Two brothers have discovered a message in a bottle sent nearly 50 years ago.
According to ABC affiliate WCVB, the SOS to the world was written not by Sting, but by 14-year-old Massachusetts resident Peter R. Thompson. He cast the bottle into the sea as part of an oceanography class in 1976 — three years before The Police‘s “Message in a Bottle” was released in 1979.
It was eventually found by Clint and Evan Buffington on the shores of the Bahamas. The Buffingtons were then able to contact Thompson by phone after trying to find him on social media.
“It’s amazing,” Thompson says of the discovery. “It’s almost 50 years later, so it’s a surprise.”