A TikToker may have possibly stumbled across the world's oldest message in a bottle recently at the beach. The note could be over 100 years old, making it a rare find.
TikToker Amy Smyth Murphy stumbled across the bottle while walking on the beach at Corson's Inlet State Park in Ocean City. The TikToker was on an early morning beach walk on July 3. She noticed that it seemed odd.
"I noticed it because the bottle was like a really nice aqua," she recalled. She realized that the bottle had a message inside of it. Both her nephew Jack and niece Avery were ecstatic by the discovery.
"We made a group chat," Jack said. "Everyone was decoding it and looking things up." Meanwhile, Avery added, "She takes out a message in a bottle with a cork and it has the message in it and I'm like, 'Are you joking?'"
Amy decided to open the bottle and film the unveiling for TikTok. The inside of the bottle had a foul stench. "As soon as we opened it my grandma's yelling, 'get it out of the house' because it smelled so bad," laughed Jack.
Message In A Bottle
@asmythco We used a cork screw and the rest was up to my niece. She is a gentle soul with tiny pointy fingers. #messageinabottle #historytok #newjersey #historybuff #philadelphia #oldest #found #beach #ocean #fypage #fy
The note inside caused the TikToker to become an amateur historian. She started going through old newspapers as well a Reddit groups on old bottles. Amy believes the bottle may be from 1876.
The note inside mentions a yacht called The Neptune in Atlantic City. It also has a business card for W.G.&J. Klemm Gents' Furnishing Goods in Philadelphia. Both helped Amy track down more info.
"The outside of the bottle reads Barr and Brother Philadelphia," said Amy. Meanwhile, Steve Nagiewicz, of Stockton University, believes a beach replenishment may have knocked the bottle to shore.
"Getting bottles is always a treasured find and it's not that hard to do that. Especially for that time period where there were a lot of bottles made," said Nagiewicz. Amy believes she may have the oldest message in the bottle in the world. Well, isn't that something? Right now, the TikToker reached out to the Guinness Book of World Records.
The organizations will surely get to the bottom of it. "It's just so cool to see all the research she's been doing and just see everything coming together and forming a full story," said Avery. "It's just so cool."
