Message in a bottle

For other uses, see Message in a bottle (disambiguation).

This bottle and its contents (sample postcard and insert shown above) were launched in 1959 by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and were found in 2013.<ref name=NEFSC20140314/>

A message in a bottle (abbrev. MIB<ref name=NYTimes_20150327/>) is a form of communication in which a message is sealed in a container (typically a bottle) and released into a conveyance medium (typically a body of water).

Messages in bottles have been used to send distress messages, in crowdsourced scientific studies of ocean currents, as memorial tributes, to send deceased loved ones' ashes on a final journey, to convey expedition reports, and to carry letters or reports from those believing themselves to be doomed. Invitations to prospective pen pals and letters to actual or imagined love interests have also been sent as messages in bottles.

The lore surrounding messages in bottles has often been of a romantic or poetic nature.

Use of the term "message in a bottle" has expanded to include metaphorical uses or uses beyond its traditional meaning as bottled messages released into oceans. The term has been applied to plaques on craft launched into outer space, interstellar radio messages, stationary time capsules, balloon mail, and containers storing medical information for use by emergency medical personnel.

With a growing awareness that bottles constitute waste that can harm the environment and marine life, environmentalists tend to favor biodegradable drift cards<ref name=AmSurveyor200703/> and wooden blocks.<ref name=DW20161013/>

History and uses

Bottled messages may date to about 310 B.C., in water current studies reputed<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano2009229">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, p. 229.</ref> to have been carried out by Greek philosopher Theophrastus.<ref name=NatGeo20120920/> The Japanese medieval epic The Tale of the Heike records the story of an exiled poet who, in about 1177 A.D., launched wooden planks on which he had inscribed poems describing his plight.<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200954–55">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, pp. 54–55.</ref> In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I reputedly created an official position of "Uncorker of Ocean Bottles", and—thinking some bottles might contain secrets from British spies or fleets—decreed that anyone else opening the bottles could face the death penalty.<ref name=NatGeo20120920>Berlin, Jeremy (20 September 2012). "Oldest Message in Bottle: Behind History's Famous Floating Notes". National Geographic. Archived from the original on May 6, 2016.</ref><ref name="FOOTNOTEKraske197753–56">Kraske 1977, pp. 53–56.</ref> (However, it has been argued that this is a myth<ref name=MessageInABottleHunterQEI>Buffington, Clint. "Queen Elizabeth's "Official Uncorker of Ocean Bottles"".</ref>.) In the nineteenth century, literary works such as Edgar Allan Poe's 1833 "MS. Found in a Bottle" and Charles Dickens' 1860 "A Message from the Sea" inspired an enduring popular passion for sending bottled messages.<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200955–56">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, pp. 55–56, attributing to Becher, Alexander (1843, 1852). Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle.</ref>

Floating wood-and-metal "drift casks" launched from northern Alaska in 1899-1901 reached Siberia, Iceland and Norway, becoming the first human-made objects to transit the Northwest Passage.<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200956–57">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, pp. 56–57, describing drift casks designed by George W. Melville.</ref>

This 1960s-era seabed drifter includes a descending ballast stem to allow a more buoyant disk to remain just above the seabed to be carried by bottom currents. An imprinted message offers a small reward for reporting the time and place the drifter was found.<ref name=NEFSCfisheries20140314/>

Scientific experiments involving drift objects—more generally called determinate drifters<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200950">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, p. 50.</ref>—provide information about currents and help researchers develop ocean circulation maps.<ref name=NEFSCfisheries20140314/> For example, experiments conducted in the mid-1700s by Benjamin Franklin and others indicated the existence and approximate location of the Gulf Stream, with scientific confirmation following in the mid-1800s.<ref name=AmSurveyor200703>Penry, Jerry, LS (March 2007). "Message in a Bottle" (PDF). The American Surveyor. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 23, 2014.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)</ref> Using a network of beachcomber informants, rear admiral Alexander Becher is believed to be the first (from 1808–1852) to study travel of so-called "bottle papers" around an ocean gyre (a large circulating current system).<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200955–56">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, pp. 55–56, attributing to Becher, Alexander (1843, 1852). Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle.</ref> In the late 1800s, Albert I, Prince of Monaco determined that the Gulf Stream branched into the North Atlantic Drift and the Azores Current.<ref name="FOOTNOTEMoody2010II. Adrift at Sea">Moody 2010, II. Adrift at Sea.</ref> In the 1890s, Scottish scientist T. Wemyss Fulton released floating bottles and wooden slips to chart North Sea surface currents for the first time.<ref name=ScotGovt20120830>"Message in a bottle". News Releases: Scottish Government. August 30, 2012. Archived from the original on April 5, 2017.</ref> Releasing bottles designed to remain a short distance above the sea bed, British marine biologist George Parker Bidder III first proved in the early twentieth century that deep sea currents flowed from east to west in the North Sea<ref name=Telegraph20150820/> and that bottom feeders prefer to move against the current.<ref name=NationalPost20160425>Boxall, Simon (April 25, 2016). "Why ocean scientists hope someone gets your message in a bottle". The National Post (reprinting from The Conversation). Archived from the original on May 7, 2016. Retrieved April 1, 2020.</ref>

The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS) used drift bottles from 1846 to 1966.<ref name=NEFSC20140314>Dawicki, Shelley (March 14, 2014). "Drift Bottle Found on Martha's Vineyard Has Quite a Story to Tell". NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC). Archived from the original on February 10, 2015.</ref> More recently, technologies involving satellite tags, fixed current profilers and satellite communication have permitted more efficient analysis of ocean currents: at any given time, thousands of modern "drifters" transmit current position, temperature, velocity, etc., to satellites, thus avoiding conventional drift bottles' dependence on serendipitous finds and cooperation by conscientious citizens.<ref name=NWFSCalaska2013>"NWFSC's Own Message in a Bottle: Ocean Drifters and Tiny Tags Have Been Telling Stories for Decades". NOAA's NWFSC. 2013. Archived from the original on July 24, 2016.</ref>

Drift bottle studies have provided a simple way to learn about non-tidal movement of waters containing eggs and larvae of commercially important fishes, for sharing among fisheries scientists and oceanographers.<ref name=NEFSCfisheries20140314>Dawicki, Shelley (March 14, 2014). "Message in a Bottle: The Story Behind the Story -- Drift Bottles Helped Determine Distribution of Fish Eggs and Larvae". NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC). Archived from the original on July 25, 2016.</ref> Such experiments simulate the travel of pollutants<ref name=NationalPost20160425/> such as oil spills,<ref name=AmSurveyor200703/> study formation of ocean gyre "garbage patches",<ref name=NationalPost20160425/> and suggest travel paths of invasive species.<ref name=AmSurveyor200703/> Persistent currents are detected to allow ships to ride favorable currents and avoid opposing currents.<ref name=PanamaCanalRvw1971/> Projected travel paths of navigation hazards, such as naval mines, advise safer shipping routes.<ref name=PanamaCanalRvw1971>Lederer, Muriel (Fall 1971). "Letters from the Sea" (PDF). University of Florida Digital Collections: The Panama Canal Review. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 4, 2016.</ref> Even in inland waterways, drifters wirelessly deliver real-time data on water quality, GPS location, and water velocity, for early warning against flash floods, measuring pollution run-off, and monitoring algal blooms.<ref name=NewAtlas20180723>Kennedy, Matt (July 23, 2018). "QUT deploys high-tech "message in a bottle" to fight floods and pollution in river systems". New Atlas. Archived from the original on July 24, 2018.</ref>

Outside science, people have launched bottled messages to find pen pals,<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200957–58">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, pp. 57–58.</ref> "bottle preachers"<ref name="FOOTNOTEKraske197750–52">Kraske 1977, pp. 50–52.</ref> have sent "sermon bottles",<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200962–67">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, pp. 62–67.</ref> propaganda-bearing bottles have been directed at foreign shores,<ref name="Krajick2001" /><ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200957–58">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, pp. 57–58.</ref><ref name="IslandNet19990317" /><ref name=WashPort20180424>Fifield, Ann (April 24, 2018). "With food and facts carried in bottles, activists try to penetrate isolated North Korea". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 24, 2018.</ref> and survivors have sent poetic loving tributes to departed loved ones<ref name=WPBF_PoemFromItaly_20190322>Wright, Shayne (March 21, 2019). "Hobe Sound woman finds mysterious message in bottle on beach". West Palm Beach, Florida: WPFB 25. Archived from the original on March 22, 2019.</ref> or sent their cremated remains (ashes) on a final journey.<ref name="InsideEdn20171108">"Woman Finds Ashes and Message in a Bottle, 4 Years After It Was Sent Out to Sea". Inside Edition. November 8, 2017. Archived from the original on November 8, 2017.</ref><ref name=WKRN_20190524>"Cremated remains of Tenn. woman found inside 'message in a bottle'". Nashville, Tennessee: WKRN. May 24, 2019. Archived from the original on June 10, 2019.</ref>

