Talk:Salish Sea human foot discoveries

Title
We are now including the discovering of the foot west of Port Angeles, WA. This is not in British Columbia, and makes the title no longer inclusive of the content. Should we consider renaming the article? Should the foot found in Sweden be included in this article? DigitalC (talk) 22:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Could always change the title to Pacific Northwest Human Foot Mystery. TheChad 80 (talk) 09:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

This title needs to be changed. There are now 2 feet from Washington. I would support TheChad 80's title with one modification: Pacific Northwest Human Foot Discoveries instead of mystery as I think mystery is too suggestive. I am moving the article to that title.(SSJPabs (talk) 23:51, 31 August 2010 (UTC))

Survive for three decades
"Under optimal conditions, a human body may survive in water for as long as three decades" - should this be "a human body may remain intact", or something to that effect? I don't think the owners of the feet have been floating around alive for 30 years... Somno (talk) 06:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Ethnic background
Is there any news whether genetic tests have been made? In order to find out about the ethnic background? Probably not. Mountleek (talk) 05:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Section on media reaction and fascination with this story
I added this section because I thought it would help assert notability a bit more (not that it needs to, but it doesn't hurt to add more). But I'm not much of a writer and usually when I do try to write content it tends to sound a lot like a news release.. (maybe I should write for WikiNews?) so feel free to edit/reword any of it to improve the section, and use the refs, they're good references to work with. -- &oelig; &trade; 04:38, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

7th foot ID'd
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Seventh+severed+foot+identified+missing/2189356/story.html DigitalC (talk) 04:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Link is dead. ~ Agvulpine (talk) 17:19, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Discoveries
Because of the way the sections describing the feet were worded, it caused confusion as to which were in Canada and the United States. With two in the US so far, I have split those into their own sections and numbered each discovery so we know which feet (by number) were found in which country. Because of describing each foot chronologically, I have changed the title of "Sixth Foot Hoax" to simply "Hoax Foot" to avoid confusion. (SSJPabs (talk) 00:11, 1 September 2010 (UTC))


 * Is it really important in which country the feet were found? it adds confusion.88.104.85.96 (talk) 11:18, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. Water currents don't respect the boundary. If there is a useful distinction to be made, it's between the Fraser delta (four feet close together) and elsewhere (six feet widely scattered). —Tamfang (talk) 15:20, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Identified woman of feet 4 and 7?
In the following MSNBC video, commentator Rachel Maddow goes over the history of the mysterious feet. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908//vp/38927507#38927507

However, at the stamp 5:20 she explains: ''foot 4 and foot 7, also match, they belong to one woman who is dead and whose identity is known. so if you take those out of the mix, there remain ...'' (casually discarding this piece of evidence and moves on)

Who is the woman, what are her last known whereabouts, was she on a cruise ship that sunk? did she owe money to the mafia? had a known stalker? Does anyone have any further information about this identified owner of feet 4 and 7? ~ Agvulpine (talk) 17:24, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Decapitalise title
I'm going to decapitalise the words 'Human Foot Discoveries'. Matthew Fennell (talk) 00:32, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

7 or 8?
My change may be wrong. I would revert it but other, smarter people are at work at the moment. Does the count reflect the 14 Dec 2010 discovery? Paul, in Saudi (talk) 15:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

geographic scope
The coasts of BC and Washington (let alone "Pacific Northwest") are several times longer than the greatest distance between any two of these feet. I'd like to say somewhere that they were all found on the Salish Sea – or even change the title to Salish Sea human foot discoveries. As the article now stands, there's a random collection of place-names and nothing unambiguous to say that they are all close together. (Of course, there could be twenty more feet waiting to be found on the less-visited coasts.) —Tamfang (talk) 19:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The original title referenced British Columbia beaches but this was no longer factual correct so I changed it. I am somewhat uncomfortable with Pacific Northwest even though I chose it for the reasons you stated and also because for Canadians it's the Pacific Southwest. My main concerns are whether Whidbey Island and Tacoma are considered to be on the Salish sea. (SSJPabs (talk) 07:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC))


