Man Makes ‘Creepy’ Discovery Inside Gift-Wrapped Box on Beach: ‘Something You Would See in a Horror Movie’

A man and his family were celebrating Father’s Day at a Washington beach in June when he came across something “very creepy.”

While walking down Dash Point Beach at Dash Point State Park with his wife and two kids on June 15, Kevin Ewing discovered box that resembled a Christmas package, he told the Kent Reporter and CBS affiliate KIRO.

At the time, Ewing was walking ahead of his family in search of feathers, he told the Kent Reporter, when he spotted the box wrapped in a green cloth with a yellow string tied around it. Ewing, who has Native American ancestry, said he believed it could have been a prayer bundle or some type of message in a bottle, so he opened the box.

That’s when he found a severed human toe, among other items.

Inside the green cloth was a pine box, shut with tape and containing a pocket knife, a feather, grass, sage, lavender, tobacco and a rag — which wrapped around the dismembered big toe, per the Kent Reporter.

“I set the box down on the ground, I believe, and I used my knife to pick the rag up and open it, and it was a severed human big toe that was in there,” Ewing told the outlet. “At first I was very shocked, and it took me a few minutes to kind of be like, ‘Is this what I think it is?’ Then once it dawned on me that that’s what it was, I set everything down.”

“You know, it’s just very creepy. It’s like something you would see in a horror movie,” he explained to KIRO.

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Near the boxed toe was a seagull, which Ewing told the Kent Reporter appeared to have been skinned and mutilated. He said it was unclear if the two discoveries were related.

“You know, a lot of things are going through my head like, ‘Where is the rest of the body?’ ” Ewing told KIRO. “Like, ‘Did this wash in from the tide, from the water? Did somebody leave this here intentionally to be found?’ ”

After the discovery, he got in touch with a park ranger, as Washington State Patrol officials took over the investigation. Trooper Rick Johnson said, per the Kent Reporter, that the toe was transported to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office for a DNA match and that officials are trying to cross-reference any potential cases related to the severed toe.

An incident report obtained by the outlet noted that the toe was comparable in size to that of an adult man.

Washington State Patrol did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for more information on Saturday, July 12.

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Graphic images shared by the Kent Reporter show the discolored toe sitting inside a white wrap, with the box’s contents scattered around the beach.

The father who found the box wondered if there is “somebody out there playing some kind of, you know, weird, weird and sick game” and if the toe belongs to a missing person, per both outlets.

He also said he left the area after he realized what he had found, in case someone was hiding in the bushes. “Just very odd,” he said. “The toe definitely did not look like it was amputated. It definitely didn’t look like a surgeon had taken it off. It didn’t look like a very clean medical cut.”

Now, Ewing hopes the owner of the toe is identified.