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Speaker 1: L L flooring, MARL flooring punto comin stark elist e

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Speaker 1: L L floring, lumber liquidate verses LAL flooring through. Yes,

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Speaker 1: maybe it should be in the effects of an unusually

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Speaker 1: dry summer causing unfamiliar variations in the color of the grass,

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Speaker 1: Or perhaps it was just the way the light had

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Speaker 1: fallen that morning which caused Donald to take notice. Either way,

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Speaker 1: if there was one thing the three farmers now standing

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Speaker 1: over the peculiar impress in the ground could agree on,

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Speaker 1: it was that none of them had seen it before.

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Speaker 1: Donald had called on them as soon as he'd found

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Speaker 1: it that morning, suggesting they come and check it out

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Speaker 1: for themselves. Seemingly manufactured, it looked like a thirteen foot

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Speaker 1: wide circle had been carved into the ground, positioned in

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Speaker 1: a small clearing under the bow of a large solitary oak.

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Speaker 1: It was certainly strange that they hadn't come across it before.

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Speaker 1: Or three of them had lived and worked on the

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Speaker 1: island for a number of years, and with it being

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Speaker 1: just over one hundred and forty acre's worth of land,

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Speaker 1: there was belly an inch of it that they hadn't seen.

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Speaker 1: Being first and second generation immigrants themselves, the men knew

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Speaker 1: only too well how transitory the local population had been

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Speaker 1: through the years, But since the island was thought to

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Speaker 1: have been entirely uninhabited prior to its incorporation only a

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Speaker 1: few decades ago, they were stumped as to what the

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Speaker 1: straight marking could be. Maybe it was just a well,

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Speaker 1: or some kind of fire pit, suggested one of the men,

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Speaker 1: that had long since been filled in an ancient burial mound, perhaps,

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Speaker 1: suggested another. The year was seventeen ninety five, and the

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Speaker 1: place a two and a half kilometer long island known

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Speaker 1: locally as Oak Island, situated just two hundred meters of

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Speaker 1: the east coast of a stretch of land recent settlers

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Speaker 1: had called Nova Scotia. Perhaps it shouldn't have been such

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Speaker 1: a surprise for Donald to have stumbled on something so

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Speaker 1: strange that morning, for the island had always been somewhat

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Speaker 1: of an enigma, a stranger in the midst The clue

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Speaker 1: was in the name Oak Island, inspired by the interloping

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Speaker 1: evergreen oaks that were dotted all across it, reaching upwards

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Speaker 1: of ninety feet with bare trunks and flats played out canopies.

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Speaker 1: They dwarfed the many surrounding pine trees that were far

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Speaker 1: more common to the region. In fact, it is said

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Speaker 1: that Oak Island was the only island out of three

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four in the surrounding Mahone Bay but

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Speaker 1: was home to such a species. Perhaps they had pondered

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Speaker 1: on this when they decided to make a quick excavation

45
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Speaker 1: of the area that morning to see what they might find,

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Speaker 1: or perhaps they did not. Nonetheless, there was little chance

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Speaker 1: they could possibly have anticipated just quite what was going

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Speaker 1: to happen next. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard

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Speaker 1: McClean smith Into the Abyss Part one. The men had

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Speaker 1: only made it two ft down when one of them

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Speaker 1: struck something hard. Assuming it to be a large rock,

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Speaker 1: he tried digging a few feet to the side, only

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Speaker 1: to hit something similar again. It wasn't until they'd cleared

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Speaker 1: more of the earth away that they discovered the entire

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Speaker 1: area of the circle had been covered over with flat stones.

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Speaker 1: After removing the slabs, a few more hours of digging

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Speaker 1: revealed some kind of pit that seemed to narrow to

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Speaker 1: about seven foot in diameter under the flagstones. With the

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Speaker 1: soil having been obviously displaced and refilled before, it was

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Speaker 1: easy to follow the contours of the original dig. Pickaxe

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Speaker 1: markings on the inside of the wall gave further indication

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Speaker 1: of the previous excavator's work. By the afternoon, having reached

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Speaker 1: just under ten feet in depth, one of the men

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Speaker 1: struck something solid again. Clearing the mud away, they found

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Speaker 1: a layer of rotting timbers that had been carefully positioned

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Speaker 1: deep below the surface. Believing they might finally have an

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Speaker 1: answer to the purpose of the pit, the men pulled

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Speaker 1: up the wood, only to find an empty two foot

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Speaker 1: pocket of air underneath. Undeterred, they continued to dig until

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Speaker 1: the early evening, making it a further eight feet down,

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Speaker 1: when once again their shovels struck timber. Utterly Perplexed, the

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Speaker 1: men pulled up the next row of logs, only to

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Speaker 1: find nothing but dirt underneath. With the light fading quickly

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Speaker 1: and not having ladders long enough to dig any further,

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Speaker 1: the men call it a day. Any suggestion of the

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Speaker 1: pit being a burial chamber has been thoroughly dispelled, since,

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Speaker 1: despite being twenty feet down already, they had found nothing

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Speaker 1: to show for their efforts. But in the days that followed,

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Speaker 1: slowly something began to dawn on them. A clear reason

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Speaker 1: why some one might go to all the trouble of

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Speaker 1: digging a secret pit on the edge of a tiny,

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Speaker 1: nondescript island and fortifying it to keep it safe. Back

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Speaker 1: in seventeen o one, in the city of London, a

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Speaker 1: man had been condemned to death and eventually hung at

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Speaker 1: the infamous Execution Dock, located in Wapping on the banks

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Speaker 1: of the River Thames. His name was William Kidd, and,

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Speaker 1: like many of the unfortunates for whom Execution Dock would

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Speaker 1: be their final destination, he was a pirate there was

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Speaker 1: much a victim, as he was a participant of the

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Speaker 1: rampant scheming and corruption perpetuated by British gentry in matters

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Speaker 1: of trade and expansion. Kidd had none the less exhausted

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Speaker 1: all favors by the time the noose was placed around

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Speaker 1: his neck, and though his life would be short, his

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Speaker 1: legend was only just beginning. It had long been suspected

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Speaker 1: that Captain Kidd had buried a significant portion of his

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Speaker 1: stolen wealth in an effort to curry favor lest he

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Speaker 1: ever be captured. Indeed, a large stash of it had

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Speaker 1: already been discovered shortly before his execution on Gardener's Island,

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Speaker 1: a small outcrop at the northern tip of New York State,

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Speaker 1: but few believed there wasn't more. And if you were

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Speaker 1: looking for somewhere to hide a treasure trove of gold

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Speaker 1: and jewels, far from the usual shipping lanes of the trade,

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Speaker 1: as Donald, Anthony and John would shortly come to believe,

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Speaker 1: you couldn't have found a better spot than the anonymity

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Speaker 1: and seclusion of Oak Island. Returning to the site a

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Speaker 1: few days later, convinced of their destiny, the men managed

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Speaker 1: a further fifteen feet, but were left disappointed, finding only

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Speaker 1: another shelf of timber. Frustrated and realizing they had neither

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Speaker 1: the skill or the financial means to carry on, the

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Speaker 1: men were forced to bring an end to their adventure. Also,

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Speaker 1: they had all told each other in truth, John Smith

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Speaker 1: had very different ideas. Over the next few years, Smith

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Speaker 1: surreptitiously secured ownership of the pit, buying up the land

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Speaker 1: and a number of the plots around it. Finally, by

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Speaker 1: eighteen oh three, along with three other investors, with whom

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Speaker 1: he formed the Onslow Company, he was ready to tackle

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Speaker 1: the mystery again. Before long, they had made it to

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Speaker 1: another five feet down, where again they mind yet another

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Speaker 1: floor of timbers, but this time there is something else,

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Speaker 1: a layer of charcoal scattered across the top of it.

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Speaker 1: Since it was common to use charcoal fires to draw

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Speaker 1: fresh air into mining shafts, it was now clearer than

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Speaker 1: ever that a significant operation had once taken place here.

