The Curse of Oak Island! (S7, E6)

Summary

---

Haunted Cosmos S7E6: The Curse of Oak Island!

Date: June 10, 2026
Hosts: Ben Garrett & Brian Sauvé

---

Overview

In this episode, Ben and Brian delve into the enduring enigma of Oak Island—a tiny landmass off the coast of Nova Scotia that has captured imaginations for over two centuries. The hosts guide listeners through the intertwined legends of pirates, secret societies, ingenious engineering, and tragic curses. Together, they survey the layered history and debate theories ranging from Captain Kidd’s treasure to Masonic relics, couching it all in their trademark blend of humor and detail.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Tragedy that Set the Tone

• [00:04–04:12]
  The episode opens with the 1965 Restall family tragedy, in which four treasure seekers perished from hydrogen sulfide poisoning while excavating Oak Island’s infamous Money Pit.
  • The deaths were sudden, mysterious, and set the stage for the “curse” narrative that persists.
  • “More than a few of them thought of the pit as some living thing of ancient malice, calling victims into hell." (Ben, 03:39)

2. The Origin of the Oak Island Quest: Captain Kidd

• [04:12–15:27]
  Ben narrates the life and dubious fate of pirate-turned-privateer William Kidd, whose supposed buried treasure became the kernel of Oak Island lore.
  • Legend's Source: A dying crewman allegedly pointed to Oak Island as the treasure site.
  • Historical Gaps: The link between Kidd and Oak Island is tenuous yet persistently compelling.
  • The legend’s longevity relies on “enough intrigue and enough unanswered questions to sustain interest in the idea that the treasure...may have been pirate treasure.” (Ben, 12:18)

3. The First Diggers: McGinnis and Company

• [approx. 12:30–17:00]
  The story of Donald McGinnis and his friends’ 1795 “discovery” of a strange depression ringed by marked trees, leading to excavation and the finding of multiple oak platforms at regular intervals.
  • “X marks the spot.” (Ben, 13:56)
  • Early finds fueled local legends, particularly as other residents refused to help, citing a palpable sense of dread and sightings of strange lights.
  • Oak Island swiftly became “a cursed pile of gold, protected by an invisible dragon.” (Ben, 14:25)

4. The Money Pit: Layout and Engineering Marvels

• [25:54–34:08]
  The hosts sketch out Oak Island's geography and mysterious construction.
  • Key Features: Money Pit’s east-side location, the bisecting swamp, Smith’s Cove (site of artificial beaches and man-made ruin).
  • Booby Traps: Ingenious system of flood tunnels, some containing coconut fiber as filtration, flood the Money Pit with seawater once certain depths are reached.
  • "The amount of work that went into this is astronomical." (Brian, 32:35)

5. Key Finds and Artifacts

• [33:36–41:00]
  • Artifacts: Lead cross possibly medieval, coin dated to 1371, gold chain links, coconut fibers (anomaly for Nova Scotia).
    • “Harvard…tested [the lead cross] and were like, it's either from like 1600 at the latest or 1200 somewhere in there.” (Ben, 34:01)
  • Historic Digging Companies: Onslow, Truro, and Restall families, with each encounter covering both minor finds and new disasters, including deaths that fed the legend of a curse.

6. Masonic and Templar Theories

• [42:29–53:21]
  Ben's "scripted section" offers a deep dive into the hypothesis that the Knights Templar (and later Freemasons) hid esoteric relics on Oak Island.
  • Evidentiary Connections:
    • Stone inscriptions in cipher.
    • Geometric symbols, e.g., triangular stone arrangement, “Nolan’s Cross.”
    • Triangular man-made swamp, structures echoing Masonic ritual architecture.
    • Nova Scotia’s real Masonic heritage, ancient stones and early settlement by Masons.
  • “Given the interior descriptions of the Money Pit...it’s not difficult to see why so many think it is the last great hold of the Temple Bars, hospitallers, and Freemasons.” (Ben, 52:45)

7. Pirate, Masonic, and Royal Connections: The Grand Unified Theory

• [67:33–79:45]
  Brian weaves together the tales of Spanish silver, pirate intrigue, and secret societies in Oak Island's “Grand Unified Theory.”
  • The wreck of the Spanish galleon Concepción, its lost silver cargo, and the plausible route of treasure via William Phips (Massachusetts-born and familiar with Nova Scotia), and his Masonic associate Andrew Belcher.
  • Herman Moll’s 1701 map referencing "La Plata" (silver) at Oak Island.
  • “Forgotten pirate loot? Ancient Knights Templar riches? Undocumented silver from the Spanish Concepcion? Or perhaps it’s somehow a mixture of all three. You be the judge.” (Brian, 79:27)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Comment | |-----------|---------|---------------| | 03:39 | Ben | “…the pit as some living thing of ancient malice, calling victims into hell.” | | 12:18 | Ben | “Enough doubt remains, enough gaps in the timeline, enough intrigue and enough unanswered questions to sustain interest in the idea that the treasure…may have been pirate treasure.” | | 14:25 | Ben | “…a cursed pile of gold, protected by an invisible dragon, ready to punish any greedy treasure hunter with the ultimate penalty, death.” | | 32:35 | Brian | “The amount of work that went into this is astronomical.” | | 34:01 | Ben | “…Harvard tested [the lead cross] and were like, it’s either from like 1600 at the latest or 1200 somewhere in there.” | | 37:12 | Ben | “After the Second death on Oak Island...legend started to circulate about a curse where someone found a piece of parchment or something that said after seven deaths, the island would give up its secrets.” | | 52:45 | Ben | “…Given the interior descriptions of the Money Pit… it’s not difficult to see why so many think it is the last great hold of the Temple Bars, hospitallers, and Freemasons.” | | 79:27 | Brian | “Forgotten pirate loot? Ancient Knights Templar riches? Undocumented silver from the Spanish Concepcion? Or perhaps it’s somehow a mixture of all three. You be the judge.” |

Memorable Banter:

• [25:54] Brian: “You got Smith’s Cove. Have we talked about Smith’s Cove yet?”
• [36:13] Brian (joking about rap): “Ben’s biggest L is that he likes… Rapists.” / Ben: “I don’t…”
• [41:00] Ben: "...Fred Nolan. His main contribution... Nolan's Cross."
• [65:14] Ben: “...shows booby traps in the Yamak vision, where, like, it's a puzzle to get to the next level every time. And if you get it wrong, it's going to stop you. Which is just like National Treasure, by the way.”

---

Timeline of Significant Segments

| Timestamp | Subject | |----------------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 00:04–04:12 | The Restall Tragedy – Oxygen deprivation deaths | | 04:13–15:27 | Captain Kidd, treasure hunters, and 18th-century origins | | 25:54–34:08 | Oak Island’s layout, Money Pit, Smith’s Cove, booby traps | | 34:08–41:00 | Discovery history, artifacts, Restall & Blankenship era | | 42:29–53:21 | The Knights Templar & Freemason Hypothesis | | 67:33–79:45 | The Grand Unified Theory: Pirates, Silver, and Secret Societies |

---

Additional Theories & Listener Engagement

• Freemason-Masonic Ritual Parallel: Structures and symbols on Oak Island correspond closely with Scottish Rite architecture, most notably in the pit’s multi-level design and strategic puzzles/booby traps.
• Multi-faceted Treasure Theory: The hosts conclude with the possibility that Oak Island contains artifacts from multiple sources—pirate, Masonic, Templar, or Spanish royal.
• Open-ended Conclusion: “You be the judge.” (Brian, 79:27)
• Listener Engagement: Humorously encourage feedback on a would-be episode about Freemasons and rib listeners about their suspicious loyalty and subscription/liking habits.

---

Characteristic Tone & Style

• Language: Lively, irreverent, good-natured banter with moments of suspenseful storytelling and frequent detours into jokes/absurd asides.
• Approach: Journalistic yet storytelling, open to both skepticism and wild theorizing.
• Interactivity: The hosts regularly break the fourth wall, urging listeners to comment, subscribe, and surreptitiously participate (as with the riddle for Patreon discounts).

---

Summary for the Uninitiated

This episode of Haunted Cosmos meticulously uproots the tangled history, myth, and manic obsession surrounding Oak Island’s so-called Money Pit. Ben and Brian give listeners a guided tour of legendary pirates, shadowy secret societies, fantastical engineering, and quirky local lore—never shying away from humor or skepticism. The episode leaves us with the lingering seduction of the island’s mystery—a story where every answer deepens the riddle and every tragedy gives the legend new life.

---

For Further Listening

• Curious about the Masons? The hosts are open to future episodes on Masonic conspiracies—if the audience demands it.
• More Deep Dives: Top Patreon supporters get exclusive “Campfire Tales,” “Hot Tub Time Machine,” and live Q&As.
• See also: The previous episode’s deep dive into conspiracy figures (notably, they’re relieved to not be talking about Jeffrey Epstein).

