Oak Island Mystery

January 15, 2004 1:59 PM

Oak Island is one of the greatest treasure hunting mysteries of the last 400 years. The Money Pit as it is called, has stirred up a bevy of questions including how this simple pit has alluded treasure hunters and scientists to this day. Some believe that it might be the location of the Holy Grail, stashed by the Templar Knights. Other's believe that it might be the resting place of Sir Francis Bacon's original plays acreditted to William Shakespear. The most common belief is that The pirate Captain Kidd hid his huge stash of gold deep within the pit which accounts for all of the unusual traps. Regardless of the wild speculation there has been evidence to suggest that there is deffinately something in the pit. But not all agree....
posted by Benway (17 comments total)

Previously on Metafilter...
Very interesting post and very complete take on the topic, however... I like your posting style.
posted by anastasiav at 2:52 PM on January 15, 2004

Yes it is.
posted by jonson at 2:52 PM on January 15, 2004

D'oh!
posted by jonson at 2:52 PM on January 15, 2004

Double post. Excellent links though. Oak Island is a great story.
posted by mathis23 at 2:54 PM on January 15, 2004

D'oh! D'OH!
posted by mathis23 at 2:55 PM on January 15, 2004

Jinx, Jonson ... you owe me a beer, I guess. :-)
posted by anastasiav at 3:01 PM on January 15, 2004

I blame the Freemasons.
posted by togdon at 3:05 PM on January 15, 2004

Enjoyed the article in last week's Rolling Stone, did we?
posted by adamms222 at 3:08 PM on January 15, 2004

Oh sure, you always blame us. Nobody ever picks on the damn Odd Fellows.
posted by keswick at 3:08 PM on January 15, 2004

It's a big hole, there are rocks involved. It certainly wasn't the Elks...
posted by togdon at 3:15 PM on January 15, 2004

I sure wish some one would just solve this once and for all,
it's been bugging me since the "In search of..." episode.

I wonder if they have and it's just better for tourism not
to tell anyone, or they already moved the stuff to warehouse 23.
posted by milovoo at 3:44 PM on January 15, 2004

I DO wish these sort of links would locate the spot for those of us not already in on the joke.
It took a while to finally discover "Oak Island is a small (roughly .5 x 1 mile) island off the coast of Nova Scotia."
posted by HTuttle at 4:45 PM on January 15, 2004

I thought Oak Island was where Ash discovered a whole new species of Pokemon.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 5:02 PM on January 15, 2004

milovoo: I'd suggest reading the last link, which makes a pretty convincing case for sinkholes being the source of the "mystery".

I'm sure the locals prefer the mystery though.

Sinkholes = not so exciting. Pirate Treaure, booby traps, decades of visionaries and disasters = exciting.
posted by malphigian at 5:46 PM on January 15, 2004

As one of the "locals" (I live less than an hour from the island), I should point out that the island has long been in private hands and there really isn't a big tourist operation around it, at least not directly. You can't go visit the actual site, for instance. So it's not nearly as exciting as it sounds.

Honestly, it's not a big thing here. We make a bigger deal of our links to the Titanic.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:03 AM on January 16, 2004

wasnt the island up for sale sometime last year?
posted by titboy at 5:06 AM on January 16, 2004

I grew up in Nova Scotia and I've done a fair bit of research on Oak Island. I think the Nickell article is probably closest to the truth. The amount of speculative bullshit generated by that island is amazing. Nice post, though.
posted by tranquileye at 8:59 AM on January 16, 2004