Here’s a historical cipher mystery from 1948 that I found out about yesterday (apologies for being so slow on the uptake). It’s a thoroughly perplexing affair from Australia, with an anonymous corpse that ended up embalmed, lots of red herrings (all deliberate, it would seem), a fragment from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (“Tamam Shud”, after which the whole case is known) hidden in a secret pocket, and a short piece of apparently ciphered text:-
MRGOABABD
MLIAOI
MTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
As is clearly visible from the hi-res scan of the note, the second line is crossed through: to me, this makes it look as though the fourth line [MLIABO…] is a corrected version of the deleted second line [MLIAOI], perhaps where the “B” was omitted.
Any passing pen-and-paper code-breakers (particularly the hairier ones, naming no names *cough* Tony Gaffney) would immediately note a number of stand-out features:
- The “AB” letter-pair appears four times in the message
- IA appears at least twice
- “(I)TT(M)T” occurs in the last line (suggesting that ciphertext T <=> plaintext E, hmmm?)
- Several reversed letter-pairs (ST/TS, AI/IA, TM/MT) appear in the message
- The quality of writing appears semi-literate rather than hyper-literate
I suspect that these largely rule out any sophisticated cipher system: so what we are looking at here is probably a simple monoalphabetic cipher, and one probably executed by a fairly inept code-maker (i.e. with errors).
Since March 2009, a team from the University of Adelaide led by Professor Derek Abbott (who presumably felt compelled to try to work out whether or not to add the affair to his list of “imponderable” questions) has apparently set out to solve this whole mystery. But should the cipher get cracked, the sorry rationale behind it all would probably become painfully obvious. (For what it’s worth, my guess is that it’s some kind of botched suicide note to a lover, that would need to be both private and public at the same time.)
So, all you historical code-breakers out there, what are you waiting for? Get cracking! 🙂
N ITDSNLKANYTHLIK
ACPHJSTASMPNT
ABVD IMSTGTAHRCT
TTFNT
So you think it’s just a load of initials and not a cipher per se? Or have I misread your comment? 😮
With f,j,k,u,v,w,x,y, & z all absent (these low frequency letters are just as likely to be used as any other in a simple substitution cipher) and a scarcity of vowels it just looks like a note someone has written in there own sort of shorthand as an aid to memory.
It reminded me of this written by someone imprisoned for debts –
TETSDYNTRLNSNMDEMYGMDEERMEMYMCNMNYSLDRYMTNE
I think it says something like –
The Tuesday ? long since made my game desert me, my ??? any soldier you meet ??
but I think them impossible to solve with any degree of certainty unless you have an intimate knowledge of the person & events.
Tony
Hi Tony,
It’s interesting that you note the missing letters: 7 out of the nine missing ciphertext letters are at the end of the alphabet, while ciphertext letters A and B are fairly frequent.
Did the Somerton man simply use simple a substition cipher with the most frequent plaintext letter substituted by “A”, the second frequent by “B” etc.?
Should look into that…
Needless to say (but for the record anyway), my stroke of genius regarding the frequency sorting of the cipherbet led to nothing.
the code he left was a suicide note,
MTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
_____________________________END THE PAIN
MY LIFE IS ALL BUT OVER, AND I AM QUITE CALM,
ITS TIME TO MOVE TO SOMERTON, ADELAIDE, MOSELEY STREET, TO GO AT BEACH
OR THE END COULD BE – TO GET A BUS
it was suicide, hence thats why he was dressed so smart. he wanted to look his best.
he had his best shoes on. he injected the poisen i would say.
obviously someone knows him, but didnt come forward at the time because they felt guilty about the suicide as they were someway a cause for him to end his life.
Rob: it’s a decent enough theory, apart from missing out the other two lines:
MRGOABABD
MLIAOIThe “MLIAOI” starts out the same as the “MLIABOAIAQC” line, so seems to have been copied both wrongly and out of order.
Generally, I should point out that the main problems with the suggestion that this is an initial-letter cipher are (a) that AB appears a lot, and (b) that the distribution seems heavily skewed (there are a lot of M’s, A’s and T’s), neither of which you’d really expect in a real message. Tricky!
M = D
R = U
G = H
O = S
A = M
B = A
A = M
B = A
D = T
It it was a suicide note, why hide it in a secret pocket?
I mean, what’s the point of hiding a note which by the very nature of it is meant to be public? (Not to mention the fact — what’s the point of enciphering a suicide note, by the same token?)
Elmar: ah, now you’re starting to properly appreciate the mystery! 🙂
“Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.”
A guess as good as any other, I’d say. 😉
Elmar: ok, as long as thou curseth neither loudly nor blasphemously if thy guess is subsequently proven to be closer to thy pants than to thy hopes. 😉
It’s a wager I’m willing to take.
P.S.: Am I the only person under the impression that the popular photo of the Taman Shud note has been tampered with? — To me it looks like someone used a felt marker or something on the photo to heighten the original (pencil?) contours…
Elmar: actually, I’m pretty sure it was the “Taman Shud” paper that was hidden, not the cipher paper. Just thought I’d clear that up. And yes, the photo of the Taman Shud note looks a bit odd, but I suspect that’s just a bit of dark-room trickery back in the waaay olden days before Photoshop. 🙂
Ah, Nick, of course you’re completely right, the cipher note was found in the car — but that doesn’t make it any better.
Chucking a suicide note into someone else’s car where a connection to your death can only ever possibly be made if the other note hidden in your jacket is found seems like a plan which needs a little rethinking.
WP notes the “faint pencil markings”, so probably someone redrew them on the photo. I just wanted to draw attention to the chance that these redrawings were erroneous, and the actual reading may have been different. (VM experience tells us… 🙂
Elmar: ah, now you’re really getting there. The mystery of the Taman Shud case is why anyone would think we’d be at all convinced by all the cock-and-bull red herrings (if that’s not too mixed a
cocktailmetaphor for you) in this whole story.not meaning to spam your site but just in case anyone is interested in more information, a book written by a police officer that was resposible for the case in latter years has just been published. if you wish to find out more have a look at his site here
cheers 🙂
Steve: I don’t mind being spammed by authors if they’ve got an interesting book to sell. I’ll happily buy a copy & review it. 🙂
I just ran across this case and had a look at the mysterious note. I have a different theory to what it might be. My hypothesis may very well be utter rubbish, but I think it’s worth a try, so here I go:
Hypothesis: The message actually is not in cipher, instead it is a half-successful attempt to _decode_ a message that was written in German.
Imho, the following details support this hypothesis:
1. The sequence “SAMSTGA” in line 4 is very similar to the German word “Samstag” (Saturday). This really jumps to attention for readers who know German, so the police must have seen it, especially as international police forces were brought onto the case. I’m guessing that the “foreign language” that the message was first suspected to be written in was German?
2. In line 1, the sequence MRGO is similar to the German word “Morgen” (which can mean either “tomorrow” or “morning”), and the sequence ABD is similar to “Abend” (evening). There’s also the sequence “AB” between those two elements, which is also a German word (“from”, in the sense of marking the beginning of a timespan). So, the sequence “MRGOABABD” looks quite similar to “Morgen ab abend” (tomorrow, from evening on).
3. Usually, I’d dismiss these similarities as way too vague. I’m well aware of how easily we can fool ourselves into seeing meaningful patterns in random data. However, in this case, there are several indications that it may be more than that:
a) All three words specify a time.
b) Specifying times or meeting points is a very common usage of coded messages (more common than suicide notes, I’d say). 😉
c) The missing characters in the two words in line 1 are identical for both words (MRGO -> MORGen, ABD -> ABenD, missing characters in lower-case)
d) The two mispositioned characters are both vowels, and appear both at the end of their respective word (O in MRGO, A in SAMSTGA).
e) All this takes place in a message of 44 characters. The chance of finding this by coincidence in a message so short seems rather small – though I’m not experienced enough in the field of cryptography to determine this. Perhaps you can help me out here?
4. However: lines 2 and 3 don’t make any sense whatsoever in German, not even remotely. Of course, the lines could also be in English, and/or place names, which would complement the time specifications. But I don’t see any place names in these lines either.
5. At this point, I must either abandon the hypothesis that the text represents an already partly deciphered text, or at least make it plausible that half of the “decoded” text remains utter gibberish. Some indications can actually be found:
a) The line that’s struck through can be seen as a decoding attempt gone wrong (just as well as it could be an _en_coding or copying attempt gone wrong)
b) The letter x above the O in line 3 can be seen as an alternate decoding considered by the decoder. (“I think that’s an O, but it also might be an X”.)
c) The writing is described of consisting of _faint_ pencil marks. That’s more consistent with something that the writer wasn’t quite sure of (like possible decodings) than with a suicide note that he wanted to be found.
d) There is insecurity among researchers whether the first written character in lines 1 and 2 is a W or an M. The letter’s ambiguity can be seen as an insecurity on part of the writer about whether he had decoded the character correctly. There’s also the possibility that he wrote one of the letters first and then corrected that into the other letter.
e) It is known that different editions of the Rubaiyat exist, which differ in their translation. Boxall had a different edition than the Somerton man. Having a wrong edition of a code book could certainly screw up a deciphering attempt.
Hmm. Thinking about the reasoning above, I fear I just created one of those non-falsifiable, non-provable theories that everyone hates. ;-/ While the arguments provided in (5) _may_ have some merit, they are also a rather convenient way to discuss the fact away that my hypothesis leaves half of the text as undecoded gibberish. The hypothesis also implies that there once was an encrypted message (of which the recovered text was an attempted decoding) which has never been found, and probably won’t ever be found, so subscribing to this hypothesis would imply giving up any further deciphering attempts, which doesn’t sound very encouraging. (I guess theoretically someone could try to reconstruct the “actual” encoded message out of the “failed” decoding attempt and then decode it “correctly” with the right edition of the book, but that’s so improbable to lead to success that I don’t think it’s worth the effort.)
Nevertheless I’m interested in your feedback, and I hope I may have provided a new thought or two. From the sources I checked, it’s not clear to me why the researchers were so sure that the message was encoded, and I’m also not really convinced by the thought that someone who wants to leave the world a suicide note, does so by encoding it, and hiding it in faint pencil markings at the back of a book that he throws into a car of a total stranger, which can only be connected to the suicide after a scrap of paper in a secret pocket has been found and correctly identified … that sounds like going through a lot of trouble to send a message that requires a huge deal of luck to ever reach anyone.
Note: I have no knowledge about the case except what I just learned from your blog and from reading the Wikipedia article, so if I made any obvious mistakes, please point them out.
Psyringe: right now, I’m waiting to read a new Australian book published on the subject, which I’m hoping will clear up a lot of the basic factuality (particularly as far as the cipher-like note goes). I wouldn’t recommend relying on what’s out there until the basic physical logic is in place, to be quite honest. 🙁
Wow, quick reply. 🙂
I agree, if more data becomes available soon, then speculating now is of limited value. It’d be helpful to know more about the research that has already been done on the note. It’ll also be interesting to see if (and if yes, how) the author manages to link the code directly to the suicide (or whatever caused the man to lose his life). I guess I should monitor your blog for a review. 🙂
Elmar: Regarding the chance of erroneous readings of some letters: I see a chance that the first letter of line 4 is actually an M. It looks different from all other I characters, it clearly consists of two strokes. But it’s too narrow for a U or V. However, it _could_ be a repetition sign – i.e., the sign used for “the same as in the line above”. Since all other lines start with an M, it’s perhaps not too far-fetched to suspect that the last line starts with one too – at least I wouldn’t discount the possibility. 🙂
(nick: Sorry for spamming your blog. 😉 If there’s a more appropriate place for wild shots at the dark such as these, feel free to direct me to it. 🙂 )
Psyringe: if you think this looks even remotely like spam, you obviously don’t run your own WordPress blog. 🙂
Would be interested to know if the following approach could be valid:
Assumptions:
1. Somerton Man was a (Russian?) spy, and may have been trying to defect. Naturally, his country would deny all knowledge of him in response to international inquiries.
2. That particular Bus Stop was one of several pre-arranged meeting places.
3. After hastily decoding the message, he abandoned his planned rail journey, to meet someone he trusted near the bus stop.
4. Whoever he met lured him there to prevent him defecting, and contrived to poison him without arousing his suspicion (perhaps via the cigarettes?).
5. Coded messages would be short, omitting non-essential prepositions and conjunctions, etc. This would skew the letter distribution.
Decoding Method:
1. Vigenere cypher, keyword = TAMAM SHUD, produces:
PRSO MTHV GPT
NIY HHHH MPYL
USIIDBACCUL
AGWLAYSFYHV
Note the group of 4 Hs on line 2. I believe this represents “padding” to allow the letters to be grouped as 4 x 11 (or 2 x 22).
Here’s my big assumption: Grouping the letters in this way allows the plaintext to be read by a series of “moves”. I don’t know what the moves are – perhaps they rely on the specific edition of the Rubaiyat, or they could be Knight’s moves from chess – who knows?
If this is true, then all I need to do is look for an anagram that fits the circumstances.
