Human bones discovered during filming of History series The Curse of Oak Island

Rick Lagina and bone fragment on The Curse of Oak Island
Rick Lagina on next week’s The Curse of Oak Island and, inset, one of the bone fragments

Human bones as well as soft tissue and hairs were discovered during filming for History’s hit series The Curse of Oak Island.

The shocking discovery of the remains was revealed at the end of this week’s episode of the show in a sneak peek for the episode set to air next week.

In footage, the team are seen at St Mary’s University in Halifax as a fragment of what they already suspect is bone undergoes tests by Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr Christa Brosseau and technician Dr Xian Yiang.

After looking at a series of close-up images on a screen, Dr Brosseau tells them: “It’s bone with some soft tissue on it and hairs.”

Marty Lagina, one of the two brothers at the center of the show, asks: “Is it human?”

A letter — dated September 14, 2017 — is later received by the Oak Island team from Timothy R Frasier, Coordinator of the Forensic Sciences Program in the Department of Biology at Saint Mary’s.

It reveals that while only one bone was shown on this week’s episode, two were in fact found, both of which were tested and found to be likely be different.

The letter, read out by Marty’s brother Rick, says of the two bones: “Both sequenced successfully, and both came back as human. The good news is that they appear to be different.”

Frasier adds: “I will do some more work trying to see what we can learn about these sequences (i.e., if it is possible to infer something about region of origin). It should just take a few days for that.”

Letter about human bones
The letter read out by Rick Lagina from Timothy R Frasier of St Mary’s University

The sneak peek for next week’s episode also showed testing being done down the same exploratory borehole that the bone was found in — dubbed “H-8” — which appears to show some sort of anomaly.

The bone was discovered at between 160ft-165ft down the H-8 hole. This week’s episode also saw fragments of pearlware pottery, thought to date from the late 1700s, found at more than 190ft underground down the same borehole.

The significance of both the pottery and the bones is yet to be revealed, and it’s not known what the discovery will mean for the team. It’s thought the discovery of human remains would mean they would have to immediately inform the relevant authorities.

However, a voiceover at the end of this week’s episode also speculated that the bones could hold the key to the mystery at the center of The Curse for Oak Island — which aims to find out if legendary treasures or precious artifacts were once buried on the island off Canada’s Nova Scotia coast.

Referring to the team, the voiceover said: “For Rick, Marty and the Oak Island team, this week’s search for answers has offered a number of promising new leads, but just where or to what are they being led?

“Is it to a wooden vault filled with priceless artifacts or treasure? Or could it be to something far more mysterious and perhaps more dangerous than anything they could have ever imagined?

“Perhaps the answer can be found embedded in a simple piece of bone. A bone that may have belonged to the last person to know the truth about what really lies below.”

The Curse of Oak Island airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on History.

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Marilyn Gervasone
Marilyn Gervasone
2 years ago

How old are the bones? What time period? 1700, 1600, 1400?