It was estimated in 2009 that since the mid-1900s, six million bottled messages had been released, including 500,000 from oceanographers.<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200967">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, p. 67.</ref>

Bottle design and recovery rates

Some bottles are ballasted with dry sand so that they float vertically at or near the ocean surface, and are less influenced by winds and breaking waves than other bottles that are purposely not ballasted.<ref name=NEFSCfisheries20140314/> Wooden blocks float higher in the water and thus are more influenced by wind—a design specially suited for simulating travel paths of plastic waste that is less dense than glass containers.<ref name=DW20161013>Melanie, Hall (October 13, 2016). "Tackling plastic waste in oceans with 'wooden message in a bottle'". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on October 18, 2016. A research program from the University of Oldenburg (Germany) involves 100,000 wooden blocks of various thicknesses.</ref>

An early-20th-century "bottom" (or seabed) drift bottle design by George Parker Bidder III involved weighting a bottle with a long copper wire that causes it to sink until the wire trails upon the sea bottom, at which time the bottle tends to remain a few inches above the bottom to be moved by the bottom current.<ref name=Atlantic20120905/> A mushroom-shaped seabed drifter design has also been used.<ref name=NEFSCfisheries20140314/> Seabed drifters are designed to be scooped up by a trawler or wash up on shore.<ref name=NatGeo20120920/>

Water pressure pressing on the cork or other closure was thought to keep a bottle better sealed;<ref name=NatGeo20120920/> some designs included a wooden stick to stop the cork from imploding.<ref name=NEFSCfisheries20140314/> Vessels of less scientific designs have survived for extended periods, including a baby food bottle<ref name=FoxNews20110527and0601>Peterson, Eric (May 27, 2016). "'Message in a bottle' found in bay apparently dates to Vietnam War era". Fox 11 News (Green Bay, WI, U.S.). Archived from the original on May 28, 2016. • Peterson, Eric (June 1, 2016). "Message in bottle mystery may be getting clearer". Fox 11 News (Green Bay, WI, U.S.). Archived from the original on June 2, 2016.</ref> a ginger beer bottle,<ref name=BBC19990518/> and a 7-Up bottle.<ref name=WashTimes20160611/>

A low percentage of bottles—thought by some to be less than 3 percent—are actually recovered, so they are released in large numbers, sometimes in the thousands.<ref name=AmSurveyor200703/> Reported recovery rates for large-scale scientific studies vary based on the ocean of release, and range from 11 percent (Woods Hole, 156,276 bottles from 1948 to 1962, Atlantic), to 10 percent (Woods Hole, 165,566 bottles from 1960 to 1970, Atlantic), to 3.4 percent (Scripps Institution, 148,384 bottles from 1954 to 1971, Pacific).<ref name="FOOTNOTEKraske197788–89">Kraske 1977, pp. 88–89.</ref> Oceanographic drift card recovery rates have ranged from 50 percent if released in densely populated areas (North Sea, Puget Sound) to 1 percent in uninhabited areas (Antarctica).<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200967">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, p. 67.</ref> Recovery rates decrease as bottles are released further from shore, with oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer developing a rule of thumb that bottles released more than 100 miles from shore have recovery rates below 10 percent, and "only a few percent" of those released more than 1,000 miles from shore are recovered.<ref name=IslandNet19990317>Heidorn, Keith C. (March 17, 1999). "Of Shoes And Ships And Rubber Ducks And A Message In A Bottle". IslandNet.com. "The Weather Doctor" section. Archived from the original on May 13, 2016. Article updated October 2010.</ref> About 90 percent of marine debris washes up on less than 10 percent of the world's coastlines, favoring beaches perpendicular to the dominant ocean current.<ref name=NYTimes_20150327/> Objects with similar buoyancy characteristics tend to collect together.<ref name=NYTimes_20150327>Wollan, Malia (March 27, 2015). "How to Find a Message in a Bottle". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015.</ref>

A Scripps scientist said that marine organisms grow on the bottles, causing them to sink within eight to ten months unless washed ashore earlier.<ref name="FOOTNOTEKraske197789">Kraske 1977, p. 89.</ref> An unknown number are found but not reported.<ref name="FOOTNOTEKraske197789">Kraske 1977, p. 89.</ref>

Time and distance

Some drift bottles were not found for more than a century after being launched.<ref name=NatGeo20120920/><ref name=Telegraph20150820/><ref name=TheLocal20140408/><ref name=BBC20180306/><ref name=Smithsonian20180307/>

     Drift bottles and seabed drifters
provide only a birth notice and an obituary – with no biography.

1973, Dean F. Bumpus, Senior Scientist
Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst.<ref name=BumpusProgressOceanography1973>● Bumpus, Dean F. (1973). "A description of the circulation on the continental shelf of the east coast of the United States". Progress in Oceanography. 6: 150. Bibcode:1973PrOce...6..111B. doi:10.1016/0079-6611(73)90006-2. ● Quotation is freely accessible online from full-text secondary source: Fischer, Hugo B. (January 1980). "Mixing processes on the Atlantic continental shelf, Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras" (PDF). Limnol. Oceanogr. 25 (1): 115. Bibcode:1980LimOc..25..114F. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.509.1774. doi:10.4319/lo.1980.25.1.0114. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 7, 2016.</ref>

Floating objects may ride gyres (large circulating current systems) that are present in each ocean, and may be transferred from one ocean's gyre to another's.<ref name=Krajick2001/> Further, objects may be sidetracked by wind, storms, countercurrents, and ocean current variation.<ref name=Krajick2001>Krajick, Kevin (2001). "Message in a Bottle" (PDF). University of Washington. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 18, 2016. From Smithsonian, July 2001, pp. 36-42.</ref> Accordingly, drift bottles have traveled large distances,<ref name=NationalPost20160425/> with drifts of 4,000 to 6,000 miles and more—sometimes traveling 100 miles per day—not uncommon.<ref name=PanamaCanalRvw1971/> Bottles have traveled from the Beaufort Sea above northern Alaska and northwestern Canada to northern Europe; from Antarctica to Tasmania; from Mexico to the Philippines; from Canada's Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay to Irish, French, Scottish, and Norwegian beaches;<ref name=NatGeo20120920/> from the Galapagos Islands to Australia;<ref name=BrisbaneTimes20160227>White, Jorgia (February 27, 2016). "Queensland police officer finds message in a bottle". Brisbane Times. Archived from the original on March 22, 2016.</ref> and from New Zealand to Spain (practically antipodes).<ref name=NZHerald20180314>Carter, Charlotte (March 14, 2018). "Message in the bottle from Whangarei to Spain may be a record breaker". New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on March 14, 2018.</ref> Based on empirical data collected since 1901, a computer program called OSCURS (Ocean Surface Current Simulator) digitally simulates motion and timing of floating objects in and between ocean gyres.<ref name=AFSCNOAA199704>Ingraham Jr., W. James. "Getting to Know OSCURS, REFM's Ocean Surface Current Simulator". Alaska Fisheries Science Center (NOAA). Archived from the original on November 28, 2016. Originally published in the Alaska Fisheries Science Center Quarterly Report, April–May–June, 1997. Program limited North Pacific from 10° N latitude to the Bering Strait.</ref>

Despite being launched substantial time periods before being found, some bottles have been found physically close to their original launch points, such as a message launched by two girls in 1915 and found in 2012 near Harsens Island, Michigan, U.S.,<ref name=ABC20130620/> and a ten-year-old girl's message launched into the Indian River Bay in Delaware, U.S. in 1971 and found in adjacent Delaware Seashore State Park in 2016.<ref name=WashTimes20160611/>

Historical examples

Historical examples are listed in chronological order, based on year of recovery (when applicable):

This late-1700s ocean circulation map was based on the work of Benjamin Franklin and James Poupard after conducting drift bottle experiments, apparently still unaware of the Gulf Stream's origin in the Gulf of Mexico.<ref name=AmSurveyor200703/>

This romanticized Édouard Riou drawing of a message in a bottle was included in Jules Verne's 1860s book In Search of the Castaways.<ref name=GutenbergSearchCastaways20160327>Verne, Jules (1874). "Chapter 1. The Shark". In Search of the Castaways (Project Gutenberg eBook released August 16, 2014 ed.). J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia (original publisher). Archived from the original on March 27, 2016.</ref>

A man launches a "St Kilda mailboat" from the isolated island about 110 miles (180 km) northwest of the Scottish mainland, ca. 1898.<ref name=ProjectKilda_20230304/> Usually formed of sheepskin bladders providing flotation for boat-shaped enclosures for letters, the "mailboats" reached Scotland with some degree of reliability, and also to Scandinavia.<ref name=ProjectKilda_20230304>"At the edge of the world (St Kilda Mailboat)". KildaProjet.com. Le Project Kilda (The Kilda Project). 4 March 2016. Archived from the original on 10 June 2023.</ref>

