A New Season on Oak Island Begins as the Lagina Team Uncovers More Clues in the Money Pit
As dawn breaks over Nova Scotia’s Oak Island, the long-running treasure hunt that has captivated audiences for more than a decade enters a new chapter. Brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, joined by their partner Craig Tester and the rest of their dedicated team, have returned to the island with their hopes higher than ever. Their mission remains unchanged: find answers to a mystery that has endured for over two centuries.
“We begin a new year with this mission statement,” Rick says as the team gathers. “Let’s solve it, let’s find the answers.” Marty shares the sentiment, admitting he is “truthfully pretty excited” about what lies ahead.
The excitement is not without reason. After years of digging, scanning, and exploring, the team believes they stand closer than ever before to uncovering the secrets buried deep within the legendary Money Pit.
A Mystery Buried Deep Beneath the Island
The story of the Money Pit traces back to 1804, when a large stone carved with unusual symbols was discovered 90 feet underground. The removal of the stone triggered a sudden flood of seawater, likely fed from an engineered tunnel stretching from Smith’s Cove some 500 feet away. Since then, generation after generation of treasure hunters have attempted to bypass the suspected booby trap—only to be thwarted by flooding and cave-ins.
Decades of digging eventually left the ground unstable, collapsing several earlier shafts. Last year, the Oak Island team came closer than any searchers before them. Groundwater testing suggested a concentration of precious metals more than 100 feet down, prompting the team to sink massive seven-foot steel caissons in a renewed attempt to reach the suspected vault.
But just when hope was at its height, disaster struck. Two caissons—TB-1 and TOT-1—collapsed as the earth beneath them gave way. The collapse led the team to a bold new theory: the treasure may have fallen even deeper, sliding into a natural bedrock feature known as a solution channel.
“We’re basically satisfied that something happened on Oak Island that’s outside recorded history,” team member Alex says. And the evidence continues to build.
New Artifacts Emerge From the Spoils
While core drilling continues at the Money Pit, other members of the team head to Smith’s Cove to examine the immense piles of excavated spoils from the previous season. Among them are Marty Lagina, Craig Tester, metal detection expert Gary Drayton, and heavy equipment operator Billy Gerhardt.
Last year, the spoils already produced stunning finds, including an iron chisel and a pickax dating back as far as the 1600s. The new search yields yet another surprise. Gary’s metal detector signals strongly, and within moments the team uncovers another iron tool—heavy, weathered, and unmistakably old.
“That is unusual,” Gary observes. “That’s got the look of being old as well.”
The discovery fuels the team’s belief that the Money Pit was worked on long before the first documented treasure hunt of 1795. “Once again,” Marty says, “possible proof that somebody other than searchers were way deep in the Money Pit.”
A Scientific Confirmation in the Lab
The chisel recovered in last year’s excavations is brought back into focus when archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan presents her report to the team. After performing X-ray fluorescence analysis—an advanced, non-destructive process that identifies an object’s chemical composition—Emma delivers remarkable news.
“The chisel lacks any modern alloying elements,” she explains. “This is definitively not modern. It comfortably sits in the 1700s—and could potentially be older.”
The room lights up with enthusiasm. “Brilliant,” one team member responds. Another calls it “a great find to start the year.”
For Rick Lagina, who has spent a lifetime pursuing the Oak Island mystery, the discovery is both validating and energizing. “This is not the one thing,” he says, “but we’re getting there.”
Hope Renewed as the Hunt Deepens
Back at Smith’s Cove, spirits remain high as the team continues combing through the remaining spoils. Each find, whether a centuries-old tool or a fragment of metal, adds to a puzzle that has remained unsolved for more than 200 years.
Gary, who has uncovered some of the most iconic artifacts in the history of the island, remains optimistic. “Whenever there’s a lot of iron, there’s a possibility of iron masking,” he notes. “There could be a gold or silver coin waiting for us.”
For now, the team presses forward with renewed determination. The solution channel theory offers a fresh direction. The lab results confirm that older activity occurred deep underground. And the discoveries emerging from the spoils suggest that whoever engineered the Money Pit did so with remarkable skill—and left behind tools that are only now being found.
“We’re back,” Rick announces to the team at the start of the season, greeted with cheers. “Back to the quest.”
And so the quest continues—deeper, more dangerous, and more compelling than ever.