Top 5 Essential Clues Every Oak Island Enthusiast Needs

Welcome back friends. If you’ve been following The Curse of Oak Island, you know that every dig, every discovery, and every dusty artifact adds fuel to one of the most thrilling historical mysteries of all time.

But in Season 12, Episode 20, something changed. This isn’t just about treasure anymore—this is about the Knights of Malta, and this… this could be the proof they were here.

Let’s dive right into it.

The Lagina team has always chased whispers—hints of buried gold, cryptic maps, and forgotten tunnels. But this week’s episode brings us face to face with something even more astonishing: the possible physical evidence of the Knights of Malta right on Oak Island.

Now, before we go further, you need to understand who these people were. The Knights of Malta, formerly known as the Knights Hospitaller, were no ordinary religious order. They were warrior monks, soldiers of God, crusaders who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the legendary Knights Templar.

Together they fought in Jerusalem. They built fortresses across Europe. And after the fall of the Holy Land—while the Templars were being hunted and dismantled in 1307—the Hospitallers took in much of their treasure and their secrets.

Where did they go next? Cyprus, then Rhodes, and finally Malta in the 1500s. There, they dug tunnels, fortified cities, and disappeared from the spotlight.

But what if—just what if—their journey didn’t end in Malta?

This week, the team zooms in on Lot 5, recently acquired and already a gold mine of mysterious finds. It’s here that a stone foundation sits nestled near the shoreline—old, layered, and modified by several different hands over time.

But within this structure, the story begins to take a turn.

Archaeologists unearthed what looked like an ordinary button. But here’s where it gets wild—this button had starburst rays. Not clockwise. Not counterclockwise. But something else. A rare design that matches the buttons found on a Knight of Malta uniform.

Are you feeling this yet? Because that’s not just a cool find—that’s a breadcrumb from a forgotten past. It’s like the island is whispering: “They were here.”

But it doesn’t stop there.

Researcher Judy Rudabush blew the doors open when she dropped this revelation: a man named Isaac Donor, a Knight of Malta, traveled to Nova Scotia in the 1630s. His family, the Devillers, were Grand Masters of the Order. And he didn’t just pass through—he settled just around the corner from Oak Island.

Hold on to that—because now we have lineage, we have proximity, and we have a connection between one of the world’s most secretive orders and Lot 5.

Coincidence? Or calculated legacy?

Artifacts start popping up like crazy—beads, buttons, bottle glass, even blue Venetian trade beads potentially dating back to the 17th century. These beads are particularly telling. Why?

Because guess who traded them? The Knights of Malta.

They were all over the Mediterranean—Venice, Italy—places known for these types of beads. They were merchants, warriors, and mystics. And these beads? They may be the silent messengers they left behind.

Two beads. Identical color. Identical source. And most importantly: identical message—“We were here. We left something behind.”

Now, let’s jump across the island to the northern swamp—the realm of the late Fred Nolan, who always swore there was a wall built there. A dam. Something man-made, buried in the muck, pointing to something ancient.

This episode, Rick Lagina, Tom Nolan, and the crew are digging deep into that very claim. And suddenly—it happens.

They uncover massive boulders, placed in alignment, at the same elevation, with purpose. Not just random stones, but a structure. Maybe even the wall Fred Nolan tried to prove existed for decades.

And then—the kicker. A cut timber.

Not a splinter. Not weathered driftwood. A log clearly shaped by an axe, not a modern chainsaw—locked between two massive boulders like it was meant to be there. Like someone built something.

So now we’re staring down a convergence of clues: a mysterious wall in the swamp, Venetian trade beads on Lot 5, a button that matches Knights of Malta military uniforms, and the documented presence of a Malta Grandmaster descendant living just across the water from Oak Island.

This isn’t just smoke. It’s fire.

Are we watching a history-altering revelation unfold?

Could the Knights of Malta—carrying the secrets of the Templars—have come to Oak Island?

Could they be the ones who buried the treasure?

Could this finally be the missing chapter in the island’s centuries-old puzzle?

