For three decades, residents of a French coastal community were baffled by hundreds of Garfield the cat novelty telephones washing up on their shores. But environmentalists have reportedly finally solved the mystery: a lost shipping container. According to BBC News, the Ar Vilantsou anti-litter group started a media blitz about the phones to seek more information about the source of the plastic pollution they kept picking up. In response, a local farmer reportedly said he remembered seeing the Garfield telephones wash up after one stormy day in 1980. The farmer also knew the location of a sea cave, only accessible in low tide, where the shipping container got stuck. The environmentalists and local reporters followed the farmer into the cave, and found the remains of a broken shipping container and more pieces of the Garfield phones. “You had to really know the area well,” the farmer reportedly told local news website Franceinfo. “We found a container aground in a fissure. It was open. Many of the things were gone, but there was a stock of phones.” The container was buried in an inaccessible location inside the cave, making it impossible to remove. Environmentalists will reportedly have to continue picking up orange plastic pieces of Garfield telephones.
