At the Money Pit, historians Doug Crowell and Paul Troutman, geologist Terry Matheson, and crane operator Danny monitor the excavation of the 60-inch borehole GG-1. The oscillator pressure climbs to nearly 210 bar, more than double its normal level, as the caisson drills into extremely hard material at 111 feet. Oak timbers appear in the spoils, and at 113 feet the crew pulls a massive five-foot beam that Craig Tester suggests may have been vertical, possibly part of a tunnel. The depth aligns with the Halifax tunnel, dug in 1867 when searchers tunneled northwest at 110 feet and struck a flood tunnel filled with rounded stones. By 155 feet the grabs come up empty, and Rick and Craig shut GG-1 down.
On the western shore at Lot 25, one of nine lots once owned by former American slave Samuel Ball, Jack Begley and metal detection expert Gary Drayton recover an old iron lock plate with a visible keyhole. Gary identifies it as coming from a box or chest. The find raises questions about whether it belonged to Ball or his Lot 26 neighbor, the 18th century privateer Captain James Anderson, who commanded the ship Betsy during the American Revolution, defected to the British, and was charged with treason and piracy by Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson before escaping to Canada and purchasing property on Oak Island. The previous year, the team visited Anderson's direct descendant Steve Atkinson, who showed them one of Anderson's sea chests and a mysterious set of keys.
In the War Room, archeoastronomer Rich Moats, who worked closely with the late researcher Zena Halpern, presents a theory that Nolan's Cross functions as a navigational treasure map. Fred Nolan discovered the formation in 1981: five cone-shaped boulders of matching size forming a symmetrical cross. Moats argues that engineers with celestial navigation skills, most likely Knights Templar, constructed the cross to mark specific locations. By extending sight lines between pairs of stones, he identifies four target sites in the Money Pit area and urges the team to excavate "Site Three" as the most promising location for the original treasure shaft.
Drilling begins at Site Three within days. Craig, Paul, and Terry watch as hand-hewn timbers emerge at 100 feet, including pieces with tongue joints suggesting structural connections. At the wash table, Alex Lagina, Jack, and Dan Henskee recover glazed pottery from at least 100 feet down along with purple-stained wood, similar to pieces found in borehole H-8 the previous year that medieval book expert Joe Landry identified as colored with an ancient dye used in manuscript production throughout the Middle Ages. As excavation pushes deeper, large oak timbers come up in vertical orientations, and Terry suggests the mixed materials may represent the collapsed walls of the original Money Pit.
At Smith's Cove, Rick and Marty join Charles Barkhouse and Billy Gerhardt to continue removing the 6,000-square-foot crane pad. Beneath it, Billy uncovers timbers and what appears to be another structure with water pouring through, near the spot where red dye from the C-1 test was detected four weeks earlier. The progress is cut short when Mike Jardine from Irving Equipment delivers word that unionized crane operators across Nova Scotia have gone on strike over wages, potentially halting all Money Pit drilling for up to 21 days just as winter closes in.
