Japanese School Students Sent Messages in a Bottle. 37 Years Later, It Washed Up In Hawaii

By Darby Jones September 22, 2021
A glass bottle containing a message from 1984 has washed up in Hawaii — 37 years after high school students in Japan dropped it into the ocean as part of an experiment.

In 1984, Japanese school students put messages in glass bottles and dropped them into the ocean as part of an experiment. 37 years later, a bottle washed up on a Hawaiian coast and a 9-year-old girl found it.

The message, titled “Ocean current investigation,” was written by students and placed in the Kuroshio Current close to Miyajima Island in Western Japan, as part of a school project about ocean currents. 

The message inside is dated July 1984, and the author asked whoever found the bottle to return it to Choshi High School.

9-year-old Abbie Graham found the bottle on a family trip to a beach near Hilo, Hawaii — meaning the bottle traveled nearly 4,350 miles. 

In a press statement, the school said it released 450 bottles in 1984 and 300 more in 1985 as part of the ocean current research. So far, 51 bottles have been returned, but this is the first one to be found since 2002.

Other bottles washed up in Washington state, Canada, the Philippines and the Marshall Islands inthe central Pacific.

Image source: KCRA