Forbidden History - Oak Island: Beneath the Curse

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

For centuries, Oak Island has held its secrets tightly, in the form of hidden chambers, mysterious symbols, and a trail of clues that lead to more questions than answers. In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we dig into the conspiracy theories surrounding the island’s most elusive legends… just who is keeping the treasured secret? Cast List: Guy Walters: Author & Historian  Eric Meyers: Narrator  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Of all the legends that echo through the forgotten corners of history, few hold the world's imagination quite like this one. An island, shrouded in mist and mystery, just off the coast of Nova Scotia in Canada.

A pit in the ground, carefully engineered and dangerously protected, whispers of pirate gold, royal jewels, and even biblical relics. For over two centuries, men have dug, some driven by greed, others by obsession, some never returned. It is a serious business, and people have lost their lives looking for treasure on Oak Island. This is a dangerous place to carry out excavations, but those dangers, those risks, they aren't deterring adventurers from continuing their search. What is it about Oak Island that has captivated treasure hunters, presidents, and millions of viewers around the world?

Why do people still believe that something, anything, lies buried beneath its soil? I love the whole story of the Oak Island mystery. Who doesn't love a tale of buried treasure or a buried fortune that's been going on for hundreds of years? I mean, it's just extraordinary how it just has this grip on the public imagination. This isn't just a treasure hunt. It's a tale that blends folklore, archaeology, and conspiracy. And it all begins with a teenage boy. The story of Oak Island is no longer just about what might be found.

It's about the people who keep looking. In this episode of the Forbidden History Podcast, we're joined by historian and author Guy Walters. Well, it dates back to 1795, and you have this young guy, this teenager called Daniel McGuinness, and he's on Oak Island, which is just off the coast of Nova Scotia and Canada, kind of top right of Canada, if you like, and he discovers this kind of dip in the ground.

And he's really intrigued. According to local lore, McGinnis noticed a strange circular depression in the ground. Some say it looked man-made. Others insist it was nothing more than a sinkhole. But McGinnis had heard whispers of pirate gold in the region, and he was curious enough to start digging. He gets some of his mates along and he says, yeah, let's dig it up, let's see what's underneath it. Together, McGinnis and his friends began excavating the pit. Just feet below the surface, they hit something strange, a layer of flagstones. Beneath that, oak platforms evenly spaced every 10 feet.

It didn't look like natural geology. It looked like someone had built it. But who? And more importantly, why? This is bizarre. What's this kind of deserted island doing with this shaft? Who has built this shaft? The deeper they went, the more elaborate the construction appeared. Wooden beams, clay layers, even traces of coconut fiber, a material not native to Canada's shores. And as a result, ever since 1795, you have had treasure hunting expeditions after treasure hunting expeditions, going to Oak Island, each of them hoping to discover this hidden fortune that some say is buried deep underground on a Oak Island. Whatever was buried on Oak Island wasn't meant to be found easily. And so, the mystery of

the money pit was born. This place called the money pit, which obviously is a very, very ironic name because even though that suggests there might be money hidden there, money pit, of course, as an expression that negatively suggests that you're just throwing your money down a pit, You're throwing it away. What McGuinness uncovered that day in 1795 would soon be known as the money pit, a name that would prove both ironic and prophetic. And so a skeptic would, of course, say,

well, if you're engineering, you know, you're digging things there, you're throwing your money away. Now, some people say that that money pit is deliberately engineered with booby traps, because every time you dig deeper there, you get more and more flooding. some believe that's not caused by the water table, but it's actually caused by this elaborate system of underground channels and tunnels that have been built to allow the seawatero' to rush in. And then you've got all these collapses and quick sand-like conditions and all these kind of shifting subterranean structures that really makes treasure hunting so, so difficult. No one knew who had built it. But it was clear someone had done.