Let’s rewind for a moment and talk about something most people miss when they’re watching the show: the precision.

Nothing on Oak Island is random. That button? It wasn’t just a piece of fabric decoration. It was a calling card. A breadcrumb. Deliberately left—whether by accident or by design—pointing us toward an organization that moved in silence but operated with incredible influence.

The Knights of Malta didn’t just wander the globe. They strategically planted themselves in powerful and mysterious places.

If Oak Island is one of them, then this could be one of the greatest hidden chapters in North American history.

And think about this—we’ve heard whispers for years that the Templars might have escaped to the New World. But rarely has the next generation of that secret world—the Knights of Malta—gotten their moment in the spotlight.

Now, they’re stepping into the narrative.

If the Templars passed the torch—passed their secrets and perhaps even their treasure—it would make perfect sense for the Malta brothers to carry it forward.

From Jerusalem, to Rhodes, to Malta—and then Nova Scotia.

Let’s talk about that lead barter token again—the one found earlier near Smith’s Cove. It lines up eerily well with the artifacts popping up on Lot 5.

The Knights of Malta, like the Templars, were experts in symbols, codes, and non-verbal communication. These weren’t just currency—they were messages, worn and used by those in the know.

When you see that token and that button side by side, it’s like watching two pieces of a centuries-old puzzle finally snap into place.

Here’s a wild idea to chew on: what if Lot 5 wasn’t just a temporary stop, but a staging ground?

Think about it: multiple groups, multiple layers of construction, buttons, beads, barter tokens, pottery from all over the map. This wasn’t a random camp.

This was intentional. Strategic.

It might have been a relay station—where plans were made, coded items were exchanged, and perhaps the last place something was hidden before being sealed beneath the Money Pit.

Let’s not forget the swamp—that eerie, murky landscape that’s been coughing up secrets for years. When Rick and Tom uncovered that cut timber wedged between rocks with purpose, you could see it in their faces.

This wasn’t nature. It was man-made. Maybe even centuries old.

And who were the experts at building under pressure, creating fortified underground spaces, and hiding things in plain sight?

The Knights of Malta.

The very same people who carve cities beneath Malta’s surface in solid limestone.

Now throw in the Venetian beads. These aren’t just pretty trinkets—they’re markers of trade routes, of cultural intersections.

The Knights of Malta were deeply entwined with Mediterranean commerce. And Venetian glass was among the most coveted in the world.

If those beads made it to Oak Island—and we now have four of them—it strongly suggests that someone from those regions was present.

And not just passing through. They were staying, operating, and possibly hiding something.

You’ve also got to give credit to Judy Rudabush and the late Zena Halpern. These two women have gone deep into research that others brushed aside.

Judy’s connection of Isaac Donors to the Knights of Malta isn’t just academic—it’s based on lineage records, land holdings. That man didn’t just show up in Nova Scotia.

He had purpose. Strategy. An agenda.

And that agenda might be carved into the soil of Oak Island.

And Rick Lagina nailed it when he said, “It feels like the mystery of Oak Island was solved incrementally.”

That’s not just a great line. That’s the key.

This wasn’t a single deposit by a single group. This was a relay of secrets—a multigenerational operation where different orders, connected by faith and secrecy, built on each other’s legacy.

The Knights of Malta may have been the final handoff in a race that began in Jerusalem.

So what do we do with all of this?

We dig deeper—not just in the dirt—but into the history books, into Malta’s archives, into the Mediterranean world that might hold the final missing pieces.

As Rick said, “There could be a lot of information in Malta.”

That trip? It’s not just a field trip.

It’s the next chapter of the investigation—and maybe the one that finally opens the vault.

Because here’s the truth: The Curse of Oak Island isn’t just about treasure.

It’s about truths buried by time, brotherhoods who guarded them, and the brave souls today trying to bring them to light.

We’re not chasing myths anymore.

We’re uncovering a legacy.

And if the Knights of Malta did leave something here…

We’re standing closer than ever to discovering it.