Paul Grisham's wallet was missing for so long at the bottom of the world he forgot all about it. Fifty-three years later, the 91-year-old San Diego man has the billfold back along with mementos of his 13-month assignment as a Navy meteorologist on Antarctica in the 1960s.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
"I was just blown away," Grisham told The San Diego Union-Tribune after the wallet was returned on Saturday. "There was a long series of people involved who tracked me down."
Grisham enlisted in the Navy in 1948. He became a weather technician and then a weather forecaster. He was assigned to Antarctica as part of "Operation Deep Freeze," which supported civilian scientists and shipped out to the frozen continent in October 1967. At the time, he was in his 30s and married with two toddlers.
At some point while down on "The Ice," Grisham lost the wallet, something he later forgot about.
It was found behind a locker in 2014 during demolition of a building at McMurdo Station on Antarctica's Ross Island. But finding its owner took emails, Facebook messages and letters exchanged among a group of amateur sleuths.