Early examples

• It is reputed<ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano2009229">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, p. 229.</ref> that about 310 BC, Aristotle's protégé Greek philosopher Theophrastus used bottled messages to determine if the Mediterranean Sea was formed by the inflowing Atlantic Ocean.<ref name=NatGeo20120920/>
• When Christopher Columbus encountered a severe storm while returning from America, he is said to have written on parchment what he had found in the New World and requested it be forwarded to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, enclosed the parchment in a waxed cloth and placed it into a large wooden barrel to be cast into the sea.<ref name=Bergreen4voyages20120925/> The communication was never found.<ref name=Bergreen4voyages20120925>Bergreen, Laurence (September 25, 2012). Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504 (Reprint ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0143122104. "Part One: Discovery" (exact page does not show in Google Books preview).</ref>
• In 1784 Chunosuke Matsuyama sent a message detailing his and 43 shipmates' shipwrecking in a bottle that washed ashore and was found in 1935 by a Japanese seaweed collector in the village of Hiraturemura, Matsuyama's birthplace.<ref name=NatGeo20120920/><ref name="FOOTNOTEKraske197740–41">Kraske 1977, pp. 40–41.</ref>
• On April 15, 1841, the Wellington, W.C. Kendrick, Commander, bound "from Madras and Cape bound to London", launched a bottled message in the mid-Atlantic (at 13° N) "for the purpose of throwing some light on the ocean currents".<ref name=Times-Picayune_1841>The Times-Picayune. October 26, 1841. Page 2. No author listed. Republished information that appears to have originated in Guayama, Puerto Rico. Quote: "Ship Wellington of London, W.C. Kendrick, Commander, From Madras and Cape bound to London. Lat. 13 degrees 58' North, Long. 35 degrees 30' West. This bottle is dispatched for the purpose of throwing some light on the ocean currents, and it is earnestly requested that the time and place of finding it may be publicly made known. At Sea, April 15th, 1841."</ref>
• In 1847, from the brig Eagle laden with corn for the starving Irish in Waterford, Ireland, master Gregg dropped a bottled message with his location (42.40N, 54.10W) on March 27, requesting the find be sent to the Nautical Magazine (London) for publication to provide information on Atlantic currents. The bottle was retrieved on July 20 by Capt. Robert Oke on the revenue cutter Caledonia<ref name=tocque1878>Tocque, Philip (1878). Newfoundland: As it was and as it is in 1877. Toronto, Ont.: J.B. Magurn.</ref> off the coast of Newfoundland (46.36N, 55.30W).<ref name=MorningCourier18470814>"Memoranda". Morning Courier. St. John's, Newfoundland. 14 Aug 1847. p. 3. Retrieved 7 March 2017. |via=Memorial University of Newfoundland Digital Archives Initiative</ref>
• In February 1862, the Bashford Hall "sent afloat a message in a bottle describing her perilous state." However, she arrived safely at Falmouth, England on March 6, 1862.<ref name=BelfastNewsLetter_1862>Belfast News-Letter. May 12, 1862. Page 5. Belfast, North Ireland.</ref>
• After the January 11, 1866 sinking of the SS London in the Bay of Biscay, bottled messages—reported as "farewell messages from passengers... to friends and relatives in England"—were reportedly found in months following.<ref name=HamiltonSpectator_18660512>The Hamilton Spectator. Page 3. May 12, 1866. No author listed. Quotes: "The Argus contains an account of certain bottles found on the French coast of the terrible Bay of Biscay." A retelling of this account reveals that the bottles contained "farewell messages from passengers by the London to friends and relatives in England." According to one D.W. Lemmon, presumed drowned: "The ship is sinking," he wrote, "no hope of being saved." Mr. H.F.D. Denis wrote "Adieu, father, brothers and sisters, and my dear Edith. Steamer London, Bay of Biscay. Ship too heavily laden for its size, and too crank. Windows stove in. Water coming in everywhere. God bless my poor orphans. Storm not too violent for a ship in good condition."</ref>
• In 1875, ship's steward Van Hoydek and cabin boy Henry Trusillo of the British sailing ship Lennie released 24 bottled messages into the Bay of Biscay, telling of the murder by mutineers of their captain and officers.<ref name=WesternStar18760513/> French authorities soon received the message, rescued Hoydek and Trusillo, and brought the mutineers to justice.<ref name=WesternStar18760513>"Mutiny and Murder on the High Seas". The Western Star. National Library of Australia (NLA) Trove digitized newspapers. May 13, 1876.</ref><ref name="FOOTNOTEKraske197757–59">Kraske 1977, pp. 57–59.</ref>
• In 1876, on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda, freelance journalist John Sands and marooned Austrian sailors deployed two messages requesting the Austrian Consul rescue them with provisions.<ref name=ShetlandTimes20160327/> The messages, each enclosed in a cocoa tin attached to a sheep's bladder for flotation in an arrangement later called a "St. Kilda mail boat",<ref name=StornowayGazette20151028>"St Kilda Mail Boat reaches Norway". Stornoway Gazette. October 28, 2015. Archived from the original on October 29, 2015.</ref> were discovered in Orkney within nine days and in Ross-Shire after 22 days.<ref name=ShetlandTimes20160327/> Since that time, sending "St. Kilda mail" has become a recreational ritual for island visitors, the containers often riding the Gulf Stream to the British mainland, Shetland, Orkney and Scandinavia.<ref name=ShetlandTimes20160327>Murray, Keegan (March 27, 2016). "Sandwick bairns find 'St Kilda Mailboat'". The Shetland Times. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016.</ref>

20th century

• Message-bearing bottles from Titanic (1912)<ref name=IrishCentral20160402/> and Lusitania (1915)<ref name=NatGeo20120920/> have been widely recounted as fact, but even before these bottles were found The Irish News stated in April 1912 that "very many" such stories turn out to be "cruel hoaxes".<ref name=IrishCentral20160402>Moloney, Senan (April 2, 2016). "Faces of the Titanic: Jeremiah Burke sent a message in a bottle before his death". IrishCentral.com. Archived from the original on April 15, 2016. Moloney quotes passages from other newspapers, including The Irish News.</ref>
• In February 1916, when German Zeppelin L 19 experienced unfavorable weather, battle damage and multiple engine failure after attacking the British Midlands, its commander's last message to superiors and the crew's final letters to relatives were released into the North Sea to be found on a Swedish coast six months later.<ref name=ZeppelinMuseumTondern>"Das Tragödie von L19 (The tragedy of L19)" (in Deutsch). Zeppelin-Museums Tondern (Denmark). Archived from the original on July 2, 2002. Retrieved June 10, 2010.</ref><ref name=FlightGlobal19160817>"Last Messages from "L 19"". Flightglobal. August 17, 1916. p. 707. Archived from the original on November 4, 2014.</ref> The written descriptions of how a British fishing trawler had refused to rescue the downed Zeppelin's crew—the trawler captain claiming he feared the German airmen would overpower his own unarmed crew—contributed to an enduring international controversy.<ref name=BBC20050215>See "Inside Out investigates why air raid on Midlands led to British fisherman being accused of war crimes". BBC. February 15, 2005. Archived from the original on March 6, 2005.</ref>
• On December 23, 1927, Frances Wilson Grayson, niece of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, was to attempt to be the first woman to make a transatlantic flight (non-solo). However, her Sikorsky amphibian plane disappeared en route from New York's Long Island to Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, and was never found. A bottled message was found in Salem Harbor, Massachusetts, in January 1929, the unauthenticated message reading, "1928, we are freezing. Gas leaked out. We are drifting off Grand Banks. Grayson."<ref name=DailyObserver_20101209>Chase, Sean (December 9, 2010). "Vanished at sea -the doomed obsession of Frances Wilson Grayson". The Daily Observer. Archived from the original on April 24, 2017.</ref>
• In December 1928, a trapper working at the mouth of the Agawa River, Ontario, found a bottled note from Alice Bettridge, an assistant stewardess in her early twenties who initially survived the December 1927 sinking in a blizzard of the freighter Kamloops and, before she herself perished, wrote "I am the last one left alive, freezing and starving to death on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. I just want mom and dad to know my fate."<ref name=SooToday_20190526>"A shipwreck, a young woman and a message in a bottle". SooToday.com. May 26, 2019. Archived from the original on June 12, 2019. From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library. Handwriting confirmed by parents.</ref>
• In 1929, a bottle that came to be known as the Flying Dutchman was released by a German marine science expedition with instructions for any finders to report the find but return the bottle to the sea.<ref name="FOOTNOTEMoody2010II. Adrift at Sea">Moody 2010, II. Adrift at Sea.</ref> Found at several locations in succession, the Flying Dutchman traveled 16,000 miles from its release point in the southern Indian Ocean, to Cape Horn in South America, and back through the Indian Ocean to its last reported find in 1935 on the west coast of Australia.<ref name="FOOTNOTEMoody2010II. Adrift at Sea">Moody 2010, II. Adrift at Sea.</ref>
• On the night of March 28, 1941 in the last moments of the Battle of Cape Matapan, aboard the sinking cruiser Fiume Italian sailor Francesco Chirico wrote a farewell message and threw it overboard in a bottle. Chirico's message, including a note, "Please give news to my dear mother that I die for the homeland...", was found in 1952 near Villasimius, Sardinia.<ref name="aCittaDiSalerno_20181002">Sansone, Vito (October 2, 2018). "Il messaggio in bottiglia del marinai" [The sailor's message in the bottle]. La Città di Salerno (in italiano). Archived from the original on March 12, 2020.</ref>
• On January 7, 1943, a Schweppes lemonade bottle was found near Woolnorth in northwestern Tasmania, containing a penciled message thrown overboard on April 17, 1916, by Australian soldier John Oppy as his troop ship passed between Encounter Bay and Kangaroo Island, South Australia.<ref name=Condobolin_19430201/> Oppy himself survived to see the message returned.<ref name=Condobolin_19430201>"After Twentyseven Years in Ocean / Bottle Found With Soldier's Note in It / Now Back in Hands of the Writer, Jack Oppy, of Condobolin". Lachlander and Condobolin and Western Districts Recorder. Condobolin, NSW, Australia. February 1, 1943. Archived from the original on September 24, 2019.</ref>

     The notion of the message in a bottle has come to attain a kind of romanticism, built perhaps on the allure of the exotic mystery its contents might reveal from a faraway place or a long-ago time.

