Blog post by [Dr. Gail Anderson](http://www.sfu.ca/~ganderso/). Originally posted on Wiring the Abyss 2014 Expedition portal. Friday September 19th, 2014 marks a milestone as it will be the 10th in a series of carcass deployments in the Salish Sea. Almost a decade ago, Dr. Verena Tunnicliffe saw me give a talk at the University of Victoria on forensic entomology and she invited me ‘on board’ VENUS to deploy a pig carcass as a human proxy under a camera at the bottom of the Saanich Inlet. I was the first external researcher in VENUS. **No-one had ever been able to conduct such research** – to observe in real time what happens to a body in the marine environment. That first deployment and the three subsequent ones were during an unfortunate time when a [number of human feet in running shoes were washing ashore](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_Sea_human_foot_discoveries). These sad cases became a media sensation around the world, leading the media and the public to make unfounded claims of murder and dismemberment. The early pig videos clearly showed the police and public alike that disarticulation of a foot is normal and common in decomposition in these waters (Fig. 1). These deaths were not foul play. My colleague [Dr. Lynne Bell](http://www.sfu.ca/~lynneb/), a forensic anthropologist, joined the team in 2012 and, funded by the Canadian Police Research Centre and Department of Defence, we began the most recent set of experiments.