2. The following anagram is possible:
VG
Bus stop midnight clarify why apply asylum
CV
HHHH (=padding)
The “unused” letters VGCV (in some combination) are the initials or codesigns of Somerton man and his contact/killer.
I realize that if you manipulate text enough, you can produce whatever you are looking for (e.g. The Bible Code). Is that what I have done here?
One more thing: The small “x” above the “O” might be to mark it as the 26th letter. Food for thought.
Rob1n: the key thing with multiple steps is making sure (a) they’re directly justified by the evidence (for example, a statistical test), and (b) they actually move you closer to an answer. In the case of the Somerton Man cipher, the letters already look to have a text-like distribution, so there is no obvious justification for applying a Vigenere transformation to it. Furthermore, until I really understand how all the physical evidence knits together, I’d be hard-pressed to know whether the whole “Tamam Shud” connection is genuine or obfuscatory.
Wonder if anyone has considered that the other language is Farsi, and that the cypher is substitution for Farsi letters. In that case, the cypher would be read right to left and a number of recurring letter pairs (ie: ba) should represent ال which precedes any definite article in Farsi and/or Arabic and is the most common letter pair in any Farsi/Arabic sentence. If the key is tamam shud, in Farsi it would be تمام شد which should be substituted by 6 letters in English reading right to left, and the first 4 letters should be in a pattern where the second and third letters are the same (ie: DBAB to represent تمام). Just a thought.
Or, rather, the “cipher” for those of you sensitive to the spelling of the word. I just think “cypher” looks better, but I regress…
Or “digress,” whatever. You know what? I’m going to bed before I discredit myself anymore. This has me thinking too hard in too many languages.
Anonymous – that’s a good theory, but your example of using AB to represent ال doesn’t apply the same in Farsi as it does in Arabic. Farsi has no such definite article. Considering the circumstances, clipping the phrase “tamam shud” out of the book does seem to imply the deceased had some knowledge of Farsi though. It would be a morbid coincidence if that phrase was chosen for use without regard to its meaning. I’m inclined to think that the letters are an attempt to decode a message as Elmar suggested. In that case, and considering the facts we know, I’d suggest AB, at least in most instances of the pair, stands for “Alfred Boxall.” I think Mr. Boxall and Jestyn knew more than we’ve been led to believe.
The main problematic issue of this whole case is not the seemingly simple and subjectively relevant ‘code’ (which more than likely uses initials more than any cipher), it is the ‘anonymous’ owner of the car that the book was ‘posited’ in/to and how he remains anonymous for anonymous reasons when he was clearly chosen and targeted by the conspirator to relay this ‘code’ back to the world.
Don’t ask yourself who that man isn’t, ask yourself who that man could have been and you will at least get a satisfactory answer as to what the code may relay and why all the evidence and key suspects have been willfully discarded. – If you are so conspiratorially inclined. Me? Nay so much.
There’s a lot of disinformation regarding this case, most of which seems purposefully planted by quasi-experts in disinformation. If you put labels in a label-less man’s clothing. At least consistently spell his name correctly. Analyzing an amateurishly scribbled and bodged and crossed out L.M.A.O ‘code’ (which should have never been linked to a book, by him or her – if either were guilty) for possibilities of advanced mathematical encryption algorithms is laughable, to say the least.
Somebody is having a laugh with this whole thing. A love-sick overly dressed old fart has a heart attack on the beach. End of mystery. What time is Lost on? No! It was poison. The spies responsible went to all this trouble to encrypt it that… Even the mafia know how to use lime and a spade? Pull the other one – It’s got bells on it. The most believable theory is that this man wanted to die because he couldn’t have a woman who barely knew him and wanted to be immortalized. A corny pasty and bus ticket later, job done on his part.
Obscure literature with hidden meanings? Dan Brown still uses the same trick. If you’re no-one, pretend you know something.
T. Keane (heh): you’ll no doubt be delighted to hear I’m about to post a book review here on the Tamam Shud case, which – I think – brings a lot of clarity (however belatedly). I suspect you’ll see things in a quite different way. 🙂
Hi all, I find this case so interesting and facinating it has so much mystery surrounding it. I just have a few questions that i cant get my head round, 1 why is it that Jestyns real name cant be found anywhere? ive looked and nowhere mentions nothing of her real name apart from a diary entry that realates to her as mrs thompsen. 2 The fact that he has her phone number in his book and is found dead less than half a mile from where she lived is surely not just a coincedence also he had a bus ticket for the area she lived in that had been used (so he had returned from there) wonder if he was taken there dead or arrived there alive. 3 Didnt the child of the nurse have 2 rare traits (Ears) and(Teeth) that the somerton man had as well, how unlikely is that. And finnaly 4. Why has no-one done any DNA tests or anything on the childs body ( i believe he died in 09) to match with the somerton mans DNA. Oh yeah and the code has so many letters that reoccour like the letter A and the sequence AB maybe AB is a symbol of a single word rather then two individual letters, as the pattern ABAB appears so much and there are examples of A and B on there own. Just a thought. And as for the spy theory, why would a spy be visitng some woman he slept with years ago whilst hes on some important top secret mission (providing the child is his of course) . To me i think he wanted to visit with her and see the child maybe rekindle something, and wether through suicide or murder things didnt go the way he had hoped. Has anyone ever had any luck with the code? there must be people who (think) or have managed to solve a part of at least some text that makes sense somewhere in the document. Also maybe if someone could figure out what A and B stand for or (AB) we could figure out the rest by filling in the pieces some how.
Terry: you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve got some interesting posts lined up on the Tamam Shud case that cover precisely the kind of things you find so fascinating… I’ll drop you a line when they’re on the blog…
I also think if this code is ever solved its either something so simple that people just didnt think of trying to solve the code that way or something so clever/personal that it would be impossible to just try guessing or using any old decrypting methods. my best bet is the book it was written in being a pad that acted as the decoder, he clearly makes mistakes when writting the code down. Its almost like hes flicking through the book back and forth to make sure its right and to correct his mistakes. Its possibly just a poem he wrote regarding how he felt, or maybe something writting from years ago that had nothing to do with that day. or maybe he was a spy i wish i knew 🙁 hope this case gets solved within my lifetime. Thanks all and sorry for the double post
ok thanks very much wow u reply quickly nick lol
A shot in the dark: The writing in the book is the key to a cipher, possibly first letters of words to be remembered that make up the key. Vernam cipher only needed to be unpredictable, not random.
it is tamam shud(تمام شد) not taman shud(تمان شد)
Maziar: thanks, fixed! (d’oh!)
Hi Nick any new updates on the Tamam Shud case yet???
I wasted time reading one copied article after another. Usually the facts mutated with attempted paraphrasing. I like this one:
“The dead man’s fingerprints matched no living person.”
One good page of responsible links is here:
http://www1.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/programs/undergraduate/?handler=search&restrict=www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au%2F&words=tamam+shud&start=0&handler=search
From what I have read so far (not much), I would only argue that (a) the Somerton Man had too many missing teeth to diagnose anodontia and (2) fob pockets in trousers were for carrying watches when not wearing a vest; there was nothing secretive about them.
My guess – and it’s just that, as I’m by no means a code-breaker – is that the letters are the initials of words in a specific poem. The Somerton Man’s copy of the Rubiyat was destroyed (along with all his other personal affects…argh), and nobody has ever been able to locate a copy of that exact translation, so the most likely source of the poem is lost.
I have a theory – of course it’s wild speculation, but so’s everything else in this case- that the Somerton Man was having an affair with a married woman (“Jestyn”) and her husband had him killed, possibly using a contract killer (hence all the special efforts to hide his identity). The poem reference in the so-called cipher was one that had special significance to the SM and his lover, so she would’ve known what the initials meant.
Her husband may have known about their interest in the Rubiyat and thrown out her copy of the book as a precaution.
The SM was found with artist’s tools and was said to have feet “like a dancer”. Both of these suggest hobbies that often take the place of a social life, so it’s possible that the reason no one recognized him was simply that he was an extreme introvert, dedicated to his craft above all else. I’ve also considered that he may have been agoraphobic.
#33 Terry: We don’t have the Somerton Man’s DNA, unfortunately, because his body was embalmed. However, there were some hairs found on the plaster cast of his face that might yield DNA (results pending last I checked). And “Jestyn”/Mrs. Thompson may not have revealed her name simply because she didn’t want it known. Since she wasn’t under investigation herself, she could remain fairly anonymous.
I do hope that new book is available in the US.
EJ, although an identical book hasn’t been found, the translations are available. I understand there were near-ready drafts that were changed slightly for some of the versions. They may have been passed around but it isn’t likely they were published in book form. Possibly, all the versions are on-line. I will guess first letters have already been extracted for a match. SM might have been learning to quote other poetry, though — because of J’s interest(?). That could fit your scenario. What happened to the missing sailor? Were J’s neighbors, who met someone inquiring about her, called to identify the body?
this case has me baffled like any other unsolved code one…i am currently working on it( phew!),wait for some probable answers (or probable questions…who knows?!?)
Last week I had a go at solving the code, having read an article in New Scientist of May 21 on “Killer Codes”. Then, belatedly, found your website (tonight,12 June, in fact). I can send my interpretation in pdf or Word form, but it takes a few pages! The interesting thing that came out of my experimentation was that the letters seem to be a ‘meta-code’, that is, they lead to a result which then needs further analysis to obtain sense. That leaves scope for a lot of argument about the final conclusion.
i note at one point you say ”copied both wrongly and out of order” . this is something like my own theory: what we have here is not an ENcription but a failed attempt to DEcode another message, which is no longer available. the rubiyat is serving as a key of some kind. the deleted line has clearly come out wrong, and he tries to reconfigure it later below. [it may have an intermediary function] but still the desired result hasnt appeared. he marks the O symbol with an X, perhaps an aide memoire, to count a row mechanically and still, [as can happen], the result is failure. finally he starts to re-guess certain symbols, changing some Ms into the peculiar Ws.
this means that any, perhaps all the symbols are of false value, except maybe the O.
this hypothesis can take us back only to the entrance to the labyrinth, not its centre.
a failed decription ?
further to my previous remark, i see that comment 20/4e rather confirms what i had begun to consider. if something has gone wrong with the efforts to decypher another message, what could have caused it ? possible answer, a non-identical copy of the rubiyat, potentially undermining any effort, with results as we see.
i must add there is another mysterious code puzzle doing the rounds on the net. the text seems similar all told , yet quite different in symbol count. i would refer you it, but i really dont want to start conflating one mystery with another.
So gor llewin is a Westerner. That’s one cypher cracked.
um, i thought this comment board was for discussing the taman shud mystery, not making silly remarks about our online nom de plumes? who said it was a ‘cypher?’ i think i could come up with something better than that!
im disappointed more attention has been paid to my nom de plume than cracking the mystery.
it wasnt meant as a ‘cypher’. in fact im not very good at them, andso often i think ive come up with a good one, only to have it disintegrate into gibberish. and thats the reason i wrote in, because it looks very much like the same happened with the taman shud text. it could be a relatively standard vigenere or polybius system, but if the decoding goes wrong, the result could be what we see.
that doesnt make it beyond decipherment, just we need first to establish the faulty key, recode it accordingly, then decode it with the amended key.
First of all, congratulations for your amazing web!!
There is one detail that I would like to remark: the second line is crossed through, and it is re-writed again… as row number 4. In my opinion, this can lead us to think that the note is NOT a message (nor even a text). In a normal text, changing the position of a line has no sense, as the text loses all of its meaning.
So, when I first saw this case, my first hypothesis was that the note was an encrypted LIST (not a text). It could be a list of names, telephone numbers, places… because in a list, we can put the second row in the fourth position without losing the meaning. In a normal text or message, we cannot do this.
If my hypothesis is correct, I think that this cannot be a suicide note, nor an encrypted message. Or maybe I am losing something? What do you think?
By the way, the chance that this message being an attempt to de-cipher some ciphered text, is absolutelly possible even if you think my hypothesis (the man could be de-ciphering one word after another, correct one of them, put them in another place…)
I want to tell this thinkings with caution… because I am not an expert in dechipering messages, so it’s easy that I am missing something.
Carlos: good observation! As I mentioned in the post, I’ll be posting again shortly about The Unknown Man (including lots of thoughts on the cipher), so please subscribe to the site to make sure you don’t miss it! 😉
Thanks for the answer, I have subscribed to the site in order to be able to read your news. By the way, deciphering the captcha to subscribe this site was a good challenge too 😉
Congratulations for your amazing work. Can’t wait to see your new discoverings!
I think I cracked the Tamam Shud code. Granted, it’s rough and kind of silly. But, hey, it’s better than nothing. Right? Anyway, this is my guess and method:
The original code, I believe, uses an n-Caesar cipher as well as the French language. It seems that the person was attempting to decode a previous message, maybe for fun, in a different language. If one takes the code:
WRGOABABD
-MLIAOI- (crossed out)
WTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMZTGAB
and inputs that, line by line, into the n-cipher you will find that it matches up with a certain pattern. Noticing this pattern, one can neglect certain letters in order to create “words”/more fitting patterns. If one neglects, throughout the entire code: m, p, a, b/R, t then you will get this out:
WRGOD
LOIIQC
WINE
ISZG
Now, if we take into account the crossed out line, and translate these certain things in Persian (the Rubaiyat is in Persian) you will get:
God (obvious), WINE (subtract part of the adjective in Persian and it equates to “evil”), is (obvious as well), QC (quality control? Subtracting out it is “who controls”), WRZ (translated is distinction/privilege/prominence), and the letter “G” is left (could be an initial).
