Portuguese Teen Found Message in a Bottle Sent off from Rhode Island 3 Years Ago

17-year-old Christian Santos from Portugal found a message in a bottle sent more than 2,400 miles away three years ago. He is now searching for the sender.

Portuguese teenager Christian Santos was spearfishing in the Azores when he came across a plastic bottle with a message in it. Santos is accustomed to grabbing onto plastic items in the ocean, but he wasn't expecting a message in the bottle.

When the 17-year-old opened the bottle, he found a message written in orange marker on an index card. He found it peculiar and took it to show his mother who shared the story on Facebook, and now the story has gone viral across the world.

FROM RHODE ISLAND

Santos discovered the bottle off the coast of Portugal, but the message indicates that it originated in Rhode Island, which is more than 2 400 miles away. When the teenager opened the message, it read:

"It is Thanksgiving. I am 13 and visiting family in Rhode Island. I am from Vermont. If found email messageinbottle2018@gmail.com."

WCVB Channel 5 Boston reported that it is believed the individual sent the message out into the ocean in 2018, three years ago. They are yet to track down the owner of the message in the bottle.

FROM BOSTON

Santos shared that the message from Rhode Island was special because he spent some time in Boston, where he and his family lived until he was five before moving to Portugal.

The teenager's mother also noted that it was pure coincidence that the message was found by someone in Portugal who could speak English because the language is not commonly spoken by natives.

FINDING THE SENDER

Santos is now in the middle of an effort to find the sender of the message, roping in social media and American news agencies to spread the message even further. The teenager shared that should he find the sender, he would like to do the following:

"I would like to tell them I found it, where it was and what I was doing, we're going to be friends for life."

MESSAGE FROM THE TITANIC

Another peculiar message in a bottle story surfaced 105 years after it was sent out into the ocean, presumably from the deck of the Titanic shortly before it sank. The message read:

"I am throwing this bottle into the sea in the middle of the Atlantic. We are due to arrive in New York in a few days."

The message was sent by 12-year-old Mathilde who was on the ship with her mother and three siblings. They were never found after it went down, but more than 100 years later, her message appeared on the Canadian coast.

A

family also had the privilege of finding a

in a bottle that was dated from more than three decades ago. Pam Stanfield went to the Kentucky River to do some treasure hunting after it flooded and came across the special note.

The message was sent in 1990, and once Stanfield posted the photos online, they found the couple who sent the message within an hour.