Paul Brown, Messages From the Sea<ref name="FOOTNOTEBrown201610">Brown 2016, p. 10.</ref>

• On Christmas Day 1945, 21-year-old medical corpsman Frank Hayostek threw a message-laden aspirin bottle from his Liberty ship as it approached New York, the bottle being found eight months later near Dingle, County Kerry, by Irish milkmaid Breda O'Sullivan.<ref name=IrishIndep20120805/> Her mailed reply began a correspondence that inspired Hayostek to save money for airfare to visit O'Sullivan in 1952.<ref name=IrishIndep20120805/> Intense media attention for the "impossibly romantic story",<ref name=RTEradioOne20120828/> including Time magazine stories, overshadowed their two-week visit, the two parting but corresponding until they married other people in 1958 and 1959.<ref name=IrishIndep20120805/> Media attention endured through the sixtieth anniversary of their meeting,<ref name=RTEradioOne20120828>See "Message in a Bottle". Documentary on One. RTÉ Radio One. August 4, 2012. Archived from the original on December 27, 2021. Site includes downloadable mp3 podcast.</ref> 2–3 years after their deaths.<ref name=RTE_20140325>"Message in a Bottle". RTE. March 25, 2014. Archived from the original on December 27, 2021.</ref><ref name=IrishIndep20120805>Quinlan, Ailin (August 5, 2012). "The GI and the Irish colleen". Irish Independent. Archived from the original on August 16, 2016.</ref>
• In 1955, a bottle from a 1903 German Antarctic expedition was found in New Zealand, about 3400 miles from its launch point between the Kerguelen Islands and Tasmania; however, hydrographers surmise it had drifted around the world many times.<ref name=CanberraTimes19910807>"Bottles washed up on beaches with various corked messages". The Canberra Times. National Library of Australia (NLA). August 7, 1991. p. 23. Archived from the original on September 6, 2016 – via MyHeritage.com.</ref>
• In 1956, Swedish sailor Ake Viking sent a bottled message "To Someone Beautiful and Far Away" that reached a 17-year-old Sicilian girl named Paolina, sparking a correspondence that culminated in their marriage in 1958.<ref name=MNN20130816>Breyer, Melissa (August 11, 2013). "Message in a bottle: 8 striking stories of letters sent to sea". Mother Nature Network. Archived from the original on August 16, 2013. • Confirmed accurate, with a 1959 quotation from The American Weekly, at "Man Meets Wife Via Message-in-a-Bottle", hoaxes.org, August 18, 2007 (archive).</ref> The affair attracted so much attention that 4,000 people celebrated their wedding.<ref name=Randazzo2008>Randazzo, Antonio (2008). "Sposi in bottiglia Siracusa (Spouse in a Bottle -- Syracuse)". Archived from the original on August 15, 2016. Images also here.</ref>
• In 1959 Guinness Brewery launched 150,000 bottles into the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea in a promotional campaign.<ref name=Krajick2001/> It was reported that Inuit hunters on Coats Island, in Canada's Hudson Bay, found 80 of the bottles.<ref name=Krajick2001/>
• In 1969, a Canadian scientific expedition dropped a message bottle through a hole in the drift ice at the approximate North Pole. The bottle was found in 1972 in northeast Iceland.<ref>Roots, Fred (14 March 2017). "Why the North Pole matters: An important history of challenges and global fascination". Canadian Geographic. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023.</ref>
• In May 1976, National Geographic World magazine released 1,000 bottles—250 per week—from the cruise ship Song of Norway, with instructions in five languages to fill out and return cards, in order to help map ocean currents.<ref name=Wilson19760726>"Fishing for Bottles". Wilson Daily Times. Associated Press. July 26, 1976. p. 3.</ref>
• In 1978, a Russian researcher discovered a bottled message in the Franz Josef Land, north of mainland Russia, that was deposited by Karl Weyprecht, leader of the 1872–1874 Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition which sought a Northeast Passage.<ref name=AWI2006/><ref name=Karl-weyprecht.org>"Polarforschung Gestern / Historischer Teil über Carl Weyprecht und die Expedition von 1872-1874 (Polar research yesterday Historical part about Carl Weyprecht and the expedition from 1872-1874)". Carl-Weyprecht.org (in German). 2013. Archived from the original on August 11, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) (publication date estimated based on earliest Archive.org archive)</ref>
• A message that an American couple released from a cruise ship approaching Hawaii in 1979 was found off Songkhla Beach, Thailand by a former South Vietnamese soldier and his family as they fled that country's communist regime by boat.<ref name=LATimes19850426/> A correspondence relationship began in 1983, and the couple worked with U.S. Immigration to help the Vietnamese family obtain refugee status in 1985 and move to the U.S.<ref name=LATimes19850426>Becklund, Laurie (April 26, 1985). "Bobbing Message at Sea Alters Viet Refugees' Lives : Note in Bottle--a Ticket to Freedom". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012.</ref>
• In 1991 a bottled message found on Vancouver Island, Canada, urged the release of Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng.<ref name=Krajick2001/><ref name=IslandNet19990317/> Believed to have been released in 1980 near Quemoy Island, China, it is thought to be among Taiwan propaganda bottles launched toward mainland China.<ref name=Krajick2001/><ref name=IslandNet19990317/>
• In what was described as "perhaps the most famous message in a bottle love story",<ref name=Newsweek20160307/> in March 1999 a green ginger beer bottle was dredged up by a fisherman off the Essex coast, the bottle containing an 84 year old letter tossed into the English channel on September 9, 1914, by British soldier Private Thomas Hughes days before he was killed in fighting in France.<ref name=BBC19990518/> Hughes' letter, written for delivery to his wife who had died in 1979, was delivered instead to his then 86-year-old daughter in New Zealand by the fisherman himself, who with his own wife was flown to New Zealand at the expense of New Zealand Post.<ref name=BBC19990518>"Sweet message in a bottle". BBC News. May 18, 1999. Archived from the original on October 30, 2009. • Some references (example: Commonwealth War Graves Commission) state that Hughes died twelve days later, not two days later as most popularly reported.</ref>

This postcard, inserted into a bottle launched by the Marine Biological Association of the U.K. circa 1906, was found in 2015.<ref name=Telegraph20150820/>

