Foot of the Sea

Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about creepy things that surprised us around the internet. That ed Wynn, I'm Michelle. Surprise surprise all time. No, no, let's just count it off. Okay, one, two, three, Surpriprise. It's Michelle and it's Edwin. And we have another episode today about Oh I'm excited about this one. Oh you know what this is about. Oh yeah, I know what it's about because I grew up in the Northwest and this story is iconic and weird, super weird, super weird. Yeah. I looked at it. This is this is kind of disgusting. Michelle likes it. I love it. I think it's that dark humor of the Northwest. It's never sunny there, never unless it's you know, sunny, but it's very rarely sunny there. So it's true then, Michelle, Right, So it's true that it's like people are just depressed there. Oh yeah, one hundred percent. It's nine months of gray. I wrote this whole intro. Just really just drive that home. Yeah, I want to hear it. So today we're talking about the phenomenon of the feet of the Northwest. It's August twentieth, two thousand and seven. Imagine a cold, gray day on a rocky beach. You thought it was gonna be nice because it's August, But joke's on you because it's the Northwest and it's just a gray sky meeting a gray sea, and just an endless void of gray. Did the sun rise today? You'll never know? Imagine the sound of a ferryboat and seagulls in the distance. Twelve year old girl is playing at the beach, between the rocks and the driftwood. She spots a shoe. It's blue and white. It's a running shoe, men's size twelve. She looks inside, she sees a sock. Inside that sock, she finds a decomposing foot. Soll what and thus starts our journey of the phenomenon of the Northwest feet so specific with the foot size, I mean the shoe size and everything. And there's a reason I shared that because these are some jokes I wrote underneath that. Can you imagine the parent's horror as she was like, look at this, The all I could think about was my dad freaking out when my brother stuck his finger in in a goose poop. So can you imagine somebody bringing like a decomposing foot. Can you imagine that anyway? And then I wrote, I hope they brought some handstand. Oh man, I love it, but so specific? Why a twelve year old? Oh this is a real thing, the real thing twelve. This is the first one that they found. A twelve year old girl found the foot on the beach. And then six days later, August twenty sixth a couple that was walking on another Northwest beach found another sneaker shoe, a white Rebok men's size twelve. But the feet didn't belong together, clearly because the shoes were different, but also they were both right feet. By this time that people already know, Oh somebody found a foot. Yeah, that was the first news story. The little girl found the foot. The news ate it up because that's so weird. Six days later, another foot is found, like what wow? No, yea coincidence? What a coincidence? Super weird. The next year, five more feet of here and neighboring beaches. What okay? The discoveries alarm the public obviously, what is it? And what are people saying? What are they like, as someone who is up there when this is happening, I was like, oh, it's a serial killer. For a while, they were all like right foots, like it was. It was very weird. And I remember, like clearly getting an image in my mind of a boat propeller cutting off feet, which I'm just like, why is this in my mind? People on a boat party just like dangling their feet into the most And did they ever find the other foot of the first guy? No? No, See, that's what's very weird. So over the next twelve years, fifteen more feet washed the shore on Vancouver Island in the network of waterways called the Salish Sea, and then six more feet turn up in the Puget Sound, which is where I'm from, which is like kind of at the south southern part of the Salish Sea. So every one of those shoes was found in a sneaker except for the very last one, which was in an old hiking boot. And every time a foot would wash up, the media go crazy like it's every time, it's amazing, it's top breaking news, and then theories would be serial killers, Psychics would call in for tips. People even thought it was aliens, which I thought was hilarious, but I'm not sure how it would be aliens. Just take like aliens with a foot fetish or something. I'm not quite sure, but taking one foot and not the other foot. I think serial killer is probably the more I think Cereal. I mean, especially with all it being the Northwest, right, I think in what was it Dexter? Didn't he have his burial ground underwater? I'm curious about what the psychics said. I know me too. I actually read like a quote from a police officer that was like and every time a psychic would call, an offer to help, and of course hoaxes. Of course, people came out of the woodwork and started making fake feet for the beach. They would put chicken bones and sneakers, and then someone put a skeletonized dog paw in a sneaker. I know. I was like that that guy should be arrested, Like, where'd he get a skeletonized dog paw? Oh no, that's terrible. Yeah, you don't do that, I mean a human foot. I get it, but yeah, yeah, everybody gets it. Come on, everybody gets it. Oh that's terrible. Oh that's kind of disgusting, though I know it's I mean, I just think it's funny because it's like, oh, yeah, of course, of course the hoasters came out for this, of course they did, But I mean, why just feet? Why were full bodies washing ashore? Why just one foot? Did they ever find a pair? I'm so interested in this. Sometimes they'd find a pair, but not necessarily always Usually it was singles. That's terrible. Did you find anything about the aliens? And what? I know? I wish I had. I always find this such a good jumping off point for a story, right, Like a little girl finds a foot, Well, that's like the best start of any murder story or supernatural story you