Mysterious Message in a Bottle Found in Washington, USA
Some messages in bottles are straight to the point, like Janet Rockware’s message in a bottle. Others are more mysterious–sometimes they are even impossible to figure out, like the dollar bill covered in scribbles I found. Well, Gordon Guthrie wrote me today to share an exceedingly mysterious message in a bottle that he found on the beach in Westport, Washington, USA. Here it is.
Mysterious Message in a Bottle found by Gordon Guthrie in Westport, Washington, USA. Photo: Gordon Guthrie.
Drawing in a bottle found by Gordon Guthrie in Westport, Washington, USA, 2018. Photo: Gordon Guthrie.
That’s it–that’s the whole thing.
“Best of luck” is all it says. It appears to be signed “V + VII”. These are the Roman for the number 5 and the number 7.
Gordon can’t make any sense of the message, and to tell you the truth, I can’t either!
Mysterious Message in a Bottle Drawing – Is it Art? A Puzzle? A Challenge? Or Pure Nonsense?
So here we are again–me asking for your help. Do you have any idea what this message is about? What does “Best of luck” mean? Is it just a wish for the good luck of the finder? Or is it more like a taunt–like, “Check out the puzzle-drawing I made…Best of luck figuring it out!”
On that note–does anyone out there have any interest in cryptography or symbology, etc.? If you know someone who loves visual puzzles, please forward this to them!
To me the drawing looks like:
- A bagel with three holes instead of one.
- A terrifying alien face with two big eyes and one heart-shaped mouth.
- A spirograph experiment gone wrong.
If you have any better ideas, please drop me a line! Gordon would love to know the story behind this message in a bottle, and I would too. If you ask me, it looks like someone spent real time and effort on this (even the paper is interesting) and I bet they would like to be found. So let’s go for it!
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I find this super intriguing. You know what this reminds me of? It makes me think of those diagrams we’ve launched into space with the hopes of aliens finding them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque
I’ve always thought that since these diagrams are designed to be based on our scientific understanding of the universe it actually has the opposite effect of what it’s going for, that is, being universally understandable. I mean, if I found that diagram in a message in a bottle, I don’t think I’d figure out it’s supposed to be hydrogen.
I think it’s intended to be something like that though honestly, but I can’t figure it out. I see another plus sign along the top, the symbol in the centre looks like infinity, and the numbers given seem like some key. I think it’s supposed to be some math equation to who knows what end.
Thanks for your thoughts Anthony! This sort of attention to detail is exactly what we’ll need to solve this mystery 🙂 (And all the others on this site!)
Looks like it might be an old fashioned diving helmet. Someone wishing a diver good luck?