A Perth family found the world’s oldest known message in a bottle, nearly 132 years after it was thrown into the sea, according to Australian experts. The previous Guinness world record for the oldest message in a bottle was 108 years.
Tonya Illman found the gin bottle in the sand dunes of a West Australian beach in January. Her husband Kym said his wife only picked up the bottle, which she initially thought was rubbish, because she thought it would “be at home on their bookshelf”.
“But Mrs Illman realised she had likely uncovered something far more special when out fell a damp, rolled up piece of paper tied with string,” says the ABC.
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Kym told the BBC that they "no idea" what the roll of paper was until they took it home and dried it in the oven.
Experts from the Western Australian Museum later authenticated it as a message from a German ship. The note from the bottle was dated 12 June 1886.
During this time, German ships were conducting a 69-year experiment that involved tracking ocean currents by tossing thousands of bottles into the sea. Each bottle would contain a form that listed the date, the ship's coordinates and details about its route. On the back, the messages asked the potential finder to write when and where the bottle had been found before returning it to the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg or the nearest German Consulate, the ABC reports.
The 132-year-old bottle was thrown overboard from the German ship Paula in 1886 as it crossed the Indian Ocean — 950km from the Australian coast.
“It was an absolute fluke,” Kym Illman told The Guardian. ���It won’t get better than than this.”
Kym and Tonya Illman have loaned their find to the WA Museum to display for the next two years.
