Remote Branches Appear in Sourcetree but Not Browser Interface

[Peter M]

I have read over many posts discussing branches that continue to show in Sourcetree even though they have been deleted from the repository. I understand that this is by design and with intention so as to be non-destructive.

I performed a fetch with prune using Sourctree and that cleaned up my local repositories. The local repo is an accurate reflection of the remote (as seen in the browser interface)

I believe that I am experiencing something similar, yet different. I am using Sourcetree v3.2

If we view the Browser interface, I see four branches in the repo that properly reflect our project.  In Sourcetree, the local repo is an accurate reflection of the remote as compared to the Browser UI.

In Sourcetree, I see seven remote branches, three of which don't exist.

If I issue a git command, I also see seven remote branches, three of which don't exist.

git branch -r

I cloned the repository on a different computer, and the clone creates 7 branches, including the three that don't exist.

My question is...  What is the source of the references to these old branches, if they don't exist in the remote repository and they get cloned to a clean computer when they seemingly don't exist on the remote?