Amazing Messages Found In Bottles

Imagine depending on the ocean’s currents to receive a text. It's not the most convenient form of communication, but imagine how cool it would be to receive a mysterious message in a bottle that traveled for years at sea. For centuries, people have been writing messages, placing them in these “drift bottles” and tossing them at sea, in the hopes that someone would find them. Coming up are some of the most amazing messages ever found in bottles!

SOS Message

A big catch is every fisherman’s goal when they go out to sea but for some Costa Rican fishermen their big catch in May 2005 was a bottle, which inside was a message saying “Please help us.” Could a message be any clearer? The fishermen quickly alerted the authorities and what was found later was nothing short of remarkable.

The SOS message was sent by a group of 86 migrants, mostly Ecuadorian and Peruvian teenagers, who had been abandoned by people smugglers when their boat got into trouble. Their message in a bottle was found floating near Cocos Island, which is a World Heritage Site off the coast of Costa Rica. The group was said to have been trying to reach Guatemala to cross the border to Mexico.

Before abandoning them, the smugglers stripped the boat of radio and communication equipment but clearly they didn’t expect that the group would ingeniously find this unconventional communication method. Luckily, due to the fishermen finding the message, park wardens were alerted who managed to find and save the sea-sick migrants.

Oldest Message In Bottle

How serendipitous would it be if you wrote a message and send it adrift, only for it to surface near your birthplace, 151 years later? In 1935, a Japanese seaweed collector came across a bottle in the village of Hiraturemura, Japan, that told of an unfortunate story.

In 1784, Japanese seaman, Chunosuke Matsuyama, and his 43 shipmates, were said to be on the search for buried treasure on a Pacific Island. Their treasure hunt would soon become a tragedy when they encountered a storm and became shipwrecked on a nearby island. The crew eventually died from dehydration and starvation but before his own death, Matsuyama carved the story of their misfortune into a piece of wood from a coconut tree and slipped it into a bottle.

Despite this tale being well-known and the message said to be approximately 151 years old, it is not recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest message and it seems that it has been queried whether Matsuyama was real or just a legend.

Frank Hayostek's Message In A Bottle

Before making a love connection was as easy as swiping right on Tinder, some people tried to generate some current using the ocean. On the 23rd August 1946, a note washed ashore in County Kerry, Ireland, to be discovered by milkmaid Breda O’Sullivan, a note so desperate that it compelled her to respond.

The note was from American soldier, Frank Hayostek, written on Christmas Day in 1945. He was aboard a “Liberty Ship” bringing the service men and women home from World War II. Unfortunately, a storm prevented the ship from reaching New York on Christmas Eve, so Frank wrote his thoughts in a letter with his home address, put it in an aspirin bottle and released it into the sea.

Breda wrote a reply and they started a correspondence. Frank began to save money and six years later, visited Breda in Ireland. His mistake however was giving an interview about their friendship in his hometown in Pennsylvania, and the story exploded; even Time magazine had a feature story. The unwanted attention frustrated Breda and ultimately squashed the chances of a romance. Frank returned home and they continued to correspond but in 1959, it ended just as unexpectedly as it began. But such a romance isn't that farfetched.

In a similar manner, 17-year-old Sicilian girl named Paolina discovered a love note in a bottle addressed simply “To Someone Beautiful and Far Away”. In 1955, Swedish sailor Ake Viking, wrote this message during a sea voyage and included his address. He came home two years later to Paolina’s response which said “I am not beautiful, but it seems so miraculous that this little bottle should have travelled so far and long to reach me that I must send you an answer.” They began corresponding and were married with great fanfare when Paolina turned 18. Who says you can’t find love at the bottom of a drift bottle?

Jeremiah Burke's Message From The Titanic

All this note read was “From Titanic, goodbye all, Burke of Glanmire, Cork”. It said so much about one of most famous tragedies of the 20th century. What’s more, this message was placed in a holy water bottle and surfaced a year later near the author’s family home.

Cousins, 19-year-old Jeremiah Burke from Glanmire and 18-year-old Nora Hegarty were aboard the ill-fated ship when the tragedy occurred on 15 April 1912. Jeremiah’s mother had given him the bottle of holy water before the ship set sail. As the ship sank, Jeremiah wrote the note and placed it in the bottle.

Sadly, the cousins died but Jeremiah’s message survived. After keeping the note in the Burke family for almost a century, it was donated to the Cobh Heritage Center where it forms part of the Titanic exhibition.

Fisherman Finds Wartime Message

"Dear Wife, I am writing this note on this boat and dropping it into the sea just to see if it will reach you. If it does, sign this envelope on the right hand bottom corner where it says receipt. Put the date and hour of receipt and your name where it says signature and look after it well. Tata sweet, for the present. Your Hubby."

The words were written in September of 1914, during World War I, but unfortunately would never be read by the person it was intended for. When fisherman Steve Gowan discovered the message sealed in a ginger beer bottle in the River Thames 85 years later, he followed the instructions in the accompanying cover letter. The message was written by Private Thomas Hughes for his wife but Steve was still able to deliver it to his 86-year-old daughter in New Zealand, who was just 1-year-old when he died.

Century Old Message In A Bottle

In August of 2015, retired post office worker, Marianne Winkler discovered a mysterious bottle on the shores of an island on the German North Sea.