If we put this together in a fairly rough sentence you get: “God is distinct. Who controls evil? Tamam Shud. – G” (remember Tamam Shud is “The End”). If you do a little digging you will find that, on page 3 of the Rubaiyat, there is a poem that is similar to this message.
P.S. I did this without prior knowledge that the Rubaiyat was written in Persian. So, what are the odds that this translates, albeit roughly, so well from a broken puzzle/English code to Persian and outputs a poem from the exact book?
Kind of creepy, no? What are the odds of that?
I don’t have time to search for this. Just my question:
Do you know that “tamam shud” means “it’s over” in farsi/persian?
Iranian: baleh! 😉
First, I this Psyringe may have been onto something, whether he noticed or not. With Morgen and Abend, like Psy noted, the EN were removed, and vowels were misplaced. That struck me as interesting in that maybe part of this “code” is that vowels starting words are left in place, certain letters or letter groups are removed, and important vowels can be moved to the end of words. That would change the string to Morgen ab Abend, which would be Morning from Evening, and it could be talking about something to happen at night if taken literally, or going way out on a limb, Life from Death. So there may be a pattern of disemvoweling words or something. But this is all to be taken with a grain of salt.
Anyways, I’m sure my idea about to be presented has been attempted already, but here it is anyways. If one possessed a translation identical to the deceased man’s, then one could attempt to aggregate all words beginning, ending, or containing the letters from the “code” then attempt to form coherent sentences. Obviously this would lead to a lot of time as well as a lot of possibly true results.
Lastly, I think all these could have been red herrings, as humans, complexity fascinates us. What better way to draw attention from the obvious than to obfuscate it by putting something far more interesting in front of it? Let’s say he was murdered, and the murderer was Kaiser Soze-esque. Wouldn’t he recognize that he could easily lead someone astray by giving them something to obsess over? All the Rubaiyat, “code,” secret pants pocket, etc, could just a very clever ruse. Hell, for all we know, it may have been put in place simply to buy time to leave and avoid suspicion, but in the end became the focal point of what could have been another ho-hum murder.
Part A: The Most Likely Solution
WRHODMEETTIMPATSTG or in plain English W.R. Hodgson: Meet Tim P At St. G. There are other possible solutions. This will become clearer in Part C.
Part B: The Background
To arrive at an answer, realize that the Rubaiyat has stanzas with four lines per stanza. The first, second, and fourth lines rhyme, and the third does not. So the pattern in the Rubaiyat is AABA. In the code that the dead man left behind, however, we see ABAB on the first line, and the substring AB appears in two other places. What this means is that the first and third lines are related to each other, and the second and fourth lines are related to each other.
Now that we see the purpose of having AB substrings in the code, we no longer need these substrings to decode the message. This leaves us with:
WRGOD
WTBIMPANETP
MLIOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTG
Part C: Methodology
In order to compare lines one and three, I reasoned that the lines should have the same length. To achieve this, I move the ML at the beginning of line three and place it at the end of line one. This gives:
WRGODML
WT BIMPANETP
I O AIAQC
I T TMTSAMSTG
Let us look at lines one and three first.
Line 1 W R G O D M L
Line 3 I O A I A Q C
Without using some advanced coding techniques, we see WR and OD in line 1. I believe that the recipient would be able to know that WRGOD means W.R. Hod (short for W.R. Hodgson). W.R. Hodgson was the Secretary of External Affairs in Australia in the late 1940s, at a time when the Soviet threat was very real. I also guessed that W.R. is asking the soon-to-be dead man to meet somebody so ME are the final two letters. This means that five of the letters in the decoded string exactly match the letters in line 1. I don’t believe that line 3 really plays a direct role, except to establish the appropriate length of line 1. I once thought that the AIA in line3 stood for SOS, but I no longer believe this.
Now let us look at lines two and four. My goal is to find a decoded string that gives the maximum number of matches with either line 2 or line 4.
Line 2: WTB I MPANETP
Line 4: I TTM TSAMSTG
Decoded line: E TT I MPATSTG
Notice that nine of the eleven letters in the decoded line match either the corresponding letter in line 2 or line 4. As I mentioned at the beginning, there are other possiblities. Tim P. could be Tim S., Tom P., or Tom S. St. G probably means St. George, but St P could be the appropriate solution as well. St P. probably refers to St. Peters College or St. Peter’s Church.
If we put together the results of the two sets of code, we get WRHODMEETTIMSATSTG.
We might want to know who Tim is. W.R. Hodgson, Tim and the dead man undoubtedly knew each other. It would have been nice if the message gave more detail. For example, what was the meeting about?
I don’t believe the second word IS crossed out.
Remove all the ‘words’ from the picture, and what do you have?
A map of a boulevard with an ‘X’ on it.
‘Boulevard’ and the first word have 9 letters. If we were to assume that the first word was ‘boulevard’, could we not work backwards to find the key of the cipher?
Perhaps all the words are directions to a location?
Just throwing this out there because I haven’t heard anyone mention anything about a map; which was the first thing I saw: words written over top of a sketch of a map.
Mark
I can’t understand the mystery behind the cipher. It is very obviously an initial-letter cipher; I have done that sort of thing myself. Reminds me of what it is, without revealing the meaning to anyone. For example, a to-do list or a set of options. AB? Lots of M, A, T? It seems to me that repetition reinforces the argument.
Think Occam’s razor. Why, oh why, are people trying to multiply factors, where the simplest explanation works?
S Simmonds: indeed, it is very probably an initial-letter cipher. But when you combine that one uncertainty with all the other uncertainties in this whole cold case, you end up with a curious thing indeed. 🙂
MRGOABABD
MLIAOI
MTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
saya rasa ini bisa diartikan dua kategori tapi dengan maksud yg sama, yaitu pengantaran paket dengan pilihan yang cermat.
pertama, pengantaran sesuatu dengan menggunakan kantong jenazah
kedua, pengantaran suatu benda dengan berbagai macam model koper dan sipenerima harus memastikan dia memilih dengan cermat.
semua ini diantarkan dengan menggunakan jasa penerbangan dengan tujuan negara di ??? (maaf, saya masih ragu dengan nama tujuan ini)
kode ini tetap menggunakan bahasa inggris dan saya rasa ini bukan singkatan
Google Translate says:
“I think this could be interpreted two categories but with the same purpose, namely the delivery of packets with the options carefully.
First, the delivery of something by using a second body bag, delivery of an object with various models of suitcases and the recipient should ensure he chose carefully.
all of this delivered by using aviation services with the goal state??? (sorry, I am still unsure of the name of this goal) code is still using the English language and I think this is not an abbreviation”
Using a variety of different substitution ciphers, this is what I came up with.
I believe that the lines are out of order, as evident by the second line being an attempt at the fourth (suggesting they weren’t written in the order they read.)
I believe the key to this sub. cipher is in the missing copy of the Rubaiyat. The substitution varies but there are similarities throughout the breaks. I may have dismissed my translation as nonsense but “help” and “seaside” being the only two possible decryptions of these sections of the 3rd and 4th line, I thought it seemed rather fitting and perhaps significant. Let me know what you guys think.
I believe it, in parts, reads “Adjoining seaside as place of absence… help.” Though I have no translations for the missing letters, nor am I convinced this is wholy accurate. It seems though that if this is the case, this may just be a suicide note indeed.
M R G O A B A B D/
A D J O I N I N G
M T B I M P A N E
A S P L A C E O F
P T/
M L I A B O A
A B S E N C E
I A Q C/
H E L P
I T T M T
S A M S T G A
S E A S I D E
B/
The first line has 9 letters, Tamam Shud has 9 letters. If you read from right to left, as Persian is read, the repeated a and m correspond with the repeated letters in the first line. I think that this is a substitution cipher and Tamam Shud is the key.
Perhaps the misspelling of “Tamam shud” is significant in the decoding. The substitution of “n” for “m” could be a clue to the reasoning behind the cipher.
Vera: I’m 99% certain the Tamam / Taman was a misreading that took hold in the reporting of the case some time after the book was found, so is highly unlikely to be much of a clue, sorry!
> the tamam shud cypher solved.
m r g o a b a b d do mr brag (a b : about?)
m l i a o l mail (o l)
m t b i m p a n e t p met pimp (ban, nab)
x
m l i a b o a i a q c diabolic aim (q a)
i t t m t s a m s t g a b stab it sam ( m t t g m)
==============================
he clearly doesn’t want to brag about meeting a pimp via email for the lolz, who had diabolic aim during his Q and A. So, he wanted sam from management to stab it.
Bob: I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ve quite nailed it yet. Better luck next time! 🙂
Hi,
For what it’s worth, here my attempt at resolving the code.
Extract according to formula : TAMAM (5 letters) SHUD(4 letters) meaning roughly THE END
So counting 4 and 5 from beginning ( omit 2nd line ) produce OBBAPAIITBS
Last 4 letters ITBS googles to IOWA TRUST AND SAVINGS BANK founder J.A. Spies SPIES?
I know it is pure coincidence but still….
No need to refute..
Thanks
No need to rebuke
WRGOABABD
MLIAOI
WTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
cant you see the difference between W and M ?
impossible to understand now because some smart gentleman used his marker over the words ,
It’s likely that whoever wrote the code was still trying to make it up. Probably to write down on another piece of paper and send it to someone for whom it would be very obvious. So now imagine if the Somerset man and ‘Jestyn’ had some past related to Rubaiyat and they often used it to send cryptic messages to each other, he’d probably use it again to hide the messages from her husband (or fiance). Now if you look at the first edition of the book, the Rubaiyat has numbered verses.
Now if we see the letters there are 4 uncrossed lines. The 1st and last have 9 and 13 letters respectively. The middle two have 11 each. Now assuming that one of these is the verse number and the other corresponds to a word within this worse, we get a set of 22 letters corresponding to 22 verses.
So we simply jot down these words.
Now this is tough because I am not certain whether the Somerset man considered To-Day and To-Morrow as one word or two in verse 20.
One permutation gives me a sentence that loosely makes some sense:
“Your the fill those that tavern awake within reviving as tomorrow(fears) and (regrets) says today I for world and today come to dawn”
but this could also be depending on consideration words as two or one:
“Cries (garden/hyacinth) (come/the) (and/who) (stone/puts) (the/cry) awake within reviving as tomorrow(fears) and (regrets) says today I for world and today come to dawn.”
Doesn’t it seem like the Somerset was a jilted lover, with revived feelings of ‘fear’ and ‘regret’ which he wants to speak to the world about, and let the truth come to dawn.
Some may say this does not make sense at all. For them, here is the sentence that happens when you reverse this code: (i.e. use the number corresponding to verse for word and vice versa)
Cries/your tomorrow/morrow was/in let(forgot) look in awake worldly gone today abode once/the to as flight dreaming to and as of they as.
Not sure if this makes sense, but pretty creepy huh?
There is a very interesting file in the collection of the National Archives of Australia – it contains a transcript of all the out-takes made during the production of the 1978 TV program concerning the Somerton Man (Tamam Shud) mystery (ABC report “Inside Story”. Interviewer Stuart Littlemore). Some of the persons involved in the original police investigation in 1948-9, and others, were interviewed on camera. The material is in the NAA. Search for “The Somerton Beach story” 1977 Series number C673. Item bar code 7937872.
There is much material that wasn’t used in the final cut of the TV program, and some of this material throws light on the Somerton Man mystery. From page nine:
“”Adelaide News” claim code DBMGPOT etc comes from page 270 of “Salaman and Absal” page 117 verse 21 3rd line verse 45 First Edition and 47 & 49 Second Edition.”
I think that the “Adelaide News” is the News (Adelaide). I note that Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of “Salaman and Absal” was included in some editions of the Rubaiyat, and one such edition (Collins clear print) was on sale in Adelaide immediately after WW2. The mention of “DBMGPOT” is confusing but it may simply be down to a journalist struggling to remember some of the cipher.
I would like to point out some matters that suggest that the case isn’t a simple murder or suicide, but seems to have some security dimension.
One page twelve of the above it is noted that …..”fob pocket in unusual position inside trousers. Trousers were of a type mass produced in Melbourne.” This suggests that a concealed fob pocket had been added to the trousers and explains why the pocket and it’s contents escaped detection for so long.
I would also point out that the telephone numbers and the presumed cipher were probably written on the endpapers of the Rubaiyat, and these pages were removed prior to the book being discarded.
The photograph of the “cipher” is consistent with the techniques used prior to the 1960s to enhance indentations in paper.
I think it is too much of a coincidence that “Jestyn’s” uncle was a pharmacologist, a pharmacist and a pharmaceutical manufacturer.