21st century

• A teardrop-shaped bottle was found in March 2002 on a beach in Kent, England, containing an unsigned letter from a French woman expressing her enduring grief over the death of her son at age 13.<ref name=Guardian20100813/><ref name=Telegraph20100627/> British author Karen Liebreich spent years of research, unsuccessfully trying to find the mother and eventually publishing a book called The Letter in the Bottle (2006).<ref name=Telegraph20100627/> The book was published in French in 2009, sparking huge media coverage<ref name=Guardian20100813/> that alerted the mother for the first time that her letter had actually been discovered.<ref name=Telegraph20100627/> Saying she initially felt violated by publication of her personal suffering, on condition of continued anonymity, she agreed to tell Liebreich the details of her son's 1981 death in a bicycle accident, her decades of suffering afterwards, and the story surrounding release of her letter from an English Channel ferry.<ref name=Guardian20100813>Daoust, Phil (August 13, 2010). "I found a message in a bottle". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 9, 2016.</ref><ref name=Telegraph20100627>Liebreich, Karen (June 27, 2010). "The mystery of the message in the bottle". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on June 30, 2010.</ref>
• In May 2005, three days after eighty-eight migrants were abandoned by human smugglers on a disabled boat, the migrants tied an SOS-bearing bottle to a long line of a passing fishing vessel, whose captain alerted authorities to rescue the migrants.<ref name=CNNguardian20050531>• "Message in bottle saves drifting migrants". CNN. May 31, 2005. Archived from the original on July 29, 2005. • Jimenez, Marianela (May 31, 2005). "Message in bottle saves stranded migrants". The Guardian. Associated Press. Archived from the original on August 29, 2013.</ref>
• On December 10, 2006, a bottom drift bottle, released on April 25, 1914, northeast of the Shetland Islands by the Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, U.K., was recovered by a Shetland fisherman, after the bottle had spent over 92 years at sea.<ref name=Guinness20120202>"Oldest message in a bottle". Guinness World Records. February 2, 2012. Archived from the original on February 2, 2012. Guinness web page was subsequently superseded; refer instead to archive link.</ref>
• In October 2011 in waters off Somalia, the crew of the pirated cargo ship Montecristo used a bottle with a flashing beacon to alert NATO ships that they had retreated to an armored room, permitting a military rescue operation to proceed with knowledge that the crew was not being held hostage.<ref name=Wired20111014>Rawnsley, Adam (October 14, 2011). "Message in a Bottle: Old-School S.O.S. Helps Rescue Hijacked Ship". Wired. Archived from the original on August 17, 2016.</ref>
• In April 2012 a fisherman recovered a bottom drift bottle that had been released 98 years earlier, on June 10, 1914,<ref name=NatGeo20120920/><ref name=Atlantic20120905>Madrigal, Alexis C. (September 5, 2012). "Found: World's Oldest Message in a Bottle, Part of 1914 Citizen-Science Experiment". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.</ref> one of 1,890 released by the Glasgow School of Navigation to test undercurrents in the seas around Scotland.<ref name=YahooNews20120830>Pfeiffer, Eric (August 30, 2012). "98-year-old message in bottle sets world record". Yahoo News. Archived from the original on July 30, 2016.</ref> The 2012 find occurred east of Shetland by the Copious, the same fishing vessel involved in the 2006 find.<ref name=BBC20120830>"World record as message in bottle found after 98 years near Shetland". BBC News. August 30, 2012. Archived from the original on December 29, 2015.</ref>
• In a 2013 promotional campaign, Norwegian soft drink company Solo released a 26-foot, 2.7-ton replica soda bottle outfitted with a customized camera, navigation lights, an automatic identification system, a radar reflector, and GPS tracking technology, all powered by solar panels.<ref name=Gizmag20130418>Fincher, Jonathan (April 18, 2013). "Norwegian soda company sets world's largest message in a bottle adrift". Gizmag. Archived from the original on August 27, 2014.</ref> The craft drifted from Tenerife, Canary Islands, while broadcasting its location, but its electronics were stolen by pirates before its five-month trip terminated at Los Roques archipelago near Venezuela.<ref name=CanarianWeekly20130906>"Pirates empty big yellow bottle". Canary Islands: Canarian Weekly. September 6, 2013. Archived from the original on July 30, 2016.</ref>
• In April 2013, a kite-surfer near the mouth of Croatia's Neretva River recovered a bottle containing a message purporting to have been sent in 1985 from Nova Scotia to fulfill a promise by a "Jonathon" to write to one "Mary".<ref name=AustBroadCorp20130418>"Message in a bottle washes up after 28 years". Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC Online); Reuters. April 18, 2013. Archived from the original on April 9, 2014.</ref> The message received international media attention.<ref name=DubrovakVjesnik20130417>Šunjić, Ante (April 17, 2013). "Matea pronašla bocu s porukom o kojoj pišu svi svjetski mediji (Matea found a bottle with a message world media would write about)" (in hrvatski). Croatia: Dubrovack Vjesnik. Archived from the original on April 20, 2013.</ref>
• In March 2014, a fisherman on the Baltic Sea near Kiel recovered a drift bottle containing a Danish postcard dated May 17, 1913, and signed by a then-20-year-old baker's son named Richard Platz, who asked for it to be delivered to his Berlin address.<ref name=TheLocal20140408/> Researchers located Platz's granddaughter, by then 62, and delivered the 101-year-old message to her, Platz himself having died in 1946.<ref name=TheLocal20140408>"'World's oldest' message in a bottle arrives home". The Local. Germany. 8 April 2014. Archived from the original on January 14, 2015.</ref>

This bottled message, released June 12, 1886, from a German sailing vessel in the Indian Ocean as part of a drift bottle study, was found on a beach in Western Australia in 2018.<ref name=ABCau20180306/>

• An April 2015 find on the North Sea island of Amrum, Germany, of a 108-year-old bottle sent by the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom in Plymouth, was one of 1,020 released into the North Sea between 1904 and 1906 by former association president George Parker Bidder III.<ref name=Telegraph20150820>Huggler, Justin (August 20, 2015). "World's oldest message in a bottle washes up in Germany after 108 years at sea". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 30, 2016.</ref>
• In 2016, Cuban migrants who had fled Cuba in a homemade boat, launched a bottled SOS message complaining of their treatment while being detained for 42 days aboard a United States Coast Guard Cutter.<ref name=CNN20160721>Oppmann, Patrick (July 21, 2016). "Cubans who climbed lighthouse allege inhumane treatment in U.S. custody". CNN. Archived from the original on July 22, 2016.</ref>
• In late 2016, a barnacle-encrusted, kelp-tangled GoPro video camera was recovered, the camera's memory card preserving footage showing the prelude to the camera's being swept overboard four years earlier, and also recording its first two hours underwater off Fingal Bay, Australia.<ref name=SydneyMornHer20161103>Connell, Tim (November 3, 2016). "GoPro lost at sea is reunited with its owner after four years". Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on November 12, 2016.</ref>
• In 2017, a small unmanned boat made by high school students and having solar panels, sensors and camera, drifted on an unexpected path from near Maine, to approach Spain and Portugal, then drift westward back into the Atlantic and northward to be discovered in Benbecula in the western isles of Scotland.<ref name=PortlandPressHerald20170627/> The boat had a waterproof pod containing a chip that collected sensor data.<ref name=PortlandPressHerald20170627>Graham, Gillian (June 27, 2017). "Little boat built by students in Kennebunk completes Atlantic crossing". Portland Press Herald. Archived from the original on June 27, 2017.</ref>
• In July 2017, a Scottish widower seeking female companionship set 2,000 bottled messages adrift at various locations around the U.K., and though claiming he received responses from 50 women, ceased the practice in response to public complaints and an investigation by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.<ref name=BBC20170727>"Bottle man lands 50 potential dates". BBC. July 27, 2017. Archived from the original on November 13, 2017.</ref>
• In January 2018, a couple walking on a beach in Western Australia discovered a bottled message that had been launched on June 12, 1886, from the German barque Paula conducting drift bottle experiments for the German Naval Observatory.<ref name=BBC20180306/><ref name=Smithsonian20180307/> The message's authenticity was corroborated through the ship captain's original Meteorological Journal, and, at 131 years' duration, eclipsed the previous corroborated record duration of 108 years.<ref name=BBC20180306>"Oldest message in a bottle found on beach". BBC News. March 6, 2018. Archived from the original on March 7, 2018.</ref><ref name=Smithsonian20180307>Katz, Brigit (March 7, 2018). "131-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Found on Australian Beach". Smithsonian. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018.</ref> The bottle's thick glass and its opening's narrow bore are thought to have protected the paper from the elements.<ref name=BBC20180306/>
• In the summer of 2018, a bottled typewritten message dated March 26, 1930, was discovered in the roof of the twelfth-century Goslar Cathedral in Goslar, Germany, signed by four roofers who bemoaned the economic state of that country.<ref name=WashPost20180919/> The bottle was discovered by a roofer who was the grandson of one of the signatories, who had been an 18-year-old roofing apprentice in 1930.<ref name=WashPost20180919/> Goslar's mayor replaced the bottle with a copy of the 1930 message, adding his own confidential message.<ref name=WashPost20180919>Beck, Luisa (September 19, 2018). "A German roofer working on a cathedral found a message in bottle, written by his grandfather". Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 20, 2018. ("Difficult times of war lie behind us. ... We hope for better times soon to come.")</ref>
• In May 2019, a Gatorade bottle with a four-page letter, written in Spanish, was found in Brown Bay, near Mount Gambier, South Australia. The letter had been sent from Caleta Córdoba, near Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina by a mother and two children as a loving tribute to their husband and father who had died of a stroke a year earlier.<ref name=SydneyMornHerald_20191123>Cowie, Tom; Fowler, Michael (November 23, 2019). "Message in a bottle crosses two oceans to land on an Australian beach". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on November 27, 2019.</ref>
• In June 2019, three hikers trapped above a waterfall on California's Arroyo Seco tributary released a Nalgene bottled SOS message that was quickly discovered a quarter mile (0.4 km) downstream, allowing them to be rescued by helicopter the following morning.<ref name=CBS_20190911>"Message in a bottle leads to rescue of California family stranded on 40-foot waterfall". CBS News. September 11, 2019. Archived from the original on September 11, 2019.</ref><ref name=WashPost_20190909>Free, Cathy (September 9, 2019). "Trapped at a waterfall, this man sent out an SOS message in a bottle. Someone actually found it downstream". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 11, 2019.</ref>
• In late 2019, a bottled message launched on August 1, 1994, by 12-year-old Ryan Mead was found near the mouth of the Taramakau River, New Zealand, the find occurring mere months after Mead died at age 37 in a freak accident inhaling fumes while laying carpet.<ref name=Stuff_NZ_20191122>Carroll, Joanne (November 22, 2019). "Message in bottle washes up from man who died in 'freak accident' in March". Stuff. New Zealand. Archived from the original on November 23, 2019.</ref>