gone to great lengths to hide something. That single question has echoed through time for over 200 years. Since 1795, generation after generation of treasure hunters, engineers, industrialists, even a future U.S. president, have come to Oak Island in search of answers. They've sunk millions into excavations, blasted through rock, built dams, and dug countless tunnels. What drives them isn't just greed. It's the impossibility of the structure itself. Some theories go that if treasure is indeed buried there, it was designed to stay buried, designed to stay hidden. And you know what? You've got to work out the really precise knowledge of that

treasure's location, and you've got to really work out how to override all those traps that guarded. This is serious Indiana Jones stuff. By some estimates, over 6,000 shafts, boreholes, and tunnels have been dug on Oak Island. Yet the original pit has remained elusive, collapsing, flooding, or sealing itself off time and time again. Some believe this was by design, that the money pit was booby-trapped with an elaborate system of flood tunnels to protect whatever lies at the bottom. argues it's a natural sinkhole, a trick of the geology.

But whether by man or by nature, the result is the same. No one has ever reached the bottom. We continue with the search after the break. The Oak Island mystery isn't just a story about a pit. It's a story about belief, because after centuries of digging with no confirmed treasure found, the question remains, why keep it? going. For many, the answer lies in the staggering variety of theories about what might be hidden beneath the surface. And the further you look, the wilder the possibilities become. Historian Guy Walters

explains more. And there are a lot of theories about what that treasure might be. One of the most popular, it's pirate treasure from someone like Captain Kidd. Or could it even be the lost jewels of Marie Antoinette, the French queen, obviously executed during the French Revolution. The Captain Kid Theory is among the oldest, claiming the Scottish pirate buried his fortune on Oak Island before his capture in 1701. Others linked the treasure to Marie Antoin, whose lady-in-waiting is said to have escaped France with the crown jewels. Some believe she fled to Nova Scotia. Then you've got another theory that the Templars, the Knight Templars, obviously a famous bunch of characters from any form of forbidden history.

They hid their sacred relics there. And it's possible, according to some, that they hid the Holy Grail there or the Ark of the Covenant. Some think that actually could be maybe some Spaniards or some Brits hiding some treasure there, keeping it concealed and then retrieve it later. Or some people say it could be manuscripts by. William Shakespeare, the greatest writer who ever lived. Pirate gold, royal diamonds, sacred relics, lost plays. Each theory draws from a different corner of history.

But they all share a common thread. Secrecy, loss, and the possibility of revelation. And then skeptics say, you know what, that pit is just a sinkhole. There was some early engineering experiment carried out there, and it's just gone wrong. The Oak Island mystery might have started with a teenage boy and a strange dip in the ground, but it quickly escalated into a full-blown international obsession. Over the centuries, some of the most powerful men in business and politics

have been drawn into its depths. And like the pit itself, once you go in, it's hard to come back out. So there have been lots of sort of quite influential people link to the whole Oak Island mystery. A lot of notable figures have been drawn there. In the 19th century you have a big company called the Onslow Company and the Truro Company, and they attempt these seriously large-scale excavations. The Onslow and Truro companies, working in the 1800s, were among the first to treat Oak Island not as a legend, but as an engineering challenge.

And what they find at about 90 feet is that this tunnel, if you like, this sort of well, gets flooded at about 90 foot. And some people say that this is because it is booby-trapped. Whether the flooding was natural or the result of a trap is still hotly debated. But interest didn't fade with failure. In fact, it deepened. And in the early 20th century, you have this industrious called Gilbert Heddon. Gilbert Hedden, a wealthy steel magnet, was so convinced by the legend that he purchased part of the island in the 1930s. He believed the clues pointed to something real and brought heavy machinery to dig deeper than ever before.

And then you have Franklin D. Roosevelt, no less, before he was president, he was actually investing in exploration. There's this picture of Roosevelt at Oak Island. with a group of people smoking a pipe. Fast forward to the present day, and Oak Island has entered its most visible chapter yet. There's been this reality TV show, which has been running for many, many series. I think it's like nine.

And that's called The Curse of Oak Island. And that has really caused a lot of global interest in the whole mystery. And you've got these two guys, these brothers, Rick and Marty Lagina. And what they're doing is that they're attempting to uncover definitive proof of the treasure. Since 2014, the curse of Oak Island has brought the mystery to living rooms around the world. The stars, two brothers from Michigan, Rick and Marty Legina, driven not by fame, but by the same obsession that's pulled treasure hunters to Nova Scotia for over 200 years.

