Found Footage : Salish Sea

the beach is generally a place that people go to relax and enjoy the good weather swimming surfing and building sand castles are all popular beach activities some beaches are heavily populated while others are secluded you can spend time at a busy beach socializing or at a quiet beach relaxing and taking in the sun most of the time people go to the beach to relax and get away from their problems sometimes though the beach washes problems ashore [Music] [Music] on august 20th 2006 a 12 year old girl was visiting british columbia from washington state the family had gone to jedediah island where they began playing on the beach jedediah island is in the strait of georgia between vancouver island and mainland canada kids being the curious type when the young girl found a men's blue and white size 12 adidas right shoe on the beach she picked it up inside was a sock and peeling back the sock revealed a severed human foot the family notified the police and they began investigating on august 2007 a vancouver couple were hiking along the coast on gabriola island gabriola island is south of jedediah island right next to vancouver island on their hike they saw a men's white size 12 reebok right shoe once again inside was a severed human foot they reported the fine to police and they included this foot with their investigation into the first foot obviously finding two severed feet washed up near each other as bound to raise a few eyebrows but having them both be men's size 12 running shoes seemed like a pretty big coincidence had someone killed runners cut up their bodies and dumped them in the salish sea medical examiner rose stanton said that the feet were both decomposing but still had flesh on them they also weren't cut off cleanly with a type of tool it looked as though both feet had naturally disarticulated from the bodies due to the decomposition this information led authorities to believe the two men had drowned maybe they were involved in a boating accident others suggested that the body parts might have originated from a natural disaster on the other side of the ocean on april 2nd 2007 an underwater earthquake caused a tsunami in the solomon islands 52 people lost their lives and some of those people were washed into the ocean and were never seen again could the body parts have traveled across the pacific and landed in british columbia after a tsunami struck japan in 2011 debris and even body parts washed up on the shores of washington state the first discovery was made 280 days after the tsunami struck the origins of the feet remained a mystery for the rest of 2007 on february 8 2008 a men's blue and white size 11 right nike running shoe was found on the beach in valdez island just south of gabriola island inside the shoe was another severed human foot on may 22nd a couple were walking along a road on kirkland island when they spotted a blue and white size 7 new balance sneaker floating in the water they called the police and they found a woman's right foot inside the shoe kirkland island is a small uninhabited island at the mouth of the fraser river that runs south of vancouver on june 16th a men's blue and white size 11 left nike running shoe was found on westam island this shoe matched the shoe found on valdez island in february and a dna test of the feet confirmed that they were from the same person westam island was near kirkland island at the mouth of the fraser river a new theory developed that the feet might belong to the victims of a plane crash on february 28 2005 a 1959 de havilland beaver float plane flying for mjm air took off from thai spit at the mouth of the campbell river on vancouver island there were four passengers and a pilot who were headed to two different locations they were scheduled to drop off one passenger in francis bay north of their starting point then head further north to knight inlet to drop off the other three men the plane had engine trouble just minutes after takeoff and crashed into the water near quadra island the plane sank and of the five men only one was wearing a life vest david stephen's body washed a short village bay on quadra island on march third the four other men's bodies were never recovered after authorities gave up on the search family members eventually found the plane and had it pulled from the water there were no bodies in the plane and all of the seat belts were undone life vests were still in the plane at some point after the crash the passengers must have got out of the plane but succumbed to the frigid water david being the only one with a life vest on made him the only person whose body washed ashore the plane had no tracking beacon so rescuers were unable to find the location of the plane crash quickly and the men either drowned or died of hypothermia after dna was collected from the feet no matches had been made and they didn't match samples from any of the four missing men on the plane that crashed near quadra island by july of 2008 the only thing dna uncovered was that the two feet in size 11 nikes were from the same person the fact that the feet showed no signs of being severed by any mechanical instrument didn't stop people from worrying that there was a serial killer operating in the vancouver area this killer might be dumping the bodies in the water and after they decay enough the feet disconnected from the rest of the body and floated to the surface the task of identifying who the feet belonged to would be a long and painstaking process they would need the families of missing persons to come forward so they could test dna against samples taken from the feet until they identified who the feet belonged to they wouldn't be able to develop a pattern to see if a serial killer was a possible cause if things weren't already difficult enough on june 18 2008 another shoe was found on the shore of the campbell river on vancouver island once the shoe was investigated it turned out that someone had put the bones of an animal paw in a sock into the shoe and stuffed seaweed around it the hoax was in poor enough taste that the authorities tried to find the people involved but were unsuccessful on august 1 2008 a woman was walking along the shore on the olympic peninsula near port angeles washington when she found a shoe covered in seaweed it was a men's size 11 right shoe the mystery of the severed floating feet had left british columbia and made its way to washington wind tests revealed that the foot was in fact human and not another hoax the rcmp and claim county sheriff began working together to try to solve the mystery then on november 11th another foot was found at the mouth of the fraser river