Long-duration events

Table listing long-duration (>25-year) events involving messages in bottles:

Click at right to show/hide Table

(Still-living individuals are not identified by name unless they are independently notable.) Sender Date launched Place launched Date found Place found Duration (years) Ref. Chunosuke Matsuyama, seaman 1784 Island in Pacific 1935 Hiraturemura, Japan 151 <ref name=NatGeo20120920/><ref name="FOOTNOTEKraske197740–41">Kraske 1977, pp. 40–41.</ref> James Ritchie and John Grieve 1887-10-06 Edinburgh, Scotland s 2022-11-13 Under floorboards of house 135 <ref>Brown, Angie (2022-11-18). "135-year-old message in a bottle found under floorboards". BBC News. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022.</ref> German sailing barque Paula 1886-06-12 Indian Ocean, 950 km off Western Australia 2018-01 Near Wedge Island, Western Australia 131.6 <ref name=BBC20180306/><ref name=Smithsonian20180307/><ref name=ABCau20180306>Hamlyn, Charlotte (March 6, 2018). "Oldest-known message in a bottle found on WA beach 132 years after being tossed overboard". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018.</ref><ref name=ORFat20180306>"Flaschenpost nach 132 Jahren in Australien gefunden (Bottle mail found in Australia after 132 years)". Österreichischer Rundfunk (Radio Austria). March 6, 2018. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018. Includes English-language video.</ref> George Parker Bidder, Marine Biological Association of the U.K. 1906-11-30 North Sea 2015-04-17 Amrum, Germany 108 <ref name=Telegraph20150820/><ref name=BBC20150821>"'Oldest' message in a bottle found more than 108 years on". BBC. August 21, 2015. Archived from the original on June 22, 2016.</ref><ref name=NDRundfunk>"Älteste Flaschenpost der Welt auf Amrum gefunden" [World's oldest message in a bottle found at Amrum]. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (in Deutsch). August 19, 2015. Archived from the original on February 4, 2016.</ref><ref name=Guinness20160314>Swatman, Rachel (March 16, 2016). "Mysterious postcard found on German shore is confirmed as oldest message in a bottle ever". Guinness World Records. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016.</ref> Bricklayers Wm Hanley, James Lennon 1907-07-03 Montclair State University, N.J.s 2019 Wall in College Hall 112 <ref name=NJcom_20191127>Carter, Barry (November 27, 2019). "Message in a bottle found 112 years later at N.J. college". NJ.com. NJ Advance Media. Archive of related New York Post article.</ref> Karl Weyprecht, co-leader, Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition 1874 Lamont, Franz Josef Land, Russia s 1978-08 Lamont, Franz Josef Land, Russia 104 <ref name=AWI2006>"Weyprecht-Gedenkveranstaltung in Michelstadt (Odenwald) am 29. März 2006, dem 125. Todestag Karl Wepyrechts (Weyprecht commemorative event in Michelstadt (Odenwald) on 29 March 2006, the 125th anniversary of Karl Weyprecht's death)" (PDF) (in Deutsch). Germany: Polarforschung 75. p. 4. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 22, 2016. "brief report ... deposited by Weyprecht under a heap of stones on Lamont Island, well packaged in a hollowed out piece of wood, which in turn was put into a stoneware vessel" (translated).</ref> Richard Platz 1913-05-17 Baltic Sea 2014-03 Baltic Sea near Kiel 101 <ref name=TheLocal20140408/> Glasgow School of Navigation 1914-06-10 Near Scotland 2012-04 East of Shetland 98 <ref name=Atlantic20120905/><ref name=YahooNews20120830/><ref name=BBC20120830/> Selina Pramstaller, Tillie Esper 1915 Harsens Island, Michigan, U.S. 2012 Harsens Island, Michigan, U.S. 96 <ref name=ABC20130620>Ng, Christina (June 20, 2013). "Michigan Message in a Bottle Mystery Solved". ABC News. Archived from the original on June 20, 2017.</ref> George Morrow 1926-11 Cheboygan, MI, U.S. (presumed) 2021-06 Cheboygan River 94.6 <ref name=DetroitFreePress_20210623>Davidson, Kyle (June 23, 2021). "95-year-old message in a bottle found in the Cheboygan River". Detroit Free Press. Archived from the original on June 25, 2021.</ref> Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen 1914-04-25 Near Scotland 2006-12-10 Near Shetland 92 <ref name=Guinness20120202/> Erich Sanitter, Waldenburg 1929-07-08 Bay of Danzig 2019-10 Vistula Lagoon 90 <ref name=Chudzynski2020>Chudzynski, Tomasz (January 17, 2020). "Rybak wyłowił butelkę z listem z wód Zalewu Wiślanego. Pływała w Bałtyku przez 90 lat (A fisherman fished a bottle with a letter out of the waters of the Vistula Lagoon. It had sailed the Baltic Sea for 90 years)". Głos Pomorza. Archived from the original on January 17, 2020.</ref> Willi Brandt, roofer, age 18 1930-03-26 Goslar, Germany s 2018 Goslar Cathedral roof 88 <ref name=WashPost20180919/> Carl Ott (business owner) 1930-05-20 Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. s 2017-02 Construction site 86 <ref name=IndyChannel20170224>McKinney, Matt (February 24, 2017). "Message in a bottle found in Indianapolis 85 years later leads to life discoveries". WRTV 6 (The Indy Channel). Archived from the original on February 25, 2017.</ref> Thomas Hughes, WWI soldier 1914-09-09 English Channel 1999-03 Essex, River Thames 84 <ref name=BBC19990518/> "Flying Squad" joinery team 1934-07-16 Viewforth, Edinburgh s 2016-11 Wall of building 82 <ref name=EdinburghEvenNews20170520>Pringle, Fiona (May 20, 2017). "A joiner's note hidden in an Edinburgh shop 80 years ago is reunited with son". Edinburgh Evening News. Archived from the original on May 20, 2017.</ref> John Stapleton Jr. age 14 1938-09-05 Jersey, Channel Islands (deduced) 2020-02-18 Jersey, Channel Islands 81.4 <ref name=BBC_20200224>"Jersey message in bottle from 1938 goes to sender's family". BBC. February 24, 2020. Archived from the original on April 22, 2020.</ref> Navy of Czarist Russia 1913-07 Sea of Okhotsk, Russia 1995 Near Cordova, Alaska 81 <ref name="FOOTNOTEEbbesmeyerScigliano200961–62">Ebbesmeyer & Scigliano 2009, pp. 61–62.</ref> (undetermined) 1935 Southampton Guildhall, U.K. s 2016 Southampton Guildhall, U.K. 81 <ref name=ITV20160209/> Herbert E. Hillbrick 1936 P&O cruise ship 2012 Ninety Mile Beach, NZ 76 <ref name=NZherald20121115>Tapaleao, Vaimoana (November 15, 2012). "Beachcomber finds note at sea for 76 years". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on September 18, 2016. Metro UK archive at the Wayback Machine.</ref> Victor Elliott, age 13 1944-04-25 Ralston, Oklahoma 2017-11-11 Fort Smith, Arkansas 73 <ref name=TempleDT20171224>Williams, Matt (December 24, 2017). "1944 message in a bottle leads to Temple". Temple Daily Telegram. Texas. Archived from the original on December 25, 2017.</ref> Lt. Col. Eugene J. McNamara 1948 Grand Hotel, Yokohama s 2016 New Grand Hotel 68 <ref name=StarsStripes20170615>"Card in a bottle sparks 70-year-old Army mystery in Japan". Stars and Stripes. June 16, 2017. Archived from the original on September 25, 2017. Retrieved 2017-12-28.</ref> Auschwitz prisoners, age 18–20 1944-09-09 Near Auschwitz camp s 2009-04 Wall of bomb shelter 64 <ref name=BBCNews20090427Novýčas20090430/> WHOI 1956-04-26 South of Nova Scotia 2014-01-20 Sable Island 57 <ref name=WHOI20140206>Lippsett, Lonny (February 6, 2014). "Message Bottled in an Email -- A long-lost legacy of ocean research resurfaces". Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Archived from the original on October 25, 2015.</ref> U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 1962-05 Gulf of Mexico 2019-01 Padre Is. Nat. Seashore, Texas 56.5 <ref name=AtlasObscura20190218>Hester, Jessica Leigh (February 18, 2019). "Found: A 50-Year-Old Scientific Message, Stuffed in a Bottle". Atlas Obscura. Archived from the original on February 18, 2019.