Posted on 03/23/2008 7:08:36 PM PDT by ShadowDancer
21-Year-Old Message In a Bottle Drifts 1,735 Miles
Sunday, March 23, 2008
SEATTLE, Washington — Merle Brandell and his black lab Slapsey were beachcombing along the Bering Sea when he spied a plastic bottle among the Japanese glass floats he often finds along the shore of his tiny Alaskan fishing village.
He walked over and saw an envelope tucked inside. After slicing the bottle open, Brandell found a message from an elementary school student in a suburb of Seattle. The fact that the letter traveled 1,735 miles without any help from the U.S. postal service is unusual, but that's only the beginning of the mystery.
About 21 years passed between the time Emily Hwaung put the message in a soda bottle and Merle Brandell picked it up on the beach.
"This letter is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands," she wrote. "Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung."
Brandell, 34, a bear hunting guide and manager of a local water plant, said many of the 70-plus residents of Nelson Lagoon were intrigued by his find. Beachcombing is a popular activity in remote western Alaska. Among the recent discoveries was a sail boat that washed onto shore last October.
"It's kind of a sport. It keeps us occupied. It's one of the pleasures of living here," Brandell said of the village reachable only by plane or boat that is too small to have its own store.
He had no idea just how unusual his find was until he tried to track down the sender:
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Police Song Ping ...
littering... terrible for global warming... the Japanese woman should be put in jail and held under the judgment of Saint Gore Our Prophet of Latent Homosexuality!!
I tossed a wine bottle with a note in it into the Atlantic on an outgoing tide 5 years ago. No word yet.
“I am Lost on a Lost island. I am with a woman named Kate. Please do NOT RESCUE. The OTHERS left taking the remaining survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. Only I and Kate remain. PLEASE DO NOT RESCUE.”
Perhaps, ‘Please refill and return to sender’ wasn’t enough info.
John Kerry’s Form 180?
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I have tossed numerous bottles in the ocean,....for years, ....and no return message yet....Maybe I should write a few words and stuff it into the bottle first?
Nah, I’m pretty sure whales can’t read through their blowholes.
better change that poster to read “robin wright”
On my son’s bar mitzvah, he released a bunch of mylar balloons with self-addressed postcards (inside plastic bags taped to the balloon)
A few weeks later we got back one of the postcards, the balloon floated a couple hundred miles into the Michigan “thumb” region and landed in a pasture. A farm kid, about my son’s age, was out tending the cows, found the balloon and sent back the postcard.
I think the other balloons floated into Canada.
DISCLAIMER: AL GORE SAYS MYLAR BALLOONS ARE BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT!!
Wouldn’t that bottle have circumnavigated the Pacific Ocean on the clockwise current, perhaps more than once?
Or is that a totally dumb question?
Okay, so it's not a big plan but it's a plan, damn it.
I would love to answer that but it would be a complete and total fabrication if I did so hopefully someone else can.
check out the movie “mermaid” with samantha something
really good, a mylar balloon floated across the country, based on a true story
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