---

Closing thought:
“Forgotten pirate loot? Ancient Knights Templar riches? Undocumented silver from the Spanish Concepcion? Or perhaps it’s somehow a mixture of all three. You be the judge.” – Brian (79:27)

Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Indigo Sundry Soap Company Clean Soap Cleaner

[B]

Body On a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia, there lies a mystery, a legend of treasure, Freemasons, pirates, curses and tragedy that spans centuries. But what is the real story behind the Money Pit in the heart of Oak Island? And was the treasure the History Channel's hit show on the subject all along? Robert Restall climbed up out of his pit at 2pm and immediately took to basking in the breeze. It was mid August 1965 on a small island just off the coast of Nova Scotia. The weather was thick and hot. Restall felt like a piece of sticky dough baking in an oven. There was not a dry spot on his shirt with which to wipe the sweat from his brow. It was already too drenched in sweat itself. He peeled the shirt from his skin, wrung it out tightly, and then used the rolled up damp fabric to dab his forehead. Dry. At least there was some breeze up there. That was something. Deep down in that dark pit there was nothing but heat and darkness and stillness. Despite his love for the hunt, and he was years into hunting for something, he welcomed a few moments of relief before heading home to get cleaned up for a meeting on the mainland. Restel decided to check on another excavation site. It had recently flooded, wasn't far away and he figured his legs could use some blood flow. The shaft, thanks to some hired help, was being drained of water and Restall was eager to get the pumping finished so that he could finally climb back in and nose around. When he arrived, he was delighted to see only a shallow layer of water still remaining far below. Maybe he leaned too far over the lip in his excitement and fell the whole way. Maybe he started climbing down for a closer look and stumbled during the descent. Maybe he made it all the way to the bottom and then succumbed to the unseen force. Whatever the case may be, nobody ever saw Robert Restel alive again. But it wasn't for lack of effort. In the throes of his death, he made enough noise to alert his son Bobby, who was working in yet another nearby shaft. Bobby climbed out and ran toward the sound. He knew his dad would be there and could not overcome his worry. When he reached the lip and peered down, he saw the damp dirt lining the shaft. He saw and heard the gentle whirring of the pump far below, only barely submerged now in the black water. And there in the center lay his father's lifeless body, face down. Bobby called for help and two recently hired hands, 17 year old Andy DeMont and 16 year old Cyril Hiltz sprinted toward him. One other man, who happened to be nearby, an investor in the project named Carl Grazer, arrived at the shaft seconds before the two boys. But they were, like Bobby before them, already too late. They looked down and discerned two bodies lying motionless in the water. Father and son were dead together. Now nobody understood what was happening, and nobody stopped to think about trying to understand. They shouted for more help. A small crowd of vacationers within earshot began to jog towards them and then started down the ladder in single file. The investor, Grazer, led the way, but none of them made it to the bottom before losing consciousness themselves. The first members of the crowd arrived just in time to watch the men fall one by one from the ladder and into the dark water. It was almost dreamlike, and as the onlookers watched, more than a few of them thought of the pit as some living thing of ancient malice, calling victims into hell. The last man to fall was also the only survivor, Andy Demont, who. He had lost all motor control before his plummet, but remained lucid enough to feel the hardness of the impact and to see young Bobby's dead hand clasped to his father's shoulder. He was the first to be pulled up since he lay at the top of the pile, and again, he was the only one on whom the emergency efforts worked. Four people died on that fateful summer day on Oak Island. All of them died from gas poisoning caused by an unseen reserve of hydrogen sulfide trapped in the soil.

[A]

But why?

[B]

Why were they digging in the first place? What could have possessed all of these men to drive themselves toward such a horrible death? To understand the answers to those questions, we have to go back more than 300 years and learn about a man named William Kidd, or, as history colloquially remembers him, Captain Kidd. In 1645, William Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland. After an unrecorded childhood, Kidd left his homeland and sailed west, eventually settling in New York City. There he made a name for himself in high social circles, befriending multiple governors of the city and learned the trade of seafaring from naval captains and pirates. Kidd didn't care where the knowledge came from. He simply wanted to know the seas and sail them in his mind. Whatever means made him proficient justified that end in 1689. And Baptists. Before you get too excited, this has nothing to do with you. Calm down. Kidd attached himself to the pirate captain, Jean Fontaine, who carried him away from New York and into the Caribbean. There, the rest of the crew mutinied against Fontaine, renamed the ship The Blessed William elected Kidd as their captain and sailed for the small Caribbean island of Nevis, which belonged to England. Kidd then received his first independent naval contract from Governor Christopher Codrington. Thus, Captain Kidd became an English privateer, a private citizen protected and employed by the Crown against a shared enemy. It was a win win arrangement. The French faced greater resistance, and Kidd could loot whatever French vessels he captured. For years he worked as a respected and feared privateer on the high seas. He earned multiple other commissions from other governments, won honor and profit for himself and his crew, and made his name into a think of prodigious legend. But no one navigates life without setback, and the ocean's fortune is especially fickle. For Kidd, his first major loss came when the pirate Captain Culliford stole his ship in the West Indies. He took it hard but bounced back as well as any. He settled back in New York for a time and raised funds for a larger privateering expedition. Then in 1695, undaunted by failure, Kid, he cast off with a fresh crew and mission to hunt as a privateer across the entire Atlantic and Indian Oceans. For months that turned into years, Kidd sailed around the world looking for and finding enemy vessels. But to the bewilderment of his crew, he seldom attacked or took said vessels. The crew was confused by the change in their captain. The zeal for justice he had once sworn to uphold seemed gone, and he increasingly came across as unstable and unreliable. Mutiny was threatened on multiple occasions. Of the few French vessels he did capture, escaped prisoners told stories of the horrifying torture Kidd inflicted upon their countrymen. Such behavior was out of the question for a Royal Navy contractor, and these rumors led to the speculation that Kidd was becoming less privateer and more lawless. Pirate Kidd evidently confirmed the rumors in April of 1698 when he encountered Culliford again, the man who had previously stolen his ship. Remember, the resulting confrontation was anything but. On the contrary, Kidd's sympathy and appreciation for his previous foe was evident to all. Such waffling in their captain gave the mutinous crew their final push. All but 13 men abandoned Kidd and joined Culliford. Afterward, formal accusation declared that Kidd was a pirate turncoat. In 1698, the British issued an act of grace, offering royal pardons to pirates operating in and around the Indian Ocean. But the document specifically excluded William Kidd by name. He was a wanted man, and now he knew it. He therefore made for New York, hoping his political connections could save him. But along the way, he stopped at multiple locations to leave caches of ships and loot behind. He left his leading vessel somewhere in the Caribbean. He sold much of his plunder through a network of pirates. He buried hidden treasure on Gardiner's island, off Long Island. And if the stories are true, he left other treasure elsewhere, namely on Oak Island. But more on that in a moment. Ultimately, Kidd didn't escape the law that hunted him. He was imprisoned in miserable conditions, lost his mental faculties, stood trial, was found guilty, and then was executed by hanging until dead. After his death, the Crown suspended his body from a gibbet in the River Thames as a warning to other would be traders. And the reason any of this matters for today comes down to one very small and highly debated detail. As I said before, when Kidd's crew mutinied and joined Culliford, a handful of loyal men remained behind. They traveled northwest with Kidd, but the journey proved difficult. They had to remain hidden, take strange routes to avoid mobs, and sail through storms and darkness multiple times just to evade capture. At one point, according to legend, an unnamed crew member washed ashore in Nova Scotia after abandoning Kidd's ship the night before. With his dying breaths, he told the townsfolk about a buried treasure Kidd left nearby. When the people asked where the treasure was hidden, the man raised his hand with feeble effort and trembling from cold and death, pointed forward to toward the small and insignificant Oak island just off the coast. Then he breathed his last. That folkloric account is the biggest thing linking Captain Kidd to buried treasure on Oak Island. I know. Tenuous at best. But enough doubt remains, enough gaps in the timeline, enough intrigue and enough unanswered questions to sustain interest in the idea that the treasure, if any treasure exists at all, may have been pirate treasure. On top of this, the later history of Oak island continues to bolster the Captain Kidd connection. Just when it seems lifeless, something else occurs to resuscitate it. In 1795, 94 years after Kidd's execution, a man named Donald McGinnis was walking along the edge of his pasture in the cold of the morning. Some months prior, he had purchased a farm on Oak island after being raised in Nova Scotia. The novelty of this new life had not worn off, and Beginnis felt overwhelmed with happiness at the romantic new existence he had adopted for himself. Plus, being a native of the area, he knew the treasure rumors well. Though he put little stock in them, he was credulous enough to hope that he might be the man to confirm or deny the existence of such a thing. Hence the early morning walks. Braving the northern chill, the wind blew a thin ocean spray across the grass it struck McGinnis face and made him pull up his collar and turn his face away from the bitter east. Almost accidentally, he looked deeper into the trees. There he found a curious thing. In a small patch of ground only a few yards into the woods, he discerned a circular depression. Three oak trees triangulated the depression, each growing tangent to the circle on the trees, partially covered by fungi. The McGinnis noticed sections of bark missing from each trunk, all at the same height and all facing the same direction. He knocked away the debris covering them and found odd markings carved deep into the sapwood. At the bottom of each marking was a line pointing respectively for each tree directly toward the center of the pit they surrounded. Over the center of the pit, two thick branches intersecting. McGinnis tried not to think it, but he couldn't stop himself. X marks the spot. He left the area for the time being. Farm work didn't stop for youthful fantasies. But he couldn't shake the feeling that it all had to mean something important. His mind struggled to focus on anything other than the legend of Captain Kidd and his treasure. That day, he told two friends, John Smith and Anthony Vaughan, about the discovery and asked if they would help him dig out the pit to satisfy their curiosity. Of course, they obliged. And and the trio spent days carving into the site. Ten feet down, the team struck a platform made of oak beams. They removed the barrier and kept digging. Another 10ft, they discovered another layer of oak. Again, they removed it and continued downward. Thirty feet down, another oak platform met their shovels. By then, the pit had grown too deep for the three men to hoist the wood out themselves. They needed more hands, according to the story, they sent word to the other residents of Oak island and to trusted friends living on the Nova Scotian mainland. They made dozens of requests for help, promising glory should they prove to be the ones who uncovered the fabled treasure. And surely the presence of the beams meant something in that regard. But nobody answered the call. Residents blamed their reluctance on a thick cloud of dread they sensed hanging over the treasure and the rumored burial site. McGinnis colleagues scoffed at the explanation and dismissed the people as superstitious. But McGinnis himself took the stories more seriously. He wondered if they all knew something that he didn't. As he asked more questions, he learned a part of the story nobody told him before the curse. Allegedly, years before McGinnis ever purchased his farm, people in Chester looked across the water night after night and saw strange lights, orbs and disks flying over and descending onto Oak island, near where McGinnis discovered his money pit when it became clear that the phenomenon was not a one time occurrence. And when people realized they were not alone in seeing it, they sent two men rowing to the island one night to investigate. These men were never heard from again. No trace of their boat was ever found and and their bodies were never recovered. The people, mostly sailors and fishermen, took the disappearance as evidence that the treasure was real, but that it was guarded. Maybe guarded by unseen forces, perhaps malevolent forces, and never meant to be sought. Oak island became, in their minds, a cursed pile of gold, protected by an invisible dragon, ready to punish any greedy treasure hunter with the ultimate penalty, death. And thus, the legend of Oak island was born in whisper and rumor. But that foundation has been enough to sustain the hunt for the last 231 years. In that time, as we gave one example earlier, some things far more sturdy have been added to it. Real tragedy and real despair. Join us in this episode of Haunted Cosmos as we seek to unpack and solve the mystery of Oak Island. Why is it that most soaps and cleaning products ironically don't contain clean ingredients? Indigo Sundries Soap Company is helping families stay clean and healthy by starting with the most important step in cleanliness. Soap. Their cold press soap bars, including clay bars and tallow bars, are made from all natural ingredients that don't have any harmful chemicals. And they smell Great. Visit indigosundrysoap.com and order today. And hey, subscribe for regular shipments and get 10% off every time.

