Speaker 1: L L flooring, MARL flooring punto comin stark elist e
Speaker 1: L L floring, lumber liquidate verses LAL flooring through. Yes,
Speaker 1: maybe it should be in the effects of an unusually
Speaker 1: dry summer causing unfamiliar variations in the color of the grass,
Speaker 1: Or perhaps it was just the way the light had
Speaker 1: fallen that morning which caused Donald to take notice. Either way,
Speaker 1: if there was one thing the three farmers now standing
Speaker 1: over the peculiar impress in the ground could agree on,
Speaker 1: it was that none of them had seen it before.
Speaker 1: Donald had called on them as soon as he'd found
Speaker 1: it that morning, suggesting they come and check it out
Speaker 1: for themselves. Seemingly manufactured, it looked like a thirteen foot
Speaker 1: wide circle had been carved into the ground, positioned in
Speaker 1: a small clearing under the bow of a large solitary oak.
Speaker 1: It was certainly strange that they hadn't come across it before.
Speaker 1: Or three of them had lived and worked on the
Speaker 1: island for a number of years, and with it being
Speaker 1: just over one hundred and forty acre's worth of land,
Speaker 1: there was belly an inch of it that they hadn't seen.
Speaker 1: Being first and second generation immigrants themselves, the men knew
Speaker 1: only too well how transitory the local population had been
Speaker 1: through the years, But since the island was thought to
Speaker 1: have been entirely uninhabited prior to its incorporation only a
Speaker 1: few decades ago, they were stumped as to what the
Speaker 1: straight marking could be. Maybe it was just a well,
Speaker 1: or some kind of fire pit, suggested one of the men,
Speaker 1: that had long since been filled in an ancient burial mound, perhaps,
Speaker 1: suggested another. The year was seventeen ninety five, and the
Speaker 1: place a two and a half kilometer long island known
Speaker 1: locally as Oak Island, situated just two hundred meters of
Speaker 1: the east coast of a stretch of land recent settlers
Speaker 1: had called Nova Scotia. Perhaps it shouldn't have been such
Speaker 1: a surprise for Donald to have stumbled on something so
Speaker 1: strange that morning, for the island had always been somewhat
Speaker 1: of an enigma, a stranger in the midst The clue
Speaker 1: was in the name Oak Island, inspired by the interloping
Speaker 1: evergreen oaks that were dotted all across it, reaching upwards
Speaker 1: of ninety feet with bare trunks and flats played out canopies.
Speaker 1: They dwarfed the many surrounding pine trees that were far
Speaker 1: more common to the region. In fact, it is said
Speaker 1: that Oak Island was the only island out of three
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four in the surrounding Mahone Bay but
Speaker 1: was home to such a species. Perhaps they had pondered
Speaker 1: on this when they decided to make a quick excavation
Speaker 1: of the area that morning to see what they might find,
Speaker 1: or perhaps they did not. Nonetheless, there was little chance
Speaker 1: they could possibly have anticipated just quite what was going
Speaker 1: to happen next. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard
Speaker 1: McClean smith Into the Abyss Part one. The men had
Speaker 1: only made it two ft down when one of them
Speaker 1: struck something hard. Assuming it to be a large rock,
Speaker 1: he tried digging a few feet to the side, only
Speaker 1: to hit something similar again. It wasn't until they'd cleared
Speaker 1: more of the earth away that they discovered the entire
Speaker 1: area of the circle had been covered over with flat stones.
