Someone finally figured out why Garfield phones have been washing up on a beach for over 30 years

One of the oddest mysteries we've heard in a while has been solved after a group has uncovered why parts of novelty Garfield phones have been washing up on France's Brittany coast for the past 30-plus years.

For years, random pieces, including headsets and Garfield faces have been found along this stretch of beach. French news outlet FranceInfo reports that around 200 Garfield phone-related pieces were found in 2018 alone.

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And now it seems the culprit has been identified: a lost shipping container. After a previous report on lost shipping containers and pollution caused by their contents was published in February by FranceInfo, a man who lived along the coast contacted Ar Vilantsou, an anti-litter group, about the phones.

Nothing creepy about this at all. Credit: FRED TANNEAU/AFP/Getty Images

The man, René Morvan, told FranceInfo that after a big storm in the 1980s (when Garfield was at his popularity peak), his brother and he saw the container crashed along the shore following a big storm, with the phones spilling out.

With that info in hand, members of Ar Vilantsou and the media found the source of all the phones: the remains of the container, lodged in a cave.

If you want to see more of the scraps found over the years, the Ar Vilantsou Facebook page is filled with pollution photos, including those of the Garfield phones, remnants of the past that remind us when a lasagna-loving cat ruled the pop culture world.

Just because they found the source, though, doesn't mean pieces of these old phones will stop washing ashore. What's left of container remains impossible to access and there are probably still hundred of pieces of the phones floating around, just waiting to make their way to shore. It's been at least 30 years, after all.

So the clean-up will continue, just proving how much lasting damage Garfield has done to the world.