What have you been watching?

Marie Antoinette? Haven't they talked about the carbon dating that was done by Blankenship in the 1950s? Is showed that the oldest wood fragments they found in or around the money pit (ergo the original log platforms placed by the builders of the pit) dated back to around 1650 give or take 75 years. Long before the French Revolution.

As for the flood tunnels, it is impossible to dig back to the original pit, and it would be a waste of time since the treasure vault would theoretically be in a different location. The main pit is a decoy that was only used to create the treasure vault and then it was sealed up with the booby traps in place. The vault would a few feet underground in a location where the land above it has been left undisturbed.

 

A bit easier now to watch : previously only had it on VHS and hadsomebody bought a British spoken and texted version, and now I bought it.


Conspiracy (2001 film)

 

I watched Alone in Berlin yesterday. This 2016 film isn't highly rated but I think it is an interesting film about a brave, perhaps somewhat naive, German couple that resisted the nazis in their own way, whech eventually let to arrest and decapitation.

The films is based in a true story of the German couple Otto and Elise Hampel starred by Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson.

 

This weeks theory has tunnels running under water for hundred yards or more to a 'man-made' sand spit. I literally laughed out loud on this crack pot theory.

 

Last night watched the document on Japan making the Yamato class boats. Incredible Yamato was in its safe place for 8 months at one time, in the document we saw the defensive mechanisms, and also the practice ground for the massive artillery guns.

 

Next episode has more wood- fascinating... Now they are saying "100 tons of gold" in a "C" for "chamber.
Here is the announcer- "Wood brought up from x meters underground?"...Always questioning things, that guy.

But, it does look like they have found the location of the box feeds to flood...the coconut husks etc are intriguing.

 

Watched "Alone in Berlin" last night. The film adaptation of Hans Fallada's novel (based on the true events of the Hampel's resistance efforts) of the same name or under the title Every Man Dies Alone.

Interesting movie with a great cast with Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson. It's a heartbreaking story of couple whose son is KIA in France in 1940. It follows the Quangel's as they distribute anti-Nazi material in the form of postcards. Having read the book years ago I was intrigued. The movie was interesting, but it was rather dull at times. The book contained a wide variety of contradicting characters who all played a part. The movie found it difficult to blend those characters together successfully. Still a good one to catch and it's under 2 hours.

 

Just recently "binge watched" the History Channels new "SIX" series. I was actually surprised, I had gotten used to the History Channel pretty much just putting out poorly researched shows where they tried to artificially pump up the drama. This show is a drama, but they got everything right. The personalities of the characters are spot on. Weapons, equipment, tactics, etc. correct. Very well done.

 

History has been scoring lately with higher budget historic dramas such as Six and Vikings. On the horizon is one set during the destruction of the Templar Order.

 

I forgot about Vikings. I've watched it since it first aired and yes it too is a very good show.

 

2 hrs of Oak Island. About 20 minutes of interesting stuff...Is it possible the metal bits they pulled up were from a "treasure chest"
The spike they found in the swamp was a 'nail' commonly used to attach ship planks.

Wonder- why would such a valuable treasure have been abandoned/forgotten...Surely if there was such a humongous hoard of treasure, it could never have been forgotten.
Such a large project would have been a huge undertaking. It has been pirates,the British Navy, the Templars etc...Whomever it was, they would not stand by and let the Legumes of Oak Island dig it all up without some kind of fight.

 

Let me tell you a tale...

It's the late 17th or early 18th century. Spanish treasure galleons usually left south America in convoys to protect from pirate attacks and travelled the gulf stream currents north before crossing the Atlantic roughly vis a vis what are now the Canadian maritimes. Many of the ships never reached their destination because of seasonal storms. One such ship is badly damaged during a storm and seperated from the convoy. In Spain it is reported lost. It survives the storm but just barely and its captain decides the best thing to do is find a safe harbour to effect repairs. He spots Mahone Bay and anchors just off shore.

Some of the galleons had crews of up to 200-300 men. The crews were conditioned to hard labour. The ship would have experts in ironwork and carpentry and plenty of time to do whatever needs to be done. So the captain orders them ashore on this island. It has everything they need to repair a wooden sea going ship. Heavy timber, just waiting to be cut into new masts and planks. Game just waiting to be hunted and eaten. Fresh water. It's an island, affording them enough distance that local natives (peaceful MicMac tribes on the mainland) cannot sneak up on them.

