The British Columbia Foot Problem

Today on the train we're switching up gears a bit. Tonight we are discussing British Columbia's foot problems. Did you know that the most common foot problem in British Columbia and actually the world is athlete's foot? Well it's true! The feet are made of up 26 bones each, making them one of the most intricate areas of the body. Nevertheless, according to the College of Podiatry, a person will walk an estimated 150,000 miles in their lifetime, roughly the equivalent of walking around the world six times. Improper footwear, diabetes, and aging are some of the chief contributors to foot problems. Bunions are another of the biggest four problems. Bunions are abnormalities of the feet that cause a bump to develop on the large toe joint. This can cause the big toe to turn slightly inward. Doctors call bunions “hallux valgus.”

 

Women are more likely to have bunions due to increased pressures from narrow footwear. Wait...I think I got the wrong notes… What are we talking about? Oh… Shit… Yes, the British Columbia foot problem… Sorry, it had nothing so with actual foot problems. If you know it's… It is much stranger and a bit more macabre than bunions… Maybe… Bunions are gross. 

 

So the British Columbia foot problem… What exactly is it? Well when most people go to the beach they are on the lookout for cool shells, maybe some crabs or other animals, good looking ladies and gents, but on the shores of the Salish sea, in the Pacific northwest, people are on the lookout for something else… Human feet. Yep… Human feet. 

 

On August 20, 2007, a 12-year-old girl spotted a lone blue-and-white running shoe—a men’s size 12—on a beach of British Columbia’s Jedediah Island. She looked inside, and found a sock. She looked inside the sock, and found a foot. That in and of itself, while kinda gross, isn't necessarily a really strange thing. But Six days later on nearby Gabriola Island, a Vancouver couple enjoying a seaside hike came across a black-and-white Reebok. Inside it was another decomposing foot. It, too, was a men’s size 12. The two feet clearly didn’t belong to the same person; not only were the shoes themselves different, but they both contained right feet.

 

Police were stunned. “Two being found in such a short period of time is quite suspicious,” Garry Cox of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the Vancouver Sun. “Finding one foot is like a million to one odds, but to find two is crazy. I’ve heard of dancers with two left feet, but come on.”

 

So now we've got something weird going on right… Well maybe but let's not jump the gun….ok let's jump the gun. In the following year, 2008, five more feet were found on the shores of the islands of British Columbia in the Salish Sea. 

 

Needless to say people started freaking out. Speculation came from everyone. Ranging from plane crashes and ship wrecks to serial killers, to aliens. Moody thinks it was all people who pissed off sasquatch. 

 

All in all as of January 1st 2019, 21 feet have been found in total. So what is going on up there? Well let's take a look at the first and see if that helps. 

 

The ass says before the first four was found in Augusta 2007. According to an article on the Vancouver Sun,  a girl visiting from Washington picked up a size 12 Adidas shoe and opened the sock to find a man's right foot. What a vacation! They ended up finding out that The remains were those of a missing man suffering from depression. There's not much known about the man other than that. The family never revealed much. 

 

Within a week, on August 26, 2007, another foot was found. A man's right foot, discovered by a couple, also disarticulated due to decay. It was waterlogged and appeared to have been taken ashore by an animal. It probably floated ashore from the south. According to the Vancouver Sun again. This foot was found in a size 12 Reebok shoe. It was obviously a different person due to the site you're and the fact it was another right foot. 

 

February 8, 2008, number 3 popped up. It was another right foot belonging to a man. This time on a size 11 Nike. 

May 22, 2008 number 4. This time it was a woman's foot that was found. And yes we're 4 for 4 on the right feet. CBS news reported The fourth foot was discovered on an island in the Fraser Delta between Richmond and Delta, British Columbia. It was also wearing a sock and sneaker. the shoe was a new balance. It is thought to have washed down the Fraser River, having nothing to do with the ones found in the Gulf Islands. According to our friends at the Vancouver sun.

 

June 16th, 2008 two hikers came across number five. CBS news reported that it was a man's  left foot. It was found floating in the water in Delta. According to cbs, It has been confirmed that the left foot found on June 16 on Westham Island and the right foot found February 8 on Valdes Island belonged to the same man. We have a match!!!

 

So number 3 and number 5 are a match!

