Hacker Cinema
The Curse of Oak Island
2014 · TV series · documentary · 43 min episodes · 14 seasons
Created by Kevin Burns
MysteryActionAdventureRealityDocumentary
Follow brothers Marty and Rick Lagina through their effort to find the speculated - and as of yet undiscovered - buried treasure believed to have been concealed through extraordinary means on Oak Island.
1 negative4 neutralfrom 5 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
6 comments on Hacker News
We know little of the Sherman's motivations and it seems likely that they needed to sell the ranch for some other reason. The stories of paranormal visitation likely started out as most do, as small time rumors, and expanded in scale to the skinwalker ranch phenomenon to meet the opportunity to sell to Bigelow.
Brandon Fugel should not be trusted. Because of the History Channel series he has a clear financial interest in the ranch, and it's obvious on casual inspection of the show that he has few compunctions when it comes to the ways he promotes his interests. The television show is an embarrassment to anyone with a sincere interest in the topic, it is worse than its obvious inspiration The Curse of Oak Island and that is saying a lot. And yet Fugel's role is to occasionally pop in to stir the drama.
Bigelow claims that the DoD came to him, but these types of contracts are usually awarded through back channels after lobbying by the firm that eventually wins them... This is the norm in defense acquisition. We know that Bigelow was drumming up political support for his projects from Reid as early as when he was making plans to purchase Skinwalker Ranch. It's extremely hard to believe that the DoD happened to select him as the best provider when the program only existed due to influence from his good friend and compatriot Reid... Far more likely that Bigelow himself established the parameters of the contract before he was considered for it, a practice that is basically normal in DoD contracting.
I know I am being harsh but you cannot judge these events based only on the accounts of the people that benefit from them. They are benefitting enormously from the information vacuum associated with military intelligence and the credulousness of the media. There is virtually nothing to check them when they make claims about what happened, and there are plenty of indications that they take advantage of this situation to create the story that they want. It's good to be skeptical, but you need to also be skeptical of the people who stir up these conspiracies.
> Bigelow's decision to completely close the property to entry by other researchers, and hiring a small security force to keep people out, has been taken as a bit of an affront. This coincided with his signing a number of media deals including a "Curse of Oak Island"-esque History Channel series, creating the appearance that Bigelow is more interested in finding funding and press than finding the truth.
as noted in the linked article, Bigelow sold the ranch to Brandon Fugal, who has continued research with a private team, closed off access, and now has two television shows about the ranch and other phenomena.
Skinwalker Ranch is one of the most famous sites in contemporary parascience, and Bigelow has been involved in it since long before AATIP (roughly since 1995; Harry Reid may have been on board with the project that entire time although it's difficult to say for sure). Colm Kelleher has also been involved in Skinwalker Ranch since the start. So I think it's important to understand that this is not a case of the DoD taking interest in Skinwalker Ranch, but a case of Bigelow directing their interest there.
Despite occasional claims by Bigelow, Kelleher, and others, paranormal phenomenon are not clearly documented at Skinwalker Ranch prior to the ownership of the Shermans in 1994, immediately before they sold the property to Bigelow. The exact details of this transaction, how Bigelow became aware of the property, etc., are opaque, but it presents a substantial possibility that the paranormal history was fabricated by the Shermans to motivate the sale.
Bigelow and his various organizations (NIDSci, a more genera parascience and paranormal organization, and later BAAS, his aerospace company) have owned the ranch and been conducting research there for 27 years, and yet they have failed to produce any reasonable documentary evidence of the phenomenon. What they have produced is innumerable stories like this one, full of intrigue but absent of evidence. Some might see it as too dismissive to suggest that there isn't something paranormal at Skinwalker Ranch, but at this point people even in the UFO community are inclined to agree that Bigelow has made a huge effort and doesn't have anything to show for it.
Bigelow's decision to completely close the property to entry by other researchers, and hiring a small security force to keep people out, has been taken as a bit of an affront. This coincided with his signing a number of media deals including a "Curse of Oak Island"-esque History Channel series, creating the appearance that Bigelow is more interested in finding funding and press than finding the truth.
I have previously expressed my belief that Bigelow's involvement in DoD UAP programs, facilitated by Sen. Reid, was primarily an effort to obtain government funding to continue his Skinwalker Ranch pursuits. This article seems to support that perspective.
The CueCat actually has a connection to the Oak Island Money Pit (http://www.oakislandmoneypit.com/).
The inventor of the CueCat, J. Hutton Pulitzer (formerly J. Jovan Philyaw) is prominently featured on the tv show The Curse of Oak Island and claims to have found a "magical" Roman Sword off the island's coast: http://www.inquisitr.com/2704626/oak-island-roman-sword-j-hutton-pulitzer-jeffrey-jovan-philyaw/
Factoring that the CueCat lost investors $185M I think it would be fair to say that it's also a "Money Pit".
Someone did (Marty Lagina) and they attempted a number of things last year. This is the premise of a reality show on the History Channel called "The Curse of Oak Island."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Oak_Island http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3455408/
Did anyone mention the TV show they have out on this now? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Oak_Island