 * I worried about Tacoma too, but the article Salish Sea says it includes Puget Sound. —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

A month goes by. Any objection to moving from Pacific Northwest human foot discoveries to Salish Sea human foot discoveries? —Tamfang (talk) 20:17, 13 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Seeing none ... —Tamfang (talk) 09:08, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It's fine. I just think the title looks very strange without capitalization of human and foot. (SSJPabs (talk) 15:08, 19 March 2011 (UTC))


 * There must be many article titles that look very strange to you, then. —Tamfang (talk) 20:16, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


 * They certainly do. Important words should be capitalized, in my opinion. (SSJPabs (talk) 11:05, 28 March 2011 (UTC))

Date of the 10th discovery
I have changed the date in the summary table from 15 to 5 December, since a closer inspection of sources reveals that the foot was found on December 5. Some sources have published their articles on the 15th without giving a date for the discovery, while in other sources it clearly states the foot was found on December 5. So it seems that the story hit the news on December 15 while the actual discovery was on the 5th. I added an additional ref to reflect this. Erebus Morgaine (talk) 11:53, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

New Foot
a link to the article: http://www.vancouversun.com/Possible+human+foot+washes+beach+Powell+River/4394164/story.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.157.17.12 (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we should wait to add the foot until we hear whether it's a hoax or not. Alternately just add that a new foot might possibly have been found but authorities are still investigating.(SSJPabs (talk) 22:20, 19 March 2011 (UTC))


 * FALSE ALARM, not a new foot. According to the story, a dog was chewing on an animal bone earlier and his owner put it in a shoe. The link to the story is here: http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/193559--foot-washed-up-near-powell-river-confirmed-non-human (SSJPabs (talk) 11:01, 28 March 2011 (UTC))

Serial Killer Theory, Must be Mentioned
The police are at a loss for describing the statistical anomaly that 2 feet wash ashore in such a short time span, with one expert citing the probability a million-to-one. Then a third foot washes up, a first, ever, anywhere in recorded time and in the history of man. Then a 4th foot washes up. And a 5th. And a 6th.

A witness who found the 6th severed foot stated that "It was definitely a foot in a shoe. You can see the bones sticking out the top part of the shoe a few inches. And it was [b]clean cut, like straight across[/b]," said Malone. Police did not disclose the manner in which the other feet were. In fact, the police are attempting to bury these stories as quickly as possible.

The probability that these feet, without any heads or hands floating up, randomly floated up and such close geographic proximity, in such a short time frame, is well quite frankly, folks, 0. And one of the feet was clean-cut? I would say there is an extremely high probability that a serial killer is at work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.13.225.34 (talk) 02:14, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Theories
I am trying to re-locate the source for this, maybe someone else has come across it. Recent media reports suggest that the source of the feet might not be the ocean, but the rivers. For the feet found in greater Vancouver area, the Fraser River is a suggested source, with the feet possibly being those of suicides by those jumping from one of the bridges that cross the river. I don't see this possibility in the article, but it's plausible so it should be included. However, without a source, I'm loathe to add it. Does anyone else recall seeing any of these reports? My google-fu hasn't been so successful... Agent 86 (talk) 11:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I found what might confirmation. Take a look at this, regarding the first identified pair of feet.


 * ''The result is the Geographic Imaging System, a massive, searchable 3D map of the province. Each human remain turned up in B.C. is represented as a dot on a screen. Click on a dot, and a window pops up with details of the discovered remains. Zoom out, and the In September 2010, Constable Ryan Roth learned of a possible link between the “floating feet” and people who committed suicide by jumping off Fraser River bridges. He thought of the troubled young Sikh he first heard about in the winter of 2004. He called the RCMP Serious Crimes Unit, which quickly passed him on to Mr. Fonseca.


 * The query made Mr. Fonseca sit up. Talib’s feet had already been unsuccessfully compared against hundreds of names — but this name was different. Talib had died in the water. He had been dead for six years — about as long as the feet had been decaying. And, he was wearing a pair of size 11 Nikes.


 * Years before, Talib’s family had provided blood samples on the chance of a DNA match. Const. Roth requisitioned the samples out of storage and forwarded them to Mr. Fonseca.


