New Jersey – A man picking up trash in New Jersey's wetlands discovered a mysterious message in a bottle. As soon as he peeked inside, he knew it was something special. His find really warmed the author's heart.

"I was like, 'Wow … the bottle's old,’" John Kauterman told CBC Radio about his discovery.

"And I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, we got a good one here," he added.

Kauterman, co-founder of the non-profit Tidelands Initiative, spends a lot of time cleaning up the wetlands. This pastime leads him to many messages in bottles, but this one was different.

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"This bottle was set adrift on August 20, 1973, on Second Street Beach, Ocean City, as my captors were transporting me to an island offshore in the Atlantic," the message in the 53‑year‑old Coca‑Cola glass bottle reads.

It continued: "Please notify my family that a band of ruthless sponge fishermen are forcing me to dive for them in shark-infested waters. Please return this note to my home. You may have saved my life! Thank you! Laurie Blair."

Kauterman jumped into action and shared a picture of the message on Facebook. While he didn't find Laurie Blair, he did manage to locate the actual author of the desperate-sounding letter– Laurie's sister, Allison Spencer.

Allison Spencer, who now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, gave the all-clear right away. The message in the bottle was a fantastical tall tale.

The two sisters made up and wrote the story together over 50 years ago.

Unfortunately, Laurie was never reunited with her message.

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"My sister passed away nine years ago. She had breast cancer, and she died only in her 50s, and I really miss her a lot," Allison explained.

Allison is convinced that Laurie would have loved this turn of events, because she loved wild stories.

"It seems very miraculous to me that this note came back to me," the biology teacher told CBC.

As Allison dearly misses her sister, having the note come back is powerful: "It's really a wonderful, special thing to me that the note came back."