Talk:Oak Island

Roman outpost claims

First, this isn't a news article and we shouldn't be responding immediately to newspaper stories, which often in any case either get things wrong or give incomplete coverage - their role is to sell papers, not to publish scientific findings, remmber. The sword stuff is just nonsense, there are similar swords available elsewhere, eg on ebay.[1] The Roman shield boss seems just dishonest as it was discovered in 1792 in England.[2] Of all the Oak Island claims, this has less credibility than most and at least at the moment I don't think it belongs. See also [3]and [4]. Doug Weller talk

Forgot. The "Ancient Artifact Preservation Society"[5] is just another fringe group, sponsored in part by the Mormon Wayne May. His magazine reflects an LDS perspective also.[6].

A bit more on J Hutton Pulitzer, who seems to be the man behind all of this. He's the inventor of the CueCat. Another Colavito post.[7] Here's some of his self-published material on Amazon.[8] He is certainly a good publicist. Doug Weller talk 10:23, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Redacting statement about being dishonest, as I can't be sure of that and Pulitizer is litigious. But I can quote him about the sword. At one of his websites he wrote " The sword has an ancient ocean navigational device built into it which causes the sword to point true north. Such magnetic qualities are only found in authentic items of antiquity, not cast iron or manufactured stone replicas." He even linked to our article True north. But of course magnets point to the North Magnetic Pole. Doug Weller talk 11:13, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

A claim like this would need very strong references to warrant inclusion. Nick-D (talk) 22:21, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

The stories are problematical. The person who claimed to have discovered the sword is long dead and the sword passed through many hands before being revealed. There isn't an eyewitness account or a strong chain of custody that establishes where the sword came from. The sword might be Roman, but there is no way to establish absolutely that it actually came from that area. There is lots of talk about a Roman shipwreck. But until they show the actual wreck in the ocean and/or bring up roman materials from a wreck, its all just talk. 75.17.125.26 (talk) 07:33, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

And it turns out to be almost certainly not Roman.[9][10]. Now that the tv show itself has said that this alleged "100% confirmed" sword isn't, maybe it's worth a small note somewhere, I don't know. Doug Weller talk 19:34, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

source for the "seven must die" curse story

I've found what seems possibly to be the source of the "seven must die" curse story. Its in the Dalhousie Review, Volume 57, Number 4, 1978. The story is written by Joan Clark and I think it was intended as fiction. Its told by a woman who lived near Oak Island in childhood. She claims she heard the story of the curse from an adult neighbor (Mrs. Nauss) in the early 1960s. The story is about a woman having "premonition" abilities and recounts being able to find the body of a missing person for the police. She also claims that she had a premonition dream predicting the "Restall" deaths in the 1960s. Then she tells a story about some woman seeing visions of where the treasure actually is and then dying on the Island. The central character predicts that death in the story as well. I have yet to find any account of the curse older than this one. It was also published just a year before the "in search of" TV show episode which also talks about "seven must die". I'm leaving this for reference purposes on the talk page. 75.17.126.6 (talk) 05:20, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Kempton and the inscribed stone

Joltes writes about this.[11] He calls the inscription an egregious fraud and says "there are no known descriptions of the "original" Money Pit stone -- if indeed such a stone ever existed in the first place." Doug Weller talk 10:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

That isn't quite correct. There are vague descriptions of the stone. The stone was described for the first time in 1862. But the story is suspect because its describing events in great detail that supposedly happened in 1805 and because the author later gives an excuse as to why the stone can't be seen (its not only built into a chimney, its built into a chimney surrounded by wood and staircases). The next detail is added in 1893. Its claimed that the stone was translated at an unknown time by persons unknown in Halifax to read “Ten feet below are two million pounds buried.”. The final addition to the story is the addition of the symbols by Kempton. Kempton's account is that a unnamed (then-deceased) minister contacted an unnamed (also-deceased) irish schoolteacher who provided the information. Kempton claimed he had a manuscript written by the teacher, but nobody ever saw it. All the stories of the stone are suspect and each is a slightly more elaborate version of the previous story. The 1862 story is suspect because its describing in great detail events from 1805 and when asked to produce the stone, a lame story is provided to explain why its not possible. The 1893 story is suspect because it fails to provide the names of anyone involved. As well, Kempton's story is not credible because he mentions two people but does not provide their names and states that they are both deceased. The only descriptions of the stone come from people raising money for treasure hunts. While they assure us that "thousands" saw the stone, there are no historical accounts by third parties who saw the stone. 75.17.126.74 (talk) 09:02, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

early history section

With regard to the early history of the money pit, it is important to note that there is no history or sources prior to the 1850s. Further, that many of the pre-1890's sources tell different or even conflicting stories. It is important, however it is done, that the voice of Wikipedia NOT be used to make authoritative statements with regard to the early history of the money pit. The article can say that the sources conflict with each other, the article can cite what specific sources have said in the past. But the article should be careful not to draw conclusions or to suggest that a particular statement is true. Its better to err on the side of neutrality rather than claiming that particular undocumented early accounts are true or false. 12.12.144.130 (talk) 19:28, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Stop adding disclaimers in the form of Original Research. What specific sentences do you find problematic? GigglesnortHotel (talk) 21:30, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

inappropriate advertising

The mention of the show ", and is the subject of the History Channel's series The Curse of Oak Island." seems inappropriate in the introduction. The show should be mentioned further down the article. It seems like advertising to mention it at the very start of the article.

The next section is even more troublesome. It not only mentioned the TV series again, it throws up every conspiracy theory in the book in a way that seems very related to the show rather than the history of Oak Island. If all that junk needs to be in the article, it should be far down the article after the confirmed history of the Island is presented.

The section on the television show should just describe the TV show in brief. The "teasers" for the supposed "discoveries" at the end of the first and second seasons should not be mentioned.64.134.168.10 (talk) 06:28, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Agreed that the TV series doesn't belong in the introduction so I made the edit. It does belong in the pop culture section, although the claims should be presented in a more balanced and less POV manner.Dan Conlin (talk) 22:52, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The above discussion was pulled from the archives so that it can be seen that the issue of the advertising for the TV show has been previously discussed and the consensus, after an appropriate time for comment, was to remove the advertising for the TV show from the introduction and the various other locations it had been placed in the article. I can personally see no reason for including information in the introduction about a specific television program when the same information is appropriately included in the proper section later in the article. 12.12.144.130 (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2016 (UTC)