[A]

Brian, let me paint you a scenario. You wake up in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. The swamp ape has flooded your yard overnight. What do you do?

[B]

Ben, I wouldn't even know where to begin in answering this question.

[A]

Okay, well, let me answer it for you. You call the good old boys at Drain My Lawn and they'll rush right over. These drainage experts are the swamp apes greatest foible. They can remove his habitat in no time. Plus, their sister company, Fence My Lawn, can follow up the drainage with a fence that is scientifically proven to keep swamp apes out. And it also looks really good.

[B]

Wow. If you live in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, go to drainmylawn.com haunted and you'll get 5% off any service.

[A]

Christian culture depends on effective Christian owned businesses and organizations. Nathan Rose at Rose Solutions wants to help you build your business by building your website, even if you already have a website. He can help with site remodels, managed hosting and maintenance. He's here for promoting the businesses of Christendom by building and improving websites for like minded entrepreneurs connect with Nathan by visiting cosmos websites.com. remember to ask how Haunted Cosmos listeners can get their first six months of managed hosting and secure security for free.

[B]

Does your brain feel foggy all the time?

[A]

It's been foggier than an elevation worship service.

[B]

Mine too. Maybe it's the fae. Maybe we got abducted by aliens.

[A]

Or maybe we just need some methylene blue.

[B]

That's an easy fix. Nutracel makes the best methylene blue supplement around, giving us long lasting energy that will aid us in all of our conspiratorial research.

[A]

That is exactly what we need. And if you're listening, you can get your methylene [e-mail] NCP and get 13% off using code NCP. Hey everybody. Welcome to this episode of Haunted Cosmos Season 7, Episode 6. Coming on the heels of Jeffrey Epstein stuff. And we're ready to get back to your normal scheduled programming of light hearted fun by talking about a classic buried treasure.

[B]

Let's flip. And you know how excited I am not to be talking about Jeffrey Epstein.

[A]

Same here.

[B]

And you know what else? None of you listened. Because it's one of our most listened to episodes so far as we've.

[A]

And we said not to do it.

[B]

And we told you the children shouldn't listen, the women shouldn't listen, the men shouldn't listen. Men shouldn't listen. Who's left?

[A]

But this is the more important work. Talking about Oak Island.

[B]

Much more important.

[A]

Trying to taking a journalistic approach, as we always do, to the mystery of Oak Island. Brian, what was your exposure? Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm jumping the gun.

[B]

You are jumping the gun.

[A]

We have some housekeeping.

[B]

The gun is flipping jumped.

[A]

We have some housekeeping to talk about. First things first, I'm the realist. Second thing. Second, we have another season of the Graveyard Shift coming up in a month, right, Evan? Yes, a month from now. Because we have one more episode of the main show for the season. So like season finale and then after that we're going to start the graveyard shift in July. So be on the lookout for those episodes. They should be really cool. And then, Brian, we have some pretty exciting stuff going on in the Patreon side of things.

[B]

Oh yeah, we do. Oh. First of all, if you use code, all caps, the pit. Cause I fell into the pit.

[A]

With 1T.

[B]

Just 1T, you can get 50% off your first month of Patreon. Okay, Big dog, I've been told that that is not a typo, big dog. That's 50% off. And along with that, you get all the normal benefits of being a patron and none extra. But there's another thing, and that is that if you go to the YouTube version of this episode and you go to the pinned comment, you're going to find this is not a joke. A riddle.

[A]

A riddle.

[B]

And if you solve the riddle, it will give you a code for 90% off your first month of Haunted Cosmos patronage. Don't try to put the code in the comments because we're going to mute the word. You can't the word words to answer so that people won't be able to see it. So don't try. First of all, don't do it.

[A]

Don't steal.

[B]

And so don't steal. Don't steal. The other thing is Patreon, we got so much going on there. We've got the Dusty tome.

[A]

Yeah. We got the dt, the big dt. That's been fun. Live streams.

[B]

Live streams with Ben and I where we answer questions and banter. It's like oops. Only banter. You best knees.

[A]

I really want to sneeze.

[B]

Calm down.

[A]

It's not letting me. My nose. All right, so we got. Yeah, Dusty Tone Live stream is live streams only banter. We also have early and ad free access to the main shows if you're in the top two tiers of patronage. But for those top two tiers, we've been in the lab.

[B]

We've been in the lab, the Haunted Cosmos lab.

[A]

And we've been cooking something up. We are really excited.

[B]

We are like friggin Walter White.

[A]

How much do we want to tell them about it?

[B]

Do. Let's just give them a couple teases by telling them like some of the stuff we're gonna do, like in all its detail.

[A]

All right, so here's the teaser. A vivid description of exactly what it is. It's gonna be called something like Campfire Tales.

[B]

Yeah, something like that.

[A]

Campfire stories, Something like that. And basically it's a quarterly show, one per quarter.

[B]

All right. Yeah. To start, we're just gonna see how it goes.

[A]

Yeah, just see how it goes. But it's only gonna drop to the top two tiers of patronage. It's never gonna be seen by literally anyone else in the entire world. There are no exceptions.

[B]

If you see it without being a patron, you will instantly be killed.

[A]

You'll actually be instantly transported to the very bottom of the Money Pit in Oak island and no one will ever find you.

[B]

Full of hydrogen sulfide and water. Dead.

[A]

Yeah. So Campfire Tales, top two tiers of Patronage. Only totally exclusive. And what it is is actually this idea that Brian and I had years ago, which was we would both come into the recording with a story that we had prepared. Like, not scripted. We're just telling it off the cuff. But it's something that we'd researched and kind of found interesting that we think the other person has never heard before. And we're going to do a live back and forth reaction of telling someone a crazy story they've never heard before. And then we just interact with the story with a special twist every once in a while. I will make up the story entirely,

[B]

or I will make up the story entirely.

[A]

It will be nothing. And if you are able to figure out which one was made up entirely, then you will receive a claim and nothing else.

[B]

Something like a.

[A]

Like, from us, the pleasure of being right.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. We're gonna do this around a campfire. Yeah, it's gonna be sick.

[A]

There's gonna be a campfire. There's gonna be s'. Mores. There's gonna be hot dogs. There's gonna be. Yeah, 100%.

[B]

We're also. Yeah. There's gonna be other stuff we're cooking up for patrons back there. We appreciate our patrons. If you like what we do here at Haunted Cosmos, chip in a few bucks a month. You're basically saying something like, every episode of Haunted Cosmos is worth between $2.50 and $5 to me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is, like.

[A]

And dusty tone.

[B]

Kind of depressing when I think about how much work goes into even one. Right. But existing at all.

[A]

I actually just had an idea. It's even better than campfire tales.

[B]

Dude, hit me.

[A]

It's literally the exact same thing, except instead of a campfire, it's in a hot tub. And instead of campfire tales, we call it Hot Tub Time machine.

[B]

Hot tub Time machine Tails.

[A]

Hot tub Tails. Machine. We do.

[B]

We're doing one.

[A]

All right.

[B]

There's gonna be at least one hot tub. 1. Hey, it's gonna be tasteful.

[A]

So anyway, we don't know. Yeah, we don't know when that's gonna come out first yet. We have, like, a recording schedule, but then we'll see. But it is coming, and we're cooking it up, and it's gonna be epic. Like, three Michelin stars.

[B]

You are gonna be blown the heck away. Can I read our review of the. Of the show?

[A]

You know what I think is funny? Is this saying blown away.

[B]

It's not a good thing.

[A]

Why would I want to be.

[B]

You're going to be blown away. Like as if you were shot with a large caliber gun and died, you're

[A]

going to be blown to smithereens. Hey, if you use that new dynamite you got lately, you're going to be blown away. While I'm still here. It didn't. It didn't blow away.

