The New Zealand Herald newspaper quoted Sergeant Steve Williamson as saying that the shoe was discovered by a walker on Petone Beach (capital Wellington) on the morning of March 25 (local time).
Police are currently not treating the incident as a murder and are still investigating the incident at an early stage, according to Stuff .
"Police have completed a land and water search around the area where the shoe was found. We have found nothing else," New Zealand police told Insider .
Police added that information regarding the human foot in the shoe will be provided in due course.
Meanwhile, when speaking to local media, people were extremely shocked by the above information. Alfred Memelink, owner of a local art gallery near the coast, told The New Zealand Herald : "We usually walk on the beach every day but we didn't walk this morning. I thought maybe we could find a human foot in the shoe. It's terrible."
Many shoes (once containing human feet) washed up on the shores of Canada and the US. Photo: The Mirror
Not just New Zealand, at least 20 human feet have washed up on the shores of the Salish Sea, stretching from British Columbia (Canada) to Washington state (USA), since August 2007. Most were in sneakers , such as the foot in a Nike running shoe found on the west side of Vancouver Island.
The most recent case was on New Year’s Day 2019, when several tourists on Jetty Island in Washington state found a booted foot. Before that, there was the case of a human foot in December 2017 that washed up on the south coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. Police said the foot belonged to a 79-year-old man in Washington state who had gone missing and was later found dead.
After a series of feet were discovered many years ago, many theories emerged, suggesting that they could be the feet of victims of a serial killer or mafia who dumped the bodies.
The sneakers were discovered on Vancouver Island in February 2016. Photo: CTV
However, Dr Karan Raj of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has offered a simple explanation on his TikTok account, which has more than 4 million followers. In a video with nearly 700,000 views, the British doctor explains that the mystery of drifting feet lies in anatomy and shoe design.
"When a body sinks to the bottom of the sea, it becomes a meal for scavengers. They are lazy and prefer soft parts to hard parts," explains Dr. Karan Raj.
According to Mr. Raj, the softest part is the tissue and tendons around the ankle. Therefore, when scavengers eat this part, the foot will quickly separate from the body.
In addition, modern shoes are buoyant, so they can carry your feet ashore. Sneakers made in the last 10 years often have air-filled pockets that prevent them from sinking.
As for why the human feet only appear on the Salish coast, oceanography professor Parker MacCready explains that this area has storms that easily wash them ashore.
Source
Comment (0)