Walker discovers the world's oldest message in a bottle washed up on a beach after 107 years...
Worn and battered, but still sealed, the elusive note has finally reached a reader - 1,115 miles and one century later.
The green glass artefact was spotted sitting on the shore of the secluded Schooner's Cove in Tofino, Canada.
The envelope, visible through the bottle, shows Earl Willard's address and where the letter was sent from
Strolling along the recently excavated beach on Monday morning, Steve Thurber noticed the bottle lying in the middle of an open stretch of sand.
The note inside is signed by Earl Willard, who was 76 hours into a boat trip from San Francisco to Bellingham, Washington, when he 'posted' his note.
It was a route that would take him around 10 days to two weeks if the ship stuck to its schedule.
Hailing from a day when the delivery of cross-country letters was something of a Russian roulette, the Earl will never have known if his note arrived.
But Mr Thurber has infuriated people worldwide by refusing to open the letter.
Determined to preserve what has stayed intact since September 29 1906, he has decided to leave the details of the message shrouded in mystery.
All that can be read through the bottle - the cap of which is rusted over - is the date it was thrown into the sea, September 29 1906 and that it is signed by Earl Willard.
It lists Willard's address and states that he was a passenger on a steamer from San Francisco to Washington and that he threw the bottle into the sea 76 hours into the voyage.
Mystery, however, surrounds what the envelope inside contains - but Mr Thurber is refusing to open the bottle.
He said: 'Maybe there was only one bottle that the guy sent out and I found it. It is like a one in a billion chance.'
Online comments about the bottle include many from people who have seen local news reports in Canada, with a poster called Carol writing: 'WTF was the message?'
Emily wrote: 'How can he not open it?'
'I hope they open it because it was meant to be read one day,' wrote Kevin Mackie.
At 107 years old - almost to the day - the bottle looks set to be named the oldest ever found.
The previous Guinness World Record for a message in a bottle was 98 years after Scottish fisherman Andrew Leaper found a bottle in Shetland last year.
The bottle in Scotland contained a postcard offering a reward of sixpence to the finder.
Mr Thurber added: 'I guess it is a chance that you find something that somebody sent out into the water.
'A hundred years later is just unreal.'
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