And I note that Glenelg, the suburb adjacent to Somerton Park, was a hotbed of communist affiliation during the 1940s. There is a file “CPA(Communist Party of Australia) South Australia Glenelg Branch.” in the NAA collection, and some of the CPA functionaries lived in Glenelg/Somerton Park area.
Hey there,
This is very interesting, but since I am new to this story, there are a few things I think I am missing.
For what I understand the “note” wasn’t really pen written on the paper, it was more like a dent copy of an original, like when you white on top of a book or magazine and the dent can be copied on an other paper, or something like that. Please let me know if I am wrong.
If you notice, every letter is different, looks like the top line of the “Ts” are the only way to tell that the same parson wrote that note. Specially the ‘Bs” are completely different from each other. (now, if this because of the person who marked them down to make them visible, then he screwed up big time!)
Looking closely to the actual photo of the note, I notice on line:
WRGOABABD
maybe there is not a W but an M and no G but a C instead, (mRcOABABD) and by looking at the chapter “X” in the poem it mentions “Kaikobad the Great”, now if you changes and pronounce it, you’ll notice that phonetically both are very similar. Maybe that was the spy-name or to mention a more important character involved in this situation.
Now on:
WTBIMPANETP
the first P looks more like a D, but when you look closely there is a dent inside the “D” that makes it look like originally there was a B (remember that all Bs are 100% different form one another). Here I have no clue on what it could means. WTBIMdANETP or WTBIMbANETP
I also agree with you about -MLIAOI- being a corrected word and replaced by the 3rd line, but if so, how come it wasn’t written right after. Looks like the the order of the words has not importance in the meaning of the “message”.
Also knowing that he was poisoned, maybe he tried to leave a “message” but his thought were not clear at all, so he wrote it thinking the be reciting one of the poems from the book but ended up with this mess of letters, and here we are now, trying to solve it, taking as no where, maybe there was nothing important to it, but the actual message in The Rubaiyat, to live life to the fullest and died without a single regret, oh, and drink wine, lots of wine!!!
“XXI
Ah, my Belov’ed fill the Cup that clears
To-day Past Regrets and Future Fears:
To-morrow!–Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years. ”
Cheers.
Jonny
Hi Jonny,
Yes, it is clear that the “code” was present as indentations in the endpages or back cover of the book.
The following are a re-hash of some comments I made at the Smithsonian.
I have found that simple image processing of the high resolution image of the code at https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/images/0/00/Code_1.jpg
shows that in several places the strokes that form the letters of the “code” continue for some distance over the paper. Quite a distance in some cases. Very strange.
Although the page was said to have been examined under ultra-violet or infra-red light to accentuate the faint writing, I think the writing was enhanced by oblique lighting and the letters of the “code” were traced onto a transparent overlay, or by some similar method. From memory, the East German intelligence services developed an electrostatic device to accentuate faint impressions on paper in the 1950s, but this sort of apparatus does not seem to have been used in the West until much later.
If you look hard at the high definition image you will probably be able to make out various digits and some letters that are additional to the “code”. I am surprised that nobody seems to have investigated this further. These digits seem to be grouped in four figure numbers, and that fits with Adelaide telephone numbers in the 1940′s. If we can uncover some telephone numbers it should be possible to discover the owners, and maybe shed some light on who wrote these telephone numbers.
The faint impressions of numbers and letters within image of the “code” that have not been copied onto the overlay can be sharpened up a bit by using image processing software.
I have noted that several of the letters of the “code” have faint additional strokes. For example, the terminal misshapen “c” of the second last line now looks like a capital “E” when the faint lines are included. Very strange indeed.
I can make out a possible telephone number, “O”, or “Q” or maybe “G”, 2583.
It is a pity that the book has gone missing because there are modern techniques (such as the Electrostatic Detection Device – see Wikipedia) that would probably reveal a lot more.
Elmar, the ‘suicide note’ was not hidden in a secret pocket. Only the paper with Tamam Shud was. The ‘suicide note’ was in the book dropped in the car.
Jestyn = Jessica Ellen Harkness/Thomson
Ok from looking at the original document I believe someone altered the document especially from looking at how the last D of the first line, the last P of the second line, and many more places. It felt like someone just drew a semi-circle to hide certain vertical lines. This also applies to the first and third line and their first letters. A lot of people claim it is a w or m but from the second line we can see the style that the original author written it in does not fit the style of the m or w. But if you look closely it looks like the original author wrote n first and someone hastily drew two lines to surround the n.
So do you agree with my hypothesis?
Thanks for reading.
What if we simply are reading the message completly wrong? Instead of four lines that are seperate you read from top to bottom. That would mean the first combination of letters would be WMWH (or WWH if the second line is indeed crossed out). That would explain the x over the o aswell, you could read that line AOPXOT.
Does this make any sense to you guys?
B Deveson, Totally agree on your thoughts regarding the ‘code’ the Police detected indentations using UV light and then as a second stage they would very likely have use iodine vapour which was used extensively by Censors and intelligence agancies through WW2. The vapour highlights markings and there is a reference to them detecting ‘seceret writing’ created with water. A photograph would have been taken of the result, in my view a mass of track marks/lines and a significant amount of microscopic writing as in sub .5mm in height. It is this photograph that would have been marked up by the Police. That means that somewhere there was/is a pre marked version which is possibly what was sent to Navy Intelligence in Melbourne.
Hi new to this mystery and beyond fascinated with it. Though I am not even a amateur code breaker I noticed that the “W” on the third line (after the scratched out line) could be the letter “N” not sure if this could make a difference.
Thanks for keeping this site it is truly an intriguing mystery that I feel if not solved soon will always remain in mystery.
Jonny,
poisoned with wine?
It could be a letter the man wrote, if he decided to kill Alfred boxall, and he thought he would be killed in the process. The book was only significant as a book given to him by his love, a nurse. Since she would be used to simple acronyms, he wrote using only the first word in each sentence.
The letter could be read as:
My regrets go out among brother Alfred boxall’s death
Would this blessedly ignorant man provide a nurse everything that’s possible?
My love is a burden on all I am quietly coveting.
It is time to move to south Australia Mosley street to gain a bride.
I have been working on deciphering the Taman Shud Code. Here is what I have came up with; WILLIAM SOLOMONS… MY LIFE IS ALMOST OVER I…WOULD TALK…BUT I AM POISONED AND NOT ENOUGH TIME PERMITS…MY LIFE IS ALL BUT OVER AND I AM QUITE CERTAIN… IT’S TIME TO MOVE TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA MOSELEY STREET TO GREET ALFRED BOXALL. Credit is given to Retired Detective Gerry Feltus (2004) for the line deciphered that reads, “IT’S TIME TO MOVE TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA MOSELEY STREET TO-“. I believe that the mans’ name was William Solomons or Harry William Solomons. Please share your ideas on this. Thank you,
Rick A. Roberts
That isn’t deciphering the code, it’s just making up mostly nonsensical phrases and arranging them to suit a suite of random letters. It is useless prattle….
Thank you for your opinion about my translation. The letters that were written the paper were a code, therefore they were not just random letters. They have some meaning. I used word substitution for each letter and this is a form used to decipher codes which has been used over many years by many people. Truly,
Rick A. Roberts
I am puzzled after reading about the positioning of the dead mans’ body when he was found. From what I have read, I believe his head was resting on a ledge and his left arm was extended straight out. His right arm was bent and doubled back, and his feet were pointing out to sea. I believe that I read that Rubaiyat has this same type of positioning of a person.
This makes me wonder if there was another person with the Solomons Man when he died? Also, I wonder if this person took the rare copy of the Rubaiyat book with them when he died and positioned his body to coincide with the book for a hidden meaning?
Rick A. Roberts
Nick,
as I understand it, the possibility of the cipher being a simple mono-alphabetic substitution cipher was ruled out because the letter frequency conforms well with the frequency of first letters of English words. But what if the key word was such that it resulted in the letters with high frequency in English words being enciphered as letters that had high frequency as initial letters. Ie if: ETAOINSHRDL was transformed into something like TASHWIOBMFC.
As you once pointed out, the first five letter of the last line of the cipher, (I)TT(M)T, suggests that cyphertext T could stand for plaintext E. That is, plaintext (-)EE(-)E. In November 1951 I note that the SA police were looking for a “Tony Keene” in relation to the SM case. Too much of a coincidence perhaps? (K)EE(N)E?
I have also noted that the letter frequencies of surnames, place names, street names and similar appear to have a frequency distribution closer to that of first letters of English words, rather than the frequency distribution of letters in English words.
I note that the letter frequencies of the following four sample populations differ wildly. I have calculated the letter frequencies of the first letter of surnames in the Glenelg 1950 Commonwealth electoral roll. I have also calculated the letter frequencies of the initial letters of the street names of Adelaide City (2014). I can’t find a list for 1948, but the names of the city streets would not have changed significantly since 1948.
For the letters E, A and B.
Frequency in English text (from Robert Lewands “Cryptological Mathematics). 12.7%, 8.2%, 1.5%
Frequency of first letter of English words (Wikipedia). 2.0%, 11.6%,4.7%
Frequency of first letter of surnames in 1950 Glenelg electoral roll. 2.1%,2.1%,10.4%
Frequency of first letter of Adelaide city street names. 2.5%,5.7%,4.8%
I think that it would pay to look at the initial letter frequency distribution of various sample populations to see if the features of the SM cipher occur in any of these populations. The features that Nick pointed out at the start, coupled with the letter frequency distributions, would probably be enough to identify the population to which the “cipher” (even if it isn’t enciphered, and is just a list consisting of first letters of words) relates.
For the record, the frequencies of the first letter of Glenelg surnames 1950, in descending order) is:
N=9422
M 11.29 %
B 10.39
H 8.35
S 8.34
C 7.74
W 7.03
P 5.78
R 5.18
G 5.04
T 4.22
D 4.08
F 3.51
L 3.06
K 2.93
J 2.81
A 2.47
E 2.12
O 1.89
N 1.78
V 0.74
Y 0.38
I 0.35
Q 0.23
U 0.19
Z 0.07
X 0.00
Back to the German theory…
With the same logic some ideas:
2. row:
MT – mit (with)
NE – neu (new)
TP – TreffPunkt (meeting point)
for example: (…from evening on) with BI (unknown person) from Military Police Administration new meting point
3. row:
ML (or MLI): militärisch (military)
ABO: Abwehr-Organisation? (anti-spy organisation)
AI: andere Informator/ allgemeine Informationen (other informer / general information)
Q: Quelle (source)
4. row:
IT: ich treffe (I meet)
TMT: ? (Timothy?)
SAMSTGAB: am Samstag abend (on saturday evening)
Perhaps some spies changed information in borrowed/changed etc. books with short texts?
Another idea: ITTM: Ich töte mich (I kill myself)
This case is obviously misleading in a sense that whatever assumption we would make, it still exists the probability of the wrong path chosen.
Also, the revelation of one aspect of the SM activity does not seem useful for understanding of another.
For example, if the DNA test will be done and it will be proven the SM is the father of the Jessy`s child it still sheds no further light!
Maybe not Curtis, you’re assuming that nobody else, anywhere, has an interest, and a little more information.
The most discouraging thing is to know that the SM code was constituted from the inintials letters therefore it s almost impossible to find out their meaning! If only the nurse were alive! The police should have better tried her! The only reasonable explanation – the police had received the order from the superiour level to act friendly towards her because she did really know about the man but it was to be held secret. It implies the spy version.
Concerning the version of Rick A. Roberts.
The words – “I am poisoned” and “it s time to move South Australia Moseley street” can not be combined because the latter had implied that the SM was not in South Australia when writing this – otherwise – what the heck should he have reminded it to himself
I have just been looking back through past postings. After reading about the pooled blood found that may have implicated that the SM was perhaps face down. I believe that he indeed, did die in another location, and that he was moved and placed with his head elevated and in a completely different position at the sea wall by his killer or killers. I think that he had written the note when he first had a feeling of impending doom and realized that he had been poisoned and the end was near for him. He was in a different geographical location in Australia when he wrote the note and placed it in his pocket. This is why he wrote … ITTMSAMSTGAB(…It’s Time To Move South Australia Mosley Street To Greet Alfred Boxall).
I would like to bring into focus the fact the the mysterious code was written on the opposite side of the book – it had not been found in the SM belongings! So he hadnt put it in his pocket!
I strongly doubt that he had it written under the influence of poison. Also it is highly doubtful that he had arrived in Adelaida being poisoned!
PS: I tend to agree that he did die in different location. Could it be the house of Jestyn? God knows!
.. but then again Curtis – what if the man who poisoned him didn’t like the look of the body, at about 1 am that night, there were lights and a road above. Perhaps he slipped down the steps and fussed with the body. Sat him up a little, put a smoke in his mouth.
That way he knew he was dead, but looked like he was asleep.
I don’t have a problem with a thorough murder, not if espionage was at the heart of it.
Pingback: a thorough murder | the somerton man. the tamam shud mystery
Is That The Most Sensible Acronym? Many Scrutinize These Guesses As Baseless.
It sure is easy to find a pattern when perhaps none exists.