in richmond bc just south of vancouver this was a small woman's new balance left shoe dna proved this to be a match to the woman's foot found on may 22nd very close by people being well people they began to come up with more theories though dna ruled out any of the feed coming from the plane crash in 2005 people thought they could still have come from other plane crashes or boating accidents others insisted that the feet were from the victims of either a serial killer or even the mob though i thought the mob gave people concrete shoes some of the wilder theories involved a shipping container that was filled with human trafficking victims that sank the idea being that the container might have opened when it hit the bottom and the feet floated to the surface after the bodies decayed in 1992 a shipping container holding 28 800 floating bath toys fell from the ship and sank into the north pacific ocean the ship arrived at the port of tacoma on january 16th one day late due to rough weather it was reported that on january 10th there were hurricane force winds in their area with 36 foot waves in the storm two stacks of containers each six containers high came loose and rolled into the ocean one of those containers was filled with cardboard boxes in each box was a plastic shell that contained one red beaver one green frog one blue turtle and one yellow ducky they were a set of floating bath toys for children that were sinking to the bottom of the pacific except the toys didn't stay there the container must have broken open and all of the cardboard boxes floated to the surface soon the cardboard disintegrated and the glue on the plastic shells dissolved and 7200 of each animal were floating on the surface headed wherever the current would take them they would first start showing up on the shores in alaska and then canada and washington over time the toys would make it all over the world showing how the contents of a sunken shipping container could wind up on the shores of the salish sea maybe even more relatable to this mystery is the story of a shipping container that was lost at sea in 1990 this container held eighty thousand pairs of nike tennis shoes which began washing up on the shores of vancouver island five months later then there were the people who were sure that these dismembered feet were the work of extraterrestrials we all know that aliens are fascinated with what is or has been in our rectums this is the reason for the probing what people don't know is that they're deathly allergic to running shoes so when they abduct someone they pull their feet off and leave them behind obviously none of that is true but it's the only thing i can think of to justify the theory that human feet and running shoes washing up on the shore might be the work of extraterrestrials there was actually a very scientific explanation for what was happening in the waters of the pacific northwest something that continued to happen on october 27 2009 a size eight and a half men's right nike was found on a beach in richmond then on august 27 2010 a right foot was discovered on a beach on whidbey island washington without a shoe due to the size of the foot it was believed to be that of a juvenile female but there were no matches in the missing person's files another foot believed to be from a juvenile was found in tacoma on december 5th 2010. it was inside a boy's size 6 ozark trail hiking boot on august 30th 2011 a foot and leg bone were found on the shore of false creek in british columbia the foot was in a men's size 9 running shoe and this time it had disarticulated from the knee instead of the ankle of the feet included in this mystery this one was unusual for a good reason when a human body goes into a body of water they generally float this is because their lungs are full of air if you exhale as much air as you can to empty your lungs it's much harder to stay afloat now a dead body won't have any air left in its lungs and if they drowned they will actually have water in them adding the weight of their clothes they will sink relatively quickly this gets them to the bottom of whatever body of water they're in gases in the body due to decomposition can cause it to bloat and resurface but it's not guaranteed and in colder waters like the salish sea the process of decomposition is slowed causing less bloating the tissue becomes a soapy wax-like substance that helps keep it down once at the bottom of the water scavengers begin feeding on it immediately shrimp lobsters and crabs can completely skeletonize a human body in as little as four days they will go for the softest bits including the flesh and tendons while avoiding the parts that are harder to eat these things would include the bones jewelry and shoes since our ankles have made up of small bones held together by soft connective tissue once the tissue is eaten by scavengers the foot easily becomes detached from the rest of the body since it's housed in a flotation device it floats to the surface and washes ashore this is why the feet are commonly found inside running shoes and why the feet have begun washing ashore more recently running shoes in the early 2000s begin using more air inside of the foam of the sole in order to create more cushion some running shoes even have pockets of gas inside the sole which is usually visible through a little clear window on the side of the shoe other types of footwear like hiking shoes and work boots are made of heavier more dense materials that don't float as well so they stay on the sea floor where they'll likely remain forever though less likely the body in the water near false creek had disconnected at the knee and the running shoe had enough buoyancy to carry the foot and leg to the surface another exception would be for the hiking boot containing a human foot that was found on the shore of sassamat lake on november 4th 2011. this foot was inside a heavier hiking boot but it turned out that it was identified as belonging to 65 year old stefan zahruko who went missing while fishing on the lake in 1987. his overturned boat was found drifting on the lake days later it took nearly 25 years for the body to decompose enough for the foot to disarticulate and the boot to float to the surface on december 10 2011 a human foot with a leg bone attached to it was found in a black plastic bag under the ship canal bridge in seattle washington this foot is listed with the others that have washed ashore in the pacific northwest but it's the only one that seems clearly caused by foul play when social workers were looking for homeless people in a wooded area near the bridge they found several plastic garbage bags containing human bones this seems pretty cut and dry as people's bones don't naturally get inside of garbage bags after a suicide or accidental death by this time authorities were starting to identify the owners of the rogue feet most of whom the families wanted to remain anonymous for the sake of privacy the first foot found was matched through dna to a man who went missing from the vancouver area in 2004 his family said he had been suffering from depression the second foot was linked to a man who went missing in 2006 the third and fifth feet were identified to have come from another vancouver man who went missing in 2006. the fourth and sixth feet were linked to a woman who committed suicide by jumping from the petullo bridge in new westminster bc in april of 2004 authorities from british columbia also reached out to dr randall gaylord the coroner of san juan county in washington state in march of 2007 a hiker discovered a body which had washed up on shore on orcas island an island in the salish sea just south of the canadian border the body was missing both hands the right arm and both feet the doctor had handled the autopsy and the canadian authorities wanted to know if this john doe might be related to their ownerless feet after comparing dna from the john doe to dna collected from the feet it turned out they were not a match his identity remains a mystery as time went on the feet continued to appear one near downtown seattle in may of 2012. in february of 2014 both feed and running shoes from the same person washed up on a beach on vancouver island five days apart on december 8 2017 another foot with a leg attached was discovered on a beach on southern vancouver island just across the water from the top of the olympic peninsula in washington the foot was linked to a man named stanley okumoto from bremerton washington stanley was 79 years old when he went missing on september 19 2017. the following day stanley's car was located in the coastal town of cq washington about a three-hour drive up highway 101 from where he lived on november 8th his body minus a leg and foot was found on the shore less than two miles from his car when the foot and leg were found a month later it was quickly thought to belong to stanley as it was found directly across the water from where his body was located the coroner confirmed the match stanley was just thought to have taken a day trip up to cq and possibly died due to an accident authorities were discovering a pattern as they identified the feet the victims were local to the pacific northwest and many had been suffering from depression or had been involved in some type of accident it ruled out tsunami victims from the other side of the ocean trafficking victims from a sunken shipping container and even extraterrestrials it seemed as though the feet were the result of natural decay after someone had died in the water but if that were the case why wasn't this happening all over the world it definitely happens in other places a running shoe with a human foot inside washed up onto a boat ramp in the willamette river near portland oregon in 2018 in 2017 a human foot inside a red sneaker was found washed up on the shore of the mississippi river in missouri it was later linked to a man who died in a car accident after his car went off the road into the riverbank about 40 miles upstream one interesting story is that of melissa caddick an australian woman who allegedly stole approximately 30 million dollars from her clients through a ponzi scheme on november 12 2020 the day after the australian securities and investment commission and other federal agents raided her home she disappeared on february 21 2021 a foot inside of a shoe was discovered on bornda beach in new south wales and dna tests confirmed that it belonged to melissa it's believed she committed suicide but authorities still have her listed as a missing person though it happens it doesn't happen at the alarming rate that it does in the salish sea oceanographers say that it's because of the unique currents there in most areas of the world foreign items that go into the ocean will get washed out to sea there are areas in the oceans of the world where the currents cause a vortex where things remain in place this is what causes the great pacific garbage patch debris gets washed out to the seas and ends up in a vortex in the middle of the ocean of course things can wash across the ocean and wind up on shore but this happens much less often in most places the salish sea on the other hand has currents that move west to east which push floating objects toward the many coasts in the area instead of out to sea this keeps these floating feet within the area depositing them more regularly on the shores than having them wash out to seas being lost forever so as much as many people want to think that there's a serial killer lurking in the area i mean it is the pacific northwest right most of the feet that wash ashore in the salish sea are likely the result of suicide or accident even now the feet are still popping up on the shores in may of 2018 another foot was found on gabriola island the same place that the second foot was discovered a foot inside of a light gray nike was found on a beach in west vancouver in september of 2018. most recently on january 1st 2019 a foot inside a boot was found on a narrow island called jetty island off the coast of everett washington dna linked to the foot to a young man named antonio neal who was last seen on december 12 2016. he had recently been released from jail and family believed he may have relapsed on drugs his cause of death has never been confirmed these explanations may be less exciting than tracking down a ruthless serial killer but it makes you wonder next time you go for a swim whether it's in the salish sea the mississippi river or an australian beach how many bodies are in there with you that you can't see if you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else or even just need someone to talk to please contact your local mental health facility call 9-1-1 or call mental health america who operate the national suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-talk that's 1-800-273-8255 they're available 24 hours a day 7 days a week thanks for letting us tell you this sinister story if you enjoyed it subscribe on whatever platform you're on and hit like rate it or leave a comment join us next week when we'll take you somewhere sinister you

Channel: Somewhere Sinister

Views: 187,303

Keywords: true crime, travel, salish sea, severed feet, vancouver

Id: sKLhP2aGXEg

Length: 21min 49sec (1309 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 01 2022