2 days Ago
LEOMINSTER, Mass. — Nearly 50 years ago, a 14-year-old student taking an oceanography class penned a message in a bottle. Decades later, the letter's author forgot all about the note until two brothers stumbled across it and made it a mission to find him.
After years on land, beachcombing brothers Clint and Evan Buffington made plans to scour the coast in a trip that almost didn't happen when they both got sick. However, fate has a way of stepping in, and they made it to a remote island in the Bahamas. "Beautiful sunny day, the waves are lapping, the sun is glistening on the water, not a cloud in the sky," Clint Buffington said, recalling the day they came across the bottle.
"All of a sudden, I hear my walkie-talkie crackle to life, and my brother says something like, 'You're not going to believe what I just found,'" Clint Buffington said. Covered in sand, the message in an old Pepsi bottle was waiting to be found with a story to tell. The note was written in 1976 by then-14-year-old Peter R.
Thompson from West Newbury, Massachusetts, as part of an oceanography class, tossed out to sea by the Coast Guard. "I'm a 9th-grade student from Pentucket Regional Junior High School," the letter read. The Buffington brothers then took to social media to find Thompson.
The brothers and Thompson met over the phone 49 years after the latter wrote a message in a bottle that would eventually bring them together. While Thompson says he does not remember sending the note, he does remember the oceanography class, enjoying the trip down memory lane. "It's amazing.
It's almost 50 years later, so it's a surprise," Thompson said. Thompson and the Buffington brothers chatted over the phone about the bottle, the search for it, and how everything came together. The brothers say they are hoping to get the letter back to Thompson sometime in the future.
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