Is the Oak Island Flood Tunnel a British military booby trap?
Sir William Phips was a privateer and treasure hunter based in New England. Rebellious British nobility hired him in the 1670s to loot a sunken Spanish treasure ship.
This is the treasure-laden Spanish ship, the Concepcion. After it sank, Phips found the shipwreck. Loyal to his British patrons, it’s believed he buried the Spanish treasure on Oak Island.
There’s strong evidence that nearly a century after Phips buried the treasure, the British Navy sent engineers and miners to protect the treasure with a booby trap.
Here’s an illustration of the British Corps of Royal Engineers regiment from the period.
The booby trap was the complex Flood Tunnel found on Oak Island. Expert miners and engineers built it over the course of a single summer.
This pick was found buried in Oak Island’s Money Pit. Searchers identified it as an historic British miner’s tool.
Graham Harris and Les MacPhie are two expert mining engineers who have extensively researched and documented the story of the British military and the flood tunnel. They tell this story in their book Oak Island and its Lost Treasure.
The Deluxe Oak Island Book Set
Oak Island Illustrated: The 225-year Search for Truth and Treasure
By John Bell
Oak Island’s First Visitors: Irish Monks, Vikings and Templars
By Doug Symons
Oak Island Secrets
By Mark Finnan
The Mystery of the Oak Island Treasure: Two Hundred Years of Hope and Despair
By Mark Reynolds