Thinking Sideways: The Salish Sea Feet

Why are you talking so fast? I don't know if you have a lot of sugar to This story just kind of excites me, and I think I'm excited because Joe always kind of solves mysteries. I think we can actually solve this one. So I'm just like ready to go. Alright, alright, let's have us do it. Okay, what are we doing. Here's the facts. We're doing the severed feet of the Salish Sea. Ah, so the mystery is a foot alright, alright, so ready, yeah, I'm gonna go back into it, all right, Okay.

August two thousand and seven, A severed foot in a running shoe washes up on the shore of a beach in Canada. Since then, twelve more feet have been found. The likelihood of finding two feet in the situation is estimated at one in one million. Who who calculated those odds? How exactly do you calculate? How you calculate those odds? I think he's the wind pattern and the stars and everything aligned, ocean patterns. Ocean pattern You probably just go to the there's a web page, I have no doubt.

I've never seen it. You go out to made up statistics dot com. You can go to that one. Now, I think there's probably a webpage just to voted to severed feet somewhere on the web. The numbers and now yeah, yeah, So four of the feet have been identified as belonging to two people, two separate people, but the rest of them belonged to persons unknown, and the reasons for the severed feet washing up has not been discovered. So they

were actually identifiably associated with named persons two of them. Well, I'm sorry, four of the feet to two of the people. Yeah, okay, And so what were the circumstances under which these people drowned or we're okay, so we're gonna go for this one. I think it's probably best to just go foot by foot. There's so many puns in this episode. I'm so sorry. We're just gonna go like one foot and the other front of the other. Yeah, you know, the Journey of

a thousand miles and all that. Alright, So the first foot was found by a girl who was visiting Canada from the state of Washington on August two thousand and seven. She was walking along the beach and she saw this athletic shoe and it had a sock in it, and she thought, I know, I'll look in that sock. I don't know why she thought that. She regretted it didn't she did. She was like, oh, maybe there's some stand

in here. Cool, I guess I don't know what in your brain like you go, I don't I don't know why I see. You know, I see a shoe on the beach. I just thought of actually assumed that's a severed limb of some sort in there and well anywhere. So she opened up the sock and there was a foot in there. Well, now there's probably like a like an ankle. Yeah, I was, you're right, she saw an ankle and she and was like, oh, they put two

and two together and assumed it was right. And you know, eventually it was extracted and find whatever they figured out was a human foot. They figured out it was a human foot belonging to a man in the shoe was a twelve. Okay, Well it was a kind of shoe that was produced in two thousand three only and mainly distributed in India, so it wasn't a major brand, okay. I I thought that the first one that they found was like a recognizable like Nike or Adidas. Yeah, that

it was Adida's. Yeah, I thought that too, but as I got further into the research, it didn't actually mention that. Okay, okay, it must be well, there's there's so many feet that it's hard to keep them strange. Yeah. So, and that one's a little bit of an anomaly because it does initially it says that of an Adida's size twelve, but then it goes on to say that it was just

a random kind of shoe. So I don't totally know, and maybe other people can suss out more information in my research, it wasn't Yeah, yeah, I wasn't positive you this why I asked, Yeah, okay, okay, so we've got this seize wave shoe. So one Okay. The second foot was found on August two thousand and seven, which is six days later in the grand scheme of things. That's a pretty close time. Yeah, that is UM in two thousand seven, so just six days later this time it

was discovered by a couple. Um. It was also the foot of a man. It was water logged, and it had signs of being brought to shore by an animal instead of UM for currents or tides or whatever. Okay, yeah, kind of animal, that's a good question. I don't know. I would guess it was on the beach. Who do you see running around on on the beach all the time that picks up shoes dogs? Probably a dog, maybe a dog or like a seal or something. Could have

been a seal or something. Yeah, slipper. So this kind of shoe that they found on this foot had been discontinued in two thousand and four. The third foot was found on February eight, two eight. It was also a man's foot, UM, also wearing a sneaker in a sock. This kind of shoe was sold in Canada and the US between February one and June two thousand three. Okay, the more these dates will become important in a minute.

But yeah, I'm just as I'm running here, I'm like, Okay, most of these shoes are about three or four years old when they're found. Okay. Um. So the fourth foot was found on May twenty twond two thousand eight. It was a sock and a sneaker. This time the foot belonged to a woman. However, the sneaker she was wearing had been manufactured only in Okay, so even older. Okay, this is getting weirder. Okay. So the fifth foot was found on June six, two eight m. It was floating

in the water. It wasn't on the land because I guess at this point people are looking for feet, you know. Okay, Okay, I want to say something about that because that was one of the funny things that I found when I was doing the research. Is somebody said, well, it's crazy that we're finding all of these severed feet, but people are aware of it because the media has got ahold

of it. So now every time a person sees a shoe flowing in the water, they weighed out and grab it to see if it's got a foot in it. So that's something I would necessarily do. I wouldn't either. But I think, you know, it's kind of the when you don't know that all these feet are being found on the beach kind of where you are you think, oh, sneaker, Yeah, you just it's a piece of trash, right, Yeah, I probably walked past several severed feet in my lifetime and

you don't know. So this foot, through DNA testing, was found to be the left foot of the third foot that was found. So the third foot was a right foot, so they were matching parents. There was a matching pair. Okay, yeah, the joke in there somewhere. So the sixth foot was found on August first, two thousand eight UM, and it

was covered in seaweeds. So again this kind of goes back to the like people are kind of actively looking for feet and yeah, you see a sneaker covered in sneak seaweed and you're like, awesome, another foot, Yeah, another severed foot. They were bit more to you because imagine the number of people that that didn't turn into the authorities and instead to come yeah for souvenirs. Yeah, that's really disturbing, really disturbing. That's awful. Never to show me

your sneaker collection, please, actually let me get it. So this one was a size eleven. It was a right foot, um, and it was in a large black top shoe. I've seen pictures of this. It's also a sneaker. It's like, you know, like the air Jordans or whatever. It's a high top kind of okay, And it contained bones and human flesh. And this one was found in Washington State in the United States, not Canada. This is the one on August one. Yes, okay, al right, so this is

the first time they crossed the border. It's a long walk. This show is the punniest. Sorry, I can't help myself. So the seventh foot was found on November eleventh, two thight. It was also found floating. It was also a woman foot, and via d DNA testing, it was found to be the mate of that fourth foot, the woman's first yeah okay, yeah, um. So the eighth foot was found on October eighth, two

thousand nine, inside a running shoe. The ninth foot was found on August, also in Washington State, and somehow it was determined that the foot had been in water for two months. It's been floating around for two months in the water. Maybe it's like how much water, how water logged it is, how much decomposition and stuff like that, or nibbling by fishes. But so they actually made a determination for the ninth foot, but they hadn't done it for any of the previous feed Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe it's so it's getting a little This one also is a little weird because size wise, they suggested this foot was either like a small footed woman or a juvenile, and it was. It was us a foot. It wasn't found with a sneaker. Oh, so this was a barefoot just floating along and floating in the water or on the beach. It was on the beach, I believe. Yeah, but it had been in the water previously, because we'll get into this, but feet by themselves don't float very well, exactly.

They flowed a lot better when they have fluffy little tennis shoes. Absolutely. So they sent this foot out for DNA testing and the tests were inconclusive. Um. The tenth foot was found on December five, also in Washington, but in like Tacoma that's quite away really south compared to are they've been finding most of these feet for for anybody who doesn't know. So we were right on the border of the state of Washington and Canada, and that's

where Seattle is essentially. And then and these things are all happening right in that area for Seattle, and like Vancouver b C. Yeah, kind of pretty close. And then to go to Tacoma, our plus drive in a card free was speed. So we're looking at sixty plus seventy plus miles farther south. Yeah, that's quite a distance, which makes me suspect that that one's a copycat. Maybe it totally Maybe seven Get my foot in the news, Get a foot in the door. Um So that foot was

also very small. Um it was found in a hiking boot. Uh. And it was a boy's size six, So either like a juvenile or a small adult. To give you to size reference, that's the size that my foot is. People that are not in the studio, you probably were. I would say you were a men's six or seven. I wear a women's six or seven, which is a boy's six. Okay. Well, obviously I don't buy small shoes, which is a men's like four. Okay. Anyway, A picture of never Mind foot

will be posted on the website, so that'll be good reference. Yes, the eleventh foot was then discovered on August eleven. So we're getting to like fairly recent four years this has been happening. Okay, that this one had a bonus, Yeah, I did have a bonus. The bonus was a lake bone, um, and it was found to be floating in a marina. So this one's, you know, again, kind of an anomaly pattern.

