Jan Popp says she wrote the message on behalf of her son Chris, then 10.
The mystery has been solved!
INSIDE EDITION has tracked down the author of the decades-old message in a bottle that was found by a five-year-old boy and his mom last week.
Jan Popp says she handwrote the message for her son, Chris.
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She told INSIDE EDITION: "We thought it would be fun to put a note in a bottle like you see on TV and throw it in the ocean and see what happens."
The message in a bottle was discovered last week by Heather Baird and her son, Ryder, while they walked on the beach in beautiful Mendocino, California.
The note said: “Hi my name is Chris. I am 10 years old and in the 5th grade. I live in Sacramento. Call me when you find this to let me know where it floated to shore.”
The note was dated September 5, 1988 and had a phone number.
The phone number on the message was disconnected long ago but John Lewis of the data analysis company Intellaegis managed to track down the latest number for the owner.
He said: "When I called she immediately said: 'That was my son, wasn't it?' She knew and I texted her the picture and she said: 'I wrote that note.'"
Chris is 38 years old now, and sadly, he and his mom are estranged.
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Jan said that if the message in a bottle brings them together to reconcile it would be like "winning the lottery. It would be better than that."
She added that she can't wait to meet the little boy and his mom who found their note after all these years.
"I think it is a really fun adventure for the little kid that found it," Jan said.
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