Speaker 1: After removing the slabs, a few more hours of digging
Speaker 1: revealed some kind of pit that seemed to narrow to
Speaker 1: about seven foot in diameter under the flagstones. With the
Speaker 1: soil having been obviously displaced and refilled before, it was
Speaker 1: easy to follow the contours of the original dig. Pickaxe
Speaker 1: markings on the inside of the wall gave further indication
Speaker 1: of the previous excavator's work. By the afternoon, having reached
Speaker 1: just under ten feet in depth, one of the men
Speaker 1: struck something solid again. Clearing the mud away, they found
Speaker 1: a layer of rotting timbers that had been carefully positioned
Speaker 1: deep below the surface. Believing they might finally have an
Speaker 1: answer to the purpose of the pit, the men pulled
Speaker 1: up the wood, only to find an empty two foot
Speaker 1: pocket of air underneath. Undeterred, they continued to dig until
Speaker 1: the early evening, making it a further eight feet down,
Speaker 1: when once again their shovels struck timber. Utterly Perplexed, the
Speaker 1: men pulled up the next row of logs, only to
Speaker 1: find nothing but dirt underneath. With the light fading quickly
Speaker 1: and not having ladders long enough to dig any further,
Speaker 1: the men call it a day. Any suggestion of the
Speaker 1: pit being a burial chamber has been thoroughly dispelled, since,
Speaker 1: despite being twenty feet down already, they had found nothing
Speaker 1: to show for their efforts. But in the days that followed,
Speaker 1: slowly something began to dawn on them. A clear reason
Speaker 1: why some one might go to all the trouble of
Speaker 1: digging a secret pit on the edge of a tiny,
Speaker 1: nondescript island and fortifying it to keep it safe. Back
Speaker 1: in seventeen o one, in the city of London, a
Speaker 1: man had been condemned to death and eventually hung at
Speaker 1: the infamous Execution Dock, located in Wapping on the banks
Speaker 1: of the River Thames. His name was William Kidd, and,
Speaker 1: like many of the unfortunates for whom Execution Dock would
Speaker 1: be their final destination, he was a pirate there was
Speaker 1: much a victim, as he was a participant of the
Speaker 1: rampant scheming and corruption perpetuated by British gentry in matters
Speaker 1: of trade and expansion. Kidd had none the less exhausted
Speaker 1: all favors by the time the noose was placed around
Speaker 1: his neck, and though his life would be short, his
Speaker 1: legend was only just beginning. It had long been suspected
Speaker 1: that Captain Kidd had buried a significant portion of his
Speaker 1: stolen wealth in an effort to curry favor lest he
Speaker 1: ever be captured. Indeed, a large stash of it had
Speaker 1: already been discovered shortly before his execution on Gardener's Island,
Speaker 1: a small outcrop at the northern tip of New York State,
Speaker 1: but few believed there wasn't more. And if you were
Speaker 1: looking for somewhere to hide a treasure trove of gold
Speaker 1: and jewels, far from the usual shipping lanes of the trade,
Speaker 1: as Donald, Anthony and John would shortly come to believe,
Speaker 1: you couldn't have found a better spot than the anonymity
Speaker 1: and seclusion of Oak Island. Returning to the site a
Speaker 1: few days later, convinced of their destiny, the men managed
Speaker 1: a further fifteen feet, but were left disappointed, finding only
Speaker 1: another shelf of timber. Frustrated and realizing they had neither
Speaker 1: the skill or the financial means to carry on, the
Speaker 1: men were forced to bring an end to their adventure. Also,
Speaker 1: they had all told each other in truth, John Smith
Speaker 1: had very different ideas. Over the next few years, Smith
Speaker 1: surreptitiously secured ownership of the pit, buying up the land
Speaker 1: and a number of the plots around it. Finally, by
Speaker 1: eighteen oh three, along with three other investors, with whom
Speaker 1: he formed the Onslow Company, he was ready to tackle
Speaker 1: the mystery again. Before long, they had made it to
Speaker 1: another five feet down, where again they mind yet another
Speaker 1: floor of timbers, but this time there is something else,
Speaker 1: a layer of charcoal scattered across the top of it.
Speaker 1: Since it was common to use charcoal fires to draw
Speaker 1: fresh air into mining shafts, it was now clearer than
Speaker 1: ever that a significant operation had once taken place here.
