Decades Old Message In A Bottle Returned To Original Writer

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J.(CBSNewYork) -- A message in a bottle that was tossed into the sea by a little boy some five decades ago has been returned to its original owner.

It sounds like the plot for a movie, but for one man it is real life.

Dennis Komsa and his father wrote a message and put it in a bottle 50-years ago. The pair tossed the bottle into the Atlantic Ocean in Seaside Heights. Almost exactly a half a century later the message was returned to Komsa.

On Monday Komsa was reunited with the jar that his father had once used to pickle peppers. the jar's new contents were an envelope addressed to his childhood home and a nickel for postage.

The note was designed to be returned if it was found and was dubbed an experiment with questions for its potential reader.

"Where did you find the bottle? Date found? How did you find it?" were all included in the questionnaire.

The message wound up in a pile of debris on Kearney Ave some two-tenths of a mile from where the Komsas originally tossed it into the ocean.

Norman Stanton found it while sifting through debris at his sister's house in Seaside Heights after Sandy.

"It's kind of a message to them too. If I can get this back they can get their shore back," Komsa said.

A lot has changed since 1961 but Komsa's belief that anything can happen remains the same.

Stanton told CBS 2's Emily Smith that he thinks the bottle may have been stuck underneath the boardwalk for a long time.
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