The world looks at Australia, where a newly discovered object made its way into the Guinness Book of World Records. This bottle is anything but ordinary; more precisely, it is a message in a bottle dating back to 1886.
It was a day like every other one for Tonya Illman. She and her husband Kym Illman were going for a walk on a remote beach in West Australia, when they stumbled across an old looking bottle half buried in the sand. Mrs. Illman initially thought the bottle was rubbish, but took it home because of the engraving. The predominant feature, she thought, would look good on their bookshelf.
Once at home, the Illmans took a closer look at the roll of paper, wrapped in a string, they found lying in the bottle. “Tonya tried to untie the string around the paper, but it was rather fragile, so we took it home and put it in the oven for five minutes to dry up the moisture,” Mr. Illman said.
He continued, “Then we unrolled it and saw printed writing. We could not see the handwritten ink at that point, but saw a printed message that asked the reader to contact the German consulate when they found the note.”
The faint handwriting, which the couple quickly identified as German, provided precise information on the origin of the bottle, including the name of the ship, exact coordinates and the date the message was written: June 12, 1886. In disbelief of the authenticity of their finding, the Illmans send the bottle to the Western Australian Museum.
To the couple’s surprise, the bottle turned out to be a real historic artifact, thus making their discovery the oldest message in a bottle ever to be found, at an incredible age of 132 years. Furthermore, the team managed to reveal the story behind the finding.
The bottle had been thrown overboard from the German sailing ship Paula in 1886. At that point in time, the ship was located approximately 950 kilometers from the Australian coast in the midst of the Indian Ocean. This information was uncovered by Ross Anderson, assistant curator of maritime archaeology for the Western Australian Museum.
This was done as part of a 69-year long experiment conducted by the German Marine to explore ocean currents and was confirmed by the captain’s logbook entry, that is being stored in German archives.
The Illman family has loaned the find to the Western Australian Museum and can still not believe their discovery. “To think that this bottle has not been touched for nearly 132 years,” Mrs. Illman said, “and is in perfect condition, despite the elements, beggars belief. I’m still shaking.”