Ralph: personally, I think that many self-aware murder suspects try grovelling and bargaining. 🙂
From what I understand, the note was found in the personal belongings of the SM in the pocket of a pair of trousers. This is why I believe that he knew that he had been poisoned, and he had written this note earlier and left it in the pocket of this pair of trousers. I agree with Pete that someone had positioned his body at the floodwall so that it would appear that he was asleep. His killer or killers did not know of the existence of the note that he had left.
Nevertheless, the cipher was written on the opposite side of the book, it was not in the belongings of the Somerton man. Therefore it is strongly unlikely that this cipher had anything to do with poisoning!
Rick, a witness saw him move his arm while he was on the beach earlier, doubtless aware that he was under the influence of something.
Curtis, there was the imprint of a local phone number on the back page as well as the cipher. There’s the link.
Nick does it matter how many letters there are in a poem code key?
I’m starting at the bottom, Rot13 was easy.
I suppose to agree with the idea that the cipher written on the opposite side of Rybbayat was of the great significance and it was crucial that smb should had seen it. The SM was killed only to make this cipher published. As it was told – dead men sell (notes).
I thought of this case when I recently came across mention of the O.J. Simpson murder trial (1995), and how the issue of “crime scene integrity” swung the case for the defence. Awareness of the need to preserve evidence was probably not at the forefront of those who saw the body in the early hours of December 1st, 1948. Perhaps an innocent passer-by propped up SM in the early hours, to render first aid after lividity had set in. Or it was a well-meaning bystander on the scene after the body had been reported, but before the police attended.
IMHO professional killers do not move victims from or on public places (such as a beach) _after_ they have deliberately poisoned the victim. I would also suggest that if professional spies/criminals become aware that someone is about to die on them (from say an OD of a “truth serum”), they put as much distance as possible between them and the victim. ASAP.
Cunning is an essential element in the successful poisoner, and the exclusion of every sense of pity from his make-up is an inestimable asset, since he has to witness the results of his handiwork and watch the life of his helpless victim slowly drawing to a close.
The Power of Poison, John Glaister.
Pete: have you got Thompson’s “Poisons and Poisoners” as well? Shame you’re not local, I could have lent them all to you. 🙁
Nick, no .. but I’m reading Leo Mark’s “Between Silk and Cyanide”
He wasn’t a champion of the simple codes that got agents into trouble – like the Poem Code – so I got to thinking about the SM code on the back of the book – and the theory of algebraic equations.
Pete: also on my bookshelf, and a pretty good read too. Though I should add that Leo Marks has been criticised by some for being an unreliable narrator, something I think you’d perhaps relish more than most other readers. 🙂
Prof. Abbott’s time line for the Tamam Shud affair notes that Alf Boxall was discharged from military service on 12th April 1948, which is thirty months after the end of WW2 in the Pacific. This is interesting because returned Australian servicemen were demobed as quickly as possible after WW2 because of severe labour shortages and the Government wanted to get the economy moving as quickly as possible. I have seen statements to this effect in several places but I can’t put my hands on them at present.
So, the question is, where was Alf in the period between the end of WW2 and his demob in April 1948? And what was the nature of his duties?
BD: he was probably one of the best engineers the army had, and the ongoing ship repair work in Sydney may have well been an army only affair.
However, in amongst all the lines on his service record are plenty of spaces – who knows where he went, who he met, and what he did.
I had liked the version of the german nature of the code – AB = abend, MRGOA = morgen, SAMSTGA = samstag. But the other words in the code do not hold any resemblance to german language. So this version should be crossed out!
This case/cipher has always intrigued me, and following the whole “spy/Cold War/poison/suicide/1940s/nerve paralysis” angle…I decided to venture a guess that the cigarettes were poisoned by a nerve agent being made as early as 1944, and the unknown man “knew too much” and was forced to poison himself: The following is MY translation (after reading the science/history behind this specific toxin) and serves as coded instructions for killing oneself:
WRGOABABD
When Ready, Go Out Along Beach And Bed Down/Be Discreet/Bend Down
MLIAOI (crossed out, possibly corrected later)
Make/Mark “L”/Line In Area Of Inhallation/Injection/Insertion/incision OR Methyl Lingers/Lasts In An (Organ)/Only If
WTBIMPANETP
Wet The Butt In Methyl Phosphonic Acid – Nerve Effects Take Place/Nerves Experience Toxic Paralysis/Nerve-Effecting Toxic Poison
MLIABOAIAQC
Methyl Lingers/Lasts In A Body Only After Ingesting/Inhaling A Quarter-Cup
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
Isopropyl Turns The Methyl To Sarin – Alcoholysis Makes Sarin Toxic Gas – A Bomb/Alerting/Affecting Bystanders/Around Body
That’s it!
SOOO, What do you guys think?? Plausible conclusion or not?!?
Thanks for reading,
Cara
^^^ Also, methyl phosphonic acid/sarin gas would cause the arm-flopping symptom the man displayed, AND the fact that the toxin breaks down/leaves the body quickly explains why no evidence of poison was found in his system. COVERT CIGARETTE SUICIDE!
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if the whole “quarter-cup” thing was accurate–just a wild guess, but it could also be:
MLIABOAIAQC
Methyl/Molecules Live/Linger/Lasts In(side) A Body(‘s Organs) Only An Instant And Quickly Cede/Collapse/(?)
…AND if it’s poisoned cigarettes, an alternate translation of WRGOABABD could be:
When Ready, Get Out A Butt And Breathe Deeply/Begin Directions
(Part of this version assumes the cigs are ALREADY containing poison)
Just over one month before SM was found dead on Somerton beach, another fellow had died and was exhumed…
William Arthur Savage was employed as a munitions worker (a Commonwealth peace officer) at the Salisbury munitions works. He died and was buried. In October of 1948, (OCTOBER 1948) he was exhumed:
I tried to link but couldn’t post…Google the name and you will find the articles on TROVE.
Mr. Cleland, Canney and a “Government Analyst” were involved in his case:
(Sorry, again – I tried to post a link but couldn’t post…)
The “Government Analyst” was…misquoted as being Robert “John” Cowan.
It was determined that William had died of arsenic poisoning, self-administered over a lengthy period of time. (BD has pointed out that arsenic “tonics” were sometimes used at this time but there are so many connections here to the SM case that one has to pause and consider…)
This is one of the first “trove finds” that I have located for Robert James Cowan. I find it interesting given that William was working at the Salisbury munitions and that several of the same “players” were involved in the investigation of his death.
It’s most probably nothing, but I wanted to share.
(Nick – I think your spam filter caught my links. I don’t think I can post them but, if they’re ok…could you?)
That’s very nice work Misca, it does pose a number of questions doesn’t it. The amount of work involved in doing the sort of research you have done is often underestimated.
Another question relates to the high levels of lead found in the hair sample taken from SMs bust, not just a little above normal but elevated. Are lead and arsenic related somehow?
The structure of the letters/lines of letters on the code page fit exactly the format for a transcribed morse code message. The code and ‘prosigns’ from within it can be viewed in a US War Department Radio Operators Manual dated 1945. The reference number is FM 24-6, that will find it on google.
You will see the use of Prosigns described and the individual Prosigns used by US Military radio operators. Those Prosigns include:
R: Routine
AB: All Before this
D: Deferred
P: Priority
C: Corrected Version
V: From with callsign following
AR: (The real last two letters in the last line of the code) This is my last message no reply is expected or required.
There are other Prosigns on the code page including ‘T’ and ‘A’. Page 26 and on of the manual gives the most detail.
I should point out that this discovery is one of two levels of code.
Cara, I give it to you matey, that stuff took some figuring out, “get a butt out for cigarette suicide” ….. Lovely stuff, sometimes we get too serious about this caper, what more have you got? The scratches on his hand, I’m doing that next, but maybe I should wait for you, whaddya reckon?
Misca: feel free to email me any links plus a link to the comment, and I’ll insert the former into the latter. 😉
The people who said that he the piece of paper was a suicide note I agree and disagree. What I don’t understand is why would he commited suicide and write a suicide note in code and not in regular hand writing. but if he did commited suicide he didn’t want anyone to know who he was because all the tags on his shirt was missing but that brings back to my disagreement why would he do that unless he wanted to be hidden. but what surprises me the most is their was no witnesses that anyone went into the house, unless the witnesses was to frightened or threatened by the person who murdered him. But for the reason why would he leave a piece of paper that says Taman Shud I heard that it means “Start or Finish ” in arbric or persian. People said he died around the time of of 6:30 in 1948 and died of an unknown cause. What the police is thinking it is a disease but they said they found no poison in the man’s body. From my info he died at the beach near his house. But the next year after but in a different month not December but June a 1 year and 11 months old died of a unknown case just like Taman Shud. The next year there was a war against Korean but that has nothing to do with the case. They said they found numbers in a book the numbers were 4 8 1516 23 42. I thought it could be corrinates, phone number, or a code that leads to something but i never had the time to do all of that. Even if they were phone numbers no one would have them now because its 2014 that was in 1948. Please comment if you have any else to add to my info.
Nick – Thanks for responding. No need to link as I think most of these articles are easily found when searching for “William Arthur Savage” on Trove.
Just getting started wrapping my head around this case, but I tend to lean away from it being a suicide note, since it doesn’t seem to make much sense to go through the trouble of encoding one unless you only wanted one person to know the meaning, in which case it seems like you’d make sure they got the book directly rather than chucking it in the backseat of a random car.
More likely it seems like he would have disposed of it there only if under duress, perhaps after hastily scribbling a code trying to identify someone that had or was about to threaten his life, keeping the “Tamam Shud” scrap hidden on him to make sure the police would connect him to the message.
In regards to the code itself, have people already considered that the repeating pattern “AB” might occur because he was trying to make the code less vulnerable to frequency analysis by using a digraph substitution technique like the Playfair cipher?
Promise: I think you’ll find the “4 8 1516 23 42” numbers are from something else entirely (Lost, Hugo “Hurley” Reyes’ lottery numbers).
all i see on this list is names
Mr Goabab D related to industrian case 1948
WT ? BIM relates to cellular models PANET. P was a canadian of some repor in 1761 however there was a Panet military advisor in 1948
M LIABO ? AIA. QUEENS COUNCEL canada link
last line i got to thinking is it a S
Talk To Me Tomorrow 9am st Gabriels.
some times it’s not so cloak & dagger
I think that I can make a strong case for the “cipher” being written in moving vehicle. I reached this conclusion from the results I obtained by image processing a high resolution scan of the SM “cipher” page. I was looking for any additional, fainter writing on the page that had been overlooked. I did find a possible four digit number, but it was very faint and I could not be sure that it wasn’t just a combination of a processing artefact and imaginitis. But, what did show up clearly was that some of the strokes that form the “cipher” letters extend for some distance over the page. It looked like the sort of scrawl that one gets when one is trying to write in a moving vehicle.
Given that the consensus opinion of the cipher experts is that the “cipher” consists of the first letters of English language words, what sort of information might have been recorded in a moving vehicle, and why? The most likely possibilities that I could think of are: a) a mundane aide memoire for some action or other. b) directions for a journey consisting of a a list of geographical features; towns and such like. I realise that there are many other possibilities, but I think these two are the most likely. If it is an aide memoire for some action, then, in the absence of other clues, there is no way to decide what words a set of initial letters may stand for.
But, the hypothesis that the letters are directions is testable to some extent. I focussed on the letter “Q” in the “cipher” because this is a comparatively rare initial letter in geographical place names in Australia. There are only two towns in South Australia starting with the letter “Q”, Quorn and Qualco, and both had turned up previously in my SM investigations. I particularly focussed on Qualco because of resonances with other possible clues. But there are other geographical features starting with the letter “Q” in South Australia. These are (from the Readers Digest Atlas of Australia which is based on the 1:250 000 scale map series) Quart Pot Lake, Quartz Hill, Quartzite Bore, Quartzose Peak, Queermoolya Hill, Quin Rock, Quinyambi and Quandong Vale.
The “cipher” contains the letter string “AIAQC” so my search strategy was to look at a map of, say, Quorn, and see what features in the surrounding area along the roads started with “A” or “C”, and then see if the “A” was close to and “I”, which was close to an “A” and so on. But it is a long job. I mostly looked at connections by road or railway, but this would not be valid for aeroplane travel.
Of course, it is quite possible that the “cipher” may not relate to South Australian geographical features. The Readers Digest Atlas of Australia lists a total of about 140 features starting with the letter “Q”. So there is plenty of work for anyone with some time on their hands.
I have looked at Adelaide Street names, and at the surnames of families living in Glenelg, but without success. The biggest problem with this search is that the geographic scale is not known; street, suburb, town, city, state, or even overseas? Towns, railway stops, ports?
B Deveson: fascinating! Of course, given what little we know about SM, it seems safe to say that “moving vehicle” probably implies “train” or “tram” or “bus”, which would be consistent with the note’s having been made in an impromptu manner by the man himself on his way to a date with destiny. And given that “Q” is definitely the most problematic (and hence most interesting) letter in the note, you were definitely taking a sensible approach here. 🙂
I read about this cas for the first timee today and as a little code cracker i got interested.
