By J.M. Sinclair

Each year, tens of thousands of people seal messages in glass or plastic bottles and release them into the ocean in hopes that currents will pick them up and whisk them away to some far away corner of the globe. Correspondingly, a few convictions per year result from charges of littering directed at these bottle tossing hobbyists. Most of the time the bottles become uncorked and sink, sometimes they make it a few miles down the beach to be picked up another local, occasionally they make it much, much further. At times, they may even function as time capsules.

In 310 BC the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus released messages in bottles to test his theory that the Mediterranean and Atlantic shared currents. Navies, such as that of England, would often use messages in bottles as last ditch attempts at communication. Columbus himself sent such a message, addressed to the Queen of Spain, in hopes of sending news of his discovery without having to wait for his lengthy return voyage. Elizabeth I of England had an official dedicated to opening bottles that washed up from the sea, and instituted a death penalty to anyone that unofficially opened them. As recently as 2005, off the coast of Costa Rica, shipwrecked migrants used a bottle to send a message that ultimately resulted in their rescue.

Several interplanetary messages in bottles have been sent by NASA. On Pioneer 10 and 11, a plaque designed by the late Carl Sagan and Jon Lomberg is affixed that shows two nude humans waving in a gesture of greeting, along with a map on how to find planet earth - and the naked humans. A few years later a more comprehensive message was launched on Voyager 1 and 2 that includes a gold record, designed to last for millions of years, that includes recordings of greetings from earth, music including Mozart and Chuck Berry, and even the sounds of whales.

Messages in bottles are a fascinating and ancient method of communication. While not reliable by any stretch of the imagination, they are romantic. Sometimes they can even be outright archeological. In 1784 a Japanese sailor and his companions were wrecked on a coral reef in the Pacific. In desperation, they carved a message onto a piece of wood, placed it in a bottle and released it. The sailor and his 44 companions subsequently starved to death, littering the reef with their bones. The message was finally found, more than a little too late over a hundred and fifty years later, in 1935, having washed ashore in the very village where the Japanese sailor had been born. The moral of the story? When sailing, be sure to carry a fully charged cell phone, rather than relying on a bottle.

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