 

Number six showed up on August 1, 2008. This was the first one not found in British Columbia, it was found near Pysht, Washington. According to CTV news, it was confirmed that the foot was human. Police say the large black-top, size 11 athletic shoe for a right foot contains bones and flesh.The RCMP and Clallam County Sheriff's Department agreed on August 5 that the foot could have been carried south from Canadian waters.

 

November 11, 2008, number 7. a

A shoe that was found floating in the Fraser River in Richmond.The shoe was described as a small New Balance running shoe, possibly a woman's shoe. New balance eh? Sound familiar? A woman's new balance. Well it should because the foot was linked via DNA testing to foot number 4. They belonged to the same woman. Eventually it would be known that this woman jumped from the Pattullo Bridge in New Westminster in April 2004. This one was seemingly a suicide. 

 

Number 8 come on down, your the next contestant on Who's Foot Is This! October 27, 2009A right foot in a size 8½ Nike running shoe on a beach in Richmond. The remains were identified as a Vancouver-area man who was reported missing in January 2008. The Vancouver Sun gave us this info… shocker we know. 

 

Number 9. A woman's or child's right foot was found on Whidbey island on August 27 2010, without a shoe or sock. This foot was determined to have been in the water for two months. Detective Ed Wallace of the Island County Sheriff's Office released a statement saying the foot would be tested for DNA. However, there was no match found in the national DNA database. Guess where we got this info from...WRONG… CBS news.. Hahaha got ya bitches!

 

On December 5th 2010 we reach#10. Ten fucking feet found.. only two matching pairs. 

 

This was another one found outside, but near British Columbia. It was found in the tidal flats in Tacoma Washington. Sadly this one likely belonged to a young boy. The boot was a boys size 6 hiking boot. Thanks Vancouver Sun.

 

Hey Vancouver Sun any info on number 11? Oh you do? Well let's hear it.  On August 30, 2011, in a man's size 9 running shoe. It was a blue and white shoe. It was found floating next to the Plaza of Nations marina, attached to the lower leg bones. Yuck. Investigators said that there wasn't any sign of foul play though and the leg was naturally disarticulated due to decomposition in the water. The sex of this victim was not determined. 

 

Hey guys, guess what, there's more.. Shall we press on? 

 

November 4, 2011 number 12 is found. A man's right foot inside a size 12 hiking boot was discovered by a group of campers in a pool of fresh water at Sasamat Lake near Port Moody. Fucking Moody. A year later this foot was identified by the B.C. Coroner's Service as that of Stefan Zahorujko, a local fisherman who went missing in 1987. Again foul play was not expected as chickens are generally not able to remove the feet of humans. 

 

Lucky number 13, well not so lucky in this case. This one brings us back to the states. Lake Union in Seattle to be more specific. Human leg bone and foot in a black plastic bag under the Ship Canal Bridge. As of January 2, 2012, the medical examiner had not found a cause of death or identified the body. This one sounds nice and shady. Also where the fuck were you on this one Vancouver Sun, we had to get this info from the Seattle times.. Jeeze.

 

Anyway, back to Vancouver. January 26, 2012 number 14 is found. According to, of course, the Vancouver Sun, On January 26, 2012, the remains of "what appears to be human bones inside a boot" were found in the sand along the water line at the dog park near the Maritime Museum at the foot of Arbutus Street, in Vancouver. This one doesn't show up in some of the stories about this issue only because it seems that they never confirmed it was human. At least not that we could find, which is strange. But… Whatever.

 

According to fox news "Adding to one of the great mysteries of the Pacific Northwest, a human foot still in a tennis shoe was found near Seattle's Pier 86 Tuesday." Tuesday was may 6 2014, and this was number 15. "It could be debris from Japan. It could be debris from the airplane that had crashed into the water. I wouldn't be surprised,” resident Karen Klett said. Volunteers cleaning up trash made the discovery and immediately called police.A local expert on tides told Q13 Fox News the feet could be local or they could come into the Sound by way of the Strait of Georgia in Canada or the Strait of Juan de Fuca here at home. The New Balance model 622 athletic shoe was white with blue trim, size men's 10½. It was A left foot. 

 

Ladies, do you remember your sweet sixteen? Was it memorable? Did you get a car?  Big party? Severed foot? Wait… What? Well number 16 was found February 7, 2016. Hikers on Botanical Beach, near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, found a foot in a sock and running shoe. We could not find any information on if this one was ever identified.