[B]

This is the review of the month or of the two weeks from our Apple podcasts reviews. And we only accept 5 star reviews for these. So if you want to get on this, you have to give us a five star review, which you should do anyway. The title of this review is questionable. 5 stars. The first time I listened to this show, I was like, absolutely no. But then I came back, not sure why, probably bored. But I got pulled in. The guys are so quirky, kind of annoying and slightly amusing. I'm sold. Don't make me explain it any more than that. I want to thank you, Ivy Mick, for that thoughtful review. Except that. What did he say? Kind of funny.

[A]

How do you know it's a dude?

[B]

I don't know. I just. I got that vibe that had girl energy. I got that vibe. Did it?

[A]

Yeah. Okay, that's interesting.

[B]

Okay, tell us in the reviews somewhere. Ivy Mick, who are you? And also, what's your favorite color?

[A]

Also, thank you for that great review.

[B]

Yeah, we appreciate it.

[A]

Actually, one of the. It was great.

[B]

Hey, but let's talk about my dad's favorite subject, Oak Island.

[A]

We didn't really have Dwayne on the show.

[B]

My dad could be an SME on this one.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Just in the sense of he's watched every episode, I'm pretty sure of the History Channel show, the Curse of Oakland, the Curse of Oak island, and constantly does the. Could it be? Cause every episode. Let me just tease a few. There's like 97 episodes. They find virtually nothing every episode.

[A]

There are 213 episodes. I looked it up today on Wikipedia. It's still going. Thirteen seasons. Thirteen.

[B]

Okay. And every single episode, they got this narrator. This guy is the real mvp. And they're like, in this episode of the Curse of Oak island, could it be the Ark of the Covenant? And then by the end of the show, they're like, no.

[A]

Could it be? Nope.

[B]

But it wasn't.

[A]

But it was dirt. But in a very real sense, it definitely is the Ark of the Covenant that's buried in Oak Island.

[B]

They're like constantly. Then they'll pivot, they'll be like Vikings. And you're like, what the heck do these two things have to do with each other? The answer is absolutely Nothing. And the real treasure really was.

[A]

What's the guy's name?

[B]

Who? Lagina.

[A]

Oh, Lagina.

[B]

Don't. Right.

[A]

Rick.

[B]

Rick Lagina.

[A]

The real treasure is it's the tens

[B]

of millions of dollars that the History Channel shows made along the way.

[A]

The memes that we made along the way.

[B]

Yeah. So let's talk about Oak Island.

[A]

Let's talk about Oak Island. First thing I would like to do is give people a mental image.

[B]

Give them a mental image of Ben.

[A]

The layout of Oak Island. It's a very small island. It is shaped like a baby elephant. It actually kind of is turned. It's turned different. We have a picture right here that Jamie pulled up.

[B]

You're actually not wrong.

[A]

By Jamie and Evan. Yeah, I stole that from.

[B]

Did you hair dry this?

[A]

No, actually, but someone on the History Channel did, because you can see the layout.

[B]

Oh. It's literally screenshotted from the show.

[A]

Maybe we can. Maybe Jamie will put it up on the recording. I don't know. Maybe not.

[B]

He probably will. That's high effort.

[A]

Anyway. That's pretty much all you need to know about the layout. So shaped like a baby elephant.

[B]

On the.

[A]

That would be. The western side of the island is the actual Money Pit. So that's where McGinnis started digging. And, you know, that's the depression that he found inside the land. And then, like, a little bit west of that. I'm sorry, I keep saying west. And I mean.

[B]

Yeah, I was like, that's the east side.

[A]

East side of the island. I wasn't gonna correct Money Pit because

[B]

I'm ride or die.

[A]

And then a little bit further east and on the shore, the southern shore is a tri. Is like a stone triangle that we'll talk about in a little bit. We don't have to get too into it now. There's a swamp that kind of bisects down the middle of the island. And then there's, like, a few other small sites that are important. There's this hole that someone else dug called borehole 10x or bore 10x or something like that.

[B]

Something like that. Yeah.

[A]

And we'll talk about that a little bit later, actually, probably shortly. But it's only, like 180ft away from the main Money Pit. There's some history there that is supposedly fascinating. And then on the western side of the island that's closest to Nova Scotia, it's pretty much just woods. There's a small little town, there's a museum, stuff like that. And then there is a causeway that treasure hunters eventually built going from Oak island to the mainland of Nova Scotia. So yeah, that's Oak island, where

[B]

like, so you got Smith's Cove. Have we talked about Smith's Cove yet? No, we talked about coconut farms.

[A]

Are you talking about one? No, not yet. We're going to bring those up in a minute. Dude, in the second story. No, no, like just in the discussion. Okay, relax, dude.

[B]

I'm calming down.

[A]

Dude, relax. Okay, But Smith's Cove is important.

[B]

Smith's Cove is super important. It's one of the, like the stuff in Smith's Cove is actually the thing that when I first heard this story, I was like, dude, that's actually really cool.

[A]

So let me say where Smith's Cove is and then you can tell us what that stuff. So if you zoom in a little bit on Google Earth to the Money Pit area, you can find two. Well, I mean, the whole thing's a beach because it's an island, right? But if you go basically directly eastward. I almost did it again. Directly eastward from the Money Pit towards another small island called Frog Island. I'm assuming there's frogs there. Then you'll find Smith's Cove. Smith's Cove has a lot of beaches. Stuff has been found there, including some of the finger drain tunnels that were manufactured after, like man made tunnels that go back to the Money Pit. But I'll let Brian talk more about that. And then if you go directly south of the Money Pit until you hit the beach, not only are you going to find those stone triangles that I talked about, but you're also going to see more of those drainage outlets that were again, man made as booby traps that go back to the Money Pit. Again, can we give some appreciation to the phrase booby traps, which is one of the funniest names for anything.

[B]

You're just going to hit us with that coal.

[A]

Oh, I'm just like, did anyone, like

[B]

when I was a kid, what's funny about it then?

[A]

Well, when I was a kid, what's funny about it? When I was a kid, someone would be like, oh, it's booby trapped. And I'm like, why did they call it that?

[B]

Actually, I don't know. And now that I'm pretty sure I am like, how did I not think about that?

[A]

I'm pretty sure it's because boob is another word for like an idiot. And so a booby trap is like an idiot trap.

[B]

You just got a censored on every single platform we released this. I. Congratulations, you played your pastor amazing.

[A]

But I'm not going to deny that it's funny.

[B]

Okay, so here's what got me about Smith's Cove and the coves. You can picture it like this. You've got the Money Pit there, and then in one direction there is. You could draw a line to Smith's Cove and then you could almost do a right angle and go the other direction from the Money Pit and you would get to another cove where both of those lines hit the ocean. There are artificial beaches, beaches that were created by somebody.

[A]

That's right, man made beaches.

[B]

Somebody like came and dumped a bunch of aggregate and sand and materials to make beaches. Okay, and. But even crazier, go to Smith's Cove and I'm there underwater, under the water, in the ocean. What do you find? Coconut fibers. Also, why is that crazy, Ben?

[A]

Because it's Nova Scotia, which is far away from the nearest coconut.

[B]

The nearest coconut is like over a thousand miles away.

[A]

Now, here's the other key point about that. It's not only underwater, they also found a bunch of coconut fibers in the Money Pit when they first started digging. And then the story that we're gonna get into in the middle section, they found even more coconut fibers at all these other levels.

[B]

So why does it matter? Because you go to the island where the Money Pit is and they've put down basically a mine. Like think of a mine shaft. And that's where you've got the platforms of oak. These are like clearly cut man made platforms every 10ft down. And it's like a borehole. All right, there's going to be a crazy discovery in the next story that will tell us even more about, like, why would somebody dig a great big borehole on this island? All right, it seems like we discover later that this borehole is connected via underground tunnels.

[A]

They call them finger drains.

[B]

Finger drains to Smith's Cove and then this other cove that's the 90 degree. At each of those coves, there's not only a man made beach, but there's this coconut fiber that's almost, it seems to be functioning as like a filter to keep the drains open, because all the sea action is going to fill these drains up with sand and ruin them. And the point of these drains seem to be a booby trap that would flood the tunnel with salt water. And this is how they figured it out. With salt water from the ocean, not the fresh water that if you dig down on the island, there's like a brackish swamp and stuff like that. But there's fresh water because it's a big island. There's a lot of dirt between the ocean down below and bedrock and all that stuff. So they've discovered that that tunnel will flood with seawater. Seawater.

[A]

Once you go past a certain depth.

[B]

And the amount of, the amount of work.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That went into this, now here's. Is astronomical.

[A]

Yeah. Especially when you consider, and I think I do mention this in the next scripted section, but when you consider that they have found like half a dozen of these booby trap tunnels, whatever, flood tunnels, whatever, and a lot of them they've blocked so that they don't work anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But they still experience flooding and they have no idea where they're coming from.

[B]

It's like, so there's genius, there's like

[A]

all these layers of protection for this Money Pit. And even today with like modern technology, we have LIDAR now. And still it's like people are having all these problems. Ground puncturing, radar, be able to dig a hole.

[B]

Yeah. And there are many places on the island where they have discovered artifacts, they've discovered evidence of human presence and work. Like even back to obviously the 1600s, 1700s, there's a lot of evidence of people from then. But even earlier.

[A]

Oh yeah, they found a lead crop. This is actually something that the, the show found. Yeah, they found a lead cross and Harvard or whatever tested it and were like, it's either from like 1600 at the latest or 1200 somewhere in there. And so they, the, the conservative estimate is that it's like 14 or 1500 A.D. yeah. And that would mean that, like, how did that. I want you all to remember that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

[B]

The ocean blue.

