▲An Irishman named Jeremiah Burke wrote a poignant note as Titanic was sinking. He put it inside a bottle of holy water his mother had given him before he left to start a new life in the US.

▲The Lusitania was hit by a German torpedo in 1915, and reportedly sank in about eight minutes. That was evidently enough time for a passenger to write a quick note and put in a bottle.

▲The message read, "Still on deck with a few people. The last boats have left. We are sinking fast. Some men near me are praying with a priest. The end is near. Maybe this note will..." and the note ended there.

▲The bottle washed ashore one year later in Dunkettle, just a few miles from his family home. The message read "From Titanic, goodbye all, Burke of Glanmire, Cork."

▲In 2009, a message in a bottle was found inside a wall in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The message dated back to September 9, 1944.

▲The message consisted of the names, camp numbers, and hometowns of seven Auschwitz prisoners.

▲Four years later, they received a response from a former Vietnamese soldier trying to escape the country. The couple eventually sponsored the refugee and his family to relocate to the United States.

▲In 1979, a couple tossed a few bottles of champagne into the Pacific ocean while on vacation in Hawaii. They put their address and a one dollar bill for return postage inside each bottle, promising a reward for whoever found it.

▲The message was written in German and included information about the location and route of a ship called Paula.

▲In January 2018, a woman found a nearly 132-year-old message on an Australian beach. It is the oldest message in a bottle ever found.

▲The bottle was found by a fisherman in 1999. Pvt. Thomas Hughes' wife had already passed away, but the message eventually found its way to the soldier's 86-year-old daughter.

▲The message read: "Dear Wife, I am writing this note on this boat and dropping it into the sea just to see if it will reach you. If it does, sign this envelope on the right hand bottom corner where it says receipt. Put the date and hour of receipt and your name where it says signature and look after it well. Ta ta sweet, for the present. Your Hubby."

▲In 1914, British soldier Private Thomas Hughes tossed a bottle containing a message to his wife into the English channel. He eventually died two days later in France.

▲Two years later, he received a response from an Italian woman. They eventually met, he moved to Sicily, and they got married.

▲In 1956, a Swedish man looking for love tossed a bottle into the ocean. The message read, "To someone beautiful and far away," and included his contact details.

▲In 1914, the Glasgow School of Navigation in Scotland threw more than 1,889 bottles into the sea. The aim was to study currents and tides. The bottles contained cards for people to fill in and return to the school.

▲On Christmas Day 1945, an American soldier returning home from World War II tossed a bottle into the sea.

▲Eight months later, an Irish milkmaid replied to the young soldier's message. They exchanged letters for seven years until he managed to come to Ireland to meet her. But the romance eventually ended after they met.

▲Queen Elizabeth I of England thought messages in bottles were so important that she created the office of the royal "Uncorker of Ocean Bottles."

▲Under the Queen's rule, only the person with this title could open a bottle containing a message. A violation of this law was a capital crime.

▲A French mother grieving the death of her son tossed a bottle containing some children's clothing, a message, and lilies into the English Channel.

▲A few weeks later, two women found it in a beach in Kent, England. One of them, Karen Liebreich, wrote a book about it called 'The Letter in the Bottle
Book.' The mother and the women eventually met a few years later.

▲He has thrown more than 4,800 bottles into the ocean, and received more than 3,000 responses.

▲Canadian fisherman Harold Hackett, also known as "The Bottleman," is passionate about sending messages in bottles.

▲Greek philosopher Theophrastus is known to have sent the first message in a bottle back in 310 BCE.

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The aim of the experiment was to prove a theory that the waters of the Atlantic Ocean created the Mediterranean Sea.

▲Inside was a postcard with instructions to be sent back to the Galveston Laboratory of the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. Between 1962 and 1963, the laboratory released 7,863 bottles into the Gulf of Mexico to study the currents and how they affected shrimp.

▲In 2009, a couple found a bottle at Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. The bottle contained a message saying "break bottle."

▲In 2011, a Scottish fisherman found one of the bottles. The discovery got him an entry into the Guinness World Record book for the oldest message in a bottle found in the modern era (at the time).

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There is something magical about a message in a bottle. It can float for years before someone, somewhere, finds it. Throughout the years, there have been fascinating discoveries and many incredible stories that have started with a simple bottle that washed ashore. Browse this gallery and get to know some of the best ones.