 * In an instant, seven years of unknowing immediately come to an end for Talib’s family, and Mr. Fonseca’s small, unsung branch of the coroner’s service gets to celebrate a rare victory.''


 * So there's proof that it's possible. That said I wasn't able to find something postulating the theory formally. (SSJPabs (talk) 17:52, 10 September 2011 (UTC))

Shoes
There seems to be no discussion of the shoes the feet were found in. It is blindingly OBVIOUS that the advent of shoes with "shock absorbtion" meaning air pockets and made out of plastic (floats in water) rather than cloth or leather changes the probability of a cadaver's foot becoming detached from its body when submerged. It follows from this that the chances of finding these things washed up on shore increases dramatically from what we've seen in the past. The statement that its a "one in a million" chance is without merit, imho ... how many bodies have been lost by tsunami and coastal flooding in the Pacific basin in the relevant time frame?Abitslow (talk) 13:33, 20 March 2015 (UTC)


 * This explanation does seem very palusible to me. It is discussed in some detail at
 * This theory should be included in the main page. 86.178.12.106 (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

the mysterious California Puma
The two references for the San Francisco case give the shoe size as 7½ (not 7.5) and 11½. —Tamfang (talk) 19:07, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposed explanations
There is a set of proposed explanations on the page but virtually every one is completely rebutted by the fact the remains are identified.

A lot should get a subsection on 'historical explanations' or outright deleted because I seriously do not believe anyone thinks the explanation is a single plane crash given the fact the people were not on a plane. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.129.250.85 (talk) 02:52, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That's why the section is called Proposed explanations, rather than Explanations. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:39, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Natural causes wrong?
Does anyone else think the natural causes claims are wrong? Neither seem to be sourced and I can't help wondering if either some source or someone here has misunderstood a source which said the feet were seperated from the body by natural processes to mean the person died of natural causes. I was able to find which gives some limited details about identification for one of the cases we list, and it doesn't give natural causes. In fact it suggests the person was missing and considering that from what I can tell, body was never found, it seems unlikely it would be even possibly to tell if the person died of natural causes. The only real way it's likely you'll know the person died of natural causes would be if this had already been concluded before the foot was found. I.E. the body was disposed of in the sea after the coroner or whoever had decided cause of death e.g. a "burial" at sea. But it seems these often have fairly strigent requirements that will make it unlikely the feet will be recovered that way. Speaking generally, it seems fairly unlikely someone who died of natural causes would end up in the sea without the body being disposed of there (or "buried"), regardless of whether we know the person died of natural causes. I guess a person could have a heart attack while swimming or something, but these are likely rare compared to accidental or intentional drownings. (And I think even in those cases the cause of death may still be drowning.) Nil Einne (talk) 15:46, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems it was first added by an IP here [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Salish_Sea_human_foot_discoveries&diff=439876204&oldid=433644681]. Also I remembered now that our article says the other cases was also someone missing which again begs the question how we know the death was due to natural causes unless the body was found. I'm considering just removing the two mentions of natural causes if no one can give a reason to keep it. I do find some refs which mentions natural causes but without really given any details so I suspect citogenesis. Nil Einne (talk) 15:54, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * When closing the stuff I opened I noticed I had . I was originally concerned we'd copied from them but actually they cite us and although the page says it may be updated I don't see any indication it existed before 2013 and the IP added the details above in 2011. Anyway that provided a reference to the second case we list as natural causes which confirmed that he had been reported missing and also says "no foul play was suspected based on the circumstances of the man's disappearance and his history" which seems to be the case for many of the identified examples and also suggests it probably wasn't natural causes. (In any case, if no foul play based on.... that means it's unlikely the cause of death is known for sure.) Incidentally that ref although possibly not an RS seems to be well cited so could be used to improve our reference where it's lacking. I've added by refs about identification of the two who were recorded as missing and we list as dying of natural causes but haven't checked the other examples. (The ref I fixed earlier seemed to be mostly about where the shoes were sold etc.) Nil Einne (talk) 04:36, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
 * "No foul play" for all of them. But that definitely doesn't preclude suicides or accidents. Only exonerates Sea Peoples. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:54, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Purported 1887 find in Vancouver
The article was edited to include reference to an event in Vancouver in 1887 about the discovery of a leg in a boot. The reference is to an article published in ABC Bookworld, related to a review of a book published in 2002 about place names of Vancouver. The review states "There are quirky tales like that surrounding Leg-In-Boot Square. A knee-high boot with a severed leg inside washed ashore at False Creek in 1887. The police stuck the gruesome discovery on a pole in front of their headquarters hoping someone would claim it. Two weeks later, no takers."

I found a reference to an article (purportedly published in 2010) in the Kwantlen Chronicle entitled "Believe it or not: The unexpected history of three Lower Mainland roads."

The later article refers to Leg-in-Boot Square and the origins of its name. It states:

"Vancouver – Leg-in-Boot Square

Since late 2007, B.C. residents have been living with a strange occurrence: severed feet washing up on shore. These feet are unidentifiable and unclaimed, but also not a new thing. This has happened once before.

In 1887, local police found a knee-high boot, complete with severed leg, in the forests of False Creek. The police placed the limb outside the station, hoping someone would claim it, according to Elizabeth Walkerâ€™s Street Names of Vancouver. No one did.

Stuart Cumberland, a 19th-century writer, mentions the boot in his 1887 book The Queenâ€™s Highway.

â€œJust before I visited Vancouver, a man had mysteriously disappeared; and, on the day of my arrival, a top-boot, containing a foot and portion of the leg, had been found in the forest of False Creek. This, it was surmised, was all that remained of the missing man, a cougar having disposed of the rest.â€

The forested area is long gone, but the story lives on. In a 1976 act, the city named the False Creek location Leg-in-Boot Square."

If the 1887 publication is to be accepted, the severed leg had nothing to do with being found in water. Therefore, the 1887 reference should be deleted from this Wiki article. I am an amateur when it comes to dealing with such issues on Wiki and what should be done to correct this possible error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Macman1956 (talk • contribs) 03:20, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. A forest is not a sea. Removed the 1914 one, too. It simply wasn't since 2007. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:32, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Olympia Foot
I just read in the Olympian from last weekend about a shoe with bones in it found in a log yard in Olympia, WA. It was in the section of logs that had been taken out of the water. Go ahead and erase this mention when someone more familiar with the topic writes about it. C. L. Hilby, MD Olympia WA 5-21-17  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.1.122 (talk) 09:24, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Tacoma boy's foot
Perhaps it has a connection to a boy and his mother who were reported missing and were noted by multiple surveillance video cameras to be driving through the area in a confused manner in March of 2010. Their van was found in Puget Sound (the Salish Sea) outside of Olympia with its doors open. The 8 year old's body was found 12 miles north on Fox Island. Tacoma is yet further north and could have carried a foot by the same currents for the remainder of the year. Newspapers do not state if the boy's body was missing a foot nor his shoewear size. http://www.heraldnet.com/news/body-washes-up-on-fox-island-could-be-missing-boy/     C. Hilby MD 5-21-17  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.1.122 (talk) 09:52, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Possible pop-culture references
In Season 6, Episode 17 of the TV show Bones, 8 pairs of dismembered feet are found on the Canadian-American Border. While the parallels with the Salish Sea foot discoveries end there, I believe it is notable that the scenario is so similar to the initial premise of the episode. JPeroutek (talk) 19:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Removing of refimprove and lead flags
I have removed the refimprove and lead flags that were put in on March 14. Within two hours of the lead flag being applied, Drownsoda rewrote the lead. I like the revised lead. Nearly every sentence in this article has a link to published journalism. I think the refimprove flag was added in error, since I have trouble imagining a more thoroughly sourced wikipedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.100.191 (talk) 11:22, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

New lead

 * Well I don't like the new lead. MOS:FIRST:
 * Keep redundancy to a minimum in the first sentence. Use the first sentence of the article to provide relevant information that is already given by the title of the article. The title of the article need not appear verbatim in the lead. For example, instead of

Pakistani–Iraqi relations are the relations between Pakistan and Iraq.

consider:

Iraq and Pakistan established diplomatic relations in 1947.

