The Conspiracy Theory Thread - This week: The Money Pit

[radishhead]

 

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory - and I've got knowledge of a wide range of them to discuss with you - I'll be making a new one of these every week. :)

I'll post up the facts, and then you have to make your own decision on the matter. This week, I want to talk about something very interesting that you may not have heard about, but is sure to capture your imagination. The "money pit" located on Oak Island off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada.

- Less than 150 acres across, this island doesn't look like much. But this all changed in 1795 when a boy named Daniel McGinnis found a tackle block hanging from a large oak tree - beneath which was a noticible depression in the ground.

- He returned with friends and began to dig. They came across flagstone 2 feet below the ground, and then as they kept digging, found platforms in the ground.

- By the time they had dug 30 feet, they abandoned the operation, but they returned when they were older- with help from professional diggers and equipment, to see what was down that hole.

- Every 10 feet they found another platform and a layer of foreign material, such as clay or coconut fibre.

- Almost 100 feet down, they allegedly found a stone slab that held markings in an unknown language. The next day, the tunnel flooded with 60 feet of water - the hole was booby trapped. When they tried to dig a parallel tunnel, that was flooded too.

- More than 200 years after the original discovery, many treasure hunters have tried to find what is at the bottom of the Oak Island pit. What is down there? Nobody knows.

- Several groups have found strange things, including an anchor fluke, more wooden platforms, flagstone and even human remains

- The original theories that it was either a natural sinkhole, or the buried treasure of  Captain Kidd, a pirate from the late 1600s who was believed to have buried his treasure on an island somewhere east of Boston.

- Skeptics believe that it's unlikely that Kidd had the time to build such an elaborate booby-trapped pit, but this has done nothing to discourage treasure hunters from trying to get to the bottom - several of whom have lost their lives trying to excavate the island.

- Other theories include that the pit was treasure from viking explorers, the treasure from the British military after the American Revolution, or  the Freemasons. Some even suggest that it is the Holy Grail hidden by the Knights Templar. 

- There have even been claims that the money pit is related to the supposedly sunken city of Atlantis (we'll talk more about Atlantis in a future thread)

- As you can imagine, most skeptics dismiss these claims, but the search contains. It's generally agreed that this pit is manmade, so that leaves us with two important questions - who built the pit, and what is at the bottom?

What do you think? :)