That show has chucked a lot of money at this and a lot of technology, a lot of modern technology. They've been using sonar scanning, metal detection, kind of deep sea exploration techniques. And they've come up with some pretty intriguing finds, okay? But never a big one. You know, no kind of gold, jeweled cross from Blackbeard's Treasure Trove, no Shakespeare play yet undiscovered, no diamonds from Mariantoinette. They've made some intriguing finds, but what critics have said is that the show is kind of sensationalising

these quite minor discoveries of kind of stones with writing on them to maintain audience engagement. What it's done is it's, you're going to see it as fun. You know, it's brought some attention to the island. It's brought a lot of funding and expertise. But what it's doing is it's perpetuating the mystery, perpetuating the legend. And so all of these guys, whether they're these brothers or industrialists

or former US presidents, they've all done their bit to keep that legend going. I mean, they're keeping that intrigue going across the generations. And perhaps that's the secret of Oak Island. As long as the treasure remains hidden, the story never ends. The show can continue. The legend can grow. The island becomes not a place to solve, but a puzzle to preserve.

Because if nothing is ever found, then anything might still be. After more than two centuries of digging, drilling, blasting, and draining, it's natural to ask what exactly has been found on Oak Island? The answer depends on who you ask. To believers, there have been just enough strange discoveries to keep the legend alive. To skeptics, the findings are inconclusive, or worse, conveniently exaggerated. So the inescapable truth is this. No confirmed treasure has been on earthed on Oak Island.

There have been a few sort of kind of tantalizing artifacts that have been discovered. wooden structures that suggest underground tunnels. There have been some carved stones with some very cryptic symbols and even some fragments of metal believed to come from ancient European sources. The 90-foot stone reportedly bore a cryptic inscription, a strange cipher that some claim translates to 40 feet below 2 million pounds are buried. today the stone is missing. It vanished from a Halifax bookbinder shop sometime in the early 20th century. Some say it was lost. Others whisper it was stolen, perhaps by someone who had cracked

the code. To this day, no treasure has been officially documented. No chests of gold, no diamonds, no ancient manuscripts. And yet, the clues, real or fabricated, are still enough to convince people that something is hidden. These findings, they are intriguing, you know, let's not doubt that there is intrigue here, but this doesn't prove that you've got this vast hidden treasure there that indicates all this historical activity on the island. Who has managed to bury that treasure so deep that modern technology can't find it? But people are going to keep digging.

And that's the enduring paradox of Oak Island. The mystery survives because the truth remains out of reach. Every wooden beam, every strange carving, every missing artifact doesn't close the case. It opens it further. The more people find, the more questions are raised. Treasure hunting here has never been a harmless hobby. It's a pursuit marked by collapses, floods and fatal miscalculations. And according to legend, the island is cursed.

and digging for treasure on Oak Island is a serious business. And people have lost their lives looking for treasure on Oak Island. We know of at least six treasure hunters who've died in various accidents, caused by collapses of the tunnel system, caused by drowning its fixation. By official count, at least six men have died searching for Oak Island's elusive treasure. Some drowned when tunnels flooded without warning. Others were killed in cave-ins or suffocated in shafts with poor ventilation. These weren't thrill-seekers. They were engineers, workers, believers. But to those who follow the legend, those deaths weren't accidents. They were prophecy. This is not a place where you should tread lightly, and it's not a place where you

want to go underground unless you're very brave or absolutely. convince the treasure is there. And of course, all these dangerous conditions, all these deaths have sort of added to the nature of the mystery. And some say, quite understandably, that the island is cursed. People die there. And there are some who maintain that there is a prophecy. What does that prophecy state? And that prophecy says, seven must die before the treasure is found. It's a grim refrain, repeated by locals, researchers, even cast members on the History Channel series. So far, six deaths have been recorded. And that raises a disturbing question.