[A]

And finding stuff like that lead cross lends validity to an idea that once again, we're going to talk about in the next scripted section, which we should

[B]

probably get to pretty quickly.

[A]

Well, no, let's give a brief 30

[B]

minute overview of the history of.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah, brief.

[A]

Okay, so first things first. In 1795, McGinnis starts digging on the island. That's kind of the first official treasure hunt that happens. Now, a lot of people will try to tell you that McGinnis was a teenager and he. And it was like he and his two friend, teenage friends, they were on a fishing trip, they happened to come upon Oak Island. That's not at all how it went down. McGinnis was an old man, and by that I mean at least as old as me. And the other guys that were with him were not children. It was like a planned thing. He owned a farm, he was walking on his land. And he found this depression. So that's how it all started. When they got done, there was quite a long gap between the next people digging, which was the Onslow Company, who we will talk about more in the next story. But they found some very important stuff. After the Onslow company, there was a 45 year gap where there was a lot of flooding, there was more backfill of the Money Pit, and then the Truro Company from Nova Scotia decided to buy the land rights and they started going in. And they were the ones that figured out that the pit flooding wasn't natural, but it was an artificial man made system that was meant to keep people from finding whatever was in the Money Pit. And they also found more coconut fibers at those different levels of oak platform and clay and charcoal and stuff like that. They found a number of artifacts as well. They found like a gold chain on one of the oak platforms that I think was dated to like one of the. It was like a Caribbean origin chain.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. And it was only a couple little pieces of chain link, but it was like, clearly not from there. And it was very, very.

[B]

They had some, like, rappers there.

[A]

Wiz Khalifa.

[B]

Turns out some of your favorite music

[A]

had been in the Money Pit.

[B]

Ben's biggest L is that he likes.

[A]

I don't.

[B]

Rapists.

[A]

I don't like. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say I like.

[B]

He loves rapists.

[A]

I wouldn't say.

[B]

I like hip hop men and the men and the women.

[A]

I would say. I would say.

[B]

Ask him right now. Ask him any question about rapist lore and he knows the answer. What was the beef between, like Shelly Mac and Lobster Face or whatever?

[A]

I. I made those two names. Don't.

[B]

Because I don't even know the question.

[A]

Lobster Face isn't a real rapper name. That's crazy.

[B]

Okay, keep going. Okay, so this is like.

[A]

We're at.

[B]

We're like 45. We're at like 55, 60 years from the original Money Pit.

[A]

Yeah. So Truro company, they do their thing for quite a while, actually. They're at the Money Pit for a long time. But eventually after, as happens with the Oak island mystery, you either die or you go bankrupt.

[B]

Yeah. Cause there's no treasure.

[A]

Well. Oh, there's treasure.

[B]

Not yet.

[A]

There's treasures. The real treasure, the real treasure is

[B]

the violent along the ways.

[A]

Well around the time of the Churro Company is because they had two deaths when they were digging. No, I'm sorry. Onzo Company had one. Churro company had one after the Second death on Oak Island. There was this legend that started to circulate about a curse where someone found a piece of parchment or something that said after seven deaths, the island would give up its secrets.

[B]

Yeah, basically, dude, I'd immediately go there with five people that I only slightly liked, dump them on site.

[A]

Only liked. Not even people you don't like?

[B]

Well, like, how many people I don't like on the island altogether.

[A]

They would know something was, you invite them, you say, let's reconcile, there's a feast. Let's reconcile at this gallows at a gym.

[B]

So now that I've proven that there's murder in my heart, for the sake of shameful gain, continue.

[A]

Okay, so then, in 1965, the Restall tragedy happens after Mr. Restall, who? His first name escapes me. That's from the Cold Oaks. Yep, from the Cold Open. He took his whole family there. He eventually died and somehow also went bankrupt. So he got double trouble. And after that tragedy, the tally of deaths was taken up to six, because four people died that day. And so now people are, oh, the island only needs one more guy. Okay, enter more of the modern era, like, hyper modern, with a guy named Dan Blankenship, who was part of a larger company. And also contemporary with him was a guy named Fred Nolan. Both of them lived on the island at the same period of time and were searching around the same time. And they had some beef with each other. Every once in a while, they also combined forces. Every once in a while, both of them have actually been on the History Channel show Christian Oak island and have helped together, the Laginas, try to discover the treasure. But Blankenship did something really fascinating. He dug a hole about 180ft away from the main Money Pit hole that was 235ft deep. So what he wanted to do was say, like, let's get away from all of these tunnels and the flooding and let me just see what is down there. If I just dig really, really, really deep. And what he found was at 235ft, it opened up into this enormous cavern. And so reportedly, he took a camera down into the cavern and was able to find chests, a human hand, more coconut fibers, and a few other small artifacts. Here's the problem. The footage has never been, like, independently confirmed.

[B]

The check is in the mail.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. But he swears that it happened eventually. That hole that he dug did get filled in.

[B]

It was filled and then it collapsed,

[A]

and now no one can get back down there.

[B]

So it was filled in, then collapsed, or it collapsed it was filled in.

[A]

It was filled in with water and then it floods. It flooded.

[B]

I was like, how does it collapse if it's filled in?

[A]

It's like a serial killer plot hole. A serial killer who's also a cannibal. He might eat you, then kill you. Ah, you know what I mean?

[B]

I mean, that sucks.

[A]

He also found a U shape structure, a large wooden structure at Smith's Cove that was dated to the 1700s, long before McGinnis ever started his digging.

[B]

Yep, yep, yep.

[A]

Okay, so that's interesting. Fred Nolan again, a contemporary of Daniel Blankenship. Fred Nolan. His main contribution to the Hunt is something called Nolan's Cross. Yeah, and this will be more important, I think, to you after you hear the next section. But he found five placed boulders that were moved by men and then placed specifically in areas across the island where if you link them all up, it forms a big cross. And the intersection of the cross, believe it or not, is right next to the Money Pit. Okay, Yes. X marks the Spoot. You know what I'm saying?

[B]

Could it be the Ark of the Covenant?

[A]

Could it be the Ark of the Covenant? Could it be a religious relic? And then in the modern day, you have the Laginas, two brothers who are on the History Channel show. They found quite a few things. One of the things that they studied was a finding from, I think it was the Truro company, or maybe it was Restall. But they found a coin and it was clearly very old and it was European. And they finally got it tested because the problem is the Canadian government confiscated the coin when it was first found, and they were like, no, you can't have it back. It's ours now. Well, because of the History Channel's incredible leverage in their political maneuvering, they got Canada to release it back to the History Channel to be tested by Harvard. And guess what they found. It was dated from 1371. What? Which is crazy. That is there if it's true. There was European presence in the new world in 1371, or someone in the

[B]

1700s had a coin from 1371 and dropped.

[A]

Or that. Or that. Or that. But how many coins do you know and are in your possession that are 400 years old that you would just like drop around?

[B]

Hundreds, Countless. I would drop coin after coin after.

[A]

Brian's big coin guy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that kind of brings. That's a 30,000 foot view of the history of Oak island and treasure hunting there. I think now we should go into the second story.

[B]

Yeah, we got to bring in some of the Some of the wrinkles. We got to bring in. Some of the. Some of that Templar.

[A]

