In the past 10 years, 18 human feet have washed up on the stretch of coast between Canada and the United States.
No one really knows why.
The latest foot, which was still wearing a sneaker, was discovered by a man walking his dog on a Vancouver Island beach.
The dog found the foot, which still had a bit of the leg attached, inside the sneaker. He alerted his owner to the discovery and the Canadian Mounted Police were called to the scene.
Of the feet found only two have been left feet and both of those matched with right feet that had already been found. All of the feet have been found with shoes.
So far authorities have been able to identify six people from the feet and they’ve concluded that most of them died by either accident or suicide.
But the other 12 feet remain a mystery. To add to the general confusion, in the early days, pranksters planted “fake” feet along the coast as a hoax.
There’s plenty of theories circulating about Canada’s mysterious foot findings and it’s a source of much debate between online sleuths.
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Some believe that at least a few of the feet could belong to four men who died in a plane crash near Quadra Island in 2005, as their bodies have never been recovered.
Others think that some of the feet could belong to people who died in the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004.
A man called Shane Lambert wrote into the Vancouver Sun in 2010 and pointed out that many of the shoes that have been found were manufactured or sold in 2004 or earlier.
He believes other victim’s shoes could have washed up on beaches around the world without being noticed.
“Their bodies were washed out to sea where they started to decompose and/or their remains were eaten by sharks and other marine life, except for the feet inside the shoes which an animal probably wouldn’t eat and which are preserved from normal decomposition,” Lambert explained.
“Their shoes drifted in the semi-random currents for years and all the while their feet were preserved inside the shoe until they washed ashore somewhere, including Vancouver Island, greater Vancouver, and the Pacific Northwest of the USA.
“Numerous shoes were probably never inspected because they appeared to be nothing but garbage on the beach and other areas of the world that may have these shoes may not have been looked at for that reason.”
While others believe something sinister or supernatural could be to blame and have questioned why the feet only started turning up after 2007.
In 2008, the man who found the fifth foot told The Guardian that he thought the whole thing was suss.
“There’s someone doing this all right. Think about it, if they tied a chain around someone’s ankle and threw them overboard, the foot would just pop off. That could explain it. Maybe they got a lot of bodies stored up in a container and they got washed out. We don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff goes on over there,” he said.
But there could be a simple explanation for all of it.
Firstly, the feet could belong to people who have died at sea – either by accident or suicide.
And secondly, advances in shoe technology mean the air pockets and lighter foam used in the shoes is allowing them to become light enough to eventually float and wash up on the shore.
We may never know exactly why so many feet are washing up on this stretch of coastline at this time. But it’s spooky to think that any number of feet could be making their way to the shoreline right at this moment.
Do you have any theories about the feet? Tell us about them in the comments below.