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From netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!portnoy!canrem.com!john.coldrick Sun Dec 11 20:39:56 1994
Xref: netcom.com alt.folklore.ghost-stories:8865
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Re: Mystery of Oak Island
From: john.coldrick@canrem.com (John Coldrick)
Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!portnoy!canrem.com!john.coldrick
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <60.5262.5102.0N1C3098@canrem.com>
References: <1994Dec9.080044.8402@kcvax1>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 94 20:41:00 -0500
Organization: CRS Online (Toronto, Ontario)
Lines: 95
Ta> I watched an old "In Search Of" a few weeks back and they talked about
Ta> Oak Island. Apparently a pirate (I forget which one) buried treasure on
...
Ta> not. Someone, somewhere, someday will be able to figure out a way to
Ta> keep the water out of the shaft and get the gold.
Ta> Nikki
I've been to Oak Island a few times - also an old relative of mine
in the 1800's used to own a small hovel on the island! I've done a fair
bit of reading about it and have always wondered about it.
However, it's got more exaggerations and mis-told stories about it
than bigfoot. It's been associated with not only pirates, but ancient
civilisations and UFO's! Hardly surprising, I suppose.
Also, many of the "minor" details like gold being imbedded in the
teeth of a drill have been enhanced or possibly created by various people
on the periphery of the mystery. The fact is, that many, many people have
thrown their hand into trying to solve the mystery over the years and each
has small parts of the puzzle. Even the mighty beast that is the 20th
century industrial age couldn't get to the end of the tunnel. It's rather
sobering to realize that with all this power, time, blood and sweat that
the hole still holds it's secret. The fact is that the hole may have no
true secret after all.
It was "discovered" in 1795 on Oak island (said by locals to have
been haunted by witches, etc.) by a man named McInnis, one of the first
settlers on the island. He found evidence of something unusual having been
done at the base of lone, old oak tree in the midst of what otherwise was a
cleared area with a few young oaks sprouting up. On one large branch there
hung an old takle block, and under it was a depression in the ground,
inferring that there was some sort of old well underneath that someone had
been raising and lowering heavy things into. Right from the very beginning
he thought he may have found pirate's treasure - thus the mystery has been
associated with that ever since. After digging for some time he was able
to find a layer of flagstones (unlike any other kind of stone on the
island), a platform of oak logs at 10 feet, and earth settled 2 feet below
that. After digging a further 15 feet he gave up because the earth became
too difficult to dig in.
Since then, over the years, many people have dug very deep, finding
several layers of oak logs, spruce, and metal in pieces. Some of the more
recent drilling has been kept secret because it's being done privately by
the owners of the island. However, word has it that there was found a 45
foot high chamber with a two foot wooden roof and possibly an iron floor at
139 feet. Even more amazing is the existance of at least two tunnels that
angle in from the side directly from the ocean. On more than one occasion
they had thwarted attempts to go deeper due to flooding. The saddest thing
about all these ambitious attempts is that they were very destructive.
There's probably large amounts of useful information that could have been
gleaned from some of the earlier discoveries - now all we're left with is
descriptions of the logs being in a state of "advanced decomposition."
It appears that someone constructed all of this in order to protect
something very valuable. It's unknown how they would have expected to get
at it without killing themselves in the process, but it's always possible
that a previously clever "back door" to the item(s) may have collapsed over
the years and is all but invisible now.
There's still no guarantee that this has anything to do with
pirate's treasure. For one thing, many mysteries in the past that appear
to be incredibly complicated and deliberate have ended up being the
combination of a simple thing that has been mis-interpreted over the years,
possibly complicated by natural forces with no agenda but that with which
they have always operated. Just ask anyone who lives near the sea about
how powerful nature is and the incredible things it can appear to
construct.
There does appear to be some human intervention here, though. The
assumption of pirates is natural, since at the time of it's discovery and
for some time after treasure hunting was an extremely popular pastime for
many people living in the new world. There actually was a fair number of
hidden treasures discovered. There have been several artifacts discovered
in the Oak Island area that associate it with William Kidd. However, there
are numerous date conflicts with those theories. Also, there have
literally been *no* tools found on the island, apart from that mysterious
original tackle block, long since disappeared. With the vast amounts of
work that were done you would expect numerous tools, or personal effects to
be buried in the area surrounding the Money Pit(as it's come to be known).
There is a natural arrogance with western culture that assumes that
only European society in the last 500 years has been capable of truly
awe-inspiring engineering feats. Thus the favoured pirate theories.
However, as we now know, the pyramids in both Eygpt and Middle and South
America were truly incredible accomplishments that were done when Europe
was a collection of hunters and gatherers. Also, Stonehenge, Easter
Island, and other incredible feats were accomplished in "pre-history".
Could Oak Island have been done by an ancient civilisation - not
necessarily burying gold, but possible religious artifacts? Who knows?
Anyway, as you can see - I'm quite interested in the Pit. Pardon
me for burbling on. My old relative used to tell ghost stories,
apparently, of when he lived all alone on the island. He probably
contributed to a lot of the myths of the area. If anyone wants to hear
them - they're short, but I know them...
J.C.
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