Message in A Bottle: Oldest-known message in a bottle found on beach in Western Australia

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News came out of Australia last week of the oldest-known message in a bottle to be found. It was picked up on a beach in Western Australia. It's now been put on display at the Western Australia Museum, 132 years after it was thrown overboard.

The bottle was found by Tonya Illman in January 2018. It was found on sand dunes north of Wedge Island, 180km north of Perth in Western Australia.

TONYA ILLMAN FINDER OF BOTTLE "I got out to walk around and I noticed a lot of rubbish and my immediate thought was to pick some up, and take it home and throw it out. And that, I bent down and picked up that bottle, that was at my feet. And that was it, as simple as that."

After taking out the message, the Illmans took the bottle to the Western Australia Museum to verify their find.

The message features a form with the handwritten date of June 12, 1886 and the name of the German ship "Paula".

The museum contacted colleagues in Germany and the Netherlands, who confirmed that the message was written 132 years ago by the captain of the German barque Paula.

The form was part of a drift bottle experiment by the German Naval Observatory to understand ocean currents.

DR. ROSS ANDERSON ASSIST. CURATOR MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA MUSEUM "We think it's the captain, Captain Diekmann of the Paula who probably wrote on this message, put it in this little bottle, threw it overboard and also wrote in the journal that he had thrown the bottle overboard. So, it's quite stunning, I've never really experienced anything that corroborates so fully as this."

The message and the bottle will be on display at the Western Australia Museum for two years.