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Speaker 1: The company soon make it to almost ninety feet in depth,

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Speaker 1: uncovering a further four timber shelves, each at ten foot intervals,

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Speaker 1: and incredibly layers of coconut fibers, suggesting that whatever was

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Speaker 1: down there had likely traveled from some distance, the nearest

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Speaker 1: cocoanut trees being thousands of miles away. Not only that,

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Speaker 1: but as the men well known, cocoanut fibers were often

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Speaker 1: used to pack precious cargo. Then, at ninety feet down

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Speaker 1: they find something extraordinary. Having anticipated finding another layer of wood,

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Speaker 1: the team instead find a thick slab of stone measuring

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Speaker 1: two feet long and one foot wide. Peeling it carefully

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Speaker 1: from the mud, they are astonished to find there is

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Speaker 1: an inscription carved on to its under side, only it's

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Speaker 1: not in any language that they have ever seen before,

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Speaker 1: made from thirty nine geometric symbols spaced out over what

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Speaker 1: seems like eight words. It appears to be some kind

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Speaker 1: of code. A short time later, the workers notice water

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Speaker 1: seeping up from under the hole, but decide to ignore

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Speaker 1: it and continue to dig. That afternoon, at roughly ninety

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Speaker 1: eight feet, once again, the shovels hit wood and a

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Speaker 1: ninth timber platform is unearthed. After prising the logs apart,

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Speaker 1: only to find more mud and clay below. The team

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Speaker 1: finished for the day, convinced they are only feet away

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Speaker 1: from the objects of their wildest desires. Spirits are understandably

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Speaker 1: high when the crew return to work the following morning,

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Speaker 1: only to find a solemn looking John Smith waiting for

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Speaker 1: them by the pit, wringing his hat in his hands.

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Speaker 1: The pit has completely filled with water. Are you always

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Speaker 1: taking care of your family? Do you often take care

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Speaker 1: of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take

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Speaker 1: care of yourself, To make time for you. You deserve it.

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Speaker 1: Tele Adoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to

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Speaker 1: help you get back to feeling your best to feeling

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Speaker 1: like yourself again. With tele adoc, you can speak to

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Speaker 1: a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy Appointments are

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Speaker 1: available seven days a week from seven am to nine

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Speaker 1: pm local time. If you feel overwhelm sometimes maybe you

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Speaker 1: feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you might

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00:12:05,760 --> 00:12:09,640
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Speaker 1: the app or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash Unexplained

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Speaker 1: podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash

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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast. All hands work furiously to bail out the water,

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Speaker 1: but the level refuses to budge. With no other option,

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Speaker 1: the company pulls the rest of their money and hires

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Speaker 1: a mechanical pump. The plan works perfectly as the water

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Speaker 1: is soon drained from the pit, but then, with only

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Speaker 1: eight more feet to go, disaster strikes when the pump

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Speaker 1: breaks down. By the end of the day, the water

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Speaker 1: line is back to where it started. Believing they knew

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Speaker 1: roughly where the treasure might be, the team dig a

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Speaker 1: second tunnel, from which they planned to dig across to

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Speaker 1: the first one. Once they had reached the required depth

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Speaker 1: of a hundred and ten feet or so, but the

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Speaker 1: crew only make it as far as twelve feet before

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Speaker 1: their access pit is also completely flooded. Having run out

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Speaker 1: of money, the Onslow Company is forced to give up,

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Speaker 1: and so the pit secrets will remain submerged by water

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Speaker 1: for the next forty years. As for the stone, with

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Speaker 1: its peculiar coded markings, it is left in the possession

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Speaker 1: of John Smith, the landowner and one of the pit's

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Speaker 1: original discoverers. However, believing it to be worthless, the code

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Speaker 1: is never deciphered and the stone soon forgotten about. By

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty five, with Donald mccinnis having died and John

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Speaker 1: Smith vowing never to waste another scent on the hopeless venture,

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Speaker 1: it is left to the third of the original finders,

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Speaker 1: Antony Vaughan, to take up the reins. Now in his sixties, Vaughan,

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Speaker 1: together with another seven investors, forms the Truro Syndicate, and

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Speaker 1: by eighteen forty nine finally secures the rights to start

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Speaker 1: his own attempt to locate the treasure. That summer, the

195
00:14:32,160 --> 00:14:35,600
Speaker 1: largest team yet sets up camp and immediately gets to

196
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Speaker 1: work draining the pit. After two weeks, they have drained

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Speaker 1: it to within five feet of the bottom. Returning the

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Speaker 1: following day, however, the crew is devastated to find that

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Speaker 1: once again the waters have returned, but this time they

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Speaker 1: have a new plan. After constructing a wooden platform over

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Speaker 1: the pit, a large drill is dropped into it, with

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Speaker 1: the hope of at least determining what materials are buried

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Speaker 1: further down. They will not to be disappointed. Passing the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the hole marked by the shelf of timber

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Speaker 1: ninety feet down, they drill on to roughly a hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifteen feet, Deciding they have gone deep enough, The

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Speaker 1: crew watched with bated breath as the device is withdrawn

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Speaker 1: from the depths and pulled finally into the light of day.

