EP75: 20,000 Leagues of Being Uncomfortable

Hello, lovelies! Welcome to the blog where Rebecca purposefully made Tiffany uncomfortable and avenged Ashley! Below you will find Rebecca’s notes and related images.

The Salish Sea Souls

Starting in 2007, feet have been washing up on the British Columbia coastline. Since the initial foot:

15 feet total
7 individual feet
4 Sets

Besides their location, all feet have been found inside their shoe, some from the ankle down while others would have the tibia or fibula still attached

Why feet though? It’s theorized that it’s due to how the body naturally decomposes (the ankle is a weak connection compared to the rest of the foot/lower leg), paired with the fact that the shoes protect the feet from the elements and wildlife.

Theories range from a serial killer with a unique calling card to Lower Mainland gangs. All of these theories would lead you down an impressive youtube rabbit hole.

The actual answer is a lot less exciting. 10/15 of the feet that have been found have been linked to accidental deaths.

Andy Watson, a spokesman with the British Columbia Coroners Service said: “We don’t see any indication that there is any suspicion of foul play. Sometimes they are natural deaths, or suicides, or accidental deaths (like a fall).”

This portion of British Columbia is not the only portion of the Pacific Northwest where feet like to wash up, it’s also not the only place in the world that seems to be a magnet for loose remains.

BuT wHy HaVeN’t We SeEn FeEt BeFoRe 2007?!

Simple. The rise of popularity in air pockets and foam used in popular running shoes. This doesn’t explain one foot, which dated back to 1985 and showed up in a boot, but that’s still not enough to give the conspiracies a foothold.

Number	Date Found	Which?	Place	Origin
Foot 1	Aug 2007	Left	Jedidiah Island	Missing person, 2004Male
Foot 2	Aug 2007	Right	Gabriola Island	Missing person, 2006Male
Foot 3	Feb 2008	Right	Valdez Island	Missing person, 2006MaleLinked to #5
Foot 4	May 2008	Right	Fraser River, near Richmond	Missing person, 2004FemaleLinked to #6
Foot 5	June 2008	Left	Fraser River	Linked to #3
Foot 6	Nov 2008	Left	Kirkland Island	Linked to #4
Foot 7	Oct 2009	Right	Fraser River, near Richmond	Missing person, 2008Male
Foot 8	Aug 2011	Left	False Creek, Vancouver	Unidentified maleLinked to #10
Foot 9	Nov 2011	Right	Sasamat Lake, Port Moody	DNA linked to male missing persons from 1985Boot
Foot 10	Oct 2012	Right	False Creek, Vancouver	Linked to 8
Foot 11	Feb 2016	Left	Botanical Beach	Linked to 12
Foot 12	Feb 2016	Right	Botanical Beach	Linked to 11
Foot 13	Dec 2017	Left	Near Jordan River	DNA linked to male who went missing Sept 2017
Foot 14	May 2018	Right	Gabriola Island	DNA link to male who went missing early 2018
Foot 15	Sept 2018	Left	West Vancouver	N/ASize: 9.5Male, <50 Years

Giant Squid

The Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, also known as the Colossal Squid, were first discovered in 1925 when two arms were found inside the stomach of a sperm whale in is the largest cephalopod to date

Deep-Sea Gigantism: Cause is uknown

It’s not just squid (see Japanese Spider Crab)
More common towards the poles i.e. colder waters, Cause is generally unknown
Bergmann’s rule (temperature): larger animals have less surface area relative to volume, so they radiate less heat based on their mass and stay warmer in colder climates
Kleiber’s law: Massive animals generally have lower metabolic rates and need less high-quality food to survive
Other theories expound upon whether the animal’s giant size help the organism resists high amounts of pressure (like on the bottom of the ocean)
We’ll never know… today

Their elusive nature makes them very difficult to study, that, coupled with the fact that they’re a deep water species, prefered depths of around 1,000m (0.62 miles or 3280.84 ft) near Antarctica, means we know very little about this creature.

The specimens that have been seen are believed to be juveniles who will venture into shallower waters, it’s these juveniles that have been found eating fish from the hooks of fishermen (think… commercial size, not the one you have in your garage)

Due to the elusiveness of the adults, their adult size is not truly known, but it is believed females are typically larger of the and that adults could reach lengths of 46ft and weights of 1100lbs.

Eyeballs have a 25cm diameter (9.84 inches) and they have hooks on their suction cups

While beaks with a lower rostal length (LRL, length of the straight cutting section of the lower beak) is not directly proportional to a squid’s size, the largest found equaled 49mm (just under two inches)

Perspective: a squid weighing roughly 352 lbs had an LRL of 40mm, while another that weighed 1,091 lbs had an LRL of 42.5 mm

GeSHaFish / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Despite its size, it’s not believed that this creature is as aggressive as how its been depicted in illustrations. The colossal squid, having a rather slow metabolism, prefers to just chill until prey happens to swim by within reach.

Despite being a super chill mega-beast, the sperm whale (77,000 – 130,000 lbs and ~40ft in length) will actively hunt this creature. Quite a bit of what’s currently known about the colossal squid comes from sperm whale being found with wounds inflicted by the squid and what has been found in the whale’s tummy

FUN FACT: while researching I came across videos with “unidentified ocean sounds” and I was NOT impressed with the astute attention my cats gave to the sound (Video Here)

Baltic Sea Anomaly

It’s believed that less than 5% of the ocean floor has been explored, with only two missions sent to the ocean floor (one in 1960 and one in 2012, thanks to James Cameron)

In June 2011, a sonar image was taken of the bottom of the Baltic Sea by the Ocean X team from Sweden during an investigation to find two Swedish merchant ships that were sunk by Nazis in WWII

About the Baltic Sea:

Located in northern Europe (between Sweden, Finland, Poland… not touching the country where Frozen took place, but close)
Max Depth 1506 ft
145,561 miles^2 (or… 37,700,126 hectares)
Average temperature of 7.1C (44.8F) dropping to

Ocean X is a team that is focused on finding sunken treasure, one of their finds being the schooner, Jönköping, in 1997, where 2,400 bottles of champagne from 1907 were recovered and then sold at astronomical prices (one website found had two bottles, one listed for $3,646, the other for $4,050)

This image was low resolution, but looked out of place on the ocean floor, 300ft below…. And kind of like a flying saucer 180ft in diameter (some say 60 ft in diameter)

It’s reported that divers and surface crew who tried to get closer experienced “electrical malfunctions”

There has been MUCH criticism regarding the image quality, which not only doesn’t help in identifying the image but also decreases the validity of the find

Initial hope was that the Batlic Anomaly was a sunken UFO or a leftover piece of WWII Nazi technology/building

Regarding the UFO sightings… When aliens are not spending time in the Nevada desert they are known to vacation over the Baltic

A mysterious silver disc was seen flying for nearly one hour above the Blue Lakes (near Kaliningrad) on July 27, 2008

Or… Nazis

During WWII, the Baltic Sea created a natural barrier between the Soviet Union, Scandinavia, and the Axis Powers.

Naturally, warfare ensued, with mines being placed in the sea and the Nazis trying to keep their source of iron ore (Imported from Sweden)

It’s during this time it’s believed the Germans created undergrounds structures with the purpose of scrambling enemy communication and defuse mines

Makes sense why electrical equipment stopped working within 200ft of the anomaly

Rocks from the area were sent to be analyzed and, while the rocks were not from the area, glacial drifts are the most likely explanation. And the team has yet to gather enough funds to explorer further to determine if something man-made lies just beneath the surface