Speaker 1: The company soon make it to almost ninety feet in depth,
Speaker 1: uncovering a further four timber shelves, each at ten foot intervals,
Speaker 1: and incredibly layers of coconut fibers, suggesting that whatever was
Speaker 1: down there had likely traveled from some distance, the nearest
Speaker 1: cocoanut trees being thousands of miles away. Not only that,
Speaker 1: but as the men well known, cocoanut fibers were often
Speaker 1: used to pack precious cargo. Then, at ninety feet down
Speaker 1: they find something extraordinary. Having anticipated finding another layer of wood,
Speaker 1: the team instead find a thick slab of stone measuring
Speaker 1: two feet long and one foot wide. Peeling it carefully
Speaker 1: from the mud, they are astonished to find there is
Speaker 1: an inscription carved on to its under side, only it's
Speaker 1: not in any language that they have ever seen before,
Speaker 1: made from thirty nine geometric symbols spaced out over what
Speaker 1: seems like eight words. It appears to be some kind
Speaker 1: of code. A short time later, the workers notice water
Speaker 1: seeping up from under the hole, but decide to ignore
Speaker 1: it and continue to dig. That afternoon, at roughly ninety
Speaker 1: eight feet, once again, the shovels hit wood and a
Speaker 1: ninth timber platform is unearthed. After prising the logs apart,
Speaker 1: only to find more mud and clay below. The team
Speaker 1: finished for the day, convinced they are only feet away
Speaker 1: from the objects of their wildest desires. Spirits are understandably
Speaker 1: high when the crew return to work the following morning,
Speaker 1: only to find a solemn looking John Smith waiting for
Speaker 1: them by the pit, wringing his hat in his hands.
Speaker 1: The pit has completely filled with water. Are you always
Speaker 1: taking care of your family? Do you often take care
Speaker 1: of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take
Speaker 1: care of yourself, To make time for you. You deserve it.
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Speaker 1: help you get back to feeling your best to feeling
Speaker 1: like yourself again. With tele adoc, you can speak to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy Appointments are
Speaker 1: available seven days a week from seven am to nine
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Speaker 1: Teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download
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Speaker 1: podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast. All hands work furiously to bail out the water,
Speaker 1: but the level refuses to budge. With no other option,
Speaker 1: the company pulls the rest of their money and hires
Speaker 1: a mechanical pump. The plan works perfectly as the water
Speaker 1: is soon drained from the pit, but then, with only
Speaker 1: eight more feet to go, disaster strikes when the pump
Speaker 1: breaks down. By the end of the day, the water
Speaker 1: line is back to where it started. Believing they knew
Speaker 1: roughly where the treasure might be, the team dig a
Speaker 1: second tunnel, from which they planned to dig across to
Speaker 1: the first one. Once they had reached the required depth
Speaker 1: of a hundred and ten feet or so, but the
Speaker 1: crew only make it as far as twelve feet before
Speaker 1: their access pit is also completely flooded. Having run out
Speaker 1: of money, the Onslow Company is forced to give up,
Speaker 1: and so the pit secrets will remain submerged by water
Speaker 1: for the next forty years. As for the stone, with
Speaker 1: its peculiar coded markings, it is left in the possession
Speaker 1: of John Smith, the landowner and one of the pit's
Speaker 1: original discoverers. However, believing it to be worthless, the code
Speaker 1: is never deciphered and the stone soon forgotten about. By
Speaker 1: eighteen forty five, with Donald mccinnis having died and John
Speaker 1: Smith vowing never to waste another scent on the hopeless venture,
Speaker 1: it is left to the third of the original finders,
Speaker 1: Antony Vaughan, to take up the reins. Now in his sixties, Vaughan,
Speaker 1: together with another seven investors, forms the Truro Syndicate, and
Speaker 1: by eighteen forty nine finally secures the rights to start
Speaker 1: his own attempt to locate the treasure. That summer, the
Speaker 1: largest team yet sets up camp and immediately gets to
Speaker 1: work draining the pit. After two weeks, they have drained
Speaker 1: it to within five feet of the bottom. Returning the
Speaker 1: following day, however, the crew is devastated to find that
Speaker 1: once again the waters have returned, but this time they
Speaker 1: have a new plan. After constructing a wooden platform over
Speaker 1: the pit, a large drill is dropped into it, with
Speaker 1: the hope of at least determining what materials are buried
Speaker 1: further down. They will not to be disappointed. Passing the
Speaker 1: bottom of the hole marked by the shelf of timber
Speaker 1: ninety feet down, they drill on to roughly a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifteen feet, Deciding they have gone deep enough, The
Speaker 1: crew watched with bated breath as the device is withdrawn
Speaker 1: from the depths and pulled finally into the light of day.
