Message In A Bottle

His owner was amazed to find a message in a bottle sent, not from the sunken luxury liner, but from an archaeology survey ship helping to make a new documentary film about the Titanic.

Property developer Frank Fulker unscrewed the plastic bottle's top and inside was a note to the finder, asking them to forward a letter to an address in New York.

Both are signed by Charles Pellegrino, and dated September 3, 2001. The writer explains that he is sending messages in bottles because a fault on the survey vessel's satellite communications makes it impossible to use telephones, or send and receive e-mails.

He says the Russian ship, Keldysh, has submarines capable of going 2.5 miles down and that he is working on the documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss, about the Titanic, with director James Cameron, who also shot the oscar-winning blockbuster, Titanic.

Said Mr Fulker, who lives at nearby Golden Acre: "The notes were in remarkably condition considering all the time they had been in the water. They were written on what looked like the back of Russian navigation charts."

According to cinema internet websites, the documentary is due for release in the autumn and Mr Pellegrino is listed as one of four historians on the expedition. On his own website, he is described as a leading space scientist, archaeologist and science fiction writer.

Mr Fulker is now forwarding the message to Mr Pellegrino's partner's home in New York.