Fifty years after reading the 1965 Reader's Digest article that ignited their lifelong obsession, Rick and Marty Lagina return to Oak Island for a season they declare will be about getting answers. Their primary objective is reaching the bottom of Borehole 10-X, where scanning sonar the previous year revealed a chamber containing right angles, rectangular openings, and a vertical column consistent with man-made construction. Before any diver can safely descend the 235-foot shaft, badly corroded riser pipes must be removed. Rick and Marty are lowered into the eight-foot-wide hole in a steel cage to cut the first ten-foot section of rusted pipe with a blowtorch. Marty descends into 10-X for the first time, noting the deterioration of the steel and concrete lining installed by Dan and Dave Blankenship in the 1970s. Rick has a close call when his hard hat catches on debris while leaning out of the cage, but the team successfully cuts, secures, and hoists the section of pipe to the surface.
Father-and-son treasure hunters Robert and Bob Leonard travel from Texas to present their theory in the War Room. Using what they describe as nuclear magnetic resonance imaging applied to satellite data, a technology they compare to methods used by the US military to locate underground bunkers, the Leonards claim to have mapped a vast network of tunnels beneath Oak Island. Their satellite map displays color-coded signatures for seawater-flooded tunnels, old wood, bronze, silver, gold, rubies, ivory, and diamonds at various depths. Marty expresses skepticism about the black box technology but notes that the tunnel layout is consistent with Dan Blankenship's decades of dowsing results. Dan, who has punched over 100 holes across the island searching for tunnels and voids, confirms that the Leonard map aligns with his findings.
To ground-truth their satellite data, the Leonards bring a resistivity machine to a target northwest of the swamp showing a gold signature at 108 feet with a possible 18-foot ceiling. Jack Begley and Charles Barkhouse join the test. The machine sends electrical current between two probes; any break in conductivity indicates a void. Initial readings show solid ground, but after repositioning the probes ten feet, the display reads "cave," suggesting a subterranean void at the predicted location. While Craig Tester and Marty remain cautious about drawing conclusions, the result is intriguing enough to warrant further investigation.
The Leonards also present enhanced sonar imagery from the bottom of 10-X. One image reveals what they interpret as a human body lying face down, with a visible elbow, at the bottom of the cavern. Dan Blankenship confirms this is consistent with what he claimed to see during his own dives in the 1970s, and grainy video recorded in 1971 shows a shadowy shape eerily matching the sonar outline. The team recalls a centuries-old legend about a slave who was chained to a post underground and left to die so that his ghost would guard the treasure. Dan notes that chains were among the materials brought up from 10-X during previous extraction operations.
With surface exploration data from sonar, satellite imaging, and resistivity all pointing toward man-made structures beneath the island, the team commits to an aggressive season of physical investigation. The overriding plan is to cross the most substantive possibilities off the list: get to the bottom of 10-X once and for all, investigate the swamp, and pursue the Money Pit. Rick frames the year as the transition from gathering data to moving dirt.
