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Modern Mysteries

Decades-old Garfield phones mystery solved

By T.K. Randall
March 28, 2019 · Comment icon 6 comments

The novelty phones were quite popular in the 80s. Image Credit: YouTube / godzillafood
Since the 1980s, Garfield-themed telephones have been washing up along France's picturesque Iroise coast.
The plastic phones, which were designed to resemble the orange cartoon feline, started to wash up on the region's beaches almost 40 years ago and continue to be found even to this day.

The novelty telephones have become so prolific in fact that last year the Ar Vilantsou anti-litter group decided to make them an official symbol of plastic pollution on the region's beaches.

While it has long been suspected that the phones have been coming from a shipping container, determining exactly where the container might be has long proven a challenge.
Now though, a local farmer who recalled seeing the first Garfield phone wash up after a storm in the early 1980s has finally been able to reveal exactly where the container is.

"You had to really know the area well," he said. "We found a container aground in a fissure. It was open. Many of the things were gone, but there was a stock of phones."

Ar Viltansou members have since followed his directions to locate the remains of the container in a cave along the shoreline where it appears to have been half-buried under large rocks for years.

Given that it's stuck tight however, it's likely that beachgoers in the region will be finding Garfield telephones washed up on the sand for many more years to come.



Source: BBC News | Comments (6)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by the13bats 5 years ago
floating about in one local for 35 years, pretty cool, i cant recall how many notes in a bottle i tossed in the daytona coast in the 80s, not one contact back....yet.
Comment icon #2 Posted by acute 5 years ago
Not as "bright orange" as they're supposed to be.  They've obviously been through a whale.
Comment icon #3 Posted by Seti42 5 years ago
I know plastic in the ocean is bad. But, this...This is just hilarious to me.
Comment icon #4 Posted by the13bats 5 years ago
i used to use those import beer bottles with the bail and ceramic top, it was the 80s i didnt know shamu might not like it, a friend whose dad died and was cremated wanted to be scattered in the sea, he was navy, my buddy was kind of like curly from the 3 stooges, we get out on the pier he whips out "dad" its some small sealed black box, he starts trying to open it and gets frustrated beats it on the pier it busts, dad goes everywhere box goes in the drink... why cant i forget such things?
Comment icon #5 Posted by Maureen_jacobs 5 years ago
Daytona eh?  Hi neighbor 
Comment icon #6 Posted by the13bats 5 years ago
i lived in orlando 46 years then about 4 years back we moved to eustis, im not a "sun" person but used to dirt pirate and haunt the boardwalk before it went yuppie 


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