'Drift Bottle' Found on Martha's Vineyard After 50 Years

A Martha's Vineyard resident may have found the world's last intact drift bottle, which scientists believe spent nearly 50 years on a local beach before being discovered on Long Point Reservation last year. 

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center recently published the story of Martha's Vineyard resident Keith Moreis, who found the historic bottle pictured above lying in some seagrass in West Tisbury on Dec. 22, 2013.

"The clear glass soda bottle, about 8 inches tall, had a black stopper on top and contained some papers. Inside the bottle, a pink sheet printed with the words 'Break This Bottle' caught his attention," the story read. 

Without breaking the bottle, Moreis was able to remove the black top off of the bottle a corkscrew and retrieve a postcard with an address and instructions for whoever found the bottle. 

On Feb. 20, Moreis went to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which had reported finding another drift bottle a few weeks earlier, and was told he should contact oceanographer Jim Manning at the Woods Hole Laboratory of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

"The postcard had both stamped and handwritten information on the top: U.S.C.&G.S. HYDROGRAPHER was stamped on the left corner, and Sep 19, 1959 on the right corner, with the day handwritten. In the middle, just above the printed words “FINDER OF THIS BOTTLE” and instructions below, was the handwritten number 279B, written twice," the report read. 

A trip by Manning to the WHOI Data Library and Archive a few days later uncovered more information about drift bottles released by the ship Hydrographer during Coast and Geodetic Surveys, according to the story.

"Drift bottles had been in use by the Coast and Geodetic Survey to track ocean currents since 1846 - the last drift bottles used by the survey were released between 1958 and 1966."

During the search for information, the pair reportedly found an image of a postcard from drift bottle 17465, found 25 miles south of Nelson Lagoon in southwest Alaska on Feb. 8, 2011.

The image caption read: “Perhaps the last drift bottle that will ever be found. All drift bottle records have been closed for years so the exact location and even ship that launched Drift Bottle 17465 is unknown. It is probable that it was launched from either the EXPLORER or PATHFINDER in the 1950's or 1960's. It is remarkable that the bottle survived for close to fifty years.”  

The bottle found by Moreis on Martha’s Vineyard may now hold the record - the information below was included in the Northeast Fisheries Science Center press release. 

Archived documents also revealed that in September and October of 1959, the USC&GS Ship Hydrographer conducted environmental studies in three areas off the New England Coast: 16 miles northeast of Cape Cod Light, just south of Nomans Land, and 36 miles south of Gay Head on Martha’s Vineyard.

As of Feb. 8, 1960, only two drift bottle cards had been returned from the area 36 miles south of Gay Head (now known as Aquinnah), but nearly 60 percent from the area just south of Nomans Land. Approximately 5 percent of bottle card returns came from the area 16 miles northeast of Cape Cod Light, now known as Highland Light, in Truro.

Records as of March 1960 indicate that four of the six bottles numbered 279B released south of Nomans Land were recovered within two months of their September 19, 1959 release: one after 2 days, another after 4 days, and a third after 7 days. All three were found on Martha’s Vineyard. The fourth was found after 55 days on Nantucket.

The December 2013 bottle is one of the last two bottles released in that group. Like the others, it was recovered just miles away from where it began its journey, but in this case more than 54 years later.

“Finding the bottle was exciting,” Moreis told the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “Learning more about it and its history has been a rewarding experience, to say the least. I never expected to find something like this, but then again, you never know what you will find on the beach."