Hello, welcome back to Most Amazing….
The channel that likes to live up to its name!
I am Rebecca Felgate and today we’re talking about the Top 10 Insane Messages Found in
a Bottle.
The urge to sing genie in a bottle is pretty real right now.
Don’t do it…don’t.
This one made me teary at number 10, we have a goodbye from a young boy to his friend.
In April 2016 Florida man named Steve Menshon found a message in a bottle as he took stroll
along a beach on Indialantic.
The message was from a fifth grader called Jonathan, who was writing a note to his friend,
Daniel, who died.
The heartbreaking messages reads: Dear Daniel I'm really sorry that you passed away and
if you were alive me and you will be playing football, soccer and basketball.
You were my best friend,' it continues, 'and our favorite song was Austin Moon and I hope
you fun with Jesus.
From your best friend Jonathan Torres.
Steve said he didn’t know how long the note had been in the ocean or where it was posted
from, but it moved him so much he penned an open reply to the young boy.
In his reply he said Daniel was lucky to have him as a friend, saying he showed love beyond
his years.
He continued by saying “perhaps your next touchdown, goal or basket, you can dedicate
to Daniel.”
Wedding Vows – 9 In 2014, a bottle was found in in Cancun,
Mexico by a couple on holiday.
It contained wedding vows to a woman named Danielle…which are very sweet.
The couple who found the bottle had no idea where and when it came from as it had no date,
which of course goes to show that love is truly timeless.
More Romance in a bottle at number 8 On Christmas day in 1946, 21 year old Frank
Hayostek, an American war veteran tossed a bottle into the ocean and it was found by
an 18 year old Irish Milk maid, Breda o’Sullivan.
The letter read “Dear Finder, I am an American soldier, 21 years old; just a plain American
of no wealth but just enough to get along with.
This is my third Christmas from home."
The pair exchanged letters for seven years following that and finally met when Frank
saved enough money to fly to Ireland.
Here is a picture of the pair.
A message found 101 years later at number 7 -
This was thought to be the world’s oldest message in a bottle at the time it was found
over 100 years after it was thrown in the water!
Richard Platz threw this bottle into the Baltic Sea in 1913, the same waters in which it was
found in 2014!
Platz was 20 when he wrote the message, and he included two postage stamps in the bottle
so that the finder could reply to him with no cost.
Sadly he died in 1946 when he was in his 50s and never knew his granddaughter, Angela,
who was reunited with his message when the bottle was found.
Angela has loaned the message and the old beer bottle to the Hamburg Musuem in Germany.
At number 6 we have the actual Current oldest message in a bottle
In 1906 the Marine Biological Association of the UK threw a message in a bottle into
the water in Devon and it washed up a whopping 108 years later on April 17th 2015 on Amrum
Island in Germany.
The bottle had a post card in it asking the finder to send it back to the MBA for a reward
of one shilling – which was twelve pence back in the early 1900s.
Finder, Marianne Winkler was given the reward, which is pretty cute!
Hopefully the MBA will learn more about currents since the discovery.
5 - Cryptic Photo So this was actually technically a message
in a jar, but …whatever.
Tied up with a black ribbon, the finder was greeted with a creepy image of a woman in
a dress with real needles sticking in here.
Run away……
A message in a bottle led to an new life for Vietnamese soldier at number 4.
At Christmas time in 1979, Mr and Mrs Peckham, who were on vacation in Hawaii from mainland
Unites States were messing around on a cruise ship and tossed a wine bottle overboard.
The bottle contained a dollar, a postal address and the promise of a reward to the finder.
Four years and 9000 miles later, the message washed up in Thailand, where former soldier
Van Nguyen was living having escaped a concentration camp.
He replied to the message and eventually, to cut a much longer story short, he met the
Peckhams who helped him and his family escape to the United States and gain refugee status
under their sponsorship. 3 - Final Journey
A father by the name of Mel passed away in 2014 aged 77.
His family wanted to do something to immortalize the keen fisherman, so they sent out a message
in a bottle following his waterside memorial service.
The note included a picture of him and read 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 son's 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.”
It was found on Francis beach in California, where it had travelled several miles down
the coast.
Mel hasn’t been found since, so this time he must be on a much longer journey.
2 - Titanic Goodbye.
This is a sad story indeed.
Irish 19 year old Jeremiah Burke was on board the Titanic when it sank.
Before his trip, his mother had given him a bottle of Holy Water.
As the boat sank, he emptied it and wrote a message which he threw out to sea.
The message said “From Titanic.
Goodbye all.
Burke of Glanmire, Cork” and it washed up a year later on a beach few miles from his
family home., which is incredible, if you think about it.
Sadly Jeremiah’s mother died from heartbreak before it was found but his surviving family
were given the message, which they donated to the Titanic exhibition at the Cobh Heritage
Centre.
This is truly heartbreaking at number 1, we have this wartime message.
. In 1914, 26 year old Private Thomas Hughes
of Stockton on Tees, England, left a message in a bottle for his wife.
His wife had given birth to their daughter just two years before he had gone to war.
The message read “Dear wife, I am writing this note on this boat and dropping it into
the sea just to see if it will reach you….ta ta sweet, for the present.
Your hubby.
The other side then said Sir or madam, youth or maid, Would you kindly forward the enclosed
letter and earn the blessing of a poor British soldier on his way to the front.
“ Thomas was killed days later in the front line fighting and the message was found off
the coast of Essex by a fisherman over 80 years later.
Sadly, by this point, his wife had died, but the message found its way to his 86 year old
daughter who was overwhelmed, saying it touched her deeply to know his message had found her.
So that was the top 10 insane messages found
in a bottle…what a list!