Bottled Message

A message in a bottle (abbrev. MIB) is a form of communication in which a message is sealed in a container (typically a bottle) and released into a conveyance medium (typically a body of water).

Messages in bottles have been used to send distress messages, in crowdsourced scientific studies of ocean currents, as memorial tributes, to send deceased loved ones' ashes on a final journey, to convey expedition reports, and to carry letters or reports from those believing themselves to be doomed. Invitations to prospective pen pals and letters to actual or imagined love interests have also been sent as messages in bottles.

The lore surrounding messages in bottles has often been of a romantic or poetic nature.

Use of the term "message in a bottle" has expanded to include metaphorical uses or uses beyond its traditional meaning as bottled messages released into oceans. The term has been applied to plaques on craft launched into outer space, interstellar radio messages, stationary time capsules, balloon mail, and containers storing medical information for use by emergency medical personnel.

With a growing awareness that bottles constitute waste that can harm the environment and marine life, environmentalists tend to favor biodegradable drift cards and wooden blocks.

History and uses

Bottled messages may date to about 310 B.C., in water current studies reputed to have been carried out by Greek philosopher Theophrastus. The Japanese medieval epic '' The Tale of the Heike'' records the story of an exiled poet who, in about 1177 A.D., launched wooden planks on which he had inscribed poems describing his plight. In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I reputedly created an official position of "Uncorker of Ocean Bottles", and—thinking some bottles might contain secrets from British spies or fleets—decreed that anyone else opening the bottles could face the death penalty. (However, it has been argued that this is a myth.) In the nineteenth century, literary works such as Edgar Allan Poe's 1833 "MS. Found in a Bottle" and Charles Dickens' 1860 " A Message from the Sea" inspired an enduring popular passion for sending bottled messages.

Scientific experiments involving drift objects—more generally called determinate drifters—provide information about currents and help researchers develop ocean circulation maps. For example, experiments conducted in the mid-1700s by Benjamin Franklin and others indicated the existence and approximate location of the Gulf Stream, with scientific confirmation following in the mid-1800s. Using a network of beachcomber informants, rear admiral Alexander Becher is believed to be the first (from 1808–1852) to study travel of so-called "bottle papers" around an ocean gyre (a large circulating current system). In the late 1800s, Albert I, Prince of Monaco determined that the Gulf Stream branched into the North Atlantic Drift and the Azores Current. In the 1890s, Scottish scientist T. Wemyss Fulton released floating bottles and wooden slips to chart North Sea surface currents for the first time. Releasing bottles designed to remain a short distance above the sea bed, British marine biologist George Parker Bidder III first proved in the early twentieth century that deep sea currents flowed from east to west in the North Sea and that bottom feeders prefer to move against the current.

The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (C&GS) used drift bottles from 1846 to 1966. More recently, technologies involving satellite tags, fixed current profilers and satellite communication have permitted more efficient analysis of ocean currents: at any given time, thousands of modern " drifters" transmit current position, temperature, velocity, etc., to satellites, thus avoiding conventional drift bottles' dependence on serendipitous finds and cooperation by conscientious citizens.

Drift bottle studies have provided a simple way to learn about non-tidal movement of waters containing eggs and larvae of commercially important fishes, for sharing among fisheries scientists and oceanographers. Such experiments simulate the travel of pollutants such as oil spills, study formation of ocean gyre "garbage patches", and suggest travel paths of invasive species. Persistent currents are detected to allow ships to ride favorable currents and avoid opposing currents. Projected travel paths of navigation hazards, such as naval mines, advise safer shipping routes. Even in inland waterways, drifters wirelessly deliver real-time data on water quality, GPS location, and water velocity, for early warning against flash floods, measuring pollution run-off, and monitoring algal blooms.

Outside science, people have launched bottled messages to find pen pals, "bottle preachers" have sent "sermon bottles", propaganda-bearing bottles have been directed at foreign shores, and survivors have sent poetic loving tributes to departed loved ones or sent their cremated remains (ashes) on a final journey.

It was estimated in 2009 that since the mid-1900s, six million bottled messages had been released, including 500,000 from oceanographers.

