ANOTHER severed foot washes ashore in British Columbia – totalling a dozen in four years

Canadian police have a grisly mystery on their hands - over a dozen feet.

Yet another human foot washed ashore in Vancouver on Tuesday, the latest in 12 such cases since 2007.



The limb, which like the others was inside a rubber-soled shoe, was discovered by a passer by in a creek close to the centre of the city.



Startling find: A foot was found by a passerby in Vancouver's False Creek on Tuesday, stoking an already odd mystery over feet that have washed up in the same area

DNA testing is underway but police are currently at a loss to explain how it got there.



The grim discovery brings to a dozen the number of human feet which have been discovered since 2007, prompting a fresh flurry of speculation as to how they got there.



What seemed initially like a bizarre coincidence has become the subject of a major investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and British Columbia's coroner's office.



Nobody, however, has been able to offer a definite explanation as to what is happening - or identify whom all of the feet belong to.



The latest limb to be found was found floating in the water along the shore of Vancouver's False Creek, which wraps around the downtown area.



Part of leg was still attached, police said.



Mystery: No one has been able to offer a definitive explanation as to where the feet are coming from - or who they belong to

Detectives cordoned off the area and the British Columbia coroner was called in.



Vancouver police spokeswoman constable Jana McGuiness said there was no indication how the remains got there and further forensic examination will be required.



'It was quite disturbing - quite a discovery to make,' she added.



According to reports in the Canadian press, the discoveries began in August 2007 when a man's foot was found on Jedediah Island, northeast of Nanaimo in British Colombia.



The foot was later linked to a deceased male whose name police withheld at the request of his family.



Over the next four years they have turned up with occasional regularity, always clad in a rubber soled shoe.



During one 11 month period alone six feet washed up, although it has been two years since the latest discovery.



Creepy creek: Vancouver's usually bustling False Creek is now the site of another human foot discovery

Initially it was thought that all the feet had come from four men who died in a light aircraft crash off the West coast of Canada in February 2005.



POSSIBLE THEORIES FOR FEET WASHING ASHORE

The feet belong to victims of a boat or plane crash in the ocean

Foul play: Victims of a sadistic killer

They are all that's left of 2004 Asian tsunami victims

They are the feet of missing persons who have committed suicide

They are the limbs of stowaways that have fallen overboard

However in August 2006 the theory fell apart with the discovery of a fifth right foot, meaning that something else was to blame.



Since then a number of explanations have been put forward - some suggested the limbs might be from stowaways who smuggled themselves onto a container ship as it left Vancouver.



Others claimed the feet could be from victims of the Asian Tsunami in 2004, or part of a human trafficking ring.



But when it emerged that one had apparently been deliberately severed, rumours began spreading that a serial killer with a twisted calling card might be at work.



Detectives later said that they believed the the feet appeared to have come off the bodies naturally and that foul play was not suspected.



Men and women are among those whose feet have come ashore, but as yet only the one male has been positively identified.



Complicating matters were claims by oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer who has said that the feet could have drifted as far as 1,000 miles.



Pranksters have also made the investigation more difficult. In 2008 they planted a hoax ‘foot’ on Vancouver Island which renewed interest in the case.