Message In A Bottle: MA 5th Grader’s Questions Answered 26 Years Later

SANDWICH, MA — It took 26 years for a Massachusetts fifth grader’s scientific query to get a response, but the answers were 3,316 miles away, on a beach in France.

And the answers were pretty good.

Ocean currents carried a bottle that fifth grader Benjamin Lyons tossed into the Nantucket Sound in 1997 thousands of miles across the Atlantic to a beach at Les Sables-d’Olonne, Vendée, France. It was found by 71-year-old fisherman Hubert Eriau, on Aug. 11, as he cleaned trash from the beach.

Lyons’ note read:

“Dear Beachcomber. Thank you for being kind enough to pick up my bottle. We are studying ocean currents in science class. We dropped these bottles in Nantucket Sound in October 1997. If you could please fill out the question and return to us.”

“Where did you find the bottle? What condition was it in? Was there anything around the bottle besides water and rocks? How did you find it?” the student asked.

Lyons and his classmates at Forestdale School in Sandwich cast the bottles into the Nantucket Sound at the conclusion of a science class unit on ocean currents and tides, The Sandwich Enterprise reported.

“They were trying to see where the letters would end up, where the currents would take them,” Carol Archambeault, an English teacher for Sandwich Public Schools, told Fox News. “It’s crazy to think it took that long for someone to find it. The bottle is so old, I can see why people are so interested in it.”

Eriau wrote in French that the bottle had shells stuck on it. Otherwise, it was in good condition, according to reports. The youngster’s letter appeared faded, but untouched by seawater, though the wax seal made it hard for Eriau to open the bottle, which floated in the ocean for more than a quarter of a century, USA Today reported.

Other bottles tossed into the sea by the class washed up in Greenland and France over the years, according to The Enterprise.

Eriau sent the bottle and his reply back to young Lyons in care of Forestdale School, which is now a pre-kindergarten school. Confused, the secretaries sent the bottle through interoffice mail from one school to another, unaware that Lyons is now an adult — and no longer in school. Eventually, it landed at Oak Ridge School, where Sandwich fifth graders now attend school.

But the student, Benjamin Lyons, was as mysterious as the package wrapped in brown paper. Enrollment records didn’t offer any clues, so administrators finally opened it themselves.

“They felt like they found a treasure when they saw a letter from a gentleman from France, and then this letter that was dated in 1997,” assistant principal Brandy Clifford told NBC News affiliate WBTS in Boston.

“It’s amazing that the bottle stayed intact. It traveled so far,” Clifford told USA Today. “These days, we would put a tracker in anything to find out the ocean currents. This was a way back in 1997. We didn’t have the technology to do something like that. So I don't think anybody ever thought 26 years later, something like this will be found intact.”

Lyon’s 26-year-old letter and bottle have been returned to him after some detective work by Clifford, who knows his parents. “It brought back really great memories of his classmates and his math and science teacher,” Clifford told USA Today.

The story, like the bottle, traveled across the ocean — and around the world.

Lyons declined interview requests because of his job, but he has gotten a kick out of the news coverage, his family said in a statement on his behalf.

“It’s great the kids can learn about the oceans and currents from this, showing what a small world it actually is,” the family said. “We’ve had fun reading the different articles and the interest this has generated.”

Clifford told the Boston NBC affiliate the staff at the school want to keep the correspondence going by writing Eriau back.

They’ll use more traditional delivery methods than the sea, though.