Speaker 1: Just as the last section is removed, something sparkles in
Speaker 1: the light. The foreman hurriedly inspects the drill head and
Speaker 1: is astounded to find three small lengths of a gold
Speaker 1: chain as well as fibers of oak, suggesting the high
Speaker 1: likelihood that the drill had broken through the walls of
Speaker 1: some kind of chest. Finally they had found it, getting
Speaker 1: it out would be another matter, entirely owing to the
Speaker 1: incessant flooding of water. Just as the onslow team had
Speaker 1: realized their best chance was to access it from a
Speaker 1: parallel shaft, believing the treasure to be roughly one hundred
Speaker 1: and ten feet down. Incredibly, the team managed to dig
Speaker 1: a secondary channel to one hundred and nine feet and
Speaker 1: are even able to start tunneling across before disaster strikes again,
Speaker 1: and just as if something had been suddenly uncaught, water
Speaker 1: rushes into the pit. But as the team regroups to
Speaker 1: assess their options, one of the men notices something interesting.
Speaker 1: The water is rising and falling with the tide. Tasting it,
Speaker 1: he is amazed to find it is salty, suggesting that
Speaker 1: rather than being the water table, it must be coming
Speaker 1: from the sea. A hundred meters to the east of
Speaker 1: the dig site lies Smith's Cove, named after one of
Speaker 1: the area's earliest known settlers, Edward Smith, sometime in the
Speaker 1: mid seventeen hundreds. Being the closest stretch of coastline to
Speaker 1: the pit, the crew naturally assume it to be the
Speaker 1: most likely source of the flood water. With the beach
Speaker 1: being fairly small, the chief engineer suggests they construct a
Speaker 1: dam to better see what they are dealing with. Making
Speaker 1: quick work, it isn't long before they have blocked off
Speaker 1: the cove and drained it completely of water. What they
Speaker 1: discover next astounds them. The floor of the inlet is
Speaker 1: found to be completely covered with cocoanut fiber and eel grass,
Speaker 1: under which they find beech stones carefully laid out. The cove,
Speaker 1: it transpires, has been synthetically constructed and underneath all the rocks.
Speaker 1: Finally they find the source of all their problems. It
Speaker 1: is some kind of booby trap made from a series
Speaker 1: of eight inch wide drains of flat stone fanning out
Speaker 1: like five fingers into the ocean. Together, the drains converge
Speaker 1: into one single drainage channel that disappears underneath the island,
Speaker 1: heading straight for the excavation site. The team immediately gets
Speaker 1: to work locating the main drainage tunnel in the hope
Speaker 1: of blocking it off completely. Yet another shaft is duck
Speaker 1: twelve feet to the east of the original, revealing an
Speaker 1: underground channel of water thirty five feet down. Next, timbers
Speaker 1: are driven into the ground to block it off, and
Speaker 1: when a fourth borehole twenty feet to the south of
Speaker 1: the original is dug to one hundred and ten feet
Speaker 1: with no sign of water, it appears their plan is working. Finally,
Speaker 1: with no danger of water, making it past the blocking timbers,
Speaker 1: the team are ready to dig through to the treasure.
Speaker 1: All is going well when within two feet of the
Speaker 1: original shaft, workers tunneling through the clay on their knees
Speaker 1: and the dark notice the walls have become wet, and
Speaker 1: soon their knees are damp, and before long their feet
Speaker 1: and calves are drenched to the tunnel is filling with water. Mercifully,
Speaker 1: the workers are able to scramble out and get back
Speaker 1: to the surface before it is too late, while the
Speaker 1: rest of the team watch with sinking hearts as one
Speaker 1: by one the three surrounding boreholes steadily fill up with water.