I have no solution, but some of you translated the “Morgen ab Abend” quite wrong. “Morgen” as well as “ab” can be translated different. In this case it would translate like: tomorrow from evening (on) – just in case it is german.
Btw. The Spytheory i like a lot since “having uptodate american clothing” is what russians would have covered up a spy like.
(Btw. I think the SM looks german/russian or smth between (prussian/baltic?)
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Many believe that the fourth line of the script is the corrected version of the second line. It sounds logical as the second line is struck through. But why didn’t the writer put these lines one after the other?
I think I have an idea that no one has suggested yet: If you look at the first two lines, you can see a space between the first and second letters, and, in fact, each character in the second line is written exactly under the character in the first line. To me, it looks like a code and an attempt to decypher it.
My assumption is that the person who wrote these letters tried to decypher a string of characters. First, he wrote down the first line, then left some space for the solution, and then wrote down the third line. As he was decoding the first line, he made a mistake, so he struck through the whole line, and – as there was no more space between the two lines – automatically put an x under the text and tried to decode the first line again.
Consequently, the last line must be the decoding of the second line. Now, if you count the characters, you can see that there are some extra letters in the “solution” lines (3 and 5). These extra letters seem to be a C at the end of line 3 and A and B at the end of line 5. These three letters look different from all the others – as if the writer had put them down hastily. (Perhaps in order to confuse those who find the cypher and the decoded text later? It might also explain why the M was changed to W in the first line. And perhaps the Q in 4 was originally an O.) The number of letters still don’t match in line 1 and line 4, but I suspect that the decoder was quite confused and put an extra letter there.)
Of course, the decyphered text does not make much more sense than the original, which means that either the decypherer used the wrong key (a wrong edition of the Rubayát) or it is a multiply encrypted text.
Gorden Cramer mentioned the Morse code. The first character of the code is a W changed to an M. In the Morse code W is .–, and M is —
I don’t know how spooks worked in the 1940s, but I assume that messages were repeated more than once. The Somersot Man first heard .– and wrote W, but secondly he realised that the first character was actually — and corrected it to M.
Oops, the two hyphens appear as a dash in my previous comment. W is of course dit-dah-dah and M is dah-dah.
Good thinking Snug, Some additional thoughts for you:
1. The strike through in line 2 is actually 4 shorter lines when viewed in close up, you’ll see it better in the negative view. As you would know, we cannot prove whether those lines were put in place before or after the the letters were written.
2. The last two letters in the last line are in my view, AR, that looks like a pro-sign in use by the US military in 1945 meaning, ‘This is the last message from me No reply is required or expected’
Is it text out of hexaglot bible? I got
A VRSEFEFU
so i typed that in on the internet. It said it was something written in that bible. On page 263
In the library I found a 1st edition of Fitzgeralds translation of the Rubyat. It has these lines
“Winter Garmet Of Repentance” #7
“Wake Morning In The Bowl” #1
“Bowl, I Adjurn My Lip” #34
“I SoMe TiMeS ThInk ThAT” #18
Just pointing out
I don’t know if this means anything but here are more guess’s
#7 Winter Garment Of Repentance
#11 A Book of verse And thou BesiDe me
#1 aWake, for Morning In The Bowl of night
#42 Tavern door agaPE ..ANgel ShaPe
#34 Bowl did I Adjurn My Lip
#49 tIs All A CheQuerbOard
#18 I SoMeTiMeS Think ThAT
GAB Initials?.
In the 1947 random house reprint of the first edition with a combined 3rd 4th and fifth edition, which differ greatly, Louis Untermeyer says in the the intro that an 1859 copy which sold for a penny apiece originally, was sold in New York at the Jerome Kern sale (item number 522) for 8 thousand dollars in the year 1929!
Am I the only person who sees the name Sam P. Panet.
Chris: probably! 😉
I think the problem is the faint letter having being gone over by by some one interpreting the marks into letters that made sense to them.
Its like on Trove where the electric transcriber can’t decipher the print and comes up with a wide range of nonsense words.
I also wonder if second line was not crossed out but underlined, as its more at bottom of lettering than the middle of them.
my 2c go at the code, given to fit in with the Jestyn link is the letters
M ostley
S treet
G lenegl
A delaide
B each
or maybe its Glenegl-Adelaide Bus?
though this doesn’t take into account SM’s original destination of Henley Beach.
There is an intriguing mention of the book of Persian verse, “Salaman and Absal”, which was translated by Fitzgerald, in the transcript of the takes for the 1978 ABC TV program concerning the Somerton Man mystery. Some of the persons involved in the original police investigation in 1948-9, and others, were interviewed on camera. The material is in the NAA. “The Somerton Beach story” 1977 Series number C673. Item bar code 7937872.
I note that Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of “Salaman and Absal” was included in some editions of the Rubaiyat, and one such edition (Collins clear print) was on sale in Australia immediately after WW2 (book adverts retrieved via Trove).
On page 9 there is the following that appears to have come from John Ruffles: “Adelaide News claim code DBMGPOT etc comes from page 270 of Salaman and Absal page 117 vers (sic) 21 3rd line verse 45 First Edition and 47 & 49 Second Edition.”
I expect that the “Adelaide News” is the News (Adelaide). The mention of “DBMGPOT” is confusing but it may simply be down to a journalist struggling to remember some of the “code”. But, then again, maybe not, and I think it is worth searching for the original newspaper article where this was mentioned. I also think it may be worthwhile to check if the “code” is an aide memoire for some verse from Salaman and Absal given that this book of Persian verse is sometimes included along with the Rubaiyat.
Has any thought been given to the possible connection between the cipher and the Italian alphabet? Italian doesn’t use the letters J, K, W, X and Y — and neither does the cipher, with the exception of the ambiguous W/M, which could have been a W written by someone unused to writing that letterform. Just a thought. Curious to know if this has been considered by anyone else.
As with the cipher in room 214 case, I don’t wish to rule out suicide on the grounds that he was smartly dressed.
The slip of paper with Tamam Shud on it may have been hidden but I wouldn’t rule it out as a suicide note. It probably didn’t matter to him if anybody else found it or understood what it meant, he understood what it meant.
I would even like to put forward a name…
I don’t know if anybody else could follow it up. I don’t have access to Ancestry or the other databases required…
John Edmund Thomas O’Sullivan
AKA: Patrick Daly
AKA: Daniel Sullivan
AKA: Michael Patrick O’Sullivan
AKA: John Patrick Murphy
AKA: Thomas O’Brien
AKA: Carl Mattiske
(It’s been a while since I checked this out so there may be more on trove by now but…)
At various points in his life he was
A Labourer of no fixed abode
In Renmark Hospital
Found collapsed at the side of the road in Renmark
(So it’s possible Clive Mangnoson really did know him from Renmark. Given the number of aliases this guy had it’s possible he also went by the name Carl Thompsen.)
He had previously attempted suicide and had a large cut inside his right elbow and had lacerations to his left wrist.
(This is the opposite way round to the listed lacerations on the Somerton man’s body but given the mistake made labelling the diagram of the Somerton man’s teeth is it possible that these should have been listed the other way around?)
He had memory problems, so may well have used memory aides.
He had also been sent to Adelaide Hospital (I don’t know if he made it.) So may well have known Adelaide.
It seems he had a few medical problems, is it possible he had previously met ‘Jestyn’ in one of these hospitals?
He had apparently had surgery on his skull at some point.
I wonder if he had sought put help from ‘Jestyn’ to end his life because he was dying of something like Lymphoma.
Dan: it’s always interesting to have an actual name to check. I’ve long suspected that the true story of the Somerton man would be sadder and rather less romantic than most people would like, and John Edmund Thomas O’Sullivan’s life would seem to fit that pattern. 😐
Apologies if this avenue has already been explored, but it struck me that, if the message is read from right to left (as an anonymous poster has suggested), then the first line (MRGOABABD) could well translate to the keyword TAMAM SHUD. Has anyone tried decoding the message on the assumption that it was intended to be read from right to left — like Farsi, but in English, or some other western European language?
Shelley,
Great idea! I have applied your suggestion and here is what I have derived. As you suggested, backwards the first line is, ” DBABAOGRM “, or ” TAMAM SHUD “. The second line that is lined out is, ” MLIAOI “, or ” IOAILM “, which I have deciphered as ” PSMPTD “, P. S. EMPTIED (POISON SAMPLE EMPTIED). The third line is, ” MTBIMPANETP “, or ” PTENAPMIBTM “, which I have deciphered as, ” UEYNMUDPAED ” or ” MONEY DUE PAID “. The fourth line is, ” MLIABOAIAQC “, or ” CQAIAOBAILM “, and I have deciphered to, ” ILMPMSAMPTD “. This reads, “SAMPLES EMPTIED “. The fifth and final line is, ” ITTMTSAMSTGAB “, or ” BAGTSMASTMTTI “. It deciphers to, ” AMHERDMREDEEP “, or ” A DEEPER MURDER MYSTERY “. So, I believe that the message is, ” TAMAM SHUD – POISON SAMPLE EMPTIED – MONEY DUE PAID – SAMPLES EMPTIED – A DEEPER MURDER MYSTERY “. I believe that this could be the answer to the puzzle.
Rick A. Roberts
I am posting my work on the ” Tamam Shud ” Mystery Code. I took Shelley’s advice and I am reading the cipher from right to left. The first line reads, ” DBABAOGRM “, or deciphered as ” TAMAM SHUD “. The second line that is lined out reads, ” IOAILM “, or “PSMPTD “, ” POISON SAMPLE EMPTIED “. The third line reads, ” PTENAPMIBTM “, or ” UEYNMUDPAED “, “MONEY DUE PAID “. The fourth line reads, ” CQAIAOBAILM “, or ” ILMPMSAMPTD “, ” SAMPLE EMPTIED “. The fifth and final line reads, ” BAGTSMASTMTTI “, or ” AMHERDMREDEEP “, or “A DEEPER MURDER MYSTERY “. The message is, ” TAMAM SHUD – POISON SAMPLE EMPTIED – MONEY DUE PAID – SAMPLE EMPTIED – A DEEPER MURDER MYSTERY “.
The fourth line should read, ” SAMPLE EMPTIED “.
Rick A. Roberts
i have solved the last 2 lines
M L I A B O A I A Q C
I T T M T S A M S T G A B
i will post it on youtube soon as i render from you guys that it is correct. i am inclined to decypher that it is a letter… goosebumps and all…
Hi Nick – I’ve being spending the last couple of months reading all the stories about the SM Case! There seems to be so many twists and turns in the investigation. I am messaging you today because I believe that I have some crucial documents/possessions that may tie back to the SM case. I must state that I am not a relative of the SM Man or Nurse Jestyn. I have a bulk of letters some having the address in Moseley St, Glenelg and potential references to other people connected to the SM case. Some of the letters are dated 1948. My main concern is my privacy and most importantly the safety of my family. There seems to be a lot of troll behaviour and nastiness and I don’t want to be caught up in it. You’re the second person I have contacted today. I’m in the process of obtaining semi legal advice just so I do things correctly. I am not based in Australia so there are delays. I’ve been trying to get hold of Gerry Feltus but he seems unavailable? Is he still alive?. Thanks Nick. Jazz
Jazz: it’s a tricky one – you have to understand that right now you are still indistinguishable from a troll (first time poster, no obvious connection to the case, claiming to have something nobody else has seen, emailing from a country with a lot of Tamam Troll activity).
I guess it all comes down to what you want. If you simply want the truth to come out, then just scan them and I’ll heppily post them up (with the usual caveats) – and it should become clear within a very short period of time whether they’re real or whether you’ve been scammed / conned / misled etc.
Thanks for the reply Nick. [Country X] isn’t that bad is it? – I’ll be in touch via email once I hear back from this chap in Adelaide from the newspaper. He is trying to work out if the nurse actually lived at 90a Moseley St, Glenelg during the timeframe of my letters. Is Gerry Feltus alive or not? Jazz
I also must add that I am not being Scammed/Conned/Misled. I have not association to this case whatsoever. I am an avid collector of antiques and interesting things and the letters and other artefacts turned when I purchased a deceased estate lot at an auction.
Jazz: I strongly recommend reading “The Unknown Man” by Gerry Feltus as an indispensable first step for anyone interested in the facts of the Somerton Man cold case – Internet coverage of the case is terrifically patchy and unreliable, and in most cases you’ll end up knowing less than when you started.
As far as contacting Gerry Feltus goes: I was told not long ago that his health has been through some ups and downs over recent years, so it may simply be that he’s currently in one of the downs.
But you shouldn’t need Gerry to confirm that Jessie Harkness / Thomson lived at 90a Moseley Street from 1948 onwards (because she did), so that should fit the time-frame of your letters. All the same, my advice would be to remain very wary about the authenticity of the letters / documents, so that you’re not inadvertantly being trolled by them. 😐
Fake.
Siem Reap: …because?
