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Women Find Messages In A Bottle From Day Before 9/11

FENNVILLE, Mich. (CBS Local) -- A mother and daughter were walking along Lake Michigan a few weeks ago when they stumbled across an artifact from one day before the world changed forever.

Amy Gasaway and her daughter Amanda Butler frequently walk the beach at West Side County Park in Fennville in search of treasures. A couple weeks ago, they found something unusual -- a Pepsi bottle with an "open me" sign and three letters inside.

The first letter was written by an Honors English teacher named Diane Flint at Cascade High School in Clayton, Indiana. She explained she had her students write letters and put them in a bottle, hoping they would be found and someone would write them back.

The other two letters were written by Flint's students, Zachary Catlin and John Thomas, both 15 years old at the time.

As Amanda and Amy were reading the letters, they noticed they were dated September 10, 2001, the day before 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"I'm sure they had no clue whatsoever how the world was about to change in front of them," Gasaway told WXMI.

Catlin wrote that he wanted to be a geologist when he grew up and Thomas wrote that he liked to play guitar and sleep.

"It really makes you wonder you know, what these young men have gone through since then," Gasaway says. "There's been a lot of changes since 9/11, since they wrote these."

The women say they want to find Catlin and Thomas to return the letters and see how their lives turned out.

"We're also curious at how many of them came back from their project, you know?" Gasaway says. "Is this maybe one of the last few out there? Were there ever any found, you know? We do have a couple questions for them."

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