Incredible find in a farmer's field

Remember the romantic story of finding a bottle with a letter in the sea or river? Something similar happened this Sunday in our district. Only this time, instead of the sea – ploughed fields, instead of a bottle – a balloon.

A woman who didn't want to give her name to the editorial office brought a small, thick paper card with handwritten greetings to the newlyweds. It may seem like nothing special – releasing balloons into the sky with greetings tied to them on the occasion of a wedding is a common tradition today. But this time, something else is surprising – the balloon with the message flew to our country from Italy.

– A man was ploughing a field near Daukšiogala forest. He drove past several times, but didn't notice anything. Only when he stopped and got out to clean his tools did he see a balloon lying on the ground. It was unexploded, with a paper card tied to a string. On the back was a request to send it to the owners in Kaltern, Italy, in the South Tyrol region, when the card is found. It is hard to believe that a balloon could have travelled such a long distance. It's very much like the story of a letter in a bottle being washed ashore by the sea," marvelled the wife of the man who found the message. She assured that the card found would be sent to Italy by post, as requested.

In fact, even the editorial staff found it hard to believe that a simple balloon filled with helium gas could have flown such a distance. Usually such balloons explode quite quickly, so a journey of several thousand kilometres seems almost unbelievable.

Driven by curiosity, we searched on Facebook for Simona or Hannes Morandell, who live in Calterno, Italy. This is a German-speaking region of the country, by the way, so it's not surprising that the wish was written in that language.

A day later, we received a reply from Hannes Morandell: "Yes, this card is ours. Where did you find it?“ Although we only communicated by text message, it was easy to sense that the man was surprised by the reply that it was in Lithuania.

On the other side of the card – a request to return the card to its owners if found. Photo by Aida Garastaitė

Then it's our turn to be surprised. Until the last moment, we believed that, although the bride and groom were Italian, the wedding could have taken place somewhere closer to Lithuania. But Hannes' answer surprised us: the wedding took place last Saturday, 13th September, in South Tyrol, Northern Italy. Around a hundred balloons were released into the sky with wishes. The one found in the Pasvalys area was the first one they had heard about.

„It's hard to imagine that a balloon would have travelled so far“, – wondered the Italian.

The small balloon filled with helium gas travelled around 1,500 kilometres in a day.