They set out to work. They build a dry dock and coffer dam. If you wonder how, just take a look at the first season episodes of "Black Sails" where they careen the ship. They inspect the damage and realize the new wood is green, not seasoned. It'll do the job, but the crossing to spain will be far more risky than it would have been in convoy. They don't have the safety of numbers and the ship is still fragile. The decision is made to leave the treasure behind, lightening the ship. So they dig and leave the treasure behind. When they sail off they do not suspect that another storm is coming and they sink, leaving no survivors to reveal where they left the king's treasure.

Does that sound plausible?

 

No one seems interested in asking the simple question. If the mystery of Oak Island began in the late 1700's with a group of men on the mainland seeing unexplained lights moving about on the isle and and then the next day finding block and tackle suspended over a depression of disturbed earth, how do we know what ever 'treasure' there is was not found and removed by those people moving about with mysterious lights?

They have not even defined who's treasure trove it is. If I recall correctly they have considered Phoenicians, Atlantian's, Templar's, Norsemen, Aztec-Mayans, Pirates, Spaniards, Corrupt Brit's and ladies in waiting to Marie Antoinette. About the only group they have excluded are Ancient Aliens, though a cross-over show could happen any day now.

This season we saw the hatch to nowhere, a well that.....well... just is a well. a bunch of boulders that may or may not have had some shaping or carving but are probably just weathering. The handful of artifacts found on Mr. Ball's land almost mean less than nothing, a coin and button from the time he was on the land? Please, he would likely have had both as he was a former soldier for Britain. All it proves is that he was clumsy or forgetful.

This leaves us the "swamp" and the "money pit".

At the swamp they found a Spanish Piece of 8 last year, near the surface. Unless my physics is mistaken coins don't float so how do you explain a coin from a 'sunken ship' so close to the surface? This year a long plank of wood that may or may not have come from the deck of a ship, or perhaps the side of a building. A spike described as consistent with Spanish galleons. Maybe, maybe not. Frankly we do not know if it came from another ship (reuse?) or was simply thrown into the swamp as trash, fill or as a nugget to 'salt' the site. It would have been much easier to bury any loot and sink the ship in deep water, but if the go to trouble to sink a treasure ship and then create a artificial swamp around it they make very difficult to get it back themselves. Good lord with millions of dollars and modern equipment it can't be found.

The final dig of this year yielded some metal artifacts, but we should recall the reason of the digs location. It was chosen based on the the collapse of a previous shaft and the belief that it caused a 'scattering' of material deep underground. They have already found 'searcher' tunnels they never knew existed so considering all of this its just as plausible that the wood and metal found in this last drill hole merely represents materials left behind by previous treasure hunters.

Bottom line, another year of mostly bupkis with a few mildly interesting small artifact's that neither prove or disprove there ever was or is a treasure to be found.

 

Better than most of their crack pot theories by a long shot.

 

"No one seems interested in asking the simple question. If the mystery of Oak Island began in the late 1700's with a group of men on the mainland seeing unexplained lights moving about on the isle and and then the next day finding block and tackle suspended over a depression of disturbed earth, how do we know what ever 'treasure' there is was not found and removed by those people moving about with mysterious lights?"

Also thought about the block and tackle...They were so meticulous with the hiding of treasure- why would they leave such an obvious clue behind (on tree branch, above depression in ground)?...Maybe so people would start digging there, and trigger the water traps set?
Why would anyone dig up that area, then refill/replace the the oak timbers- so the boys who discovered that block/depression where the first to dig there.

Also doubt all those who placed/knew of the treasure- perished as there is subsequent traces of info regarding Oak Island.
The effort involved would preclude a small treasure. It must be/have been huge, involving many hundreds and years to complete.
150+ feet down and lots of tunnels.
So, again- why would the powers that were- allow two smucks to dig up all their treasure, without some kind of fight.

