The team continues to monitor the excavation of B4-C, the fifth ten-foot shaft of the year, located five feet north of Borehole C1 in an area where earlier drilling revealed evidence of tunnels at ninety feet, along with water samples showing traces of gold and silver. Sam from Irving Equipment reports the shaft has reached approximately 57 feet. Terry Matheson describes the material as dense, tight, and undisturbed, ideal conditions for preserving tunnels and chambers. The team plans to excavate to 150 feet, the depth of the suspected vault first drilled into in 1897. In the War Room, Rick and Doug Crowell join the team by video conference to share findings from their research trip to Portugal with Corjan Mol. The group discovered symbols at a church that match markings on the 90 Foot Stone and the H+O stone, and Rick describes a Roman road construction suitable for hills and swamps.
On Lot 15, Marty, Steve Guptill, Gary Drayton, and Billy Gerhardt investigate a stone feature detected earlier in the year when Alex Lagina and David Fornetti performed a GPR scan of the area east of the swamp stone road. The team has secured a permit for the investigation. Marty begins excavating and hits cobble at multiple points. Steve tells the group the feature is likely a stone road because it shares the same twenty-foot width as the road in the swamp. When Laird Niven and Scott Barlow arrive, Laird notes the angular stones appear deliberately placed, with cobble filling natural dips to level the surface. The team agrees to continue investigating the road.
In Portugal, Corjan takes the group to the Convento de Cristo, the castle of the Templar Knights that Joao Fiandeiro explains was built on the first of March 1160. Corjan welcomes the team to what the Templars considered their New Jerusalem as they enter the most sacred Catholic convent of the order. A massive aqueduct once supplied water to the castle through underground channels, and Corjan shows the group a series of carved stone hands with unusual middle fingers, five or six of which are placed throughout the convent to indicate where the aqueducts run. The hands remind him of the finger drains discovered on Oak Island in 1850 by the Truro Company at Smith's Cove, where five drains made of flat stones and covered with capstones converged into a single tunnel heading toward the Money Pit. Rick asks whether the formations match, and Corjan confirms they use square pipes with capstones. At the original gate of the castle, Corjan points out a Templar cross carved above the entrance arch and, below it, a stone bearing a cross with four dots identical to a symbol on the H+O stone.
The group then visits the Lisbon Military Museum, where Sergeants Ricardo Lopes and Carlos Magro, experts in Portuguese military history, examine replicas of the stone shots found on Oak Island. The shots, measuring 3.9 centimeters, were previously analyzed by geology professor Dr. Robert Raeside, who believed they originated from Portugal's Azores Islands. The sergeants confirm the stones were made in either the Azores or Portugal and show the group a 15th or 16th-century cannon with a four-centimeter caliber that fires a half-Portuguese-pound ball, an exact match for the replicas. They also confirm that smaller cannons of this type were typically used on ships or fortresses and could be removed from a vessel and placed on a structure ashore. The team then travels to Sintra, twenty miles west of Lisbon, to visit Quinta da Regaleira, a 20th-century palace. The town was captured in 1154 by Portugal's first king, Afonso Henriques, and turned over to the Knights Templar as a stronghold for centuries before being purchased in 1904 by Antonio Augusto de Carvalho Monteiro, a wealthy Freemason believed to have held secret Masonic and Templar rituals there. The group descends the Initiation Well, a thirteen-foot-diameter shaft with nine platforms and a spiral staircase that closely resembles descriptions of the original Money Pit. Doug notes that the Restall family believed a spiral tunnel wrapped around the Money Pit, much like the staircase in the well. At the bottom, Corjan points out an oak tree branch hanging directly over the opening, echoing the story of how the Money Pit was first discovered. A tunnel leads from the base of the well to the outside.