Speaker 1: After trying again to unsuccessfully find the central flood tunnel,
Speaker 1: the Truroau Company's hunt for treasure is also forced to
Speaker 1: come to an end. In eighteen fifty seven, John Smith
Speaker 1: becomes the second of the three original Oak Island treasure
Speaker 1: hunters to die. Ownership of his land is passed from
Speaker 1: his sons, who, having watched the fabled treasure pit steadily
Speaker 1: ruined their father, are only too happy to sell it
Speaker 1: on to a Henry Stephen, who in turn sells it
Speaker 1: to local landowner Anthony Graves. The Truau Company return in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine for one final stab, but their considerable
Speaker 1: efforts will once again prove futile. However, rumors about the
Speaker 1: island's apparent treasure are beginning to grow, and within two
Speaker 1: years a new crop of hunters arrive on the island
Speaker 1: ready to claim its reward. The Oak Island Association, led
Speaker 1: by Jotham McCulley, draft in over sixty men and thirty
Speaker 1: horses to a system, as well as employing the latest
Speaker 1: mining technology, from an iron pump engine to industrial sized
Speaker 1: winches and pulley systems. However, their heavy handed approach digging
Speaker 1: three further holes and tunnels around the original pit results
Speaker 1: in yet more flooding and the eventual collapse of the
Speaker 1: original shaft, resulting in only the upper thirty feet of
Speaker 1: it now being accessible. In the process of re excavating
Speaker 1: the original pit, the pump boiler ruptures, spraying scolding water
Speaker 1: onto a nearby worker and burning him to death. But
Speaker 1: what's worse from the perspective of the Oak Island Association,
Speaker 1: is that they are running out of money and with
Speaker 1: news of the fatal accident now spreading, there is little
Speaker 1: hope of raising fresh capital. A short time later, however,
Speaker 1: with work halted, Jotham McCulley here's a story about one
Speaker 1: of the first artifacts to be found in the original pit,
Speaker 1: a mysterious stone inscribed with a strange cryptic message. What's more,
Speaker 1: as rumor would have it, the stone is still on
Speaker 1: the island, having apparently been integrated into John Smith's old fireplace.
Speaker 1: Wasting no time, McCully, whose company now owns the property,
Speaker 1: takes a chisel to the fireplace and sets about removing
Speaker 1: it piece by piece. He hasn't been working long when
Speaker 1: he spots one particular slab a little smoother than the others,
Speaker 1: pressed into the wall at the back. Freeing it up,
Speaker 1: he turns it around to find, much to his amazement,
Speaker 1: a strange cryptic message etched onto the other side of it.
Speaker 1: Realizing it might be their lasts, McCully has the stone
Speaker 1: loaded onto a horse and cart and dispatched immediately to Halifax,
Speaker 1: the nearest major city. For the next few weeks, the
Speaker 1: curious stone is placed in the window of a bookshop
Speaker 1: to drum up interest in the Oak Island treasure hunt.
Speaker 1: In an effort to sell more shares to keep the
Speaker 1: company going. Many come to view the peculiar artifact and
Speaker 1: attempt to decipher the code, but no one can crack it. Regardless,
Speaker 1: excitement generated by the stone's mysterious origins is enough to
Speaker 1: raise another two thousand dollars what equates to roughly fifty
Speaker 1: thousand today, enabling the Oak Island Association to continue their
Speaker 1: search for a few more years. However, like all who
Speaker 1: had come before them, the company will fail, becoming the
Speaker 1: third formal syndicate, forced to admit defeat in the search
Speaker 1: for what many have come to believe is the lost
Speaker 1: treasure of pirate Captain William Kidd. A short time later,
Speaker 1: the stone is brought to the attention of James Leechi,
Speaker 1: a professor of languages at Halifax's Dalhousie University. A keen
Speaker 1: amateur cryptographer, Leechie sets about trying to decipher the message,
Speaker 1: assuming it to be a simple substitution code, whereby each
Speaker 1: symbol simply represents a letter of the English alphabet. It
Speaker 1: is not long before Leachi believes he has cracked the code.
Speaker 1: The message, he believes reads forty feet below. Two million
Speaker 1: pounds are buried. Part two of Into the Abyss will
Speaker 1: be released on Wednesday, twelfth of September. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you
Speaker 1: can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward slash support.
Speaker 1: All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated.
Speaker 1: All elements have Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. But feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Unexplained pod. Now. It's time to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. To make time for you, Tell
Speaker 1: a doc gives you access to a licensed therapist to
Speaker 1: help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven
Speaker 1: am to nine pm local time, seven days a week.
Speaker 1: Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download
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