Bottle design and recovery rates

Some bottles are ballasted with dry sand so that they float vertically at or near the ocean surface, and are less influenced by winds and breaking waves than other bottles that are purposely not ballasted. Wooden blocks float higher in the water and thus are ''more'' influenced by wind—a design specially suited for simulating travel paths of plastic waste that is less dense than glass containers. A research program from the University of Oldenburg (Germany) involves 100,000 wooden blocks of various thicknesses.

An early-20th-century "bottom" (or seabed) drift bottle design by George Parker Bidder III involved weighting a bottle with a long copper wire that causes it to sink until the wire trails upon the sea bottom, at which time the bottle tends to remain a few inches above the bottom to be moved by the bottom current. A mushroom-shaped seabed drifter design has also been used. Seabed drifters are designed to be scooped up by a trawler or wash up on shore.

Water pressure pressing on the cork or other closure was thought to keep a bottle better sealed; some designs included a wooden stick to stop the cork from imploding. Vessels of less scientific designs have survived for extended periods, including a baby food bottle • a ginger beer bottle, and a 7-Up bottle.

A low percentage of bottles—thought by some to be less than 3 percent—are actually recovered, so they are released in large numbers, sometimes in the thousands. Reported recovery rates for large-scale scientific studies vary based on the ocean of release, and range from 11 percent (Woods Hole, 156,276 bottles from 1948 to 1962, Atlantic), to 10 percent (Woods Hole, 165,566 bottles from 1960 to 1970, Atlantic), to 3.4 percent (Scripps Institution, 148,384 bottles from 1954 to 1971, Pacific). Oceanographic drift card recovery rates have ranged from 50 percent if released in densely populated areas ( North Sea, Puget Sound) to 1 percent in uninhabited areas ( Antarctica). Recovery rates decrease as bottles are released further from shore, with oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer developing a rule of thumb that bottles released more than 100 miles from shore have recovery rates below 10 percent, and "only a few percent" of those released more than 1,000 miles from shore are recovered. Article updated October 2010. About 90 percent of marine debris washes up on less than 10 percent of the world's coastlines, favoring beaches perpendicular to the dominant ocean current. Objects with similar buoyancy characteristics tend to collect together.

A Scripps scientist said that marine organisms grow on the bottles, causing them to sink within eight to ten months unless washed ashore earlier. An unknown number are found but not reported.

Time and distance

Some drift bottles were not found for more than a century after being launched.

Floating objects may ride gyres (large circulating current systems) that are present in each ocean, and may be transferred from one ocean's gyre to another's. Further, objects may be sidetracked by wind, storms, countercurrents, and ocean current variation. From ''Smithsonian,'' July 2001, pp. 36-42. Accordingly, drift bottles have traveled large distances, with drifts of 4,000 to 6,000 miles and more—sometimes traveling 100 miles per day—not uncommon. Bottles have traveled from the Beaufort Sea above northern Alaska and northwestern Canada to northern Europe; from Antarctica to Tasmania; from Mexico to the Philippines; from Canada's Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay to Irish, French, Scottish, and Norwegian beaches; from the Galapagos Islands to Australia; and from New Zealand to Spain (practically antipodes). Based on empirical data collected since 1901, a computer program called OSCURS (Ocean Surface Current Simulator) digitally simulates motion and timing of floating objects in and between ocean gyres. Originally published in the Alaska Fisheries Science Center ''Quarterly Report,'' April–May–June, 1997. Program limited North Pacific from 10° N latitude to the Bering Strait.

Despite being launched substantial ''time periods'' before being found, some bottles have been found physically close to their original launch points, such as a message launched by two girls in 1915 and found in 2012 near Harsens Island, Michigan, U.S., and a ten-year-old girl's message launched into the Indian River Bay in Delaware, U.S. in 1971 and found in adjacent Delaware Seashore State Park in 2016.

Historical examples

''Historical examples are listed in chronological order, based on year of recovery (when applicable):''

Early examples

* It is reputed that about 310 BC, Aristotle's protégé Greek philosopher Theophrastus used bottled messages to determine if the Mediterranean Sea was formed by the inflowing Atlantic Ocean.