 

Many years ago someone did a calculation of how many man hours went into the labour done on the island. I don't remember if it was Heddon or Blankenship or my college teacher Darcy O'Connor. Draining the swamp, digging the money pit, side shafts and drainage ditches for the flood tunnels, building the false beach, building the coffer dam and the drydock plus repairs to a wooden ship, shifting the cargo back and forth, etc.It all came out to a couple of months worth of heavy manual labour for a crew of 200 to 300 men. It was all very plausible with the technology and know how of the Spanish in the 17th century. They had the means (technological know how, crew) and motive (protection of the crown's treasure) to do it and the theory fits the scientific and archealogical facts surrounding the island (carbon dating of wood samples, presence of cocoanut fibre et.al.). Everything else is bunk. The famous stone was found decades or a century after the fact and cannot be trusted along with any inscriptions alledgedly transcribed from it. Most of the artefacts from the island are of doubtful provenance. Remember, people have been trying to drum up financial backing to do work on the island since the early 1800s. so salting the "island" with a few dozen spanish coins would have been nothing to unscrupulous speculators. The island has been farmed by denizens on the mainland or used for timber almost continuously for two hundred years, at least into the 20th century, so that finding old well holes or pieces of metal should be expected. The Laginas and the History channel are making first, a tv series then, archealogical discoveries. Their methodology is haphazard at best. They are following up every crazy dead end theory and spending huge amounts of money doing it, rather than concentrating on the actual island. Still interesting in a way, but mostly frustrating. I am sadenned to see Blankenship playing along, but I guess he loves the place and is happy to see the world finally paying attention to the mystery he has been obsessed with his whole life.

 

Thanks Mr7...Surprised only 2-3 months. The effort seems huge and the whole thing very clever indeed.
That coconut husk must have taken a lot of time and effortto retrieve and then place.

Even at 3 months- their workings would have attracted a lot of attention...The boys saw the mysterious lights 1 night and rowed out there.
There must have been at least 80 other days/nights where the island would have had lights from the camps/ships.
Was the light the boys saw- people retrieving the treasure or the last efforts to conceal...
A few times- OI has tried to play the ghost/paranormal angle...Is OI saying the boys were chasing ghost lights

 

Was just reading somewhere about the new Netflix documentary series Five Came Back. Apparently produced by Spielberg, among others, about 5 Hollywood directors (Capra being one) serving in the war. May be worth a look. Think it comes out March 31.

 

Yesterday I watched the 2012 German WWI film 'Die Männer der Emden', also known as 'Odyssey of Heroes'. This film comes in two versions, a theatrical and a TV version. I watched the latter. It's long film of almost three hours and is a story of the 50 crew members of SMS Emden that were ashore on Cocos Island when Emden was sunk by HMAS Sydney 1914. It is supposed to be a true story, but it is only an average film.

 

The Cocoanut fibers are coir and were commonly used for centuries as dunnage in ships' holds, much like styrofoam pop corn is used in packaging today. It makes sense that in transferring the cargo from a ship to the hole in the ground, a lot of the fibre would be displaced along the way. In modifying the landscape during the digging of the flood tunnels, the builders would have mixed tons of coir from the ship's hold with the clay soil of Smith's cove beach. Perhaps they needed to change the consistancy of the soil for engineering reasons, like mixing straw with clay to make bricks, or perhaps it was just a convenient place to dump the material which they no longer needed, to lighten the ship further after burrying their valuable cargo...

A Spanish Galleon would have been there 50 or more years before the region was colonized so nobody would have seen them work, or so the theory goes. For some quick background information...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_treasure_fleet
Pay particular attention to the section called "The flow of Spanish treasure"...

The three kids seeing lights is an apocryphal story (if I am using that word correctly) and cannot be trusted. In fact most of the legends and stories around Oak islannd have to be taken with a grain of salt. The wooden platforms are recorded by multiple witnesses present at the dig. The gold links found in the 19th century are suspect. You have to look at the historical and archealogical facts very carefully. The island landscape has been modified so much over the past two centuries that few if any surface discoveries can be trusted.

As is the story of the block and tackle. Another version I heard was that one of the teens had rowed over to the island (I believe it was Smith) to cut wood, hunt, fish or maybe to collect mushrooms, nobody knows. In any case he noticed a large Oak tree with a limb that had been partially sawed off. beneath the limb the earth had settled as if someone had long ago dug a hole and filled it back up. Grass had overgrown the place so it was not a recent event. This was around 1795 or so.The "pirate" William Kidd had been rumoured to have burried his booty somewhere in the region, and young Smith (later of Smith's cove on the island) knew the stories. Fired by his imagination he went back and got two friends and picks and shovels, determined to dig up Kidd's treasure. Instead they set off the flood tunnel traps...