That's right. Some of that Freemasons. In 1802, a resident of Onslow, Nova Scotia, named Simeon Linz traveled to the city of Chester to speak with Anthony Vaughan, one of the original three diggers in the Money Pit. The story of the treasure on Oak island inspired him, and upon returning home, he formed the Onslow company, consisting of about 30 other men. Men. This team, led by Linz, revived the hunt for modern history. After planning and procuring equipment, the Onslow Company sailed for Oak island, found the location of the Money Pit and immediately started to dig. By then, enough time had elapsed for the pit to be filled back in with dirt and debris, forcing the team to start digging from scratch. And while this was by no means convenient, it did afford them the opportunity to relive the excitement of McGinnis initial discovery. They dug down and found the first layer of lumber, then the second, along with layers of charcoal and hard clay or potential shards of pottery. Then, like pioneers in a wild frontier, they broke totally new ground. Only minutes later, their tools struck something new. Not another oak platform. This obstruction was unlike the others. A stone prism, flat on all sides and about three feet wide, now lay between them and whatever the pit may be hiding. At first, they wondered if it was the end of the line, if it had all been a fool's errand, if this was the bedrock and the stories had just been that. Stories. But in uncovering the stone, they uncovered more intrigue. For after excavating it and flipping it over, Lenz and his comrades read strange etchings on the bottom side, written in a language none of them knew. Some doubted if it was even a language at all. The stone appeared to contain a message. The team worked for the rest of the afternoon to get the rock up 90ft to the surface for closer examination. When everyone escaped the dark heat of the pit and refreshed themselves for a moment in the sun, they suddenly heard a noise behind them. It rose from the pit like a freight train. It sounded angry. The men turned away from the breeze and the light to peek back over the hole's rim. What met them almost made Lens weep. From the bottom, there rose a churning column of water. The pit was flooding, and nobody had any idea as to why. In later years, it was speculated that the flooding was a trap meant to test the treasure hunters. It was as if the pit was sentient and intent on bringing those who wanted its fruit to their breaking point. As if it wanted to test man's mettle. Cataracts in the earth were found, tunnels that drained to and from the sea. To this day, other flood tunnels are known of, but nobody can figure out where they led into the ocean. Thus they can't be mitigated. Not yet. Eventually, consensus arose regarding the inscription on the now infamous 90 foot stone that I mentioned earlier. Treasure hunters and other enthusiasts believe that it read, 40ft below, 2 million pounds are buried. And I mean red, as in past tense, because the stone has been lost now for over 200 years. But before it was lost, the stone brought something else to light, something more esoteric. People started to wonder if the markings on the stone were of unknown origin on purpose, if they were representative of a secret language, namely, ritualistic language used by the Freemasons and their forefathers, the Knights Templar. Starting with the Onslow Company's discovery and subsequent loss of the 90 foot stone, some wonder if the whole treasure might be a holdover from secret esoteric order orders that trace back to antiquity. So what do we think? Could Oak island be a treasure island for the Freemasons? Well, as I'll show you, it may not be that crazy of a theory. In 1119, an order of soldiers was founded by the Church, whose purpose was to protect Christians traveling to and from the Holy Land. The Mohammedans, blaspheming terrors to the west, came to fear the standard of the Knights Templar. A year after they were founded, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave the Templars leave to quarter themselves in one of the Temple Mount wings inside the Holy City. It was believed that their housing was built on the same site where Solomon's Temple once stood. For years thereafter, in addition to their military duties, the Templars dug beneath the foundations of their headquarters in search of talismans, relics and other artifacts from the time of Israel's Golden Age. Legend has it their search amounted to a rich bounty of priceless treasure. Some say they even found the Ark of the Covenant. Under the pressure of a faltering Crusade and papal uncertainty, the Knights Templar were officially disbanded in 1314 in order to relieve some of the political turmoil they had caused in Christendom. The Islamic threat required more focused attention from both Church and State. All debts owed to the Templars were absolved and the Order faded to nothing via administrative annihilation. Despite this official end, their treasures were never discovered. Instead, the Templars continued as a secret fraternity, seeking wealth and influence with all the best intentions, one can be sure, anywhere they could find it. In Portugal, for example, the Knights Templar simply changed their moniker to the Order of Christ and continued operations more or less as usual. This shadow group went unchecked for another 592 years, until it was discovered and ended in 1910. Elsewhere, many of the Templars joined the Order of the Knights Hospitaller, effectively taking over that military order. Of specific import to us, this is what happened in Scotland, and the secret Templars remained in such a state until the Scottish Reformation, around which time the Hospitallers disbanded and and something new started to take shape in whispered form. A private fraternity which went by the name Freemasons. There we have it. Under the changing tide of the Reformation, the Templars turned Hospitallers simply underwent a final name change, adopted a greater degree of secrecy and embraced yet more esoteric doctrine from the mystic parts of the world. But with all of this said, the question still whatever came of their stores of wealth? There is a Masonic history that traces down a line of Scottish lords for generations, until it reaches a man named Prince Henry Sinclair, Earl of the Orkney Islands, who lived as a Hospitaller in the late 1300s. It's said that he, Prince Henry, boarded a vessel in 1390. Pointed westward, the boat was loaded down with innumerable treasures and bound for the farthest, farthest reaches of the world. The story goes on to see Prince Henry landing on the shores of the New World, specifically Nova Scotia and Oak Island, 100 years before Columbus. There, he buried the wealth as a free will offering to God, before marking the holy ground with sacred symbolism for members of his order to find later. The story is grand, epic, almost mythical. But there exist some real things in Oak Island's official history that point to the possibility of it being true. It's no secret that Nova Scotia has experienced a strong Masonic influence from its earliest settlement by Westerners. For proof, one need look no further than the famous 1606 stone erected by French explorers in the port of Annapolis Royal. When the stone was discovered in 1827, it was noted to contain Masonic symbolism, Enochian writing and carvings of a square and compass. Notably, the 1606 stone is nearly identical in size to to what the 90 foot stone was reported to be. Beyond this, the very first Masonic lodge was founded in Nova Scotia by one Dr. William Skene. He also served on the first Nova Scotia Governor's Council for five consecutive terms. The prominent city of Halifax was founded by the British military officer and Freemason Edward Cornwallis. In 1761, British Colonel and Mason Alexander McNutt received a land grant in Nova Scotia, which he settled with other Freemason families under the written aim of building a new Jerusalem on the Earth. All of this is only to outline the very real connection that Freemasons have with Nova Scotia. But none of it proves that the Oak island mystery is an esoteric or Masonic one. For that, one has to get a little bit more speculative. In the tale of the Money pit's original discovery, McGinnis is said to have been struck by the triangular pattern of the trail trees around the pit's depression in the ground. The triangle is, of course, the most important and prevalent symbol used by the Freemasons. There is also a triangular stone arrangement on the southern shore that many believe was built by Masons sailing to the New World. Finally, there is a swamp which bisects the island in a nearly perfect triangle. There is a Masonic tradition which states that the swamp was man made. What's more, the apex of the swamp is is directly adjacent to the Money Pit. But it is the Money Pit itself, and the alleged architecture thereof, which most tightly weaves the Oak island mystery with the Freemasons. In the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, which, remember, is the tradition rumored to have found Oak Island. First, the prophet Enoch received a vision from God on Mount Moriah. In the vision, Enoch was led down a deep pit through a series of nine tunnels. At the very bottom, he was shown the true name of God written on a tablet of gold. The rite goes on to say that King Solomon, while building his temple, reconstructed Enoch's cavern beneath the temple foundations, a deep pit consisting of nine levels, each level only being passed by one who knew how to open the passage. And then, finally, at the bottom, in the pseudo Solomonic holy of holies, the king made and left an exact replica of the Ark of the Covenant, complete with a copy of the Law, a jar representing manna and an almond wood staff as a nod to Aaron's budding rod. Given the interior descriptions of the Money Pit, we have the levels of equal depth separated by various obstructions, the architectural riddles in the form of flood tunnels that remain untraceable today, and the lingering wonder of Masonic legend hanging like a cloud over Oak Island. It's not difficult to see why so many think it is the last great hold of the Temple Bars, hospitallers and Freemasons.

[B]

Hey, Ben, I just read that our great grandparents probably experimented with butter on their dry skin as a moisturizer. Is that why you look so radiant?

[A]

Maybe it's Grandma's butter recipe. Or maybe it's gray toad tallow.

[B]

Their tallow products are 100% organic and and naturally contain the good stuff your skin craves. No mystery there.

[A]

So say sayonara Sammy to kitchen experiments. And say hello to healthier skin. Great O Tallow Trusted by Skin Envied by Great Grandma's Butter Recipe.

[B]

For more information and to get a sample pack, check out gray toad tallow dot com. Don't forget to use the code COSMOS15. That's all CAP Apps Cosmos 15 for 15 off your order. Does your outdated website give your visitors sleep paralysis?

[A]

What? What? Is that a thing?

[B]

Are you haunted by that logo your uncle's pet werewolf made?

[A]

Brian, what are you talking about?

[B]

If you're ready to level up your brand and website, you need to talk to Josh at Valente Creative.

[A]

What's up guys?

[B]

Josh, my guy.

[A]

What the heck? How did you just appear?

[B]

Head to Valente Creative.com to talk with Josh about your brand and website.

[A]

Oh, oh, this is an ad that we're doing right now. Wait, how did he teleport into this room?

[B]

Ben, I wish I could tell you,

[A]

but this is an ad.

[B]

You have to go to valentecreative.com NCP and reach out today. Ben, have you heard of the Jake Muller Adventures?

[A]

Ooh, what's that?

[B]

A Christian audio drama. Zombies, vampires, global conspiracies and faith at the center. I was up all night on the edge of my seat.

[A]

Is it fully immersive sound effects and cast and everything?

[B]

Yes, full cast cinematic sound. It's like you can hear the danger coming.

[A]

Ooh, so kind of similar to Hana Cosmos, but no your mom jokes and more drama.

[B]

No mom jokes yet, but yeah, tons of drama.

[A]

So it's kind of like your mom then?

[B]

Not quite. Check it [e-mail] home haunted for 10%

[A]

off how many demons, ghosts or vampires are lurking in your investment portfolio? If you're invested in the S&P 500, it's probably more than you think. Since it's full of companies that actively oppose your faith. Stonecrop Wealth Advisors is here to help their faith based portfolios redirect your hard earned dollars away from destructive agendas and into companies making a positive impact on society. Get the demons out of your portfolio and invest in God's kingdom while you grow your wealth. Contact Stonecrop Wealth Advisors today by visiting StoneCropAdvisors.com Haunted Cosmos investment advisory services offered through StoneCrop Wealth Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the U.S. securities and Exchange Commission.

[B]

So I think it's safe to say that if you form a shadow organization based on Usury and other things. Then eventually you will hide all of your possessions in a cursed tunnel and die.

[A]

Yeah. It's like the big version of the boomer guy who, like, puts all his money in a mattress.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know?

[B]

Yeah. Just writ large.

[A]

Yeah. So just to make it clear, I want to connect the dots between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons so that everyone's aware of what we're saying and what we're not saying. So the Knights Templar definitely, you know, it was what it was. It formed during the Crusades and then was eventually disbanded. A lot of it was because they were charging insane amounts of interest. They were like, it was nuts.

[B]

They were money guys for the Crusades.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And in the Christian world, there were basically two ways to get around the traditional Christian prohibition of charging interest at all. One of them was to go to the Jews because the Christians basically developed this workaround that's really sinful and stupid where they'd be like, well, the Jews are going to hell anyway, so like, let's let them do usury.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because it'd be useful to us to be able to borrow money at interest. So they would let the Jews in Christendom and these Christian nations lend and charge interest.

[A]

Good thing the Jews stopped being so usurious. Right?