The twelfth foot was found November four, two eleven, however, was identified as belonging to a local fisherman to the area where this was found that had disappeared in seven And where was that found? Yeah, it was found in a lake nearby the sea. So this one is like total, a total anomally. Yeah, this is not really they lump it in. Yeah, so the lake and the river and everything. It's close, okay, close, all right, I'm ruling that one

out of the list, but yeah, I agree. But thirteen was found attached to a leg bone in a plastic bag in Seattle, Washington, floating under a bridge, extra style dexter style. Really, so that one another anomaly, and then the one is also an anomaly, which they I don't know why. Generally it's generally accepted that these are all lumped in together. But I don't. I don't because it's phenomena of feet. Yeah. Well, the thing is is that there have been some feet appearing like on the east

coast in in Florida, things like that. They're not lumped in with this case. It's just on the west coast. But this one was found on September two thousand and thirteen in San Francisco, California, which, like, I just feel like if there is any connection between these feet, that foot is not connected. Yeah, well, um, it could be. But so was this one the one that was found in San Francisco. Was it also in a running shoe? Yeah?

It was. Yeah. And then there's one more foot. Um. It was found in July of two thousand eight um and identified by DNA testing to have belonged to a man who was suicidal, and there's been no further information released due to the family's request. So that was that you're presenting that with a little out of order just

because of the circumstances. Okay, So now that that you confuse me when you jump back in time, I got, I got so Okay, So let's let's be very clear here that one has been identified to a real person who people know. The other ones that have been identified have not been identified to people, just that they match each other. They've just been made it together, but we don't know who. They don't know that they belong to. Okay, So now, but the July foot that was found where

also in the sea. Okay, And it was like and and presumably this guy jumped off a ship or he jumped off a bridge. Yeah, was what the kind of theory was. He was known to be suicidal out of respect, he had his history, and he lived near one of the bridge. There's a theory floating around were terrible people. This is a bad one for that. There's a theory floating around. But these feet may belong to um. There's

a lot of theories flitting around. One of them is that there's a serial murderer that has a foot fetish. What listen? Okay, so I guess the theory is like this is sound kind of a little bit that they it's Dexter style totally. They kill these people, They take them out into the ocean, they cut off their feet and then drop everything into the ocean to the sea, and their feet float away and the body sink. And that's why they're all because this person has been active

in this area area at this time. Okay, now, but but this is easily provable because then the feet would have been severed by a bone, so presumably so that would be evidence. But if I'm wrong, and I don't know if you're going to go into the decomposition process that is happeningly, because that, I think is where that part lose that piece of the puzzle. No, I don't. I don't think the bone really decomposes the way flesh does in water. Well, you're absolutely correct, and we'll get

into this in just a minute. I think this theory is total bunk. Okay, yeah, serial killer stupid if there's so many things that doesn't explain, especially one of the things that doesn't explain is that if there is a serial killer in this area and he's dumping a bunch of bodies, there would be so many people that has been reported missing, and they could have told they've DNA tested all of these different shoes with all the different feet that have the shoes on that and that would

be would have been a washing on shore. Absolutely, And also if he had a foot fetish, wouldn't you think he'd keep the I think so, Yeah, Yeah, that was my other thing. I mean, he'd keep him a surprise, not chuck him over last and free, you know. I mean, on the other hand, maybe he had an anti foot fetish. He felt the feet were hideous and unclean, so he chopped them off and kept the rest of the corpse for his collection. Yeah, and then threw them in the city.

But yeah, it's all it's not really incredible. Let's talk about decomposition. He was talking about what happens because the body is decaying and water. We're just talking about how upsetting the term deep loving was right recently. This is not as upsetting, but it's still pretty grows, still pretty gross. So what happens is it just begins, I mean, to decay right here in the water, and your flesh and your muscles start to decay, but your bones don't really decay.

So what happens is your body starts to break apart at the weak points. What are your weak points? Joints? What's one of the weakest of the joints, your ankle, especially if it's attached to a big floaty thing and the weight of your body is dragging it out there. Yeah, so that's the theory kind of where people are going

with why we've been discovering these feet. We I'm one of the discoverers why these feet have kind of been discovered and they were attached to like because you notice that they're all athletic shoes, which would float most as Oxfords for example, wouldn't probably most of them, you know, there's Doc Doc Martin's probably we've got the bare foot. We've got a foot and a hiking shoe. And I don't know about you guys, but my hiking boots have

never been particularly seeming buoyant. Maybe they are. They might be um, but there could be like an air pocket. So that's kind of the theory as to why we're finding these things. And so they float, okay, they float, and the flat On top of that, you've got the fact that it's estimated that body will pretty much stay intact for about three years, um, you know, breaking off at the week. That won't look too hot, it won't look it's not gonna look good, but it's not going

