They found a message sent in a bottle from Japan 37 years ago in Hawaii

Abbie Graham, a 9-year-old girl from Keaau, Hawaii, found a glass bottle during a visit with her family in Paradise Park that contained a message inside. A group of Japanese high school students at Choshi College’s natural science club in Chiba, east of Tokyo, reportedly dropped 750 bottles into the sea between 1984 and 1985 to investigate ocean currents.

Such bottles, the Japanese newspaper reported Mai Nichi, contained messages written in different languages: English, Japanese and Portuguese. However, They all had a common request, that whoever found them contact the sender, that is, he wrote a letter to the Tokyo institution’s natural science club. Some bottles had already been found in distant sites, such as Canada, the Philippines and Alaska.

After the bottles were shipped, over the next twelve years, fifty of them were found in Japan and elsewhere. However After the 50th bottle discovered in 2002 in Kagoshima Prefecture in southern Japan, the discovery of finding no more was not reported.

Mayumi Kondo, a member of the natural science club in 1984, said the discovery “rekindled nostalgic memories” of her school years. After this observation, now they are hoping that bottle number 52 will appear soon.

The practice of sending messages in bottles as part of academic experiments is said to be very old. The first known correspondence was sent in this way, it was by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus, who was one of Aristotle’s pupils. Supposedly, Theophrastus was trying to show that the Atlantic Ocean landed in the Mediterranean Sea; however, he did not receive the letter in return.

Since then, several oceanographers have applied this practice for similar purposes to map ocean currents; although it is also believed that a few could be sent by people stranded on an island sending desperate messages or by those who wish to share nostalgic writings.

The oldest known message in a bottle is 132 years old, and was found in 2019 on a beach in Western Australia. The message, dated June 12, 1886, came from a German ship testing sea routes through the German Naval Observatory.

It is to highlight that this practice is not approved by environmentalists, because even environmental concerns halted some of the science experiments and practices at Choshi High School.

Sending bottles across the ocean, according to those seeking to conserve them, increases pollution and alters marine ecosystems. In addition, glass bottles take years to disintegrate. and the screw caps to protect the message inside may be harmful to aquatic animals and birds, which may eat them.

Finally, it should be noted that recently in January of this year another similar finding was reported, but this time in Papua New Guinea. An environmentalist found a message sent by an American teenager more than 2,500 miles away and, he noted, the bottle had been launched into the sea on January 8, 2019 from a ship of Niki Nie. They both held a meeting through Zoom.

KEEP READING: