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For anyone unaware of the fact, the province of British Columbia in Canada and the state of Washington in the US have seen 16 disembodied feet wash ashore over the last decade or so. Something strange enough in itself, but made all the more strange when no body is ever washed up afterward to aid in the identification of who the foot belonged to.

That's a lot of stray feet.






The theories of how the feet got out to sea and eventually washed up ashore vary, however here are the four most credible scenarios:

1. People Dying at Sea
The most obvious source is people dying at sea as a consequence of boating or plane accidents. However if this is the case, the authorities exhibit a strange inability to connect the feet with any such incidents. And why – of all bodyparts – is it the feet and only the feet washing up? Both of the above go a way to throw some serious doubt on this satisfactorly explaning the origins of the feet.

2. Asian Earthquake Tsunami
There have been suggestions the feet belonged to victims of the tsunami that impacted Asia after the Indian earthquake in 2004. The pre-2004 manufacture date of some of the shoes supports this thesis, and the ocean currents have a tendency to carry stuff from the region hit by the tsunami to that part of the North American coast. Some very unusual objects have washed up on the North American continent after the Asian Earthquake and tsunami after all, so some feet wouldn't be so out of the orinary considering how many people were drowned and washed out to sea in the aftermath of the 2004 natural disaster.

3. Foul Play/Bodies Dumped at Sea
Foul play is another possibility. Perhaps the feet belonged to persons murdered and disposed of in the ocean, possibly weighed down, only for the feet to dislocate after a certain amount of decay, and float loose. Whether, according to this theory, these victims where part of organised criminality or victims of serial killing, who knows. Something to note however, is the feet are often still wearing trainers, which are naturally buoyant, so a body dumped or lost at sea, even a body weighed down by something ― the most likely limb to find its way back to shore is a foot wearing a trainer.

4. Suicides
The owners of a couple of the feet have been identified, both are strongly suspected to have committed suicide by jumping from the Pattullo Bridge in New Westminster, B.C., in or around 2004. This potentially sheds light on where the other feet came from: if the current brought the feet of both these people from that bridge to the Salish sea coast, it perhaps follows that more people committed suicide there, unbeknownst either to their family or the authorities.




Experts investigating this case have noted finding feet and only feet as highly unusual, its that part that injects the element of mystery into the whole thing, as random body parts washing ashore, although infrequent, is not such an unusual occurrence across the beaches of the world. But just feet in, relatively, such a small stretch of coastline is unusual indeed.

However as definitive statements go, or conclusions that might actually hold water, the evidence is too scarce. A solution seems most likely to fall within the extremes of the entirely mundane or the altogether more sinister. With all available evidence unable to satisfactorly corroborate the one extreme over the other.

In a future edition of this series I'll cover the issue of the high number of disappearances in national parks in the US, and the possible connection with the Salish Sea feet, a connection that has been mooted elsewhere. But for now, thanks for taking the time to read, and if you would like to read previous editions of my Mystery series click below: