Oldest Message Found In Bottle

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

A message in a bottle dating from 1886 was found on an Australian beach.

Fascinating, isn't it? In other words, this would be the oldest message found in a bottle so far, USA Today reported. The container was discovered by a family on a beach in the western part of the continent.

Half of the bottle could be seen on the surface of the beach - in the sand - on small Wedge Island, located 88 miles north of Perth, USA Today explains. What was in the bottle? A rolled paper. "We were walking through the dunes when I saw something protruding from the sand, so I went closer to get a better look," says Tonya Illman, the person who made the discovery.

Illman explained that the paper was damp, rolled, tight, and wrapped with thread. The family chose to take her home to dry. “We took it home, dried it and when we opened it we saw that it was a printed form, in German; in very blurred German script.

Obviously the family realized that the note was quite old, so they gave it to the Western Australian Museum so that experts could carry out a thorough analysis of the message, which had been in that bottle for years.

What did they discover? The museum contacted the relevant authorities in Germany and the Netherlands to carry out a joint investigation. It was then that they knew what the message said. "This bottle was launched overboard on June 12, 1886 at a latitude of 32 ° 49 ′ south and longitude of 105 ° 25 ′ from east Greenwich," it read. On the note in the bottle was the name of the ship, Paula; the port from which they left, Elsfleth; and the captain's name that was unreadable. The boat was going from Cardiff to Macassar, reports USA Today.