</ref><ref name=HoustonChron20190221>de Luna, Marcy (February 21, 2019). "57-year-old message in bottle washes up on Texas shore". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on February 21, 2019. May 1962 launch date is estimated; known to be 1962–1963.</ref> NOAA's NEFSC 1959-09-19 Atlantic, off Massachusetts 2013-12-22 Martha's Vineyard, Mass. 54 <ref name=NEFSC20140314/> Paul Walker, geologist 1959-07-10 Ward Hunt Island, N. Canada s 2013 Ward Hunt Island, N. Canada 54 <ref name=LATimes20131220/> German Antarctic Expedition 1903 Btw. Kerguelen Is., Tasmania 1955 New Zealand 52 <ref name=CanberraTimes19910807/> Paul Tsiatsios, motel owner 1960+ New Hampshire, U.S. 2011 Turks and Caicos 51 <ref name=BBC20161026>"Message in a bottle returns to New Hampshire family 50 years later". BBC. October 26, 2016. Archived from the original on October 27, 2016.</ref><ref name=Fox25Boston_20161026>EndPlay (2016-10-26). "Message in a bottle returned to Hampton Beach after 55 years and 1,400 miles". WFXT. Retrieved 2017-12-29.</ref> Soviet fishing vessel Sulak 1969-06-20 Pacific Ocean 2019-08-05 Shishmaref, Alaska 50 <ref name=KTUU_20190813>Treinen, Lex (August 13, 2019). "Russian TV tracks down the captain that sent a message in a bottle found in Shishmaref". Anchorage, Alaska: KTUU-2. Archived from the original on August 14, 2019.</ref> 13-year-old ship passenger 1969-11-17 100 mi. E. of Fremantle, W. Aus. 2019-07 Eyre Peninsula, S. Aus. 49 <ref name=Newsweek_20190723>Keeley, Matt (July 23, 2019). "9-Year-Old Finds 50-Year-Old Message in a Bottle, Turns to Facebook to Locate Sender". Newsweek. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019.</ref><ref name=Brinkwire_20190812>"Message in a Bottle on Australian Beach". Brinkwire. August 12, 2019. Archived from the original on August 15, 2019.</ref> Construction workers 1967-05-19 Toowoomba, QLD, Australia s 2016-09-08 Embedded in concrete 49 <ref name=Chronicle20160913>Harris, Meghan (September 13, 2016). "50-year-old message in bottle dug up in Queens Park". The Chronicle. Australia. Archived from the original on November 18, 2016.</ref> NOAA Fisheries 1966 Bristol Bay, Alaska, U.S. 2013 Cold Bay, Alaska, U.S. 47 <ref name=NWFSCalaska2013/> High school science class 1972-12-01 Fire Island, N.Y., U.S. 2019-08 Brookhaven, L.I., N.Y., U.S. 46.7 <ref name=ABC7Chicago_20190805>"Long Island high school's message in a bottle science experiment found 47 years later". ABC 7 News. Chicago. August 5, 2019. Archived from the original on August 6, 2019.</ref> "Donkeyman" James Robertson 1970-09-16 North Sea (assumed) 2017-01 Norderney, Germany 46.2 <ref name=Scotsman_20170305>Ross, Shan (March 5, 2017). "50-year-old 'message in a bottle' traced to Edinburgh sailor". The Scotsman. Archived from the original on March 6, 2017.</ref> Girl, age 6 1971-09-06 Indian River Bay, Delaware, U.S. 2016-04-22 Del. Seashore State Park 44 <ref name=WashTimes20160611>Carroll, Hannah (June 11, 2016). "45-year-old message in a bottle found, brings nostalgia". The Washington Times. Associated Press. Archived from the original on June 12, 2016.</ref> Boy, age 14 1971-01-15 Cove Bay, Aberdeen, U.K. 2015 Rattray Head, Aberdeenshire 44 <ref name=Scotsman20150617>Leatham, Xantha (June 17, 2015). "44-year-old message in a bottle found in Aberdeen". The Scotsman. Archived from the original on January 23, 2016.</ref> Girl, age 11 1974-08-29 Old Mission Peninsula, Michigan 2015 Old Mission Peninsula, Michigan 41 <ref name=DetroitFreePress_20190524>"Man finds Canton woman's message in a bottle 41 years later". Detroit Free Press. May 24, 2019. Archived from the original on June 8, 2019.</ref> Two junior high school girls 1975 Washington state, U.S. 2015-04-04 Gulf of Alaska, U.S. 40 <ref name=WeatherChannel20150507>Breslin, Sean (May 7, 2015). "Message in a Bottle Found in Gulf of Alaska 40 Years Later". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on August 30, 2016.</ref> Print shop worker, age 31 1983 Omaha, Nebraska 2020-03 Rock Port, Missouri 37 <ref name=RiverCountry_20200329>Steinmeyer, Trevor (March 29, 2020). "Update: Message In A Bottle Traveled From Omaha To Missouri, Sender And Finder Connect". River Country. News Channel Nebraska. Archived from the original on March 31, 2020.</ref> High School Nat. Sci. Club 1984-07 Chōshi, Japan 2021 Hawaiian Paradise Park 37 <ref name=HiTribHerald-20210714>Burnett, John (July 14, 2021). "From Japan to HPP: Puna keiki finds 37-year-old message in a bottle". Hawaii Tribune-Herald. Archived from the original on July 15, 2021.</ref> Boy, age 16 1980-05-13 Albany, W. Australia 2016-06 Eucla, W. Australia 36 <ref name=YahooAU20160609>Morrison, Lisa (June 9, 2016). "Bottle message found decades later". The West Australian. Archived from the original on July 24, 2016 – via Yahoo News Australia.</ref> Vacationer 1981-06-10 Fernandina Beach, Florida 2017-06-17 Little St. Simons Island, Georgia 36 <ref name=ABC20170621>Murphy, Eliza (June 21, 2017). "Message in a bottle from 1981 found on Georgia beach: 'Holy cow. It just brings back memories'". ABC News. Archived from the original on November 10, 2017.</ref> School; Forfar, Scotland 1987 (est) North Sea 2017-09-29 Key Largo, Fla. U.S. 30 <ref name=FoxNews20180127>Norman, Greg (January 27, 2018). "Message in a bottle from Scotland found its way to Florida more than 30 years later". Fox News. Archived from the original on January 27, 2018.</ref> Girl, age 8 1988-09-26 Edisto Beach, South Carolina 2017-10 Sapelo Island, Georgia 29 <ref name=CBS20171017>Earl, Jennifer (October 17, 2017). "Message in a bottle received 29 years after girl tossed it off S.C. shore". CBS News. Archived from the original on November 4, 2017.</ref> Boy, age 12 1989-07 Detroit River 2017-07-12 Amherstburg, Ontario 28 <ref name=DetFreePress20170806>Gross, Allie (August 6, 2017). "Message in a bottle washes up in Canada, nearly 30 years after being tossed into Detroit River". Free Press. Detroit, Michigan. Archived from the original on August 19, 2017.</ref> "Jonathon" 1985 Nova Scotia (purported) 2013-04-17 Croatia 28 <ref name=AustBroadCorp20130418/><ref name=DubrovakVjesnik20130417/> Father, daughter, age 4 1992 Near Baie Fine, Ontario 2020-03 Hiawatha Isl(near Manitoulin Isl, Ont) 28 <ref name=Manitoulin_20200401>Schlote, Warren (April 1, 2020). "Message in a bottle finally finds a reader after 28 years adrift". Manitoulin Expositor. Manitoulin.ca. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020.</ref> Jack Oppy, Australian soldier 1916-04-17 Between Encounter Bay & Kangaroo Island, S. Australia 1943-01-07 Woolnorth, NW Tasmania 26.7 <ref name=Condobolin_19430201/> Manitoba, Canada resident 1985 Lake Winnipeg 2011 Near Libau, Manitoba 26 <ref name=CBC_20200114>Parker, Wendy (January 14, 2020). "Manitoba man finds message in a bottle from 1985, spends 9 years tracking down messenger". CBC. Archived from the original on December 7, 2022. (Parker credited as file contributor)</ref> Fifth grade class 1993-05 Delaware River (Kansas) 2019 Chester, Illinois 25 <ref name=KWCH_Wichita_20190405>Hall, Erika (April 5, 2019). "Topeka elementary class puts message in a bottle, found nearly 26 years later". Wichita, KS: KWCH 12. Archived from the original on April 8, 2019.</ref> Ryan Mead, age 12 1994-08-01 Near Greymouth, New Zealand 2019 Mouth of Taramakau River, NZ 25 <ref name=Stuff_NZ_20191122/> s denotes stationary messages (placed on land, not in a body of water).

Popular perceptions

A hundred billion bottles

washed up on the shore,

Seems I'm not alone at being alone—

A hundred billion castaways

Looking for a home.

