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VANCOUVER, CANADA: Five human feet that washed ashore on Canada's southwestern coast have become an international science puzzle, and sparked intense speculation about whether murder or a tragedy is the cause.

The fifth foot to wash up in less than 10 months was found Monday (June 16th) by a passerby on the Fraser River in a suburb of this major port city, local police officer Sharlene Brooks told AFP.

"He saw a shoe floating in the water, pulled it to the shore and called police," Brooks said.

The feet are all in the care of the British Columbia Coroner's Service, which is being deluged with media calls from around the world, according to chief coroner Terry Smith.

"This one stretches everyone's imagination," Smith told AFP, "but we really need to remember that these remains are someone's loved one. I'm reluctant to treat this as some sort of crime thriller."

Police were close-lipped about the type of shoe encasing the fifth foot, its size and its gender - but did reveal that it is the first left foot to be found.

The other four were all right feet encased in running shoes, and beginning last August they washed up on area islands, said Annie Linteau of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's national police force.

Linteau said the force's major crime unit is coordinating the investigation with local police. "We're looking at all possibilities ... and that includes that they could have been connected," she told AFP.

But it was not yet clear if a crime had been committed, she said, noting: "Our examination has found no evidence that the feet were severed, meaning there were tool markings, etc. We have no evidence to support that."

Several experts said the feet could have been carried to western Canada on ocean currents from almost anywhere in the world.

It's also possible they originated inland in the province of British Columbia and washed down the Fraser River, said retired American oceanography professor Curtis Ebbesmeyer of Seattle.

But finding five feet in a row, with no other body parts, suggests that "something is going on that is not natural," said Ebbesmeyer, who researches how ocean currents carry floating objects around the globe.

That body parts can remain intact in water indefinitely expands the possible cause and location of origin. "In a survival suit they can go for years," said Ebbesmeyer.

"Normal street clothes come apart at joints that are exposed, like an ankle. But if they're wearing jeans then the legs might stay together. In a tight-fit T-shirt the torso might stay together."

Criminologist Gail Anderson of Simon Fraser University here, an international specialist in forensic decomposition from microbes and scavengers, said the appearance of five feet is not necessarily sinister.

"I'm beginning to think it might be a boat or plane that went down, and then something shifted, through seismic activity or a boat, that is making it release all these body parts now," she said.

"The reason only feet have been found is because they are in running shoes and protected," Anderson told AFP, saying a shoe might also make a foot more likely to float, which means it could have come from "miles and miles away."

Feet normally come apart from legs in water, said Anderson, adding that flesh immersed in water turns into adipocere tissue, a soap-like substance, that no microbes or scavengers like crabs will eat.

Smith said the coroner's service is testing the feet for DNA while a forensic anthropologist will draw up "a broader profile of the individuals... for height, age, sex, those kinds of things."

He said the first three feet belonged to males, but tests of their DNA have not yet been matched to anyone.