[B]

Anyway, the other way, the other way, I told you guys, we were really right wing. The other way was that they would do clever workarounds where they'd be like, it's not interesting, it's a fee, it's a service. But then if you, like converted it to interest, it'd be the equivalent of like charging 40% interest on a loan or something. Ridiculous. The service the Templars were into that

[A]

kind of is 20% APR.

[B]

It was like basically going to one of those payday loan places. But they were, they were kind of, you know, so that you could fund wars and stuff. All right. I mean, no one's ever done that again. No one is constantly doing that still to this day.

[A]

Modern people.

[B]

So I think we can set aside any problems with that whole idea set this tomer, like concept that there's nothing today related to like wars and interest and banking. Nobody is into that kind of thing.

[A]

9, 11. So the Knights Templar were officially disbanded in 1314 because of all these reasons. But the idea is that they definitely didn't go away. And I mean, this is pretty well documented and supported in history.

[B]

9, 11.

[A]

Like, like I mentioned in that scripted section in Portugal, they just changed their name, but they literally continued business as usual, which is my Favorite thing.

[B]

Yeah, they were like, ah, ah, fine.

[A]

We're the Order of Christ.

[B]

We're different. We're totally different from those other guys.

[A]

They, they became more secretive.

[B]

Dude, is it, is it pizza by Alfredo or is it Alfredo's Pizza Cafe?

[A]

Alfredo's Pizza Cafe. So most of the Templars, though, that wanted to remain part of that brotherhood, became members of the Hospitallers. Yeah, they too were disbanded because they became the Templars. And then in Scotland, when the Reformation came to Scotland, the Hospitallers started to lose popularity for other reasons. And so they stay again. They stayed the exact same, but they changed their name, they adopted the Freemason moniker and they became the Scottish Rite of the Freemasons.

[B]

It's a rebrand.

[A]

And Nova Scotia, I don't know if you know this means New Scotland, because the first people that landed there were Scottish people. And the contention of the data that I'm proposing is that the first Scottish people to settle in Nova Scotia were Freemasons. And this is something that, even if that's not true, what you can't run away from is that most of the most powerful men in Nova Scotia's history for the first, I don't know, like 300 years, were high ranking Freemason officials who had a lot of commerce with other high ranking Freemasons in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and with the privateers who were sailing up and down the Atlantic.

[B]

Should we do an episode on Freemasons? Tell us in the comments.

[A]

Don't want to.

[B]

Don't listen to whatever Ben says. Now should we do it? Tell us in the like and subscribe if we should. Like and subscribe if you don't think we should. And hit the notification bell whether you think we should or you think we shouldn't.

[A]

And if you think we should, and

[B]

that will give us a clear signal

[A]

if you think we should or shouldn't

[B]

become a patron of the show top

[A]

tier and send me a DM saying whether or not you think we should. I will listen to that.

[B]

That he will listen to. That will actually sway Ben. That'll sway and only that.

[A]

So anyway, yeah, that's a lot of Masons. That's kind of the line up to the Masons on Nova Scotia. And then Oak island is right there. So they were obviously on Oak Island. But the thing to keep in mind is that there are artifacts that are like well known about Oak Island. You can Google image search these things that do seem to betray Masonic influence. One of them is that Nolan's cross that I was talking about. Another one is the stone triangle that I mentioned, which, by the way, the apex of that triangle points directly at the Money Pit. Another one is, and this is a little bit deeper, but the way that you were describing the flood tunnels and how they go to the, to the beaches, the artificial beaches, and then they bisect at 90 degrees at the Money Pit, that forms a triangle. The swamp that goes through the middle of Oak island, many believe was actually man made. It's not a natural swamp, and it is in the shape of a perfect triangle. And then there's also, there's. Oh, there was a map that was given to the Lagina brothers by a guy named Zena Halpern, which I'm sure I'm pronouncing that incorrectly. And it was supposedly a 14th century Templar map of Oak island that had another triangle area labeled in the more western section. Problem is, no one's been able to find that triangle and the provenance of the map is in question. People don't totally know if it's legit, but it would be fascinating if it was. And then there's the big one, right? There's the 90 foot stone.

[B]

The 90 foot stone is one of the two things that is seared in my memory from the first time I heard the story. It was the coconut fibers from the closest coconut trees thousands of miles away. And then this stone 90ft down. And what did it say? Do you remember?

[A]

So it said 40ft below are £2 million. Hey, Jamie, can you pull up Google Image Search 90 foot stone, oak island replica. Yeah, because sometimes you'll hear, like, what I mentioned in the story was that it had these etchings on the underside that, you know, people thought were writings and stuff like that, but some people were like, oh, no, it's definitely not writing.

[B]

So this is the one Joseph Smith found.

[A]

Well, so they lost the stone like I said, but they lost the stone only after some people had made a replica of it. And when you look at the replica, like assuming it's legit, it's clearly writing, you know what I mean?

[B]

So which is more likely to be true, the treasure on Oak island or the golden tablets that Joseph Smith found in New York?

[A]

The treasure on Oak island is true and the golden tablets are not. So here's your answer. Bob's your uncle.

[B]

Easy.

[A]

You know what I mean, dude?

[B]

Easy.

[A]

So the 90 foot stone's a big one. It is really similar in size and the writing is similar in style to the 1606 stone that was found on the beach of nova Scotia in 1827 by Freemasons. And they were like, oh, this is a Freemason thing. And it was put there in 1606. So clearly you see this heavy Masonic, esoteric presence, secretive, ritualistic, whatever you want to call it, presence on Nova Scotia and Oak Island. Those. Those two things connect. And so it actually shouldn't surprise us to find Masonic symbols around Oak island pointing to the treasure. If it really was the Knights Templar trying to hide treasure on Oak Island.

[B]

Yeah. And now treasure to them could have been money. What are we thinking here?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, it could have been religious artifacts, it could have been relics.

[B]

You're a treasure to me.

[A]

You're a snack.

[B]

I needed that. People have been saying I'm too skinny now.

[A]

Nah, you're not. Don't listen to me. I'm not saying you need to lose more weight. I'm just saying you're not too skinny.

[B]

So, like, do I look really ripped?

[A]

It's one thing to be called thin. Yeah. It's another thing to be called skinny. Skinny is. Is an insult.

[B]

It is.

[A]

You're not skinny, you're thin.

[B]

Are these skinny right there?

[A]

Those pythons, Those flipping money pits?

[B]

Thank you. Although that's not. It's not really. Um. Dude, before this cut, my belly button was a Money pit.

[A]

So it was.

[B]

Cause I could lose stuff in it, and it was.

[A]

It would. Mine would flood with sweat.

[B]

Lexi was actually shocked at how much lint I could find in there.

[A]

Oh, man.

[B]

Endless amounts.

[A]

I've always had a pretty deep innie.

[B]

Yeah, me too.

[A]

And so even though I've lost a lot of weight, like, I. My belly button still looks.

[B]

No. Same. It's prominent, you know. Jamie, could you pull up a picture of Ben's belly button?

[A]

We want to compare it to the Money Pit.

[B]

We're going to snake it with one of those cameras that. That they put down. Superstitions.

[A]

Evan, what happens if you type in Ben's belt?

[B]

No, don't do it.

[A]

On the Google image.

[B]

Don't do it, don't do it. And if you do, screen, record it.

[A]

The last thing that I wanted to hit on from that scripted section. I know I mentioned it in there, but the similarity between the known architecture of the Money Pit and this Masonic Scottish rite architecture of Enoch's vision from God going into the earth, where it's like nine levels, each level has some kind of barrier that you have to get through in order to achieve the next. You know, whatever. Yeah, there it is.

[B]

There it is. You can pull it out.

[A]

And then at the very bottom, after Nine levels that you've had to fight tooth and nail to get through. Which, by the way, it shows booby traps in the Yamak vision, where, like, it's a puzzle to get to the next level every time. And if you get it wrong, it's going to stop you. Which is just like National Treasure, by the way.

[B]

Exactly like national treasure.

[A]

And then at the bottom, there's finally the treasure, which is, for the Enochian tradition, it was a replica of the

[B]

Ark of the Covenant down there.

[A]

For Oak island, it's the real Ark of the Covenant. Or, Or a Holy Grail.

[B]

Or just some gold or 2,000 pounds of. Of silver, which at the going rate. Here's my question.

[A]

Let me look it up.

[B]

At the going rate of silver at that time, was that enough silver to be worth this elaborate effort?

[A]

Yeah. So because of the hot clothes.

[B]

Because a hundred tons is 2,000.

[A]

Well, hold on. Two thousand pounds.

[B]

It's 2,000.

[A]

So listen, I can answer this because of what we say in the hot clothes. I can answer this at the time, and when I say the time, I mean in the 1680s, okay, half a million pound. Wait, 500,000 pounds of silver in the 1680s was worth $70 million. Yeah. So 2 million pounds of silver would have been about 2 would have been 200 and something. 280 million dollars. So a lot of money.

[B]

Or 2. 2.08 or. You know, you're right.

[A]

Yeah. Hey, 7 times 4 is what I'm doing. 28. 7 times 4 is how I'm thinking about this.

[B]

Yeah, I'm with you, Common Core.

[A]

Yep. So quite a bit of money. Evan is looking at charts.

[B]

I don't know, he's got some charts pulled up.

[A]

He's checking his E Trade.

[B]

There's some charts over there where you could chart it.

[A]

So anyway, point. Here's the point. The Masons hid treasure in Oak Island.

[B]

And here's the other point. We're going to find it.

[A]

And here's the final point. Going into the hot clothes. Unless my beautiful co host has any other thoughts. What if there is a theory that ties all of those strings together?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Masons. Pirates.

[B]

Pirates.

