Man Reunited With Message In Bottle He Released 27 Years Earlier

It’s always interesting to hear from an old friend, but for one man in Texas, Brian Standefer, that old friend happened to be himself.

27 years before he was contacted, he was with some friends. They decided to put a note in a bottle and they tossed it into the water. Little did they realize that it would eventually come full circle and end up back in their hands again.

According to FOX 26, a group was working with the Keep La Marque Beautiful Commission in the city of La Marque when they found the message in the bottle. It was at the Highlands Bayou Park where they found the message in the bottle and a pile of trash.

Amazingly, Brian was only 10 years old when he was with his three friends and decided to scribble the note on some cardboard. The note asked anyone who found the message to call one of two phone numbers.

The note says: “If not home, leave it on answer [sic] machine. Please leave phone #.”

After writing the note they signed the cardboard, put it in a bottle, and tossed it in the water. Little did they know that the treasure would find its way back into their hands again.

That’s exactly what happened, and 27 years after the note was written, Terry Pettijohn was picking up trash when he found the bottle. According to FOX 26, he said: “It was buried about halfway. I said, ‘You know, I think we’ve got a note in the bottle.’”

After finding the note, he called the two numbers but both of them had been disconnected. There were still able to use Facebook to track Brian down and get the note back in his hands again.

When Brian saw the note, he said: “I had to do a double take on the piece of cardboard. [I thought] that’s my phone number. That’s my handwriting. That’s my signature.”

The bottle was dropped into the water about 2 miles from where it was found.

The find had some special meaning for Brian because one of his friends that had signed the note had died recently. He said: “My best friend [Travis], he actually passed away a year-and-a-half ago. This gives me goosebumps. He had something to do with it, shining down, saying, ‘Everything is going to be okay.’”