The bottle, which floated for approximately 108 years, was actually one of more than 1,000 identical bottles tossed into the ocean by George Parker Bidder III between 1904 and 1906. Inside each bottle were instructions to break the bottle and a request to return the enclosed postcard to the Marine Biological Association in an effort to study ocean currents.

Not as romantic or heartrending as our previous items in this article but still an astonishing feat since it was actually the previous Guinness World Book of Records holder for the oldest message in a bottle.

This would not be the only time this method was used to study local ocean currents. In 1914, Captain C. Hunter Brown, a scientist at the Glasgow School of Navigation, set 1890 bottles adrift to find out the direction of the deep currents in the North Sea. A Scottish skipper, Andre Leaper, discovered one of the bottles in August 2012. This 98-year-old science experiment was also a previous Guinness Book of World Records holder.

The New World Record

It was January 2018 and while taking a walk on a remote beach in West Australia¸ Tonya Illman found a unique bottle. She thought it would look nice on her bookshelf and almost discarded the note inside, which her family thought was a rolled-up cigarette. They instead took the fragile item home and put it in the oven for five minutes to dry it.

When they unrolled the note, they saw faint handwriting dated 12 June 1886 and the name of a ship, Paula. It also had a printed message that requested the reader to contact the German consulate if the note was found. It also contained coordinates, ship and captain details and the departure and arrival port. Experts from the Western Australian Museum confirmed the authenticity of the note.

During a trip from Cardiff, Wales to Indonesia, thousands of bottles were thrown overboard the Paula as part of an experiment by the German Naval Observatory but only 662 messages had been returned with no bottles. It has since been declared in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest message found in a bottle. Mrs. Illman called the find the most remarkable event in her life, given that it hadn't been touched for 132 years and was still in perfect condition. Was it science, or a miracle?

Galapagos Message In A Bottle

While taking a look around Post Office Bay on Floreana Island in the Galapagos in 2018, student Grant Peters noticed a bottle partially buried in a sand dune. Inside was a rolled up scroll which read “Hugh Craggs, Yacht St George RTYC, Will any finder please enclose message bearing date, name of finder, of ship, destination, do a rebury and send a postcard to Hugh Craggs 50 Ruskin Ave Manor Park London E12.” It was dated to the 1st of August 1924.

Grant was so intrigued by the message, he asked for help on a Reddit discussion forum. What he learned was that Craggs longed for a more thrilling life and that he did have the life of adventure he was seeking, from incredible voyages to searches for pirate treasure and encountering wild animals and savages, and how he longed to find the elusive £300 million Lima Treasure. An entire tale of adventure from a message in a bottle.

Sidonie Fery's Note

On December the 6th 2012, a few weeks after Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the East Coast, a bottle was discovered amongst the debris. The message inside read “Be excellent to yourself, dude.” with a phone number and had “From Bill and Ted” written on the back.

The finder, Garrett Rivers, decided to call the number and spoke to Mimi Fery, the mother of the author. Mimi tragically lost her daughter in 2010, when she died from a fall off a cliff in Switzerland. Sidonie Fery was just 18 years old when she went on a picnic with her friends in an area where there weren‘t many barriers and she fell 1,500 feet.

It was very difficult for Mimi as Sidonie was her only child and she was a single mom but it seemed as though Sidonie was trying to encourage her from beyond. When Sidonie was 10, she put a message in a ginger ale bottle and threw it in the sea when they were in Long Island, New York. The advice was taken from the Movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. And it really was an excellent way to celebrate her memory.

Similarly, in 2002 Sioux Peto discovered a bottle with a heart-breaking message in French and sent it to her friend Karen Liebreich to translate. A few weeks earlier, a French mother who had lost her son Maurice when he was thirteen years old was crossing the English channel in a ferry. She sent some items of children’s clothing, some lilies and a teardrop shaped bottle with a letter to him into the sea.

Liebreich was so moved by the story that she eventually published a book called “The Letter in the Bottle”, detailing the discovery and her search for the author. Eventually, the mother, who remains unnamed, contacted Liebrich and met her in France.

Melvin's Journey: Dad's Memory Lives On

Willie Tang was one of the first persons who came across a lovely bottle while fishing in California. It contained the following message:

“My name is Mel, and I have 3 beautiful kids and a beautiful wife of almost 54 years when I passed. I love the ocean, deep sea fishing, abalone hunting with my 2 sons and visiting the tide pools with the whole family. Today my family is laying me to rest in a place that I love... the ocean. So this starts my journey — if you find this message in a bottle please go to my Facebook page, post a pic of yourself and where you found me and send me back on my journey. Thanks and God Bless, Mel’s Family.”

When Melvin Stanley died in April 2014 at age 77, his family decided to honor his memory by not just spreading his ashes in the Pacific Ocean but to also release a message in a bottle for him off Moss Beach in August 2014. Melvin’s family thought that in addition to sharing his legacy, it would also feel like he never quite left them and his soul would forever rest in a place he loved, the ocean.

One reddit user found the bottle and the message inside, and decided the best way to honor Melvin’s wish was to release the bottle back on its journey after documenting the find online. I hope you were amazed at the most amazing messages in a bottle ever found! Thanks for reading