[A]

Mystery, tragedy.

[B]

The Caribbean.

[A]

The Caribbean.

[B]

Jack Sparrow, comma, Pirates of.

[A]

What if there was a theory that tied all those things together? Well, I got news for you. There is, you fool.

[B]

There is.

[A]

And Brian's about to tell you all about it.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And we'll see you next time on Haunted Cosmos.

[B]

In 1620, the Galleon Concepcion was completed and launched in Havana, Cuba. Commissioned by the Spanish Crown, the Ship spent years fighting off French and English assaults against Spanish claims in the New World. Those years are rich and saturated with epic tales of the high seas. But that history is not our concern today. What you need to know is that after those decades of hard war fighting, the Concepcion was retrofitted for service in Spain's Plata, or treasure fleet. A fleet tasked with carrying profits and treasure from Mexico to Spain. And In July of 1641, Concepcion departed Veracruz, Mexico, on. On just such a mission. When Doom's hand finally reached out and touched her. It's this doom that interests us today. The hulls slowly rose and then sank back down with each passing wave. Even the seasoned veterans of the sea could feel their stomachs churning in the heavy undulation. The massive fortune of silver below deck placed an unseen strain on the joints of the aging ship. The beams squeaked and scraped against water. Another echoing through the vessel in a deep moan. It sounded like the dying cries of an old soldier. Outside, the world convulsed in a tempest of mythic proportion. Storm cells swirled and collided before acquiescing into one another. Thunder harangued the ship while lightning struck the ocean ever closer to the lonely ship. She had arrived at her final port of call before the Atlantic, crossing behind schedule, and she departed later still. By then, everyone knew the voyage was a fool's errand. Everyone knew it was virtually suicide. But no one dared defy the orders of the Crown by refusing the journey. The ship's captain, Don Vilivencencio, felt like Odysseus, drifting helplessly between the gluttony of Charybdis and the wrath of Scylla. He had resigned himself to his fate eight days earlier when the storm first began. Now he's simply waiting to die. Concepcion passed the northern coast of Florida. Had the weather been clear, the crew might have seen the land so tantalizingly close. Immediately thereafter, the storm delivered its final assault. Hurricane winds pushed the vessel into an aggressive list. Sheets of rain came down so thick that the distinction between sea and sky virtually vanished. It was like being paused beneath the crest of an immense breaker. The only place of escape from these elements was inside the weakening hull of the old girl. Thus the crew waited there, silent and fearful. The masts cracked and splintered. The sails, though furled, tore free from their lashings and vanished into the storm. Wind and waves spun the ship completely around and drove her, as though by fate itself, back into the Caribbean. There, after days of futile resistance, she struck a reef off the coast of Hispaniola, fell onto her side and was swallowed beneath an immeasurable weight of water. 300 people perished in a single hour. Precious few survived long enough to see the storm break the following morning. The silver drifted to and fro on the ocean floor, getting more and more buried each minute. There it sat, for long decades before ever seeing the light again. Captain Villavencencio went down with his ship. Word of Concepcion's demise traveled fast, and greed was kindled in the hearts of many kings. Once the times of war were settled enough, countless governments and pirates were scouring the waters around the Dominican Republic in search of the sunken fortune. The English monarchy joined the fray and sent one of the finest treasure recoverers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sir William Phips, to try his hand at finding the wealth. Arriving in Hispaniola with a 21 gun frigate in November of 1686, Phips and his crew officially began their search in January of the following year near a shallow reef called Ambrosia Bank. After only two hours of diving, some of the cannons from the Concepcion were spotted, partially buried under white sand in the crystal blue water. Phips was overjoyed. He'd expected to search for weeks on end and almost couldn't believe that the hunt was going to be so easy. For the next two days, divers swam laps to and fro from the wreckage, hauling up armfuls of wealth with each cycle. In the end, Phips returned to England with over 34 tons of recovered silver treasure from the Spanish galleon. The value is estimated to have been equal to almost $68 million in today's currency. The English crown rewarded Phips handsomely. He became an overnight celebrity, with millions of dollars in finder's fees to boot. What's more, King James II knighted him and appointed him Provost Marshal General for the New England colonies in America. In addition to this appointment, fame and fortune, Phips was given leave to hire a personal assistant. In all of his endeavors, he chose another sea captain named Andrew Belcher as their first order of business. Phips and Belcher, who were fast friends, returned to the Concepcion wreckage with more divers in order to retrieve additional silver. You see, despite the first trip yielding such an immense return, it's believed that Phips had hardly scratched the surface of what lay below. Conservative estimates placed the tonnage of silver aboard the Concepcion somewhere in the neighborhood of 100. If true, Phips had recovered only a third of the fortune. He was eager to bite off a bigger piece of the pie if fate allowed but a few. Officially, he did not. And his hopes of striking it rich twice in A row went unfulfilled. Officially, Phips and Belcher reported a recovery expedition only amounting to a few million dollars in modern money, a fraction of the initial profit. Now the Crown, other sailors and the public were willing to overlook this. Maybe more treasure hunters had found the site. Maybe the silver had drifted in the currents over the decades and its location could no longer be predicted with such accuracy. There were a number of explanations that made this much smaller haul seem totally plausible. But there are some things that cause one to wonder whether Phips may have fudged the official story a little bit. For starters, Phips was intimately familiar with the sailing routes and geography north of New England. As a younger man, he frequently traveled along the coast of Nova Scotia and was, for all intents and purposes, certainly aware of Oak Island. Beyond this, Phips newfound political status quo meant that he became involved in the friction between the Catholic Crown and the Protestant nobles who wished to depose King James II in favor of the reformed Mary, wife of William of Orange. When James had a Catholic son, it meant that Mary, James daughter, was no longer the rightful heir to England's throne. Some believe that Protestants promised Phips a great reward if he used some of the treasure to help fund William of Origin's invasion of England. However, as I'm sure listeners are already thinking, these points are too circumstantial and speculative to hang a real theory on. But there's more. Captain Andrew Belcher had documented commercial and piracy ties to Nova Scotia. He was also most likely a Freemason. As has been shown, the history of Freemasonry in Nova Scotia runs deep since many of the first Freemasons who sailed west from Scotland, primarily sailing, settled there. Multiple letters from the time of the Concepcion's discovery and pillaging by Phips show Belcher trading with merchants and pirates in Nova Scotia after coming into an unexpected quantity of wealth. Where the wealth came from is ultimately unknown, but the coincidental timing makes the idea that he and Phips had kept some of the treasure seem possible. On top of this, there is the old money Masonic lifestyles. Belcher's primary progeny proceeded to walk in. His son Jonathan Belcher Sr. Is credited with being the first American born Freemason. And his son Andrew Belcher's grandson Jonathan Jr. Was not only a high ranking Freemason, but also the Governor of Nova Scotia and a frequent visitor to Oak island itself. Both Jonathan Senior and Junior were closely tied to some of the initial landowning families on the island. They even overlapped on the same family tree. Captain Andrew Belcher was cousins with Jeremiah Belcher, whose great great granddaughter was Lydia Lynz, a close relation of Onslow company founder Simeon Linds. This is the same man who found the lost 90 foot stone and witnessed the first flooding of the Money Pit. Now, standing on their own, each of these points does little to uphold a legitimate theory tying the conceptual Tips and Belcher to the treasure on Oak Island. But when taken together, they do form at least a possible picture. Not an airtight case, but a case nonetheless. One that relies more on coincidence and circumstantial evidence than hard proof. And yet, there's one more piece of evidence that props the edifice up as not only possible, but maybe even a map drawn by an interesting man named Hermann Moll. Mole was a German immigrant to London who, beginning in 1678, opened up a bookstore to fund his life's passion of drawing maps. He was really an excellent mapmaker. Even the nobility knew of and procured his maps. But the bookstore helped ensure his security in a shifting world. After only a few years in London, Mol found himself deep in a circle of eccentric friends. The group frequented a coffee shop called Jonathan's Coffee House, a popular haunt of sailors, merchants and other world travelers. Included in Moll's close connections were explorer William Dampier, scientists Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and a high ranking Freemason named Richard Stukely. In 1701, Maule completed a map of the English Empire in America at the behest of his friends and with a lot of their help. At first glance, it looks like nothing more than a thorough and well done map of English holdings in the New World. But two details stick out and make us wonder if it might be something more than that. First, Moll included the approximate location of the sunken Concepcion off the coast of the Dominican Republic. Despite that adventure officially ending nearly 30 years before, Moll felt it necessary to include. The site is labeled Sir Will Phips Plate Rack. Plate was a synonym for silver in those days, derived from the Spanish word for silver, plata. Additionally, rack was a euphemism for wreck. Literally, then the label means Sir William Phips Silver Wreck. Second, and even more compelling, there's a label just off the coast of Nova Scotia, right where Oak Highland approximately sits, that says La Plata, literally the silver. In those days, no major source of silver, or really any other precious metal, was commonly known to exist anywhere near that area in Nova Scotia. So what lies in the storied pit on that otherwise insignificant island? Forgotten pirate loot? Ancient Knights Templar riches Undocumented silver from the Spanish Concepcion. Or perhaps its somehow a mixture of all three. You be the judge. Mothman in the skies Wolfman in disguise Giant angel cries we hear other lies Moon night children here to steal your soul Bigfoot skin walkers are from my control I'm 10 cosmos I'm so scared

[A]

all this mystery I'm not. Want more Haunted Cosmos? Then make your way over to Patreon where you can get early access to our content as well as exclusive content in regular dusty tomes and monthly live streams with Brian and myself. So go to patreon.com haunted cosmos and sign up now.