20UQ20141013
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/could-roman-gold-found-germany-be-nibelung-rhinegold-treasure-1437223
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140226-gold-coins-hoard-california-discovery-numismatics/

[zeebo]

The oddest thing to me is just all the weird engineering, and mysterious markers.  It's like someone paranoid wanted to hide something so that even if people found out about it, say if some pirate associate spilled the beans, that it would still be impossible to retrieve unless you had the right key, so to speak.

[paladin1991]

Let's ask Jack sparrow.

[zeebo]

Just realized this is a great show to get drunk to.  Since nothing consequential ever happens, and it's just a series of tantalizing but never resolved clues, then you can just drink your beers and surf the web and play that silly Candy Crush game and it just doesn't matter since nothing happens but still you can watch it for a few minutes here and there and catch an intriguing speculation about the Knights Templar or Blackbeard's treasure or Masonic symbols then go back to swillin' cheap beer and no worries you didn't miss anything.

[Juan Cena]

Let's ask Jack sparrow.

Dangit! You've just come up with the plot for the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie! 

[Papa Lazarou]

I just binge-watched seasons 1 & 2. While I personally think that it's just a natural sinkhole, what annoyed me the most was the amount of Templar bullshit included. Basically the idea that Templars were in North America prior to Columbus is a conspiracy theory piled on top of a conspiracy theory. Absolutely zero evidence for any of this, yet these History Channel shows like America Unearthed, Pirate Treasure of Knights Templar and The Curse of Oak Island talk about it like it's some sort of an established fact.

Jason Colavito has a lengthy article about the whole Templar-Freemason-Sinclair-America "theory": http://www.jasoncolavito.com/the-templars-the-holy-grail--henry-sinclair.html

[pate]

Everyone knows that the Knights of Columbus sailed the Crusade gold straight back to Rome/Vatican City where it writefully belonged.

This smoke and hOAKum stuff...

Pure entarTAINTment.

[Centurion40]

What I've never understood, regarding the swamps and other spongy ground, it why they don't dig during the deepest winter when a lot of it would be frozen.  They could even artificially freeze the ground to help facilitate digging without flooding.

I guess that it is better for the film crew to work while the weather is not freezing cold.

[Richard Groyper]

What I've never understood, regarding the swamps and other spongy ground, it why they don't dig during the deepest winter when a lot of it would be frozen.  They could even artificially freeze the ground to help facilitate digging without flooding.

I guess that it is better for the film crew to work while the weather is not freezing cold.

No thoughtful questions allowed!

[Centurion40]

My bad!

[VtaGeezer]

This smoke and hOAKum stuff...

Pure entarTAINTment.

That's my take. And the guys running the treasure hunt are much better than the typical clowns that History Channel picks as the subjects of reality shows, like gold miner clowns who stumble from one industrial disaster to another.

[Papa Lazarou]

They are probably going to "run out of money" at some point sell the island to the next sucker for a nice profit.

[zeebo]

They are probably going to "run out of money" at some point sell the island to the next sucker for a nice profit.

At this point the reality tv rights are probably worth more than whatever's actually buried there.   

[ItsOver]

I am really interested in Oak Island, but the History Channel is garbage. Remember, this is the same station that had staged fights between lumberjacks on the show "Ax Men" and overweight actors on Pawn Stars. Forget learning anything on that channel. The brothers seem ok, but they have the folks at History Channel urging them to do stupid shit for ratings. Planting a coin for instance. Fuck I hate what that channel has become. You can thank Nancy Dubuc, the President and CEO of History, who also owns LMN and a slew of other garbage stations. She would rather get a paycheck making cheaply produced scripted "reality" shows than make an honest genuine television show.
/rant

It really sucks with what's happened to the History Channel, much like what's happened to the Weather Channel.  Complete garbage.  Man, I miss those cool shows about Nazis and WWII.

[zeebo]

It really sucks with what's happened to the History Channel ...

Ancient Aliens brought the Curse of Jorch upon them.

[ItsOver]

Ancient Aliens brought the Curse of Jorch upon them.

Where Jorch goes, suckage follows.

[pate]

They are probably going to "run out of money" at some point sell the island to the next sucker for a nice profit.

I love how Franklin DeLOANer (sp) Roosevelt was one of the long list of rubes...

rofl ediot: ALLEGEDLY (sp)...

[Brody]

Wowzers....

With 10x all but finished (minus a real look at the floor) that pretty much leaves the vault as the last hope for any real treasure find.

I wonder what Dan's reaction was to seeing his baby come up empty?

I also wonder why they didn't send the robot back down to find the floor since the team was still there when they were debating such things.

This is so deflating and next week we are back to staring at rocks   

I fear a big ratings drop with all the 10x hype ending this way!

[Rix Gins]

Haven’t seen a single episode from the present season.  Why?, I ask myself.  I thinks its because those two brothers annoy me.  I don’t know why, I’m sure they are nice dudes and all.  Perhaps its something small, like when they say a-boat instead of about…could be something like that, or maybe it’s the way they are always fretting about having to spend extra amounts of money to punch a hole here, or drain a swamp there.  For Pete’s sake boys, the show gives info that you were self made millionaires and were able to buy the island and set up a lucrative tv deal to show the trials and tribulations of searching for treasure…so just man up and go for broke, don’t pussy foot around and threaten to pull the plug if you don’t find Shakespeare’s missing manuscript in some waterproof (hopefully) vault that’s been in the briny deep for one hell of a long time.

Of course, according to legend, it’s going to take one more treasure hunter to die before the curse is lifted and the treasure revealed.  Do they still have those meetings in that so called “War Room?”  I always half expect the brothers to look at the old farts around the table and ask for a volunteer.   

[ziznak]

I may have to check this show out to see what some of you are talking about.  I was drawn to the "booby-trap" aspect of the money pit.  I had read or watched something somewhere that claimed that dye was poured into the pit and was seen to flow out from a number of places around the island implying that there was some sort of tunnel system installed or there naturally.

[Kongfish]

I really was intrigued at the start of the show, I read that same article and it had always interged me as well. I moved down here to the Florida keys to hunt for treasure in my spare time I have the fever so bad.
But, I can say this with no regrets.
The first two seasons I stopped watching after that. I tuned in at the start of this season just to see where they were. When they had the producer on I knew right then, this show is a fucking joke. It gives treasure hunters a bad name. The show went from hunting for the Oak island Treasure. To the filming of the show being the treasure chest.
They were showing the hunt for the treasure and then this season they have spread the hunt out to six or seven different hunts that they show a small piece of each hunt in the show.
Segment 1.) the hole Dan Blankenship dug where they thing there's a room at the bottom of. 
There showing such short segments of each area of the island that their hunting in, that in week #1 they started out by showing the scuba diver putting a glove on. Now in week 5, the scuba diver finally got his fifth finger in the glove.
#2) where they are digging with their million dollar Tonka truck toys. They have gotten so greedy, that they devoted one entire show to a segment that showed them dig 5 scoops of dirt, the whole show. It's a fucking joke.
3.) the curse of Oak island says 6 have died , & 7 must die before the mystery is solved. At the rate that they have slowed the TV show down to, 15 fucking people are going to be dead before they get back from the next commercial break, their going so slow.
4.) I could have walked to Oak island from here and started digging with one hand and made more progress then these morons have made.
They let their passion for treasure hunting get totally destroyed by letting that TV producer talk them into slowing everything way down. Now their passion is filming a TV show of them talking about wanting to treasure hunt, not ever actually hunting for treasure anymore. He show now officially Sucks. I stopped watching. I could find more treasure picking my nose then those clowns will ever find.