World's Oldest Message in a Bottle Found Off Scottish Coast
Reports coming from Scotland reveal that local fishermen recently made a record discovery: the oldest known message in a bottle.
Confirmation of the April 12 discovery came from Guinness World Records and stated that it was found by the Shetland Islands fishing boat, according to a statement from the Scottish government in Edinburgh.
"It was just a normal day and we were out fishing for monkfish," Andrew Leaper, 43, captain of the Copious, said in the statement.
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"As we hauled in the nets, with a mixed catch of monks, megrim and cod, I spotted the bottle neck sticking out of the cod end of the net. I quickly grabbed the bottle before it fell back in the sea," he added.
The bottle, known as 646B, was released on June 10, 1914, by Captain C. H. Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation as part of an experiment to track ocean currents.
There were 1,890 scientific research bottles that were used for the experiment. When bottles were recovered, it provided scientists the ability to map ocean currents off the coast of Scotland for the first time.
"The story of scientific drift bottles is a fascinating one and harks back to an area when we were only beginning to understand the complexities of the seas," Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said during a press conference.
"It's amazing that nearly 98 years on bottles are still being returned to the Marine Laborator- and in such fantastic condition. With many bottles still unreturned there is always the chance in the coming years that a Scottish drift bottle will once again break the record," he added.
To date, only 315 bottles have been found, with each bottle containing a note to record the date and place of the discovery.
