A man out mudlarking on the banks of the river Thames discovered a mysterious message in a bottle and is keen to find out what it could mean. If this doesn’t end up with the guy going on a swashbuckling adventure I, for one, will be very disappointed.
For those not in the know, a mudlarker is someone who searches through river mud in the hopes of finding some treasure or other item of value.
And one bloke out mudlarking on the River Thames found a jar containing a laminated note with a poem inside.
Posting on a mudlarking forum, Chris Green wrote: "Hi all, I have a bit of a puzzle for you today.
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"I was on the Thames last weeks and found this message in a bottle.
"It looks like some kind of cryptic clue, but it's too tricky for me, so I need to call on the collective brain to try and solve this one.
"I could be wrong but does this have a hint of the US about it?
"Maybe our friends across the pond can help."
The message inside, which was laminated, reads: "Wide and Heavy, Filling out the town, Norther of Freehold, I can be found."
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As you can imagine, the intrigued note piqued the interest of other mudlarkers, who were determined to try and get to the bottom of the riddle.
One person noted: "''Wide' and 'Heavy' are both capitalised so those might be names of something too rather than a description." I like your thinking, pal.
Someone else said: "I wish I had scrolled past this!
"Now I need to know who wrote this, why they wrote it, what it means and what we're looking for."
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Same, mate, same.
However others suggested that the bloke may have stumbled upon - and ruined - someone’s carefully planned scavenger hunt. Whoops.
"I think this is a scavenger hunt clue and now that it’s gone there will be a load of lost and confused people on the beach looking for it," a third person pointed out.
Another person commented: "It seems to have been purposely set among the stones. I doubt it would look so pristine had it travelled across the Atlantic to find its way onto the Thames foreshore.
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"If it’s a scavenger hunt clue, I’d think it’s somewhere in London, perhaps a pub?"
Echoing the pub theme, someone else said: "Looks like they couldn’t answer it either, so tossed it in the river and went for a beer.” Sounds like a good idea, actually.
Topics: UK News
Claire Reid