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Speaker 1: Just as the last section is removed, something sparkles in

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Speaker 1: the light. The foreman hurriedly inspects the drill head and

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Speaker 1: is astounded to find three small lengths of a gold

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Speaker 1: chain as well as fibers of oak, suggesting the high

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Speaker 1: likelihood that the drill had broken through the walls of

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Speaker 1: some kind of chest. Finally they had found it, getting

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Speaker 1: it out would be another matter, entirely owing to the

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Speaker 1: incessant flooding of water. Just as the onslow team had

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Speaker 1: realized their best chance was to access it from a

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Speaker 1: parallel shaft, believing the treasure to be roughly one hundred

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Speaker 1: and ten feet down. Incredibly, the team managed to dig

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Speaker 1: a secondary channel to one hundred and nine feet and

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Speaker 1: are even able to start tunneling across before disaster strikes again,

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Speaker 1: and just as if something had been suddenly uncaught, water

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Speaker 1: rushes into the pit. But as the team regroups to

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Speaker 1: assess their options, one of the men notices something interesting.

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Speaker 1: The water is rising and falling with the tide. Tasting it,

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Speaker 1: he is amazed to find it is salty, suggesting that

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Speaker 1: rather than being the water table, it must be coming

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Speaker 1: from the sea. A hundred meters to the east of

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Speaker 1: the dig site lies Smith's Cove, named after one of

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Speaker 1: the area's earliest known settlers, Edward Smith, sometime in the

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Speaker 1: mid seventeen hundreds. Being the closest stretch of coastline to

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Speaker 1: the pit, the crew naturally assume it to be the

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Speaker 1: most likely source of the flood water. With the beach

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Speaker 1: being fairly small, the chief engineer suggests they construct a

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Speaker 1: dam to better see what they are dealing with. Making

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Speaker 1: quick work, it isn't long before they have blocked off

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Speaker 1: the cove and drained it completely of water. What they

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Speaker 1: discover next astounds them. The floor of the inlet is

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Speaker 1: found to be completely covered with cocoanut fiber and eel grass,

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Speaker 1: under which they find beech stones carefully laid out. The cove,

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Speaker 1: it transpires, has been synthetically constructed and underneath all the rocks.

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Speaker 1: Finally they find the source of all their problems. It

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Speaker 1: is some kind of booby trap made from a series

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Speaker 1: of eight inch wide drains of flat stone fanning out

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Speaker 1: like five fingers into the ocean. Together, the drains converge

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Speaker 1: into one single drainage channel that disappears underneath the island,

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Speaker 1: heading straight for the excavation site. The team immediately gets

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Speaker 1: to work locating the main drainage tunnel in the hope

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Speaker 1: of blocking it off completely. Yet another shaft is duck

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Speaker 1: twelve feet to the east of the original, revealing an

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Speaker 1: underground channel of water thirty five feet down. Next, timbers

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Speaker 1: are driven into the ground to block it off, and

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Speaker 1: when a fourth borehole twenty feet to the south of

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Speaker 1: the original is dug to one hundred and ten feet

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Speaker 1: with no sign of water, it appears their plan is working. Finally,

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Speaker 1: with no danger of water, making it past the blocking timbers,

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Speaker 1: the team are ready to dig through to the treasure.

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Speaker 1: All is going well when within two feet of the

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Speaker 1: original shaft, workers tunneling through the clay on their knees

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Speaker 1: and the dark notice the walls have become wet, and

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00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:21,720
Speaker 1: soon their knees are damp, and before long their feet

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00:19:21,760 --> 00:19:29,320
Speaker 1: and calves are drenched to the tunnel is filling with water. Mercifully,

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Speaker 1: the workers are able to scramble out and get back

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Speaker 1: to the surface before it is too late, while the

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Speaker 1: rest of the team watch with sinking hearts as one

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Speaker 1: by one the three surrounding boreholes steadily fill up with water.