"Message in a Bottle" song lyrics<ref name=Newsweek20160307/>
(The Police, 1979)

Besides interest in citizen science drift-bottle experiments,<ref name=Atlantic20120905/> message-in-a-bottle lore has often been of a romantic or poetic nature.<ref name=Newsweek20160307/> Such messages have been romanticized in literature, from Edgar Allan Poe's 1833 story "MS. Found in a Bottle" through Nicholas Sparks' 1998 Message in a Bottle.<ref name="BostonGlobe20130212">Brogan, Jan (February 12, 2013). "Messages in a bottle chart a lifelong romance with the sea". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on February 17, 2013. ("MS." means manuscript.)</ref> Clint Buffington, subject of the 2019 documentary short film The Tides That Bind / A Message in a Bottle Story,<ref name=AtlanticCityCinefest_2019>"The Tides That Bind (2019)". Atlantic City Cinefest. Archived from the original on August 28, 2019.</ref> surmised in an interview with The Guardian that sending a bottled message expresses a hope to find connection in a fear-filled world.<ref name=Guardian20160121>Meakin, Nione (interviewer); Buffington, Clint (interviewee) (January 21, 2016). "A message in a bottle ... and a journey round the world". The Guardian. Archived from the original on April 20, 2016. {{cite news}}: |first1= has generic name (help)</ref> In Newsweek Ryan Bort recounted various historical messages as being cries for help, or "final, poetic words of resignation left behind for (an) indifferent sea", or from "lonely, lovelorn souls, searching for serendipity", or a search for "affirmation ... that comes from somewhere other than yourself".<ref name=Newsweek20160307/> Bort described sending a message in a bottle as a romantic act that has "such a delicious potential for magic" or as "surrendering a part of yourself to something larger", concluding that "every message in a bottle is a prayer".<ref name=Newsweek20160307>Bort, Ryan (March 7, 2016). "A Brooklyn Artist, the North Atlantic Garbage Patch and the Magic of the Message in a Bottle". Newsweek. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016.</ref>

Finding a bottled message has generally been viewed positively, the finder of a 98-year-old message referring to his find as winning the lottery.<ref name=BBC20120830/> However, intense media attention over a personal relationship that resulted from one woman's find, is said to have caused her to remark that had she known what would happen, she would have left the bottle on the beach.<ref name=IrishIndep20120805/> Another woman said she initially felt shocked and violated by publication of the personal suffering she had expressed in a bottled letter that she never expected would be found or read.<ref name=Guardian20100813/><ref name=Telegraph20100627/>

Similar methods using other media

The Pioneer plaque (1972, 1973)

The Voyager Golden Record (1977) contained images and encoded sounds

See also: Balloon mail and Time capsule

The term "message in a bottle" has been applied to techniques of communication that do not literally involve a bottle or a water-based method of conveyance, such as the Pioneer plaque (1972, 1973), the Voyager Golden Record (1977), and even radio-borne messages (see Cosmic Call, Teen Age Message, A Message from Earth), all directed into space.<ref name=ABC20160207>Hepburn, Jonathan (February 7, 2016). "Global 'message in a bottle' to be beamed to the stars carrying contributions from the public". Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC). Archived from the original on February 7, 2016.</ref><ref name=Mittelhessen20130405>Keller, C.; Wessolowski, M. (April 5, 2013). "Flaschenpost: Norweger suchen jetzt mit (Message in a Bottle: Norwegians are now seeking)". Zeitungsgruppe Lahn-Dill (MittelHessen = Central Hessian). Archived from the original on February 1, 2015.</ref>

Balloon mail involves sending undirected messages through the air rather than into bodies of water.<ref name=Mittelhessen20130405/> For example, during the Prussian siege of Paris in 1870, about 2.5 million letters were sent by hot air balloon, the only way Parisians' letters could reach the rest of France.<ref name=ABCau20160224>Maher, Louise (February 24, 2016). "Letter flown by balloon out of besieged Paris in 1870 discovered in National Archives". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on October 27, 2016.</ref>

Stationary time capsules have been termed "messages in a bottle", such as a 1935 message in a lemonade bottle correctly portending difficult times, which was found in 2016 by masons restoring damaged Portland stone at Southampton Guildhall.<ref name=ITV20160209>"'Message in a bottle' discovered in Southampton". ITV. February 9, 2016. Archived from the original on February 10, 2016.</ref> A geologist left a bottled message in 1959 in a cairn on isolated Ward Hunt Island (Canada, 83°N latitude), allowing its finders in 2013 to determine that a nearby glacier had retreated over 200 feet in the intervening 54 years.<ref name=LATimes20131220>Mohan, Geoffrey (December 20, 2013). "Message in a bottle found 54 years later in Arctic". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on July 6, 2014.</ref> More durable examples of time capsules are the Westinghouse Time Capsules of the 1939 and 1964 New York World's Fairs, intended to be opened 5,000 years after their creation.<ref name=BusinessInsider20140430>Sterbenz, Christina (April 30, 2014). "An Incredibly Ambitious Time Capsule Was Sealed 75 Years Ago Today — Here's What's Inside". Business Insider. Archived from the original on March 31, 2016.</ref>

Prisoners from the Auschwitz concentration camp concealed bottles containing sketches<ref name=Spiegel20120117>Macbeth, Alex (January 17, 2012). "'Witness to Extermination': Auschwitz Museum Publishes Prisoner Sketchbook". Der Spiegel. Archived from the original on April 18, 2016. Detailed sketches were found in a camp barracks in 1947.</ref> and writings<ref name=BBCNews20090427Novýčas20090430>• "Builders find Auschwitz message". BBC News. April 27, 2009. Archived from the original on March 7, 2017. Short prisoner list was found in 2009 in a wall of a bomb shelter that prisoners were forced to build. • "Záhadný odkaz väzňov v Osvienčime: Autor je už známy! (Mysterious link from prisoners in Auschwitz: The author is already known!)" (in slovenčina). Nový čas. April 30, 2009. Archived from the original on July 29, 2016.</ref> that were found after World War II.

Certain emergency medical services urge patients to record information describing their medical conditions, medications and drug allergies, emergency contacts,<ref name=Lions2016>"What is 'Message in a Bottle'?" (PDF). Lions Clubs International - District 105W. 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 10, 2016. Retrieved December 28, 2017.</ref> as well as advance healthcare directives for when the patients are incapacitated<ref name=FuturePlanning20171228>"13.4 Adult "Do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation" (DNACPR / Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment (ADRT)" (PDF). South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 28, 2017. Retrieved December 28, 2017. Similar to DNR (Do not resuscitate) instruction in the U.S.</ref> or suffer from dementia or learning difficulties,<ref name=BerwickAdvertiser_20190521>Smith, Ian (May 21, 2019). "Message in a bottle scheme launched". Berwick Advertiser. Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland, U.K. Archived from the original on June 12, 2019.</ref> and place the record as a special "message in a bottle" stored in (conventionally) a refrigerator, where paramedics can quickly locate it.<ref name=Lions2016/><ref name=FuturePlanning20171228/><ref name=BerwickAdvertiser_20190521/>

Environmental issues

Plastic bottles are known to constitute plastic marine pollution, and eventually break down into smaller pieces because of ultraviolet light, salt degradation or wave action.<ref name=CBC20180731/> Glass bottles can break into sharp-edged pieces, and bottle caps are ingested by sea birds.<ref name=CBC20180731>Sinclair, Jesara (July 30, 2018). "Why throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean might be a bad idea". CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Archived from the original on August 27, 2018.</ref>

Some agencies continue to use drift bottles into the 21st century, but with increased awareness that man-made floating items can harm marine life or constitute waste material,<ref name=Krajick2001/><ref name=DW20161013/> biodegradable drift cards<ref name=AmSurveyor200703/> and biodegradable wooden drifters<ref name=DW20161013/> with non-toxic ink<ref name=CBC20180731/> are gaining favor.

See also

• Beachcombing
• Drifter (floating device)
• Earth's black box
• Flotsam, jetsam, lagan, and derelict
• Friendly Floatees, plastic bath toys accidentally released in the Pacific in 1992<ref name=NationalPost20160425/>
• Ice rafting
• Swallow float
• Message in a Bottle (The Police song) (1979)
• Message in a Bottle (Nicholas Sparks novel) (1998)
• Message in a Bottle (film) (1999)
• Message in a Bottle (Taylor Swift song) (2021)

References

Publications

• Brown, Paul (2016). Messages from the Sea: Letters and Notes from a Lost Era Found in Bottles and on Beaches Around the World. Superelastic. ISBN 9780995541214.
• Ebbesmeyer, Curtis; Scigliano, Eric (2009). Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science. Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-0-06-155841-2.
• Kraske, Robert (1977). The Twelve Million Dollar Note: Strange but True Tales of Messages Found in Seagoing Bottles. Thomas Nelson (publ.); 1st ed. ISBN 978-0-8407-6575-8.
• Moody, Skye (2010). Washed Up: The Curious Journeys of Flotsam and Jetsam. Sasquatch Books. ISBN 978-1570617386. Archived from the original on September 4, 2016.