Beverly Man Seeks Senders of Mysterious Messages Inside Bottle Washed Ashore Along Massachusetts Coastline
Doug Turnbull never expected to make an unusual discovery while wing foiling on the beach at Lynch Park on Thursday, Jan. 2, in Beverly, Massachusetts. After picking up a glass bottle that had washed ashore, he discovered several personal letters, drawings, and photos of individuals tucked inside. Turnbull is now on a mission to reunite the objects with the people who created them.
“‘I would often think about what we would do together if we had more time,'” Turnbull shared from the letters in an interview with NBC10 Boston. “‘Here’s a recent picture of Jordan and I. I hope you are looking down on us and having a great time with Nana and Soph.'”
Turnbull said the bottle contained letters from several individuals writing to a man named Ken. One of the authors was someone named Dan, along with two grandchildren, Jacob and Jordan. Another female author signed one with the nickname “Tootsie Roll.”
“[One letter] mentions that ‘it is five years and not a day goes by that I don’t think of you,’ so maybe it’s the anniversary of his passing?” Turnbull said in a separate media interview with WBZ-TV.
He’s taken his search to social media and has been scouring obituaries for any clues that might help identify the family members behind the letters. One social media commenter pointed Turnbull in the direction of a North Carolina obituary that might have matched the names found in the letters. He has attempted to contact the family but is now questioning the accuracy of the lead.
Turnbull told NBC10 that if he can’t locate the family in the photos, he will likely add his own letter to the bottle and throw it back into the ocean so that someone else can pick up the trail of this mystery.