Liz Maloney-Triplett does it a few times a week. From her home in Falmouth, Massachussets, she makes her way down to Cape Cod’s Menauhant Beach, and takes a stroll along the shore.

How could she possibly know that on one of the walks, one day, would confront her with a nationwide viral mystery, a Gold Star family from Oregon, and the tragic memory of their young soldier son who was killed while serving in Afghanistan two years ago — all in one fell swoop?

“I just came upon it,” she told the Cape Cod Times. “I wanted to get this back to whomever it belongs to.”

The band (pictured above) is what she came across recently, amid her relaxing routine. It’s metallic and silver-like in color, and reads “SPC. JOHN A. PELHAM, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM.”

According to the Cape Cod Times, “Pelham served as an intelligence analyst with the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Special Forces Group of the U.S. Army.” He was struck by small-arms fire while fighting in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province.

Upon making the discovery, and as quick as she could, Maloney-Triplett went online, in hopes she could successfully track down next of kin and return the sacred piece of jewelry. Incredibly, she did, finding Pelham’s name in a story about Veterans Day in Portland, Oregon. Shen then connected to his family through the TV station that originally published the post.

Funny thing, though. When the Pelhams were told the news, somehow they were just as puzzled as Maloney-Triplett when she first saw it lying in the New England sand.

They have no idea who made the wristlet or where it came from.

There were, of course, bracelets like the one Maloney-Triplett found, when Pelham died (about 30 of them, the family said), but the one lost or left on the Cape Cod is “different in width, wording and font.”

“This is the closest to a message in a bottle I’ve ever gotten, but in a weird way, I think it was John sending a message, ‘Hey, come find me. I’ve never met him, never heard of the name, you know, I just — something said, ‘Go to the beach.'”