By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-20 18:41:39 | Updated at 2024-12-20 22:28:58
3 hours ago
A woman is searching for answers on the internet after finding a message in a bottle in Texas.
Laurie Levermann Coker was walking on a beach with her dogs in South Padre Island, Texas, when she found the bottle washed up on shore.
'I've never found one before, and I've been here for almost five and a half, six years,' Coker told FOX Weather.
'I've been walking up and down this beach, two miles a day and an hour or more, and I pick up lots of things.'
She opened the bottle and read a brief note - 'By Angela (23) and Emily (24) from Keewaydin Island. Sent out 6/15/2024.'
Having never heard of Keewaydin Island before, Coker looked it up online and discovered it was an island off Southwest Florida that is only accessible by boat.
The glass bottle traveled around 1,000 miles in the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Texas or was carried to the Atlantic Ocean by the Gulf Stream.
Taking the bottle home with her, Coker has been investigating the item online and recently spread the word about her desire to learn about Emily or Angela in an Instagram post.
Laurie Levermann Coker found a message in a bottle while walking her dogs on a beach in South Padre Island, Texas
Coker has begun using the internet to figure out who the previous bottle finders are
'I let it sit on my counter, and it was so funny because I was in my kitchen, I was like, "What the heck is that smell?",' Coker revealed to FOX Weather.
'And it turned out the barnacles were dying. It really smells bad.'
After doing a little digging, Coker eventually created a social media post targeting locals who might have more information.
'On South Padre Island, there are several pages for tourists to come and ask questions or for locals to talk to each other and stuff,' she said.
'I posted it there, and then I thought, well, maybe Naples has the same kind of thing, right?'
Coker received responses on a separate social media post and a former student of hers claimed she would 'put it on TikTok.'
Nearly two weeks later, Cocker has still not heard back from anyone about the women mentioned in the message.
Even if she doesn't hear back, Cocker says she will eventually take a boat out onto the water and throw the bottle back into the sea.
Coker is planning to take a boat out and throw the bottle back into the sea
Pictured: South Padre Island, where Cocker found the message in a bottle
'Hopefully, somebody else will find it. And I mean, it could just end up right back on my beach, or it could just end up like 6 miles from here down the beach,' Coker said.
'Or it could end up in North Padre. I have no idea where it's going to go,' the beach walker added.
Coker is not the only person from the Lonestar State who found a message in a bottle this year.
Texas residents Markus Hogue and his 12-year-old son, Gabriel, found a message in a bottle while visiting Padre Island National Seashore on June 1.
'My son was out there looking for something to get his mom and his girlfriend and I happened to walk across it,' Hogue told USA TODAY.
Hogue added that he assumed it was trash before realizing it was a message in a bottle.
According to Hogue, the message, which was written in Spanish, read, 'I am sending you this message so that you know how much Mom and Dad love you. I love you daughter, never forget it.'
A woman named Smyth Murphy discovered the world's oldest message in a bottle from 1876 one month later while visiting the Jersey Shore.
Besides Coker, Markus Hogue and his 12-year-old son Gabriel found a message in a bottle while visiting Padre Island National Seashore
The bottle featured a note that read 'Yacht Neptune off Atlantic City, New Jersey. Aug. 6 - 76.'
She also found a business card for WG & J Klemm, a Pennsylvania-based company ran by William and John Klemm until 1881.
