53-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Written by 9-Year-Old Girl Found on New Jersey Shore
NEW JERSEY: A message in a bottle written by a nine-year-old girl as a playful prank has been discovered 53 years later during a shoreline cleanup in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
The bottle was found by a cleanup organization working in a marshland area. The group’s co-founder, John Koterman, shared a photo of the handwritten note on social media in an effort to locate its author.
The message, written by Lori Blair on August 20, 1973, claimed—jokingly—that she had been kidnapped and taken to an island off the Atlantic coast, where cruel fishermen were forcing her to jump into the sea. It asked anyone who found the bottle to deliver the note to her family in the hope of “saving” her.
Although Lori Blair could not be located, the social media post eventually reached her sister, Allison Spencer, who revealed that she had actually written the note on Lori’s behalf because her handwriting was better. The sisters then sealed it inside a bottle and set it adrift from the beach in Ocean City, Maryland.
Spencer described her late sister as a highly creative person with a wonderful sense of humor.
She also informed Koterman that Lori Blair passed away from cancer in 2019.
After learning the story behind the note, Koterman sent the original letter to Spencer, who said she plans to have it professionally framed and display it in her home as a cherished family keepsake.