Is the island still waiting for one more soul? But if six people have already died, then it is, of course, sadly likely that more people might die. You know what? Whether there's a real curse or not, this is a dangerous place to... carry out excavations, those dangers, those risks, they aren't deterring adventurers from continuing their search. There was a report back in 2014 that suggested that a seventh person died a producer attached to the History Channel's curse of Oak Island, although it wasn't publicised at the time. Now, whether that death counts as a treasure hunter's death or someone attached

to a treasure hunter, it's still open to debate. And that's why perhaps some people would claim that the curse, the prophecy, has not yet been activated. It needs to be an active treasure hunter. Whether that death satisfies the curse or not, the danger on Oak Island is all too real. The tunnels are unstable. The water is unpredictable. And yet people keep digging.

Some chasing history, others chasing ghosts. The island's warning is clear. What lies beneath may be worth dying for? but it may also kill you before you ever find it. Unsurprisingly, there are all people who say, you know what, this whole Oak Island treasure thing, it's just a hoax. It's become a self-sustaining legend.

You know, this thing goes around in a kind of validation loop, if you like. There's a wishful thinking, there's exaggeration, there are lies, there's people putting out deliberate deceptions just to leave people astray and just out of a kind of malevolent sense of fun. The skeptics argue that Oak Island has never yielded anything more than stories. That the original Money Pit story was misunderstood or even fabricated by men desperate to believe they were on the verge of something grand.

Misread survey notations. False memory. Plain old greed. After all, over two centuries of digging have produced no definitive treasure. And millions of dollars have been seen. spent chasing rumors. The skeptics will say, look, where is your concrete evidence that any massive hidden treasure has been found?

Where is your concrete evidence that proves that it's been hidden there? People have been digging up this place for centuries. People have spent millions. And early reports of the supposed money pit, fabrications, misinterpretations, and these treasure hunters are desperate men, obviously, usually men, and they're just chasing. shadows. But the believers push back. If it's all a hoax, they argue, then who built the shaft? Who engineered the flooding tunnels? And what about the carved stones, the wooden platforms, the layers of unfamiliar materials deep beneath the soil? The believers say, no, hang on, no,

this story didn't start from nowhere. There has to be something at the heart of this story. We haven't literally got to the bottom of the story. And these booby traps, it aren't natural. They are made by humans, these booby traps, surely. And we have discovered some bits and pieces. All this adds up to prove that there is something there on Oak Island. And so the dig continues, not just into the earth, but into the nature of belief itself. Oak Island is no longer just a place, it's an idea, a question that resists resolution. You believe there's treasure buried in the ground? Or do you believe the treasure is the story?

Strip away the shafts, the sonar scans, the pirate maps, and the history books, and what remains is something deeper than gold? If you take a step back, look at the Oak Island story, and it's a very human tale. It reflects that all too human desire. and all of us for discovery, discovery of treasure especially, and a thrill of the unknown. From those mysteries, people never really want to end. And maybe that's the truth beneath Oak Island.

Not a chest of gold, but a centuries-long testament to belief. Because even if the treasure is never found, the search itself has become its own kind of legacy. Even this ends in triumphal frustration with the O'Garland story. What it says to me is that you have this centuries-long hunt chasing dreams. Odds are insurmountable, but it's a real testament to perseverance, human curiosity. Men have died here. Fortunes have been lost. Lives have been consumed.

And still the digging goes on. Not because of what is known. but because of what is yet to be uncovered. There's something so positive about the Okhilden story. And I get why people go, this is obsessive, this is junk, this is consumed actual lives, consumed actual fortunes. And so it reflects both those very human aspects, that cynicism and that hope.

And in the end, it doesn't really matter what the final outcome is because I think that Oak Island is a legend that is going to endure. for generations. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, please be sure to follow for more. We post new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Don't forget to leave a comment below

and feel free to leave us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners like you. And for more from the Like a Shot Network, check out where did everyone go, Histories of the Abandoned. A deep dive into the incredible stories behind forgotten places. Available now on your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for listening.