Man finds 47-years-old graduation ring in the ocean—goes on a heist to find its rightful owner

It's rare to recover something lost to the vastness of the ocean, especially after years have passed. But if fate reunites you with it, consider yourself truly lucky. Something similar happened to Morgan Perigo who had lost his graduation ring during a family trip to Barbados in 1977. Long after he gave up hope of ever finding his ring, Perigo had no idea that he would unexpectedly reunite with it forty-seven years later, thanks to Alex Davis, a diver in Barbados. According to a report by CHCH News claims that freediver Davis found the lost alumni ring when he was trying out a new underwater metal detector at Miami Beach in Barbados.

"I see this shiny gold band sticking out of the sand and my eyes just kind of lit up. I had a brief moment where I kind of did the whole Lord of the Rings Gollum, you know, ‘Precious!’ after seeing that," he shared with the news outlet. Further, another report by CNN says that Davis initially got hold of nails, bottle caps and coins when he began searching underwater. However, after analyzing, he found that the coins that he found are from the 70's and 80's. It was a clear indication for the professional freediver that he was certainly in a "zone where we’ve clearly got a lot of old stuff.” 

Interestingly, Davis' metal detector started beeping in an unusual tone. An excited Davis started digging and After filtering through layers of sand, dead coral and rock, he unearthed a ring with a dark red stone in the center. Later, when Davis returned to the land, he observed “McMaster University 1965,” and the initials “FMP” engraved on the ring. “Once I saw that, I was like, ‘Okay, there’s, definitely enough information here to try and get this back to the person. We’ve got, the school, we’ve got the graduation year, we’ve got three initials,'" he added. What followed after this incident was Davis' strong determination to find the owner of the ring and surprise him with the valuable item he had lost years ago. 

Davis started with his hunt for the ring's owner and the first thing he did was to message McMaster University's general alumni email alias, as informed by Karen McQuigge, the director of alumni engagement for the school. In his email, he explained how he discovered the ring and the text on it that might help the university identify the ring's owner. Their search turned out fruitful as they came across Frederick Morgan Perigo and the university immediately informed him. 

“Thankfully, Morgan is a really good graduate and kept up his information with the university after all these years. So that was the other worry that we had, 1965 is quite a while ago. Would the person still be living?” McQuigge said. Moreover, she stated that Perigo was taken aback when he was told about his graduation ring. After the university shared Davis' contact details with Perigo, he contacted him and expressed his gratitude for his efforts to return the long-lost ring. 

Davis said, “So, it was like, oh my God! this story just can’t get any better. Not only did we find it after 47 years at the bottom of the sea? But also, I found it, you know, a week before his birthday.” He then wrapped up the ring and couriered it to Perigo before his birthday. “That ring has been underwater for 47 years, so I’m fairly confident he pretty much moved on from it and figured it was gone forever,” he added.