Message In A Bottle Found In Florida Had Traveled From Michigan

florida message in bottle
Frank Molter/picture alliance via Getty Images
Frank Molter/picture alliance via Getty Images

Twenty-four years ago, a note was stuffed into an empty whiskey bottle and thrown into the water in Michigan.

That bottle and the note it held was discovered last week on a Florida beach. Gary Henrickson was relaxing on Santa Rosa beach over Memorial Day weekend when they spotted it.

"We were down here in the water, Memorial Day weekend, I was with my friend from Kansas City and his wife and we were just chatting in the water and it just came bobbing by," says Henrickson says. He took the bottle home and after he had uncorked it, was surprised that it smelled of bourbon.

He read the contents of the note. "'Hello, June 16, 1995, Frankfurt, Michigan, I've tossed this bottle into the water to bring joy to anyone who finds it, this whiskey bottle was full a few short hours earlier, if you find this call me, and I’ll buy you a drink.'"

Much to Henrickson's shock, the number still belonged to the same person who had thrown it into the water all those years ago. And the two have corresponded since their initial interaction.

Who is the man who sent the message out so many years ago? Well, "he's 49 years old now, it was a whole different time in his life it said, and he threw it in Lake Michigan, and we kind of talked about how it could've gotten down here, it's just an amazing long, long way it had to go," Henrickson said.