could ever have. Yeah, when you were just when you were starting the story right now, I was like, huh okay, so little girl and then the Pacific Northwest are like, okay, something terrible happened. And then she finds a foot, which is weird. I don't know, that's weird, and you're just like, oh, what happened? Like you just can't not be what happened here? Like what? What? This isn't normal? People don't just feet, well except in the Northwest they find feet, but I guess that's pretty normal. That's pretty normal. Goodness, Okay, so scientifically, okay, what happened? Well, okay, so this is the thing. Right, hold on, do you have any other, like, were there any interesting theories anything else before you tell me the reason why, trying to think of like there was any other interesting I mean, besides my own theories about there being a serial killer that was just cutting up feet, which it really did seem like for a while that there was a serial killer that might have been cutting up feet interesting, or a shark just kind of biting feet off. I mean, any theories, any theories, but they're all wrong because science explains it all. Science explaining the feet of the Northwest. Vancouver and Seattle in the Northwest is a highly populated area, and with that comes accidents and suicides just because it's a metropolitan area. Bodies sink and in cold water, they don't bloat with gas, and they don't float. And so one thing that they noticed about the feet is that none of them were cut. They were all naturally disarticulated from decomposition. Okay, oh no, yeah, So so somebody and drowns, they sink to the bottom, and then as they decompose, the weakest joints are our wrists and our ankles. As we decompose, they just naturally disarticulate and come off. Okay, okay, I thought, okay. Some of the bodies have been identified with DNA and have been known to come from accidents in suicide. But here's the thing. Because of tennis shoes, modern sneakers float so basically because of the sailor's seas and the currents, they wash everything ashore. And so these shoes just set sail once they float up and they go to shore and that's it. It's like they have a life on of their own, like they just kind of they just have to. They just bob up to the surface and they just set sail and off they go and off they go, and that's on an adventure. Yeah, And it's because they get sensationalized in the media that it seems like there's tons of feet washing up on shore, but there's not that many feet washing up on shore compared to how many people die in the water every year, who goes missing and like all that stuff. So and are those people from there, Michelle, Like are they from that area? Yeah? That most of them are from that area. Like they had some examples of like like like a like a fisherman who died in an accident like things like that, where they were able to identify with DNA or like someone who was depressed. They were able to identify that this person was like last seen on a bridge or something like that. They found some of the feet who some of the feet belonged to geez. So the rest of the body just kind of gets eaten up or decompose on its own. And yeah, it just stays at the bottom. Oh, that's kind of sad. I wonder what kind of brand showed up the most. Let's get a sponsor for the Northwest feet. The weird thing is it's almost because of the Salish Sea and the currents and the sales sheet, because like there are like one offs and other places where a foot will show up, but because of the way modern shoes are made and the currents they float. But also it's not unusual for weird feet to show up in the Northwest because in British Columbia in eighteen eighty seven, there was a leg in a boot that washed up and they named it leg in a boot square. There's a name, there is a name, yeah, and so they just named the square up in Vancouver. Interesting. So it just washed up, Yeah, they said they thought it was the remains of a man who drowned in the river the previous summer. But it just shows that there's a history of feet washing up in the Northwest, like specifically feet. I don't know if you've ever seen a shoe, Michelle, but I've seen shoes like in the You just asked me if i'd ever seen a shoe. You've never seen like shoes like in the water, like you've never wondered. Like now you're making me think twice. Like I've seen shoes that kind of just oh yeah, lost there, Like even in those you know those what are they called, like river beds, like running along those dirty la ones, I've seen shoes along there. All I'm saying is if you look in that shoe, you don't know what's gonna happen, or you do, oh geez kind of foot in there, your laugh. And the foot doesn't decompose like the foot. It's like decomposing, but it's like the sneaker protects it, so it's less decomposed than the because like most of the time, these bodies, it's been like months since they've disappeared. They've been gone a while. The last sneaker foot was found in twenty eighteen, and then I just wrote suspicious, super suspicious. Oh so the serial killer stopped killing. Like, if you don't have witnesses, you can't tell what happened to anybody from the psychics. Michelle like, come on, oh, yeah, you're right. The psychics could have been doing this the whole time. The pops weren't asking the right questions. They could have figured this all out. What dummies the psychics. No, I mean, I don't know why we even have police, Michelle, Like, we could just ask the psychic, like, what happened to this foot and they're just like, yeah, well this was suicide obviously, obviously they just know and then take that a court. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm fine with the core of psychic opinion. I have no problem with that. And then the psychic will be like, no, this is just chicken bones. This is just chicken bones wrapped in a sock. And there's a show about psychics or YouTube channel or something about psychics finding out what happened with crime. So look, I think there's something to it. Sometimes also sometimes there's probably not, you know what I mean, Like it just depends, but yeah, finding out what happened, sure, finding out where something is might be tougher, but finding out what happened. Sure, Yeah, either way, I think it's kind of sad. I mean sneakers. I don't know, I imagine runner or imagine just I don't know why, just you know people. I always imagine people in the in the you know, up there in the Pacific Northwest, just being super active flannels and yeah, lots of north Face chech fests. I imagine them being super active, having the time of their lives, just you know, the super Uo commercial, lots of super roos up there. And then they just die. Yeah, they didn't just die. I mean they didn't like keel over and die in the water. I mean their feet floated. That's terrible. My good, don't ruin this story for me. I love this story. I don't know. I think, you know, I kind of have like a not I don't what do you call it when you're like not afraid. No, you don't have a fear of feats, but you're just like feet, You're just like, uh, the opposite of a fetish, like the opposite of a foot fetish, a repulsion defeat. It's just like why feet, Like, for example, I can't imagine those people that do like petticures. I'm like, how did you do that? That's fair, that's fair. I couldn't do that. Strange people's feet, that's a lot. Yeah, and there that love feet. Yeah, there's a lot of side gigs there just sending pictures of feet and selling them. So guy at a at a where was I? I think I was at Saint Vinnie's, like Saint Vincent de Paul th restore, and some guy tried to buy my shoes that I was wearing. He just came up and asked if he could buy my shoes and I was like, no, I need to wear them, and he was like, oh, but I'm a photographer. They're the perfect shoes that I need. And he had on plastic gloves, you know, like hair dye gloves, and he was wearing these dirty sweats and I just I was like, no, I need my was this here? Yeah? This was definitely in LA. It was definitely a weird moment. But then I thought about it later. I didn't sell my shoes, but I was like, man, he was gonna give me twenty bucks for these beat up shoes, and I should have just done it, just walk home without shoes yeah, I'll just buy some at the thrift store and you know, deal with it. But what kind of shoes were they? Like? Were they just they were like little blue like ballet flats or something. They were like really cheap. They were just blue. That was the only thing that was like exciting about them. Yeah. There, we're there's strange people out there. There's just strange people that are into feet. That's why when I saw this, the article, I'm like, the feet. What did you say you were like horrifying north the Northwest feet? Because yeah, the Northwest feet story. And I was like, Okay, click, let's just see let's just see what Let's just see what she's gonna do. Let's see what it's about. I'm grossed out by this, but I'll just see what she does. Either way, I think it's so it's I mean, first of all, I think it's sad. I think a lot of these stories are sad, right, yeah, of course, But I mean it's strange like when you were, you know, telling me, oh, then they found a foot, then another one, and then five more and then ten more. Well, I think it's a phenomena, Like I honestly think it is like more of a phenomena. If a corpse ends up in the water in that area, its feet might end up on shore. Like it's just the natural elements combining into this weird thing. Just yeah, And you've told me things about the Pacific Northwest and sounds cool. Honestly, sounds like a place I'd like to live in. It's okay, bigfoot, enjoy your nine months of gray. Ah, enjoy that. I would do it. I mean, the summer's great up there. I mean I was being a little facetious. August twenty, two thousand and seven was probably a great day weatherwise before she found the foot. So there was stories before then, Michelle historically, but there weren't any like this is the big one that like started the whole conspiracy. It like made all the big news. I mean, David Letterman had someone on talking about it. Everybody was talking about it. Creepy and kind of nasty. Oh, one hundred percent nasty. I mean, I think you're guaranteed to find a foot if you ever look at a shoe. Wonder what happened to that little girl. She probably turned into me. And I was that little girl. And I was that little girl, And here I am no I'm much older than that. This thing might still keep happening, like we might still keep finding I know, I keep finding feet also, you know what, I forgot to tell you this theory too, Michelle, Like you know how people come up with movie things and they're like, Oh, this is going to be a movie, and this is why they're trying to make this a thing. So this could have been I don't know, advertising. You know how they did the whole there's a creature that was, oh a stunt, A stunt there, you go, like just a stunt, like an ad stunt, you know, try to get people to talk about it, get on the news. But maybe the the movie would have been like I don't know what would have been called, like like Saw. It would have been like an advertisement for Saw. They put feet in the ocean for Saw, or like a new movie like Foot of the Sea, that new hit Foot of the Sea starring Kevin Costner, call me the theaters. What I don't know. Kevin cost was in water World, why not Foot of the Sea. He could be in my Foot of the Sea movie Foot of the Sea coming this summer. So what'd you guys think of that? I was disgusted. We found out that Edwin doesn't like feet today. Too bad. We did a whole episode on it. But anyway, I'd be sure to listen to the show wherever you get your podcast. And if you have an idea for a scary mystery surprise for us, make sure to send us an email at hello at Scary Mystery surprise dot com. So next time,