Pranksters answered bottled message
The Swiss message in a bottle that reportedly floated all the way to South Africa got a little help from some practical jokers.
Earlier this month, Werner Kühnis reported that he had received a reply to his message – 30 years after tossing it into the Rhine. A woman in South Africa sent him a letter claiming that she had found the bottle on a beach near Cape Town.
However, the truth has since come out: rather than working its way to South Africa on its own, the bottle got a little help. People in Germany found the it on the shore of Lake Constance and thought it would be a hoot if a friend flying back to Cape Town answered its message from there.
“They were pulling my leg, but I’m not angry,” Kühnis told the Swiss News Agency on Monday. He said he had found it strange to think that the bottle had travelled all that way naturally. The incredible story has made headlines all over the world.
Kühnis wrote the message during his time in a local scout group in the early 1980s.
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