Out of the ashes of time, a man's cremated ashes have mysteriously appeared at a San Diego car wash 17 years after his death.
The man's name is Henry Efebvre and a box containing his ashes was recently left behind at OB Suds, a car wash in San Diego.
However, the sticker on the box said Efebvre's dust dated back to 1995, a detail that perplexed Liz Greene of the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association, which is currently holding the box until the owner can be found.
"It kind of put me in a panic," Greene told KGTV-TV. "It weighed a lot and I was worried because the bag it was in was kind of dusty. What was I touching? Was I being pranked?"
She wasn't. The car wash owner found the mysterious metal box on Monday, the Associated Press reported. When no one claimed it, the owner took it to the association for safekeeping.
KGTV-TV was able to track the box to Secure Crematorium in Santa Ana, but a spokesman said the company only keeps records of the names of people who've been cremated for 10 years and wasn't able to provide more information.
Since the initial story, Greene said a person who is adept at online research was able to figure out that Efebvre was born in Arizona in 1901 and died in Newport Beach, Ca., in 1995.
But that doesn't explain who was in possession of the ashes.
"You can purchase info on who signed out the ashes from the mortuary, but we're hoping someone else takes the bait -- like a news station -- and connects the ashes with whoever left them in the car wash," Greene told The Huffington Post.
If that doesn't happen, the mystery could vanish like a cloud of dust.
UPDATE AND CORRECTION: An earlier story mentioned the ashes being those of Henry Efebvre. Family members have contacted the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association to explain the ashes are actually Henry Lefebvre. A family member is expected to pick up the ashes by mid-November.