Throwing yet another unsubstantiated opinion onto the fire isn’t going to toast any historic marshmallows. 😉
Thanks for getting back to me Nick. I’ve managed to locate a copy of Gerry’s book today and I’ve just ordered it. I’ve heard back from a few people that I have been in contact with and they are all saying the same. The advice I was given was that the paper can be tested for age and there are other ways to authenticate things. My safety of my family is my number one concern. The letters were not even from the nurse but there were references to her and her son. I’ve also got lots of these silk style cigarette badges. I’ll get back to you in the near future. Jazz
Nick, you previously asked if I had access to the SAPol Gazette 1947. Yes, I do. But it is 657 pages. Ninety seven pages of mostly names in the general index (about 18,000 names) plus 86 pages of detailed descriptions plus photographs of the more heavy duty rogues.
I would be happy to check any names for you. If anyone else has any names just post them here and I will see what I can find.
Jazz, there has been a lot of research re: number 90a Moseley Street, and much of it hasn’t been posted. So, if you could post a list of names, with dates where possible, various posters here may be able to confirm both the authenticity of the letters, plus their significance and where they fit into the general SM story.
Jazz < I was contacted by the media last night. They said that you will be meeting them the same day as myself. Just a friendly reminder about Alison's living family also. If you want to Contact me before that day. Feel free to Look me up on Facebook . Cheers. Joel L
Jazz: please be careful about who you contact, people involved with the Somerton Man tend to have a wide variety of agendas that may or may not coincide with what you’re trying to achieve. 😐
Byron: anything to do with the police and Duffield Motors of 48 Hanson Street would certainly be interesting. 🙂
Jazz: a commenter called Clive noted here last year that “the Thomson’s moved to 104 Partridge St in 1950/51 and the telephone # was, I understand X3930”. Just in case that throws any light on what you’re looking at. 🙂
Thanks Nick 🙂
Nick, nothing on Duffield Motors so far. A father and son, both named John Abbs Duffield, aged 55 and 26 respectively, were convicted of offences under the National Security (liquid fuels) Regulations and heavily fined in 1945. No descriptions of these two men were given (a bit unusual) but it appears from other documents that John senior lived in Adelaide, and John junior was a grazier of Tumby Bay/Verran.
I note that another John Abbs Duffield, a farmer of the Hundred of Pirie, cut his throat in 1914. Presumably the father/grandfather of the above two.
John junior got into serious strife in 1953, being convicted of receiving stolen goods (including a pistol) from a chap, Sydney James de Kuyper, who was a convicted felon, a declared habitual criminal, and probably a major fence of stolen goods in South Australia. John junior got 18 months in prison and de Kuyper (aged 71 of 71 Finnis Street, North Adelaide) got 5 years, and on his release was further detained at the Governor’s Pleasure. Poor sod.
De Kuyper was described an a motor mechanic at times.
I note that de Kuyper narrowly escaped an attempted murder conviction in 1938 (Recorder – Port Pirie – 7th April 1938 page 1) and was arrested at gun point (ie. Police suspected he might turn violent and may have been armed, and were not taking chances) for a major warehouse burglary (clothing materials valued at 2,063 Pounds, which was a lot of money) in 1944 (Border Watch – Mount Gambier – 1st April 1944 page 1). I noted that de Kuyper later stole rifles and a pistol, and a stolen pistol was found in the possession of John Abbs Duffield junior.
The News (Adelaide) 22nd December 1953 page 13 reported that John junior’s farm income for the previous year was 12,000 Pounds. Hmm, I wonder if John junior was a major fence of stolen goods? The Advertiser 23rd October 1953 page 16 said that John junior had stolen rifles, watches, tools and clocks.
In 1949 John junior was arrested for hindering police when a policeman was badly beaten in an affray. He was described as a farmer at Verran. A Colin James Verco was also arrested in connection with the same fracas. His address was Kenilworth Avenue, Woodlands Park, and his occupation was given as “MTT motorman.” Hmm, probably coincidence, but …
I think we need that software that plots social connections between people. There have been too many casual connections between people apparently associated in some way with the SM case for it all to be pure coincidence.
While I was searching the SAPol Gazettes I noted a report that a Veronica Mary Kean, of 63 Jetty Road Glenelg, had a white gold eternity ring stolen, value seven Pounds. (SAPol Gazette 25th October 1945).
And a possible reference to the wife of John senior or junior. Theft reported 1st March 1945 from a hostel at Glossop. Property of the Berri Co-operative Winery and Distillery Limited and Mrs Duffield. Presumably Mrs Duffield was the proprietor or part owner of the hostel.
Hi Nick – Thanks for the email and I absolutely agree with everything you have said. It’s going to be a slow process I’m afraid the reason being that there is a correct process to follow. I have the names and contact details of two organisations that can test the letters to give a date indication. I am awaiting on their packs which they are sending out in the mail. There will be no mention on the Somerton Man Investigation to them. The subsequent results will follow after they have carried out their tests. Secondly I went back to the company for which I obtained everything and they are trying to locate the original owner. If the person is deceased they still will be able to provide a contact name. It’s better to have everything in place. Jazz
Nick, you said on 24th November 2013 “I would be pretty sure that there must be some other DNA test that could look for some kind of shared allele pattern between Kate Thomson and Rachel Egan that would indicate whether or not they were related …… via a shared male ancestor. (I’m not an expert on genetics, though, so please tell me if this is just plain wrong.)”
You are right, and there is a genetic test that would definitely show if Kate and Rachel were related. It is known as a autosomal DNA test and it is cheap (US$99 in the USA and about A$170 in Australia) and easy (a saliva sample or swab). This test identifies the genetic code code at about 700,000+ positions (called SNP) within the genome, and these positions have been chosen because they are known mutation hot spots. I have about 200,000 mutations identified in my 700,000 (this is a very average number of mutations) and the mathematician in you will instantly recognize that even though each generation accumulates about 60 new mutations, and the genome is diluted by a factor of (more or less) two each generation, it is possible to show a common ancestor back ten generations (about 0.1% shared genetic material). In my own case I have a DNA match that proved to be from a common ancestor born 1688 (Joshua Race, born 1688 Horbury, Yorkshire, died 1736), and I have other identified matches in the 1700s.
My autosomal DNA test has identified matches (ie common ancestors) to about 3,000 other tests. The particular DNA database currently contains just over one million autosomal tests, and about 300,000 associated family trees.
But this brings me to the matter of the DNA test carred out on Rachel. Derek did say that a connection to the Pleasants family in Virginia was apparent. Thus far, neither I nor other genealogists have made a connection between Prosper’s family and the USA Pleasants. Nor is any such genealogical connection apparent with Rachel’s mother’s family, or Prosper’s or Jestyn’s families. Which suggests that Robin’s father carried some Pleasants blood and this is supported to some extent by the trace of native American DNA.
The autosomal DNA test of Rachel could have thrown up about 3,000 or more matches although it seems the test was probably carried out by FamilyTreeDNA which has a smaller database (so perhaps 1,000 matches).
But, no matter, Derek should be sitting on hundreds, possibly thousands, of matches. And as you will surmise from the numbers (a million plus tests, 3,000 plus matches in my case) that some of these matches will connect to Robin’s father’s line, which might be SM’s line. So, why haven’t we heard anything?
Well, speaking from experience, checking through about 1,000 family trees (not every autosomal DNA test has a usable family tree attached) is a very time consuming business. And the process is much more difficult than usual because we have no genealogical information concerning SM to start with.
From memory Robin had a son, and if this is the case a Y-chromosome test from the son would be a more direct way of identifying SM. With a bit of luck the list of surnames thrown up would contain SM’s surname. And with a bit of luck the list of matches would contain some not-too-distant relatives. There would still be a lot of genealogical research work to do, but it is doable. And the software tools to identify distant relatives are improving rapidly.
Here’s hoping for something! Hopefully not another roller-coaster ride.
Just followed through from the TomTwo blog. I’ve just read the most strangest article written by the author. Is he experiencing a mental health crisis?
Hi Jazz – Looking forward to reading and possibly hearing about your find. The only important thing is finding out who the Somerton Man was. Wishing you a safe journey forward. Nina
After reading about the Marshall Case, I wonder how the death of Joseph (George) Marshall and the Somerton Man are related ? Mr. Marshall was found dead with a copy of the Rubaiyat Khayyam on his chest . Some thought his death was suicide by poisoning, or was it ? This leads me to believe that someone else placed the piece of paper with the lines of cipher in the Somerton Man’s pocket after he was dead and positioned his body where it was found on the beach . This also leads me to believe that someone else poisoned the Somerton Man .
P.S Jazz – Best to stay away from TomTwo the author is violent and scary.
I made a nice comment and get this:
“I’m busy is why, setting traps for the wild dogs that come up from the gully behind my property. This is just a hobby while I sharpen the knives I’ll use tomorrow to skin them, providing they aren’t ripped up too much … then I’ll throw some salt on the inside of their hides, leave them on the fence for a couple of days before cutting the hides into waistcoats for the twin hillbillys next door who look after the barbed wire fences that surround us. Ok with you, Nina?”
I’ve reported him to an Internet safety organisation.
In the interim all discussions regarding Jazz’s new information on the Somerton Man Case will be held on the Websleuths Site between registered and verified members.
Mikey: “in the interim” – between now and when?
B Deveson have you come across a ‘Margaret Alison Bean’ in your research? Lucas
Lucas – I have.
See trove. 11 April 1947. “Married Today In Malaya”.
Misca: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/74639123 (I corrected the text just now for y’all) – Margaret Alison Verco.
“A wedding of great interest to South Australians is that of Margaret Alison Verco
second daughter of the late Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Verco, formerly of Molesworth street.
North Adelaide, with Arnold Bean, of Norwich, Norfolk, England. The marriage will take place todayat Kuala Lumpur. Federated Ma-lay States. Mr. Bean is Chief In-
spector of Mines in Malaya.”
NAA – FIle
Denbigh-Russell, Joy [nee Vida Joyce Allen-Jones] (British subject [born in Australia]) [File includes newspaper clipping from the ‘Daily Telegraph of 9 Aug 1940] [Box 210]
Is it the same Margaret Alison Verco in the wedding photo? Or a relative? Or neither.
I would be very interested.
Many thanks 🙂
Good links!
Many thanks Misca and Nick
I can’t find the file you are referring to Catherine. Could you please
Post the link.
Lucas: was she the same Margaret Verco who is mentioned on p.135 of The Path To Professionalism? That Margaret Verco “graduated in 1939 and served in the army in World War Two. After the war, she entered into private practice ‘virtually pioneering the practice of prenatal physiotherapy instruction… to expectant mothers’ in South Australia. She had a long tenure on the South Australian Executive and was a Federal Delegate from 1951-58. Verco served in the post of Australian representative to WCPT until 1959 […]“.
I’m not sure Nick. I think the one I am looking for died in suspicious circumstances in 1949 and is buried in Victor Harbor. Unless there are two people with the same name. I’m trying to find her address in 1948 and the whole of the 1940s to validate a topic.
Catherine – Yes. Alison Verco and Joy Denbigh-Russell were friends.
Lucas: I’m sure you have seen this already, but… http://www.australiancemeteries.com/sa/victor_harbor/victorharborgenafdata.htm
BEAN, Margaret Alison (2)
BEAN, Margaret Alison
Hi Misca –
That’s really interesting and the NAA file is very interesting too. I see that Joy Denbigh-Russell was under surveillance by the Police. And I have just read that she died at sea in 1941 by enemy action and her body was never recovered.
Lucas – She died 5 July 1949. Search her full married name on trove, see 17 November 1949.
Misca: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22792444 – once again, I fixed the text for y’all. 🙂
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130266133 – “BEAN.- On July 5, Margaret Alison, beloved wife of Arnold Bean, of 2 Palm street, Medindie.”
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127019113 – 30 Dec 1947
AFTER holidaying at Victor Harbor, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Bean, of Kuala Lumpur, returned to Adelaide today. Mrs. Bean was Miss Alison Verco before her marriage.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55908618 – 24 Jan 1948
Now Out Of Hospital
MRS. Arnold Bean, formerly Alison Verco, has left hospital, and is living for the next few weeks in the home of her sister, Mrs. Alec McLachlan, at Pennington terace, North Adelaide.
Iveagh Perry has come down from Southport, Queensland, and is staying with Mrs. Bean.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43756994 – 21 Feb 1948
[After spending two months at their summer house at Victor Harbor, Mr. and Mrs. A. P. McLachlan, with Gillian and Alastair, will return to North Adelaide on Monday. Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Bean, Mrs. McLachlan’s brother-in-law and sister, from Kuala Lumpur, who have been staying at the Pennington terrace house, will go to Glenelg to stay with Mrs. H. P. McLachlan for a fortnight.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55897726 – 13 Nov 1948
TOP — On their way to lunch yesterday (from left) Evelyn Scarfe, her Melbourne guest Miss Thelma Halbert, Mrs. Linden Wood, and Mrs. Arnold Bean, of Singapore,
(formerly Alison Verco, of Adelaide).
