Curse of Oak Island

[SPerman]

Will the last person watching Curse of Oak Island please tell the network to cancel the show?

I really liked this show when it first came on. I remember reading about the search for buried treasure on the island decades ago and found the the show intriguing. After a couple of seasons I would only watch after it was DVR'd, so that I can fast forward through all of the material they repeat incessantly. (How many times have they shown the Chapel vault being pushed down?) I could watch the entire episode in less than 30 minutes. A few months ago I realized I was fast forwarding through almost the entire show. I would stop to see what exciting piece of really old wood they found, and then fast forward again to sew what really old piece of iron they found, and then fast forward to the end. About a month ago I gave up altogether. Despite all of the time and money invested, there's nothing interesting happening. And to date, nothing of any real value has been found. At least nothing that comes close to justifying the millions they've spent.

Personally, I think the people who put all of their riches on the island came back and got it, and all of the treasure hunters are chasing ghosts.

[Tom G]

After a couple of seasons I would only watch after it was DVR'd, so that I can fast forward through all of the material they repeat incessantly.

I agree. I also was intrigued at first. I stopped when History either made it more difficult or impossible to stream for free, and haven't cared since.

The amount of recap and/or teasers is worse than Dragonball Z.

[Glenn Schroeder]

. . . And to date, nothing of any real value has been found. At least nothing that comes close to justifying the millions they've spent.

Personally, I think the people who put all of their riches on the island came back and got it, and all of the treasure hunters are chasing ghosts.

I haven't watched the show, but I suspect they've sold enough advertising to pay for it.

[jcapriotti]

I'm reminder of this: https://www.cadforum.net/viewtopic.php?p=19702#p19702

[RichGergely]

Possibly the worse season of all the seasons this year.

What has become apparent over the years, if there is anything in the so called money pit it will most likely have been partly destroyed or totally destroyed with the ridiculous methods used to excavate/drill/smash/explode. Frankly it probably doesn't matter because if there was anything there it is probably long gone. The fact that no-one has stepped in to stop the destruction pretty well underlines this.

I would wager that if all the money from the last five years had been put into a proper large scale open cast excavation it would have been cheaper than these random methods they use each year. Doing that they would not of continually destroyed stuff and it would have given a definite answer of is there anything down there.

How many times over the years have they used some kind of survey imaging of different sorts. Each time the headline is that this will give all the answers and they will be able to locate it or other things to solve the mystery. Many times it is conveniently not mentioned again in the following seasons.

The most interesting find is the huge stone roads on the island which were found by accident, lot of use the survey imaging techniques were!!

[GeoffB]

I was just browsing, wondering what a Kitty Dump is, and didn’t quite expect to find this particular topic on a CAD forum!

I’ve been researching the Oak Island mystery for some forty-five years and have even written a book about it, suggesting that the deposit, had there been one, was surely unlikely to have been in the Money Pit.

For one thing, by all accounts, this was made particularly obvious at the centre of a clearing and marked by a conspicuous tree having a tackle-block suspended from a bough above the pit inviting all and sundry to “Dig Here”. So, this definitely wasn’t a concealment!

It’s also possible that with the collapse of the pit anything placed therein will have been widely dispersed. In fact, such a mess has been made of the area surrounding the Money Pit it would really have to be hoped that any deposit on the island wasn’t put there.

My suggestion is that the eastern ground markers (essentially the Money Pit, the two drilled rocks and the two triangles) are potentially inter-connected by a geometrical plan that when exposed identifies a very obvious focal point to the northeast of the Money Pit. The Money Pit is assuredly a point that has to be known about, but seems not to be a spot that you have to bother with.

To illustrate the suggested ground plan, I used 2D CAD to overlay drawings on imported images and aerial photographs and dropped them as GIF and JPG files. Thus, I could effectively plot a suggested survey schema that allowed me to rapidly determine distances and bearings between points on the ground thus taking all the hard work out of the many calculations involved.

In case anybody is interested in what this ends up looking like, I include below an image from my book showing an example. This places the two drilled rocks and the triangles exactly in accordance with the findings of the Roper Survey conducted in 1937. The point is that having determined how these ground markers relate to each other, the five sets of instructions on the much disparaged maps that are associated with the island begin to make perfect sense. That is, they all work in exactly the same way.

Oak Island: Potential Geometrical Overlay

The line from P0 to P10 is in ten sections of 25 rods, at first following the line of the Roadway then extending beyond it. The potential reconstruction shown here is based on equilateral triangles, though it employs angles of 30 degrees as well as 60 degrees on both true and magnetic meridians.

Note well that giving rise to this possibility, and presumably intentionally left as a pointer to it, is that the Welling Triangle and the Mallon Triangle were both equilateral with sides of 10 feet. Thus, the angle of tilt of the Welling Triangle can be expressed as ArcTan(1/√75). This actually seems to be a pointer to the angle of magnetic variation being twice this at ArcTan(2/√75) = 13 degrees (NW). This again seems to have been intentionally left as a pointer which might argue that anyone wishing to recover the deposit has to know this angle.