to be crushed. It's still kind of identifiable. Not only do bodies kind of resemble themselves for three years, but it's estimated that a foot could float as far as one thousand miles in the sea. And the thing is, if I would think that it could go a lot further potentially, But if you think about it, a foot that is encased in a sock, in a shoe normally, if it was exposed, let's no shoe, no sock, it's got to start breaking down and all those little bones

are going to work their way out. The whole thing is gonna tread apart. Whereas when it's stuck inside of a container for lack of a better text, for the most part, it's gonna be relatively in original condition. And other than the fact that it's water loged't or hearts, it's got bump, everything's still going to be stuck in there, because if you think about it, unless you're wearing those little athletics booty socks that for running socks, those are what they are. Socks tend to come up just a

little bit above the ankle. So as soon as what's above the ankle goes away, they close up and they hold everything here, hold that freshness in any kind of why I brought the stories so I thought they would got it? Got it? Anyways? I really like this theory to why we're finding a lot of these now, um, and it kind of ties into why it's important that we pay attention to the year that the shoes were manufactured. And this theory is that these feet belong to victims

of the two thousand four Asians unami. Yeah, that's entirely possible, So run that through for so here's the way that that theory kind of works is none of these shoes were manufactured past two thousand four. Uh. This is the ones that were found prior, all of the ones that were found up to about two thousand eight, right, because

after that they kind of just started getting scattered. Yeah, okay, Yeah, the ones that I think I would qualify as a viable core group, the core group, Yeah, they're not manufactured after two four and they're all shoes that are make and model that were sold in Asia, sold primarily in Asia. And it would help explain the influx. Is if you think these bodies were all kind of washed to see at the same time, they kind of decompose at the

same rate. So there's a high instance of you know, they all got caught up in the same current currence. But this is a guess things sounds one of those two things. Number One, I mean, did anybody run any DNA analysis on these things to find out there they belong to Thai mostly Thai people. I have no idea. Yeah, that'd be worth finding why. I don't know that they can find that specifically. I think when they run DNA analysis they're looking for a match to put it against.

I don't know that they're going to the lens the ethnicity. But actually, have you guys ever heard of the North Pacific Drift? This rings a bell, but I can't think of what it is. Yeah, it's a it's a major Currently there's there's a there's a circular current that runs around the Pacific basin, and so like it goes down the west coast of North America and then turns goes west across the ocean, and when it hits Aja, it turns and goes north and then eventually it turns and

goes east again. And the circuit and yeah, and where it hits and I can show you guys a picture of it, But where it hits the west coast of North America, it splits into two parts. One goes south, one goes north towards Alaska. And they want to go south towards San Francisco. Uh, and that spot is well right about Vancouver Island. Fute it sound interesting. I think it's that that's really interesting. Actually, I don't know why I didn't come up with that. Seems like it would

be like a very helpful to this theory. Yeah, but I'll show it to you after the the you know, I really I'm gonna be honest if if I've got to put in my two centses. So what I think it is. I think that one of the few people that's been identified the guy who committed suicide presumably from having jumped from a bridge. What happens when a body hits water and dies is they initially sink, Well, they

float for a little bit and then they sink. I mean, that's why there's is it Tom Sawyer where they go floating down and they're firing the cannon because the concussion will shake the bodies lose because the body gets stuck

in the mud that's on the bottom of river. So if there's a bridge in that area, almost every major city has a major bridge that's notorious for people throwing themselves off of So to me, it makes sense that it's probably a bunch of people in the area that at one point in a relatively small time frame, threw themselves from the bridge, hit the bottom, got stuck in

the sentiment in the mock, and then again. And then I go with the theory that the weak points are what break off and this wasn't such a big deal because shoes are now, as Joe put it, puffier and puffier, so they got those bigger chunks on them that are floating foams. That to me seems like the valid direct the valid theory on this. I guess my problem with

that is the lack of finding any other body parts. Ever, so I think, and then when you dive, you go in head first, do you know at the I'm kidding you know. I think the reason the tsunami theory is my most viable theory is because that's a long distance

for something that doesn't float particularly well to travel. Whereas if you got the buoyant shoe on you, it makes more way more sense that you would travel that far, Whereas if it's local bodies, you would think that more bodies would have been identified but identified or you know, the DNA testing or bodies flow, you know, showing up someplace else, they do a lot of work and rivers like that, it trudges. There are a lot of people in major cities who nobody knows what happens to because

they just disappear. I mean, let's be honest. If if I'm a street kid living in British Columbia and I've got I decided that I've got nothing more and my family doesn't know where I am, They're not going to submit my DNA and that's going to be put into a giant panther. Go, I don't know what happened to it. Yeah, and I don't know. I mean, I'm to me. Okham's razor to me says that's the simplest answer, which would

make the most sense. Great, I don't know. I don't really know that that's even the simplest answer, though, listen, only one fits just as well. Also, the possibilities that the north specific drift. Again, It's like if a ship had sunk or you know what with a lot of people went down or something something like that, and all you know, those all those people wanted being in the water for months at a time, and you know, eventually their stuff would be you know, parts of their bodies

to be washed ashore. I mean, there's all kinds of possible. Yeah, there was a theory that there was a crash of a small airplane that happened kind of outside of Vancouver in the Pacific Ocean, and maybe the bodies there's like four men who died and this thing maybe these were those feet that belong to those men. But you know, again, it seems like that's the sort of thing that you could kind of test for well here because they would

have been families that were actively pursuing that sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, it's it's possible. If you look at the currents, it's possible for somebody that throw about to go down. Somebody could like fall over words from his sailboat somewhere off the coast of California, somebody who's wearing at least one Nike stylish nake running shoes on his feet and eventually wind up on the shores of British Columbia. I mean, it could happen to drift, It could happen all over

the Pacific um. But what this tells me most of all, though, is that say, if it was the tsunami or if it was just random chance, like like shipwrecks and things like that. There must be a hell of a lot of floating feet in the Pacific because because the thing about it is is like mostly the currents are going to continue to carry your foot around and around and around for a while. It's not gonna wash on shore.

It's just it's more probably more often than not, it's not gonna it's gonna bypass British Columbia on the coast and whatever just drift on by. So there's a lot of feet out there. Well that I think again why this tsunomy makes so much sense to me, because there's a lot of bodies, massive amount of bodies. So for the like you know, twelve or whatever, shoot exactly like a tiny little percentage an explanation other than that doesn't make as much sense to me. But you know, I

don't totally discredit Steve's theory either. I can see validity in it. Just I have a hard time seeing a foot in issue drift that far and still be intact. But that's just me. But yeah, as far as bridge suicides, and I probably usually somebody witnesses it and you know they fished the body out and cut it away. Not always but not always, but not always, that's not and that's the other reason I go there. Yeah, that's fair. That's kind of all our theories. Wow, that was a

short list. I blame Richard the third. Yeah, he's totally totally guilty with him. So I guess if you have theories of your own to add to our list, or if you're missing a foot and you think one of these might be your Yeah, if you can identify it, you could send us an email at Thinking Sideways podcast at gmail dot com. You are probably listening to us on iTunes if you are, uh, if you would take the time to give us a comment in a rating or just one or the other, that's super helpful. It

helps other people kind of find us. Yeah, ratings are how shows go up the list, and that's how people find them. Ye, which you know, that's what we're looking for. Since you like us, we think you probably think other people should like us, so you know, do it. You can also listen to us on our website, which is Thinking sideways podcast dot com. There you can also leave us a comment if you would like. That's a great

way to get in contact with us. Lots of people have been doing this really great, we love it, give a show ideas or yeah, great, fantastic. Yeah, so definitely we try to get back to as many of those as we can. But yeah, it's and and I do want to say for anybody that put a comment up and we didn't reply to it, it's not because we didn't want to reply. But sometimes there's just so many that we're trying to get ahold of that things fall

through the crack. I've been trying to go back through the log of them to some but it's just it's just difficult. That's why we need to hire an intern or two. Yeah, for sure. Also find us on Facebook. We're there. Give us a like. I don't know, it might be fun. I don't really monitor do you do Facebook? So I guess there's stuff going to put on Facebook. I haven't looked at our Facebook. I'm in charge of our other social made I guess, you know. I don't

think what. I haven't looked at Facebook for a while either. I guess I should. Yeah, I'm in charge of the other stuff. Yes, if you forget to download us for whatever reason, if you just want to stream us, Stitcher is a great way to do that. We are on there. Just search us thinking site with podcast super easy stream us right from your phone or your eye pad or any mobile device, any mobile device. Really, I'm partial to

the Apple devices, but I understand not everybody is. So anyways, thanks for listening to this what turned out to be super short show but very punny. Oh god, yeah, you give me those looks for making that joke. I should have stopped with the first one. I feel like this was like, thanks for tolerating us. So yeah, all right, thanks guys, we'll talk to you soon. The shoes on the other foot, now, isn't this from the guy who always puts his foot in his mouth? You guys, we

have to stop. Really? Yeah, oh man, this thing was Jessicain intraction. How about how about, like, know, don't criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his his shoes. I'll tell you floated a mile in his shoes. I guess