Paul Cote outlines the Garden Shaft plan: six hours of daily pumping, a three-ton hammer grab to clear spoils from the bottom, and new eight-foot sets to extend the shaft toward the tunnel heading west into the Baby Blob. Once complete, the team can drill horizontally up to 40 feet at various depths and construct tunnels to reach any targets. The episode's centerpiece is a War Room presentation by Max Howarth and Doug Schouten of Ideon Technologies, who deliver the long-awaited muon tomography results. Their 14 sensors spent nearly two years in five boreholes at depths between 80 and 250 feet, detecting subatomic muon particles to map underground density variations. The scan reveals a high-density anomaly 65 feet below surface just west of the Garden Shaft with a low-density void beneath it at roughly 112 feet. A second high-density anomaly sits 85 feet southwest of the shaft at 230 feet, which Marty speculates could be consistent with a six-by-six-by-six metal-lined box. Max also identifies a low-density anomaly overlapping Aladdin's Cave, the cavern discovered during borehole L15 drilling that measured 30 feet long and 12 feet wide on sonar. Dr. Michel reports that water testing detected gold inside the cavity. The team agrees all anomalies need to be drilled.
Drilling begins on borehole L14, targeting Aladdin's Cave at 160 feet. Mike reports hitting a void at 148 feet with nothing but open space below. The team will investigate with a high-definition camera and 3D sonar after the water clears. Near the Money Pit, Gary and Charles search the Garden Shaft spoils for artifacts. Gary recovers a large chunk of iron that Charles suspects is a wedge used to secure an axe handle, which will go to Emma for testing. On Lot 5, the investigation of the deliberately buried stone foundation continues. Peter, Jack, and the archaeologists work to reach the bottom of the feature, and Jack finds a piece of metal that Moya and Helen think could be a chain link. Rick and Gary then scan the area around the circular feature and unearth what Gary believes is an old coin.
At the Interpretive Center, Laird identifies the coin as a lead bag seal, two lead circles stamped together. The team found a similar bag seal on Lot 32 three years earlier, and testing of that seal's lead showed it was a compositional match to the 14th-century lead barter token from Lot 5 and the 14th-century lead cross Rick and Gary found at Smith's Cove in 2017. Emma's XRF reveals the new seal is lead with some iron impurities and a trace of copper, though the composition does not match the Lot 32 example. The front surface bears several letters, including what appears to be a "k," "e," and "r." Laird finds an exact match to the seal: a "J. Lloyd Packers London" cloth packers seal listed as army packers, establishing a military connection. He dates the seal to the 1700s but suspects it could be older based on the use of an "I" in place of a "J," a convention that changed around 1524.
On Lot 5, Jamie uses a Geonics EM38B scanner to emit magnetic pulses into the ground near the circular feature. The device can detect buried metal artifacts, wooden and stone structures, and soil changes caused by human activity. Jamie notices something unusual in the conductivity and susceptibility readings close to the round feature, and Craig and Laird agree the anomaly could indicate a buried structure. In the War Room, carbon-14 results arrive for wood from borehole C5N27 collected at 100 feet: 53.2 percent probability of 1726 to 1811, 25.5 percent of 1644 to 1694, and 16.7 percent of 1917 to 1950. Craig believes the sample came from the outer edge of the tree, meaning the dates should approximate when it was felled. Steve points out these dates match the wood from borehole D5N26.5, suggesting both may be part of the same pre-searcher tunnel connected to the original Money Pit.
