Engineers Find 132-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Hidden Inside Lighthouse Wall: 'We Were Shaking'

11/30/2024 04:30 PM

"It was so exciting, it was like meeting our colleagues from the past. It was actually like them being there," said the retained lighthouse keeper

Engineers in Scotland were surprised when they uncovered a special and rare find at a local lighthouse: a 132-year-old message in a bottle.

Northern Lighthouse Board mechanical engineer Ross Russell discovered the message in a bottle during one of his inspections of the 209-year-old lighthouse, which is currently part of the Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel in Barnhills, Scotland, according to BBC, The New York Times and CBS News.

Russell told BBC that he and his team were able to fish it out from its place inside the wall, but waited until the retained lighthouse keeper from the Northern Lighthouse Board, Dr. Barry Miller, arrived to open it — which had been a difficult task in itself. The bottle was closed with an old cork that had stuck to the glass, and had to be carefully drilled out to reach the note.

"We were shaking, especially me," Miller recalled to the Times. "I couldn't keep my hands still, and I read the note out to the other guys."

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It only became clear just how rare the item was once the message was taken out.

According to the Northern Lighthouse Board, the note — dated Sept. 4, 1892 — detailed the former engineers of James Milne & Son Engineers, Milton House Works (James Wells Engineer, John Westwood Millwright, James Brodie Engineer and David Scott Labourer) and lighthouse keepers (John Wilson, John B. Henderson and John Lockhart) who had worked to install a new light at the top of the tower at the time. 

Miller noted to the Times that it was a "great coincidence" finding the note, as they were scheduled to work "on the very lens" the engineers from the past had installed, and said he felt like it was "a direct communication from them to us."

"It was so exciting, it was like meeting our colleagues from the past. It was actually like them being there," Miller told BBC.

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"It was like touching them," he added. "Like them being part of our team instead of just four of us being there, we were all there sharing what they had written because it was tangible and you could see the style of their handwriting. You knew what they had done. You knew they had hidden it in such a place it wouldn't be found for a long, long time."

Russell, who had found the bottle, told BBC that he was left in "utter amazement" after the note was read out to the team of engineers.

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"Being the first person to touch the bottle after 132 years was just mind blowing," he said. "It's a once in a lifetime find."

The Northern Lighthouse Board said the message in a bottle was being kept in their offices in Edinburgh temporarily until the lighthouse restoration was completed. Once that was done, they said they would return the bottle — this time with an additional message from the current engineers and keepers detailing their work.

"Sometime in the future, perhaps, we will be able to communicate to someone else," Dr. Miller toldthe Times.