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Suzanne Flament Smith, age 46, of Tampa, discovered it on Wednesday, Aug. 7, in the form of a World War II-era artifact.
She said she found it while collecting debris in the city of Safety Harbor. It was a bottle sealed by a cork. Inside was a handwritten letter from a location in Virginia over 800 miles away near Virginia Beach.
Above is a closer view of the letterhead, which reads, "United States Navy Amphibious Training Base, Little Creek, Virginia," and is dated March 3, 1945.
Flament Smith shared photos on Facebook urging any family members of the letter writer to contact her.
She hasn't heard from anyone yet, but Kristina Higgins, a Naval History and Heritage Command spokesperson, told The Washington Post that the letterhead appears legitimate.
Most of the letters were difficult to read, but Flament-Smith told the Washington Post that it appeared to be a correspondence from someone named Chris, to his friend, Lee, and included a reference to a bar near the base that had "pretty good beer."
It's unknown why the letter was put in the bottle.
“We didn’t really know what we had stumbled across,” Flament Smith told The New York Times. “I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be a message from 80 years ago.”
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