 

She's only 17...SEVENTEEN! Only five days after number 26 was found… Number 17 popped up. On February 12, 2016 A foot washed up near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. This foot was found to match the one that washed up 5 days before. 

 

Now to number 18. Almost there folks! The discovery was made by a man walking his dogs along the beach at around 8 a.m. along the Jordan river again on Vancouver Island. One of the dogs found the foot. 

 

Number 19 was found May 6, 2018 on gabriola Island in British Columbia. Around noon, a man walking along the shore near South Road found a foot inside a hiking boot stuck in a logjam.

 

Number 20. September 20, 2018. The foot was found  within a light grey Nike Free RN shoe on the shore near the 30th Street beach access point in West Vancouver.

 

The size 9.5 shoe was manufactured between February 1 and April 17, 2017, and has a white base and a black Nike swoosh. The foot was in a blue sock. The test revealed that the foot belonged to a male.

 

The B.C. Coroners Service's identification specialist believes that the foot belonged to a man under the age of 50, based on its bone structure.

 

According to the West Vancouver Police Department, there is no evidence of a death from foul play at this point. DNA testing would eventually link this to a male who went missing in 2018.  

 

Number 21 was another one that was found in the US. January 1, 2019 it was found on jetty Island in Everett Washington. The foot was found in a bit and DNA later linked it to Antonio Neill. At the time of the identification officials shockingly attenuated that Neill was presumed dead. His mother Jenny Neill believes someone harmed her son.

 

“We are no closer to finding what happened to him,” she said Tuesday. “We have had a lot of leads that are just rumors. We feel that someone is responsible for this, and we need help finding whoever did this.” He’d been staying in his car or on couches in 2016. Around the time he went missing, his car was stolen. Antonio was 22 when he went missing. His mother has seen no evidence confirming he was alive after December 2016.

 

Ok so those are the feet that have been found. We will post a picture that shows locations, and another with a little more info on the people they may have belonged to. Many of the get have been linked to missing people, and a couple to suicide. But aside from those suicides, what happened to those linked to missing people. 

 

Theories range far and wide. From plane crashes, to human trafficking, aliens, and yes… Bigfoot. 

 

One early suggestion was the quadra Island plane crash.

The locations each of the first give feet were found in the first year seems to indicate they were from the similar sources (via body decomposition) and the time of discovery Oceanographists determined no known currents could have contributed to the spread. Detectives at the time had theorized the feet came from the 5 person fatality Quadra Island plane crash that occurred approximately 60–90 miles northwest in 2005 . The image below shows the locations of the five feet found in 2007–2008 with the location of the Quadra Island plane crash in Blue. It is likely that some of the feet originate from this plane crash, but there is no proof to date that this is the case; four bodies remain unrecovered.

At first, the Quadra Island plane crash makes sense regarding the origin of said feet, but later DNA testing showed one of the feet was female, with the plane crash victims (5 total) were all men. 

 

Other theorists believe the coastline is being used as a body dump for organized crime activity; a third scenario is a serial killer is at work.

 

In the past few years, more than 20 men in the Vancouver area have gone missing. Their disappearances have never been accounted for despite pleas from families for information. 

 

There is a faction of the public who believe that many of these discoveries are due to alien abduction and that of course the fact is being covered up. There may be some evidence to back up this claim! Ufology Research, an organization  in Canada,  has collected and analyzed Canadian UFO report data since 1989. Their 2017 survey showed that a total of 1,101 sightings were reported across the country, at a rate of roughly three per day — the fifth highest number since the group began collecting data in 1989. The survey also showed that there was an average of two witnesses per UFO sighting and that the sightings lasted about 15 minutes each. Many witnesses were police officers, pilots and other people with keen observational skills. In 2017 British Columbia had the third most reported UFO sightings in Canada. Hmmm maybe… Just maybe there's something to this.

 

Then again maybe not. 10 out of the 15 feet have been identified as belonging to people who died either accidentally—by falling off a boat or being swept away by a large wave—or by suicide. but what about the rest?  

 

The location of the feet washing up isn't that that strange actually. Given the tidal currents of the area it actually makes sense that the feet are collecting in the area. It's seems the bigger mystery is what happened to all of those other people but identified?

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