A fifth-grader from Massachusetts penned a letter, stuffed it in a bottle, and set it out to sea in 1996, and the rest is history.
According to FOX19, after two decades of floating in the ocean, the bottle washed up on the other side of the world and was recently discovered by a French fisherman. The bottle was found in August, bobbing near the beach as the fisherman was picking up trash that lined the shore. There, amid the pieces of trash, he came across the bottle and read the note inside.
The long-distance pen pal replied and mailed the bottle back to where it started its journey in the 90s: Oak Ridge School in East Sandwich. Oak Ridge School principal Brandy Clifford told FOX19 that the bottle arrived at the school with a note taped to the outside that read: “Please open. Message inside!”
Benjamin “Ben” Lyons, the fifth-grader who created the message in a bottle in 1996, was very pleased to hear that someone had discovered his letter.
“His folks have relayed to the district that they’re just really, really pleased, and it’s kind of like one of those things that just bring a smile to your face,” Sandwich Public Schools superintendent Joe Maruszczak relayed.
Sandwich school students and staff members were so in awe of the discovery that they wrote back to the fisherman in hopes that he could speak to the school's French class about his discovery. The bottle, along with the return letter from the fisherman will be displayed inside the Oak Ridge School.
Visit Fox News to see photos of the letter that Lyons wrote in 1996.