While walking on an Australian beach, a couple discovered the oldest message in a gin bottle.
A couple walking on a Western Australia beach has stumbled upon the oldest message found in the bottle. Written in German, the message asks the finder to write down the coordinates of the bottle and cast it afloat. A bottle belonging to the same ship that cast this one was recovered in 1934.
Oldest Message in a Bottle Was Cast into the Sea 132 Years Ago
Tonya Illman told the reporters that she was on vacation with Kym Illman, her husband when they’ve stumbled upon a most curious trinket. While taking a brisk walk on Wedge Island, located in Western Australia, the couple saw a bottle lying in one of the dunes.
At first, they did not pay much attention to it because trash is quite common on the beach, but the woman decided to keep it as it would have made a wonderful keepsake. Upon picking up the bottle, the couple observed that it contained something like a piece of paper.
A closer view revealed that the paper inside the old gin bottle had a message written in German. Of course, believing that they’ve stumbled on something significant, the couple decided to take it to a museum to have it authenticated.
Ross Anderson, a curator at the Western Australian Museum, analyzed the bottle and the paper and found them to be genuine. According to Anderson, the message in the bottle was cast overboard on the 12th of June 1886. The name of the ship to which the message belonged to was called Paula.
Anderson said that the message’s presence on the Australian beach was no coincidence, as the Paula was involved in an experiment which lasted approximately 70 years. In order to chart maritime currents, ships such as Paula would throw bottle like this into the water and would mark the coordinates if found.
Also, Anderson said that the message written in German kindly asked the bottle’s finder to mark off the location and to throw the bottle back into the water.
Image source: Pixabay
