Hundreds of pounds of mushy spaghetti, macaroni and ziti were dumped along a creek in Old Bridge Township, N.J., in late April, seemingly out of thin air. Authorities and neighbors alike have no idea how the tangled mountains of noodles ended up in the woods.

Was it an angry chef? An unscrupulous restaurant with excessive surplus? An artist making a statement about food waste?

Baffling photos of the mysterious pasta piles circulated widely on social media after Nina Jochnowitz, a community advocate who unsuccessfully ran for city council in the suburban town several years ago, posted about the incident in local Facebook groups on April 28. A resident had alerted her about the curious heaps of spaghetti, and she went to see the strange scene for herself.

“It’s not the worst thing I’ve seen in these woods,” Jochnowitz said, explaining that “we see a lot of people dumping stuff,” such as discarded furniture, since the township does not offer garbage pickup services.

Still, she was disgusted – and concerned about the potential environmental impact of letting the pasta decompose there. She tried to contact local officials, she said, “and they didn’t respond to email or voicemail.” So, Jochnowitz took to Facebook. What happened next stunned her.

Screenshots of Jochnowitz’s posts, along with the noodle images, started to spread rapidly across social media. People were captivated, and before long, the food-dumping fiasco transitioned from a local grievance to a worldwide pasta puzzle.

“I didn’t expect it to go viral at all,” said Jochnowitz. “I had no idea the global reach of spaghetti.”

Naturally, endless pasta puns were tossed around, particularly on Reddit. Someone shared the story in a New Jersey subreddit thread, writing: “I’m sure the comments will not disappoint. Only in NJ.”

After Nina Jochnowitz shared her images on Facebook, others posted them on Reddit and Twitter. Penne of puns followed. Photo by Nina Jochnowitz

The comments, in fact, did not disappoint. Among the most popular include:

“We should send the perpetrators to the state penne tentiary,” one user wrote.

“The police won’t stop until the perpetrator is aldente-fied,” someone replied.

“It was pasta expiration date,” another person commented.

Ali Allocco, 25, who grew up just outside Old Bridge, was dumbfounded when she came across the post on Reddit.

“When I saw it, I was like, everybody needs to know about this,” said Allocco, who posted the images on Twitter, causing the spaghetti caper to gain even more attention.

“Someone very mysteriously dumped 3-400 pounds of pasta in the woods in old bridge, nj . . .. . . i need to know everything,” she tweeted on May 2.

Since then, her tweet has been viewed nearly 4 million times. While she didn’t anticipate that her post would gain that much traction, she understands why it did.

“It really is just such an absurd thing to see,” she said, emphasizing the “perfect-looking piles” of pasta. “No one expects to see hundreds of pounds of pasta in the woods. The weirdness of it all really struck people.”

Following her tweet, more puns and jokes ensued.

“Some people will commit illegal dumping fusilli reasons. Obviously it’s a mystery but we cannoli know so much about what happened,” one person tweeted.

“Headed to old bridge with a fork right this instant,” someone else wrote.

They also came up with possible theories to explain the pasta enigma. Many people pointed fingers at Strega Nona from Tomie dePaola’s popular children’s picture book about a “grandma witch,” whose magic pot produces so much pasta, it almost floods an entire town in Calabria.

“She has been very quiet. . .” someone wrote.

Regardless of how the pasta got there, the story is “super New Jersey,” Allocco said, noting that there’s a large Italian American population in the state. About 17 percent of New Jersey’s population – including Allocco – is of Italian heritage. “I think that’s why it pulled me in.”

While the pasta problem has brought a lot of jokes, dumping food in the forest is no laughing matter. Food scraps left in the wilderness can take several years to biodegrade, and in the process, they can threaten local wildlife.

“It’s an environmental contamination,” said Jochnowitz, adding that her goal in sharing the photos on Facebook was to “embarrass the township into doing their job.”

Once officials were made aware of the pasta piles, the Department of Public Works “visited the site and did in fact find what appeared to be 15 (wheelbarrow) loads of illegal dumped pasta along a creek in a residential neighborhood,” Himanshu Shah, the business administrator for Old Bridge Township, wrote in an email to The Washington Post.

Once a police report was generated, two DPW employees cleaned the area, and “were able to load all of the pasta in under an hour and properly dispose of it,” Shah said, adding that the incident is currently under investigation. Shah said he believes it was cleaned up on April 28, the day of Jochnowitz’s first Facebook post.

Contrary to the popular idea on social media that the pasta was cooked, authorities say otherwise.

“We would estimate several hundred pounds of uncooked pasta that was removed from the packaging and then dumped along the creek,” Shah wrote in his email. “It looks like it was only there for a short time but moisture did start to soften some of the pasta.”

While authorities try to track down the pasta perpetrator, the internet will continue speculating about who would commit such a crime.

“Sounds like the work of Rig-a-Tony!” one Reddit user wrote.

“He was actually framed. . .orzo I’m told,” someone replied.