Ammon News - A postcard lost in the mail for 72 years arrived at an Illinois post office, where officials were able to track down and contact the now-88-year-old sender.

The postcard, which was sent by Alan Ball to his parents, Frederic and Elizabeth Ball, in 1953, arrived recently at the Ottawa Post Office, where Postmaster Mark Thompson took an interest in the mystery.

Thompson said the card, which depicts the U.N. building in New York, was likely mishandled at the post office inside the United Nations and ended up lost in a crevice or other unseen location for decades before finding itself back in circulation.

The postmaster enlisted the help of local genealogists to locate Alan Ball, who now lives in Sandpoint, Idaho.

Ball, who was shown a digital image of the card, said he recognized his own handwriting, but he doesn't remember mailing the card. He does, however, remember spending a short time in New York on his way to a summer trip to Puerto Rico in 1953.

The postcard's 72-year journey pales in comparison to a similar incident that occurred last year when a postcard arrived at its intended address in Swansea, Wales, 121 years after the date on its postmark. A Royal Mail spokeswoman speculated the postcard had somehow re-entered the system, as opposed to being lost in transit for over a century. UPI