Solution: Message in a Bottle
Answer: LETTER FROM HAWAII
Written by aki
To start, we might note that the flavor text tells us that we found these images are cutouts of a larger image. With some searching, we find that these are parts of stamps from around the world. (This can also be found relatively easily by searching the first set of images up.) After identifying a couple of the stamps, we find that every (picture) image in the first set matches with a (caption) image in the second set. In addition, the caption lines of each stamp are missing one letter from the corresponding original stamp.
We note that the first set of images are ordered alphabetically by their country of origin (which is also the order given in the table). The second set of images are ordered alphabetically by the line in their caption (ignoring numbers).
| Country | Original stamp | Matching (error) caption | Missing letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Afghanistan |  |
IVe JEUX OLY_PIQUES ASIATIQUES DJAKARTA 1962 | M |
| Australia |  |
Ngukurr Wi Stad_ Bla Kantri | I |
| Brazil |  |
_OMENAGEM AO BRIGADEIRO EDUARDO GOMES | H |
| Canada |  |
LADY'S S_IPPER | L |
| Denmark |  |
TREBENE_ SKALSTOL HANS J. WEGNER | T |
| Finland |  |
LEEVI MAD_TOJA | E |
| India |  |
STEGODON GANES_ | A |
| Kazakhstan |  |
I want to wipe tea_ from every eye. | R |
| Kenya |  |
14 LIFE BELOW _ATER | W |
| Nigeria |  |
YANK_RI GAME RESERVE | A |
| Singapore |  |
N_LA | I |
| Spain |  |
PRO FIDE ET A_TIBUS | R |
| Sweden |  |
_EGNÉR | T |
| Turkey |  |
25. DÜNYA ÜNIVERSITELER KIŞ _YUNLARI ERZURUM 2011 | O |
| UK |  |
Nuclear pow_r | E |
| USA |  |
_ower | F |
Since we have one letter per country, we can place these letters on a map of the world as clued by “mapping” in the flavor text. Doing so, we can read off the answer to this puzzle, LETTER FROM HAWAII.