So, maybe they’re not finding anything in the Money Pit area because they’re digging in the wrong place. However, does anybody listen? No!

[AlexLachance]

I agree. I also was intrigued at first. I stopped when History either made it more difficult or impossible to stream for free, and haven't cared since.

The amount of recap and/or teasers is worse than Dragonball Z.

Oh.My.God!

You just reminded me of when I was younger and we would wait through 5 minutes of recap of the last episode, only to watch 15 minutes of the new episode and get another 5 minute of teaser of "What's next, on Dragon. Ball. Z!"

[matt]

That show is still running? I watched all the episodes a few years ago. I loved watching all the experts come in and spend their money. My favorite was the diver that went down the big hole into the muddy water and all the scanning they did down there, and still couldn't say anything definitive. So I guess nothing has changed. Thanks for saving me all those sleepless nights of binging!

[SPerman]

I haven't watched in a couple of years, but last time I did, I could watch an episode in about 15 minutes. Once you eliminate all of the duplicate material, it doesn't take very long.

[Frederick_Law]

Oh.My.God!

You just reminded me of when I was younger and we would wait through 5 minutes of recap of the last episode, only to watch 15 minutes of the new episode and get another 5 minute of teaser of "What's next, on Dragon. Ball. Z!"

Took 2 weeks to fire the weapon.

[DanPihlaja]

I haven't watched the show, but I suspect they've sold enough advertising to pay for it.

And this is the entire point. I wouldn't doubt that, before the show, there were a couple of people with shovels. But once the producers got involved, suddenly its heavy equipment. Simply to justify the show.

The amount of trickery that goes on in these types of shows just to make the public think that whatever it is is real is mind boggling.

[jcapriotti]

Like a lot of unreality and dupe'umentary shows, there just isn't enough "story" to fill the time slot for the number of episodes they want to create so we get a lot of filler.

I'm guess I'm just longing for the days of a simple 1 hour documentary with little filler and fanfare. Or the days the History channel actually aired history shows.

[SPerman]

What do you think their break even is at this point? I'm sure TV money is covering some of the bills, but it can't be cheap doing all of that work.

[zxys001]

That show reminded me of the all cult classic ideology and get rich schemes.

[RichGergely]

I put myself through watching the latest season of this, I don't know why I do it.

It really is self inflicted torture, why why why

If you thought surely it could not get as bad as last years season think again, they can actually make something that smells worse.

[ctsturdiv]

I sometimes feel like they try to milk things too much.

It's kind of like Ancient Aliens. Yes, it's interesting to a degree. Yes, 80 percent of it is bullcrap but 20 percent of it may have a sliver to it. No, it does need dozens and dozens of episodes.

I mean, I am sure if you dig anywhere you will eventually find something minor after dredging hundreds of holes and fancy equipment. (Though, my backyard was probably mostly flood plain forest and swampy land back early 1900s to 1800s.) Even Geraldo Rivera found a bunch of prohibition era bottles when he opened "Al Capone's Vault". But even Mr. Rivera had to leave that be.

[jcapriotti]

I sometimes feel like they try to milk things too much.

This is literally every corporate business. How many hours I've wasted watching TV series in the age of streaming where it should've been just a 2 hour movie and done. Instead they drag it out 8 hours with a bunch of uninteresting filler. Its downright exhausting and my wife and I have just about given up trying. WE just go back to old 80s-90s sitcoms and find movies that are one and done.

[Frederick_Law]

What do you think their break even is at this point? I'm sure TV money is covering some of the bills, but it can't be cheap doing all of that work.

Just dangle the carrot.
"If you come and scan the ground, you'll get 10% of what you found."
Everyone is investor and partner.

Hmmm, anyone want to be investor and partner?

[SPerman]

This is literally every corporate business. How many hours I've wasted watching TV series in the age of streaming where it should've been just a 2 hour movie and done. Instead they drag it out 8 hours with a bunch of uninteresting filler.

How do you turn a 300 page book into 10 hours of movie?

[jcapriotti]

How do you turn a 300 page book into 10 hours of movie?

Not sure who to blame for that......Peter Jackson or the studio. Likely they wanted another big trilogy so maybe its not on Jackson....although I do blame him for the over used CGI. Even Return of the King went too crazy with it.

[SPerman]

I've been watching COOI again. It takes about 10 minutes.

Fast forward until they find the really old and really important piece of wood in a bore hole.
Fast forward until they find the really old and really important piece of iron with the metal detector.
Recently they added finding really old and really important pieces of pottery at an archeological dig.

If they are indoors, for any reason, fast forward. If they are on vacation in europe, skip the entire episode.

[RichGergely]

I think some episodes I got below 10 minutes, probably spent longer fast forwarding than watching. The 'jolly' in Europe was fast forward BS heaven. Having watched too many of these gives you the ability to know when to fast forward.

Don't forget we have the Roman tie now. They have managed to find worthless copper Roman coins, Templar baby. Didn't these copper coins find there way into ballast for ships for instance because back then and now they were worthless, strange how they didn't mentioned it on the show.