After 30 years, they solved the mystery of Garfield's cat phones on Brittany's beaches in France

For more than 30 years, a mystery has rocked the beaches of Brittany, located in the west of France. In the 1980s, a miniature phone shaped like the famous Garfield cat was manufactured. thousands have been sold. Over the years began to appear periodically the remains of these phones on the picturesque beaches. Until 2018, the authorities collected more than 200 coins.

Precisely last year, the activists of the group Ar Viltanswhere They used this toy as a symbol of their campaign against plastic pollution on the beaches of Finistère.

The campaign, widely circulated by local media, drew the attention of a local farmer called René Morvan. His intervention was fundamental to solving the mystery.

The man said that in the early 1980s, after a severe storm, I had discovered a broken container filled with Garfield phones. "At that time, I was between 19 and 20. I remember that there had been a big storm. With my brother, we saw phones everywhere on the beach. We are just kids from the coast, we decided to go see what it was, "he said.

This is how he found a shipping container lost and stuck in an isolated marine cave. Morvan explained that access was not easy: "We had to know the region well to find out.We found a half-destroyed container, it was open and most objects that it were missing, but there were a lot of phones. "

With this testimony, several members of Ar Viltansoù have moved to this place. After years of research, the mystery has finally been solved. The group was able to find the container.

"We found this fault at 30 meters deep, and deep inside were the remains of a container", explained Thursday at the AFP agency Claire Simonin-Le Meur, president of the badociation, which ensures the cleanliness of the beaches of the region.

"Our badociation has existed for 18 years and since we are here, we find Garfield phones almost every cleaning", the famous orange cat created by the American artist Jim Davis in 1978, Simonin told.

Franceinfo explained that during the descent of the slippery rocks to the cave, the expedition team discovered the remains of a transport container destroyed. Right there, among the rocks, were the mysterious phones.

However, always missing details of the story. "We have no idea what happened at that time, where it came from, which ship, we do not know if several containers fell into the water or where if only one fell, "he explained. Fabien Boileau, director of the Iroise Marine Nature Park, who also visited the cave.

According to the World Shipping Council (WSC), the badociation of container shippers from around the world, dropped 1,390 containers at the sea in 2017, estimate probably lower than reality for incidents or statements of victims deliberately concealed.