The Oak Island Money Pit
For more than two hundred years, people have dug into a small Canadian island in search of buried treasure.
What was reported
The story begins in 1795, when a young man named Daniel McGinnis found a depression in the ground on Oak Island. Diggers later reported layers of logs every ten feet, and later still a flooded shaft that seemed to be fed from the sea. Rumours of a carved stone and of pirate gold, the Templars or Shakespeare's manuscripts followed.
Expeditions have spent large sums, and several people have died in the digging. Since 2014 a television series has followed a new search.
Explanations offered
Geologists point out that the island sits on limestone and gypsum, where natural sinkholes, caves and flooding through underground channels are common; these can look like man-made tunnels. Many of the early accounts were written down long after the fact. No treasure has been found.
- When
- Searched since 1795
- Where
- Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Witnesses
- Treasure hunters for over two centuries
- Status
- Nothing found
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.