Remember that the title always appear in the lead if the article title is descriptive, and in any case the statement relations are relations does not help a reader who does not know the meaning of diplomatic relations. In this case, the editor of the second version sensibly opted to include information (that relations were established in 1947) in the first sentence, rather than repeating the title.

Sometimes a little redundancy is unavoidable. The Oxford English Dictionary has to be called by its proper name in its article, and cannot be called anything other than a dictionary in the first sentence. Even in these cases, the first sentence provide information not given in the title. But try to rephrase whenever possible. Instead of:

The Oxford English Dictionary [...] is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language.

consider:

The Oxford English Dictionary [...] is the premier dictionary of the English language.

Both contain some redundancy, but the second is better because it tells us that the OED is the world's most respected dictionary of English. Again, someone who knows what the word dictionary means will probably assume that any dictionary is comprehensive, so they do not need to be told that.
 * Keep the first sentence focused on the subject by avoiding constructions like "[Subject] refers to..." or "...is a word for..." – the article is about the subject, not a term  the subject. For articles that are actually about terms, italicize the term to indicate the use–mention distinction.
 * —Tamfang (talk) 21:08, 13 January 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

79 year old man?
These sources say the January 1, 2019 foot found on Jetty Island were matched to a 79 year old man found on a beach near Neah Bay in November: But we also have foot #18, found near the Jordan River, British Columbia in December 2017. also "79-year-old Stanley Okumoto, who was reported missing in September by Kitsap County authorities." Is this the same 79 year old man, pieces of whom appeared 27 miles apart on either side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca? Is the KIRO7 story wrong on that detail? Confused. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:08, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Appears that #20 has been identified as a 22-year old missing since 2016. I believe the KIRO reference about the 79 year old is incorrect. Identity Of Remains Found On Jetty Island Matched By Medical Examiner --RSnook (talk) 20:12, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Incomplete sentence
This is not a complete sentence and does not make sense

" However, besides the dates when the shoes were manufactured, Lambert said ocean currents and their ultimate northward tendencies up the Pacific Ocean from part of the region that was hit by the 2004 tsunami." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:301:777C:C750:CBB:FED2:D236:179B (talk) 04:53, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

feet pictures?
I feel like some kind of pictures need to go with all of the found feet in the table. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:3D08:A27F:EB60:BC7F:286F:46DA:B4C1 (talk) 23:09, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Let me take a look at all the photos of severed human feet I’ve got laying around. I’m sure one of them will do. Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:20, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

who were Canadian about the mystery
...his audience members who were Canadian about the mystery.[13] What does being Canadian about the mystery mean? I thought being Canadian had to do with your ancestry or your place of residence. People get Canadian about things? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Longinus876 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Why don't you just insert the comma or reorder the words to fix it? The sentence is an accidental double entendre. There's no reason to waste time grousing about it. Just fix it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:09, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Update of early speculation
This article needs some updates since a lot of the discussion seems to be speculation from when the first four or five discoveries were made.2001:569:7F70:3800:F046:88C4:C4A9:CD61 (talk) 08:29, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Copyvio
The "proposed explanations" section was entirely copypasted from this Vox article. I've blanked the page and inserted a copyvio template, but let me know if I did it wrong. Thanks, Gageills (talk) 20:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Explanation
A full scientific explanation for this phenomenon has now been published on National Geographic here. Can this be added to the article? --Viennese Waltz 12:25, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Gosh that music is quite scary, isn't it. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:35, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Foot found in Victoria
When more details released can add this to the table:

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/shoe-with-suspected-human-remains-inside-found-on-beach-in-victoria

Uninspired Username (talk) 17:21, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Explanation time!
This isn't my article and I don't want to butt in but this Vox article (which mentions this page!) does a good job bringing in experts for scientific explanations of the phenomenon. Thmazing (talk) 04:08, 25 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It is your article as much as anyone's. —Tamfang (talk) 22:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)