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Speaker 1: After trying again to unsuccessfully find the central flood tunnel,

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Speaker 1: the Truroau Company's hunt for treasure is also forced to

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Speaker 1: come to an end. In eighteen fifty seven, John Smith

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Speaker 1: becomes the second of the three original Oak Island treasure

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Speaker 1: hunters to die. Ownership of his land is passed from

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Speaker 1: his sons, who, having watched the fabled treasure pit steadily

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Speaker 1: ruined their father, are only too happy to sell it

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Speaker 1: on to a Henry Stephen, who in turn sells it

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Speaker 1: to local landowner Anthony Graves. The Truau Company return in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine for one final stab, but their considerable

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00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:41,040
Speaker 1: efforts will once again prove futile. However, rumors about the

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Speaker 1: island's apparent treasure are beginning to grow, and within two

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Speaker 1: years a new crop of hunters arrive on the island

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Speaker 1: ready to claim its reward. The Oak Island Association, led

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Speaker 1: by Jotham McCulley, draft in over sixty men and thirty

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Speaker 1: horses to a system, as well as employing the latest

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Speaker 1: mining technology, from an iron pump engine to industrial sized

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Speaker 1: winches and pulley systems. However, their heavy handed approach digging

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00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:17,040
Speaker 1: three further holes and tunnels around the original pit results

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00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:20,359
Speaker 1: in yet more flooding and the eventual collapse of the

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Speaker 1: original shaft, resulting in only the upper thirty feet of

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Speaker 1: it now being accessible. In the process of re excavating

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Speaker 1: the original pit, the pump boiler ruptures, spraying scolding water

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Speaker 1: onto a nearby worker and burning him to death. But

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Speaker 1: what's worse from the perspective of the Oak Island Association,

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Speaker 1: is that they are running out of money and with

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Speaker 1: news of the fatal accident now spreading, there is little

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Speaker 1: hope of raising fresh capital. A short time later, however,

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Speaker 1: with work halted, Jotham McCulley here's a story about one

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Speaker 1: of the first artifacts to be found in the original pit,

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Speaker 1: a mysterious stone inscribed with a strange cryptic message. What's more,

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Speaker 1: as rumor would have it, the stone is still on

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Speaker 1: the island, having apparently been integrated into John Smith's old fireplace.

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Speaker 1: Wasting no time, McCully, whose company now owns the property,

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Speaker 1: takes a chisel to the fireplace and sets about removing

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Speaker 1: it piece by piece. He hasn't been working long when

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Speaker 1: he spots one particular slab a little smoother than the others,

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Speaker 1: pressed into the wall at the back. Freeing it up,

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Speaker 1: he turns it around to find, much to his amazement,

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Speaker 1: a strange cryptic message etched onto the other side of it.

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Speaker 1: Realizing it might be their lasts, McCully has the stone

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Speaker 1: loaded onto a horse and cart and dispatched immediately to Halifax,

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Speaker 1: the nearest major city. For the next few weeks, the

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Speaker 1: curious stone is placed in the window of a bookshop

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Speaker 1: to drum up interest in the Oak Island treasure hunt.

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Speaker 1: In an effort to sell more shares to keep the

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Speaker 1: company going. Many come to view the peculiar artifact and

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Speaker 1: attempt to decipher the code, but no one can crack it. Regardless,

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Speaker 1: excitement generated by the stone's mysterious origins is enough to

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Speaker 1: raise another two thousand dollars what equates to roughly fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand today, enabling the Oak Island Association to continue their

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Speaker 1: search for a few more years. However, like all who

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Speaker 1: had come before them, the company will fail, becoming the

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Speaker 1: third formal syndicate, forced to admit defeat in the search

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Speaker 1: for what many have come to believe is the lost

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Speaker 1: treasure of pirate Captain William Kidd. A short time later,

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Speaker 1: the stone is brought to the attention of James Leechi,

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Speaker 1: a professor of languages at Halifax's Dalhousie University. A keen

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Speaker 1: amateur cryptographer, Leechie sets about trying to decipher the message,

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Speaker 1: assuming it to be a simple substitution code, whereby each

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Speaker 1: symbol simply represents a letter of the English alphabet. It

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Speaker 1: is not long before Leachi believes he has cracked the code.

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Speaker 1: The message, he believes reads forty feet below. Two million

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Speaker 1: pounds are buried. Part two of Into the Abyss will

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Speaker 1: be released on Wednesday, twelfth of September. If you enjoy

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Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you

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Speaker 1: can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward slash support.

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Speaker 1: All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated.

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Speaker 1: All elements have Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith.

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Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. But feel

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Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas

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Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you

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Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com

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