A conservationist group in France are concerned and bewildered by the sudden appearance of thousands of strange yellow blobs littering miles of the country's coastline.
The bizarre, sponge-like debris, which has covered beaches along the north of France for the last few days, has yet to be identified by authorities or experts.
And although it is believed that they are non-toxic, no one is quite certain and the conservationist group Sea-Mer say that residents should probably not handle the oddities until their origin can be determined.
Those who have been brave enough to pick up the strange blobs report that they feel greasy as well as brittle and smell somewhat like paraffin wax.
However, considerable debate surrounds their nature with some suggesting that they could come from polyurethane building materials, while others argue that the blobs are paraffin wax.
Neither possibility seems to entirely fit with the composition of the objects and so tests are being conducted on some samples of the blobs to definitively determine what they may be.
Until then, tourists who encounter the gunk along the otherwise-picturesque stretch of French beaches should probably steer clear of the blobs and perhaps stick to sampling the country's famed cuisine instead.
Source: LiveScience