the strange tale of the Sommerton man

Welcome back to cake's-screw it i'm done with titles due to coronavirus, some may be aware of this story, some may not.

I have covered incidents of mysterious people such as Kasper Hauser and Count of St. Germain, now it's time to end the trilogy...or is it?

Here's the story. In 1948 a body of a recently deceased man washed ashore on a beach in South Australia, looking quite dapper for a corpse, as you will see below.



he was well dressed in a suit, suggesting he was a white collar worker, however whom he worked for or his position remains unknown. But apparently his name was Tamam shud, as his pocket was found to hold a secret

Inside they found a piece of paper rolled tightly, bearing the words "Tamam Shud". This phrase appears at the end of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, an 11th century book of Persian poems.

And when translated, the words mean "the end", or "finished".

it appears-in my eyes-to be an encryption (duh), take a look at the image below and you'll see what i mean



Now we go NCIS (given he was found on the beach)

The letters couldn't be decoded, but the telephone number led police to the doorstep of a young nurse.

Did she know who the Somerton Man was?

Despite now being buried, a plaster cast of the Somerton Man's body had been made. When the nurse was asked to identify it, she looked like she was going to faint.

But she denied ever knowing the man.

hmmm...there are many interesting theories, my theory is that he was a spy-but let's introduce some comedy courtesy of buzzfeed

An unidentified man found dead on an Australian beach has baffled investigators for decades. A new DNA analysis links the “Somerton Man” to Thomas Jefferson and Native Americans.

that's buzzfeed for ya, i'm surprised they didn't throw aliens into the mix. He does have living descendants, but even they don't know who he was or what he was up to, so your guess is as good as mine. A spy? A con artist? Let me know what you think (just don't go all buzzfeed.)

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

DNA should be ab!e to solve this, you would think, by doing the Leeds Method.

I'm waiting for the DNA to see if he matches Derek Abbott's wife Rachel.

Although that still might not explain "who" he was only rather what his name was and who his parents were.

The End.

Some welcome relief from doom laden CV19 and political one-upmanship threads, thank you. I’m going to have a look and see what I can find......

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

It would have helped if we knew the name or marital status of the nurse. The fact that she asked to have her name removed from the case file makes it sound like the man may have killed himself due to the child they may have had together out of wedlock. He may have torn the paper out of the book, put the note in his pocket, and threw the rest of the book in an open car window before jumping into the ocean. It would also be interesting to know whether or not any of the letter codes in the back of the book were similar to the name of the nurse.

This case is fascinating - and my home town to boot. If I get the chance, I will try and add a bit more as I have looked in to this before, I am a little tied up at the moment however. It is truely a fascinating story. True crime or spy mystery? No one is quite sure yet.

From memory, there are some interesting anomalies. He matches no missing persons reports, and had in his possessions a brand of American cigarettes that were not available in Australia at the time. He had some possessions in a short term storage locker at the Adelaide Railway Station. I believe his clothes were also tailored somewhere other than Australia; from memory they may have been Eastern European? Don't quote me on that it has been a while.

Very welcome thread to escape all the chaos and doom! Star and flag.

It's a verey interesting story, I have seen or read of this before. Will be interesting to what more they can uncover with the dna.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie


Walter White!

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

hmm - some quite egregious errors and lack of logic in the OP source article

a question that does not appeart to be addressed : what did you do in the war mr " sommerton " ???

as for exhumation - another reason to do it - now - " isotope ratio analysis " - basically bones and teeth contain evidence of where he grew up [ 0 > 16 years old ] - due to minerals in the water - the geological differences can be identified

and if he is [ was ] american - show that he grew up in a particular county or cluster of counties

from that - even though its 75 years ago - there may be people who can identify " my thathers fishing buddy " - if the right people are targeted

The "Somerton Man's" body was exhumed yesterday by South Australian Police. They are hoping to find viable DNA to see if they can find out his true identity. It may take some time, and no guarantees it will lead to anything meaningful, but keep an ear out ;-)

The Somerton Man has been exhumed from his resting place in Adelaide's West Terrace Cemetery, with police optimistic about the prospects of recovering DNA.

The remains of the unidentified man were placed inside a new coffin, which has been taken away for DNA analysis.

Police conducting the exhumation at the grave found an identification tag confirming the remains were those of the Somerton Man, whose body was found on an Adelaide beach 73 years ago.

A small excavator and earthmover were earlier used to remove the hard topsoil, before a marquee tent was set up directly over the gravesite.

Once the dig progressed, a wooden spatula and small brush were then used to carefully remove the bones from the ground.

www.abc.net.au...

It seems the case has finally been solved, and well.....not quite what everyone was expecting. It turns out, he's an electrical engineer named Charles Webb.

Sommerton Man Case Solved

The mysterious "code", it turns out, might just be a list of horse races he was betting on.