* When Christopher Columbus encountered a severe storm while returning from America, he is said to have written on parchment what he had found in the New World and requested it be forwarded to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, enclosed the parchment in a waxed cloth and placed it into a large wooden barrel to be cast into the sea. The communication was never found. "Part One: Discovery" (exact page does not show in Google Books preview).
* In 1784 Chunosuke Matsuyama sent a message detailing his and 43 shipmates' shipwrecking in a bottle that washed ashore and was found in 1935 by a Japanese seaweed collector in the village of Hiraturemura, Matsuyama's birthplace.
* On April 15, 1841, the ''Wellington'', W.C. Kendrick, Commander, bound "from Madras and Cape bound to London", launched a bottled message in the mid-Atlantic (at 13° N) "for the purpose of throwing some light on the ocean currents".''The Times-Picayune''. October 26, 1841. Page 2. No author listed. Republished information that appears to have originated in Guayama, Puerto Rico. Quote: "Ship Wellington of London, W.C. Kendrick, Commander, From Madras and Cape bound to London. Lat. 13 degrees 58' North, Long. 35 degrees 30' West. This bottle is dispatched for the purpose of throwing some light on the ocean currents, and it is earnestly requested that the time and place of finding it may be publicly made known. At Sea, April 15th, 1841."
* In 1847, from the brig ''Eagle'' laden with corn for the starving Irish in Waterford, Ireland, master Gregg dropped a bottled message with his location (42.40N, 54.10W) on March 27, requesting the find be sent to the ''Nautical Magazine'' (London) for publication to provide information on Atlantic currents. The bottle was retrieved on July 20 by Capt. Robert Oke on the revenue cutter ''Caledonia'' off the coast of Newfoundland (46.36N, 55.30W). , via=Memorial University of Newfoundland Digital Archives Initiative
* In February 1862, the ''Bashford Hall'' "sent afloat a message in a bottle describing her perilous state." However, she arrived safely at Falmouth, England on March 6, 1862.''Belfast News-Letter.'' May 12, 1862. Page 5. Belfast, North Ireland.
* After the January 11, 1866 sinking of the SS London in the Bay of Biscay, bottled messages—reported as "farewell messages from passengers... to friends and relatives in England"—were reportedly found in months following.''The Hamilton Spectator.'' Page 3. May 12, 1866. No author listed. Quotes: "The ''Argus'' contains an account of certain bottles found on the French coast of the terrible Bay of Biscay." A retelling of this account reveals that the bottles contained "farewell messages from passengers by the London to friends and relatives in England." According to one D.W. Lemmon, presumed drowned: "The ship is sinking," he wrote, "no hope of being saved." Mr. H.F.D. Denis wrote "Adieu, father, brothers and sisters, and my dear Edith. Steamer London, Bay of Biscay. Ship too heavily laden for its size, and too crank. Windows stove in. Water coming in everywhere. God bless my poor orphans. Storm not too violent for a ship in good condition."
* In 1875, ship's steward Van Hoydek and cabin boy Henry Trusillo of the British sailing ship ''Lennie'' released 24 bottled messages into the Bay of Biscay, telling of the murder by mutineers of their captain and officers. French authorities soon received the message, rescued Hoydek and Trusillo, and brought the mutineers to justice.
* In 1876, on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda, freelance journalist John Sands and marooned Austrian sailors deployed two messages requesting the Austrian Consul rescue them with provisions. The messages, each enclosed in a cocoa tin attached to a sheep's bladder for flotation in an arrangement later called a "St. Kilda mail boat", were discovered in Orkney within nine days and in Ross-Shire after 22 days. Since that time, sending "St. Kilda mail" has become a recreational ritual for island visitors, the containers often riding the Gulf Stream to the British mainland, Shetland, Orkney and Scandinavia.

20th century

* Message-bearing bottles from ''Titanic'' (1912) and ''Lusitania'' (1915) have been widely recounted as fact, but even before these bottles were found ''The Irish News'' stated in April 1912 that "very many" such stories turn out to be "cruel hoaxes". Moloney quotes passages from other newspapers, including ''The Irish News.''

* In February 1916, when German Zeppelin L 19 experienced unfavorable weather, battle damage and multiple engine failure after attacking the British Midlands, its commander's last message to superiors and the crew's final letters to relatives were released into the North Sea to be found on a Swedish coast six months later. The written descriptions of how a British fishing trawler had refused to rescue the downed Zeppelin's crew—the trawler captain claiming he feared the German airmen would overpower his own unarmed crew—contributed to an enduring international controversy.''See''
*On December 23, 1927, Frances Wilson Grayson

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