Such an awesome mystery! I read about it as a kid, and it just never starts to make sense.
If it were my land, I’d dig it out strip mine style, pumping out water into a man made pond/lake.
I think they tried that?
it’s been a long time since I read the Straight Dope column (from '86,) but there’s been a bunch of suckers entrepreneurs that paid top dollar and applied the most modern techniques to extract positively fuck all from the site. fascinating read, though.
kinda ironic how much money has gone into this thing without any coming out…i dub thee “money blackhole”.
i’ve always been fascinated by the stories of this place, but i honestly don’t think anything is there. everyone wants there to be some grand treasure, so they make small white lies about the clues they find often even convincing themselves, piling onto the legend, creating a cumulative self disillusionment.
there was recently a tv show about the latest efforts and while a fun watch was also kinda sad.
This exactly. Very similar to the “flying dutchman mine” legends in the southwest.
As mentioned above, there’s a reality show on the History Channel: The Curse of Oak Island, which documents the current efforts to find the treasure. I don’t know if I’d recommend it exactly, but if you’re really interested in the legend, it might be worth a look. Season 1 is online, and season 2 starts next month.
It’s a natural sinkhole, nothing more. Unless you want to believe.
Yeah, but is is a natural sinkhole that Captain Flint used to hide the Colonel’s Secret Mixture of 57 Herbs and Nazi Templar Gold in the Arc of the Covenant, with extra Flying Saucer, Spear of Destiny Sauce.
Probably?
By all accounts, there was definitely something there. That’s not to say that it was ever the resting place of Blackbeard’s treasure or any other significant cache of loot; it could be an elaborate hoax or a sort of physical red herring constructed to draw attention away from a more accessible deposit of booty.
You would be attempting to pump the entire Atlantic into a holding pond then, as the shaft is connected to the sea.
And the secret scroll to the recipe of the honey comb crunch? Oh man what I am doing, where’s my shovel?
I used to think this was really interesting until I stopped to think about it some more. The trap as described was just way too well engineered to make sense. The only explanation that makes sense is someone made the whole story up to bilk some speculators out of their cash, and it has taken a life of its own. I don’t think it was the first investors of the story either. I think they never existed, the investors getting bilked are the ones that appear midway through, after all of the original details were lost except for the fantastical story about a pit that fills itself with water.
Think about the effort needed to dig multiple underground sea level channels using 1800s technology and have them remain open but perfectly sealed at the far side for years and years using only locally available materials. The only equipment found on the site in the original story was a primitive block and tackle attached to a tree.
The original story reads like a thought exercise in how to hide a chest forever using primitive materials and not sweating the details.
yeah there is something there…a bunch of disappointed treasure hunters, and a hole with wooden planks in it. Don’t get me wrong…I really really do hope there is treasure there, i’d love it if there were…BUT…
most of the “significant” finds from the “coded” tablets, to the 2 coins, to rocks in a cross shape, are all debatable and of highly questionable provenance.
the coconut fiber had been attributed by some to be from the frequent combinations of tropical storm and oceanic currents and is found up and down the coast at various depth, the ocean is strange that way. the flooding shaft is more likely due to geological substrate permeability and erosion then “booby traps” from pirates. Dig any hole that close to the shore and you’ll likely have similar flooding issues unless you are in hard rock. the stones whose positions for a cross are questionable. for all the money thrown into the pit the evidence that anything significant will come out of it is mostly scant and highly questionable. i’m fairly certain that wishing that it is a secret knights templar cache with the holy grail or a massive pirate treasure cache are wishful thinking at best. but wouldn’t it be cool if either of those were true!!! 
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