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/129889432 – 30 Nov 1948
Visiting Adelaide from Sydney are Mrs. Charles Lloyd Jones and Mrs. B. M. Stranger. Lunching at the South Australian Hotel with Mrs. Arnold Bean, they showed smart, new styles.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36356582 – 11 Mar 1949
News comes from Malaya that Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Bean, of Kuala Lumpur, went to Hongkong recently for a holiday. Mrs. Bean was Miss Alison Verco, of Adelaide and Sydney.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36674774
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/93215811
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36361833 – 12 Apr 1949
Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Bean, of Kuala Lumpur. Malaya, have arrived at Adelaide. They are in Mr. and Mrs. John Skipper’s flat, at North Adelaide, for a fortnight.
Nick – Their November 30, 1948 visit caught my eye when I was doing research. Also, Mr. Bean went on to remarry. He married Mrs. Linden Wood, a friend of Alison’s. See trove 22 August 1953. Search Arnold Bean or Mrs. Linden Wood.
Misca: I did see that 🙂 , but was trying to see what Trove had to say about what happened in the twelve months up to July 1949, because that’s probably the most interesting bit. 😉
Lucas, there was some interesting material on the old (deleted) Smithsonianmag.com site. Alison Verco, Denbigh Russell etc. but it all got deleted. You might be able to resurrect it using the WayBack machine. I have a copy of this material in my archives, but I am out in the scrub at the moment.
‘Picaresque’ At least you got that right, Dome, Russell Crowe and Kylie Minogue will be busting down my door.
Kate Moss standing in.
pete: it’s a good word that sums up a bad genre.
As for Kate Moss, you’d have to get her out of my bed first. 😉
Shit, I hate making up. It’s un-Australian.
South Australian Hotel – Nov 30 1948
The hotel was very close to the Adelaide Railway Station.
I wonder if they were serving gourmet pasties that day? – But it was never proven go be a pastie. I have a feeling SM’s last meal was in that hotel. It might explain why he was dressed up because they had a strict dress code. I wonder what went down? – I’m sure all will be revealed shortly.
Milly: I suspect that Jazz’s letters – if genuine – might possibly give us a glimpse of who Jestyn’s son’s biological father was. And if we are really lucky, we might be able to learn enough to eliminate that person as a candidate for being the Somerton Man. But (fingers crossed) we shall see, hopefully before very long…
56 letters in total and lots of research and investigating to do.
Hi Catherine good to see you here. Just remember this site is an open group and not a closed group like the one we usually work on.
Nick: A private messaging option on here would be an asset!
Lucas: well… if it’s 56 letters, that’s still 56 more than we had before. 😉
True is that Nick! 🙂
Lucas: my email is “nickpelling at (the same as the first bit) dot com”, which hopefully isn’t unnecessarily cryptic. 🙂
pete: you’ve ended up with Kylie Minogue and Russell Crowe, so you’ve hardly got such a a bad deal.
Pass me that pillow, would you now, Kate? This beta speech-recognition blogging software is making my neck hurt.
Milly: that seems a little unlikely to me, because he left Adelaide in the morning and his time of death was estimated far closer to midnight – if he had eaten a pastie in the morning, it would surely have been nearly digested by midnight. Moreover, he was a biggish bloke and that pastie would have been the last thing he ate all day, so I’d expect ate it in the early evening, probably in someone’s house.
Having said all that, I’ll re-read the inquest evidence in the next few days, see if I can glean anything more substantial about the pastie from the comments etc. 🙂
Houston! We have a problem.
I’m wondering why Alison Verco stayed at so many of her friends houses. I did find an interesting article today about her brother Ron Verco. His whole farm burnt down in the late 1940s. How do you post links to this site Nick? – I try to post them and a spam filter comes up. Lucas
This was on Pete Bowes site today. It has been screen shotted and sent to the police and lawyers.
The breaking news:
“Here’s a bit of breaking news – Looks like some of the sensational news was typed on a computer generated ‘old world’ typewriter font.”
This is slander and defamation.
It isn’t true.
I don’t know if Pete is posting things for some kind of reponse or reaction because it’s really immature and pathetic. None of the letters have been released to the general public. Copies have only gone to the relevant government organisations and families.
I spoke to Jazz on the phone today. She is not really taking all the troll behaviour from Pete Bowes and his commenters very well and she was in tears. I’m sure you have read the basics on Websleuths Nick. I have some information on the letters for which in greatful to Jazz for.
The writer of the letters was Mrs Margaret Bean formerly Alison Verco of Adelaide. It turns out Jestyn was working for her in the capacity of a nurse as Alison was unwell.
They letters were address to another individual in Melbourne. They are many references to dinners and day to day life in Adelaide. Alison was very active on the social scene and heavily documented her life and kept in touch with many people.
I’m mainly researching Alison and her Doctor brother Ron Verco at the moment because I feel it will be very useful in the future.
Lucas: if you replace the first ‘:’ and the last ‘.’ with spaces, I reassemble the link when I moderate it. It’s a little bit annoying, but I get so much spam, I have to do something… 🙁
Well that’s a solution for the links Nick.
Many Thanks
Very interesting article here. I see that the South Australian Hotel was used during the war.
http://www.adelaiderememberwhen.com.au/the-south-gone-but-not-forgotten/
Lucas: the letters may not have been released to the general public, but from recent comments on Gordon Cramer’s website, he seems to have been encouraging Jazz to take close-up pictures of pages, almost certainly as part of his personal quest to prove the existence of microwriting. Perhaps she sent him a close-up of some letters?
Hi Lucas: Thanks for the chat on the phone today it was really appreciated and I’m feeling loads better!. A big hug from me to you.
Everyone: I’ve never contributed to Pete Bowes horrible site and I don’t intend to in the future. From beginning to end it full of inaccurate information and there are people with Agendas for which I don’t want to be part of. I’ve already has someone message my 14 year old daughter on Facebook after they unsuccessfully tried to contact me. The matter has been reported to the police.
Thanks for giving the heads up to everyone Lucas about the basic theme of the letters. I’ve now had them all scanned and copied and they are currently being analysesed by various organisations.
I don’t have to do this everyone as another option would be just to burn them. Let the silly games and drama STOP!
Jazz
Hi Nick – I have never sent any close ups to Gordon Cramer’s website. I am imagining this is an attempt by the trolls trying to get copies of the letters and my personal information. I just had to look up who Gordon Cramer was as I’ve never heard of him. I’m not happy that my name is being used fraudulently now. I will email you a specific password or key word. So in future when I’m posting you will know it’s coming from me. Then only sites I contribute to are Websleuths and Cipher Mysteries. Gordon Cramer along with Pete Bowes are now on my ignore list.
Great to talk Jazz.
As I said on the phone is that you are being baited. They are making and creating scenarios and stories to discredit you so you will produce the letters for prove them wrong. It all about them wanting to see them because they are impatient and can’t wait. I too don’t really pay much notice to Pete Bowes or Gordon Cramer because they have history which is well documented. There is an article online well before Gordon Cramer got involved with the Someton Man Case which is about microwriting art that Gordon creates (he sells it at a stall on the market). I do wonder if Gordon is creating the microwriting on the code letters himself. But this is MY OPINION and nobody else’s. Another person with an agenda… So many agendas!. I just can’t workout why there is so much trolley for something that happened in 1948!
P.S Just got your code word!
“Detectives in Fire Probe” 13th December 1948
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/129898012
Jazz: then it would seem that a troll has been masquerading as you and trolling both Gordon Cramer and Pete Bowes by sending them fake letters (produced on a laser printer, it would seem). Oh well. 🙁
Doctors complaint to police over books.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43787203
If it true in the first place Nick. I have seen the comments on Gordon Cramer’s page. Strangely though all the comments on his site are anonymous but the ones by the troll have my name. The funny thing is I’ve never contributed to any of them especially Pete Bowes. Some people really have too much time on their hands. I’m moving forward now. This meaning that I will ignore both Pete Bowes and Gordon Cramer, they don’t exist to me as far as I’m concerned. There is a process to follow and I’m doing it my way as well. At this stage the letters have been copied and scanned and are being analysed by various organisations. I didn’t think people had printers anymore and the laser ones are not cheap.
“Working from a home studio in Kenilworth, Gordon turns out artwork, verses, wedding vows, inspirational quotes and more, incorporating them into photo frames, key rings and jewellery. Special occassions such as weddings, Mother’s Day and birthdays seem to be the the area most in demand.”
I just found it Lucas!!!!!
Looks like Gordon Cramer really does have an Agenda!
http://www.hinterlandtimes.com.au/2015/10/06/microstyle-in-maleny/
It’s time to move forward and forget about these stupid idiots. (And that’s putting it nicely). You’re safe at Websleuths and Cipher Mysteries Jazz. Don’t let things worry you that much. Cathy
Thanks Cathy – Your kind words have really given me a boost. I have just got your message through Gypsy and I would greatly appreciate your help. I’m unable to get to Genealogy SA to do some research because I don’t live in Australia.
Death of Mrs W A Verco
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/128982658
Lucas – What are you looking for re genealogy?
Lucas, Mrs W A Verco died April 1930 at 11 Molesworth Street Adelaide. See: News (Adelaide) 11th April 1930 page 11. Mrs Verco was born Agnes May Porter at Adelaide 1876 and had four children.
Alison stayed with Evelyn Scarfe when she visited Adelaide in November 1948. Evelyn lived at 26 South Esplanade (more often referred to as Llandovery, Pier Street). This is less than a 10 minute walk from 90a Moseley Street.
Alison’s death is a bit strange. It’s like it was never acknowledged by the family. No mention even of her maiden name or her living siblings. This was posted on July 5th, the same day that she died and there was no further reference to a funeral or anything. Just this:
“BEAN.-On July 5, Margaret Alison, beloved wife of Arnold Bean, of2 Palm street, Medinde”
She had so many friends and none of them ever posted anything about her ever again…Nothing.
Her probate was odd as well. It was posted in the newspaper on the 17th November, 1949 four months after she died. It states:
“MARGARET ALISON BEAN Late of 2 Palm Street, Medinde in the State of South Australia. Married Woman, Deceased.- After fourteen clear days Arnold Bean of 2 Palm street Medindie aforesaid, retired mining engineer,the executor to whom probate of deceased’s will, dated 13th June 1949 was granted by the Supreme Court of South Australia in its Testamentary Causes jurisdiction, on 16th August, 1949, will. APPLY to the Supreme Court of Victoria that its SEAL may be AFFIXED to an Exemplification of the said Probate.”
So, she had a will dated 13 June 1949 and she died July 5th. Just a few weeks later. It could be that she knew she was dying and put things in order but it does seem a bit strange given that there was no funeral and nothing forthcoming from her siblings/family. Again, there was no mention of her maiden name or her living family. I’m surprised that Arnold was already retired. He was only 47/48 when Alison died.
I have found a listing on trove where Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Verco are said to be going on a trip to England with Mr. Arnold Bean in 1950 but nothing else to connect him to the family after that. I haven’t been able to ascertain whether or not they did in fact take the trip together. In 1953/54 (can’t remember off the top of my head) he remarries Mrs. Lindon Wood (widow) who was Helene Lynch (a friend of Alison’s who hung out in their circles). She had been widowed about 18 months before she married Arnold.
“POLICE BELIEVEFIRE ACCIDENTAL
£2,500 Damage On Milang ProperlyAfter questioning a 24-year-old farmhand yesterday, policebelieve that the fire which caused damage estimated at £2500 in a woolshed on the property of Dr. Ronald L. Verco,’at Milang, on Saturday was accidental.The man told the police thatthe fire started after he had struck a match while pumping petrol from a 44-gallon druminto a bottle.”
14 December, 1948 – trove
The pic I posted of Alison at Joy’s wedding didn’t go through? Is it blocked as spam???
Holy shit this is insane…anyone have any theories?
Has Derek Abbott been informed?
Coco: if it’s OK with you, I’d rather go through a period of collecting facts before speculating just yet. 🙂
Misca: didn’t reach the dashboard here, so I presume it was incorrectly tagged as spam, sorry ’bout that. If you email it to me at the normal address, I’ll post it up over the next few days (as you’d expect, I’m preparing a timeline post).
I wish Byron & Misca had blogs. I bet they’d be awesome!
Misca: given that we have (or appear to have) a long sequence of letters written by her from this period, it seems likely to me that much of what happened in her final two years will emerge before too long.
Based on some experience of tracing the genealogical connection between people sharing similar or identical mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) I think Mitochondrial DNA testing of the hair samples from the plaster bust of SM stands a reasonable chance of identifying close relatives of SM. It might take two or thee years because the present public databases of mtDNA connected to genealogical data is fairly limited at present. But the databases are growing quickly. Hair contains very much more mitochondrial DNA than nuclear DNA and DA’s team has already extracted mtDNA from SM’s hair and shown that SM’s mitochondrial DNA belongs to the H haplogroup (as does mine H1ag1) and Derek recently told me that his team are hoping to refine the haplogroup (sub-clade) data. If his team are successful in this, then it is just a matter of time before SM is identified. The mtDNA relatives would have a strong case in my view for the exhumation and autosomal DNA testing of SM’s remains. I am aware that identical mtDNA can be shared by relatives who are separated by up to fifteen generations. But such distant connections have never stood in the way of Attorney General Rau, and many others, granting ownership of archaeological remains to present day clan groups. Autosomal DNA testing, as opposed to mitochondrial DNA testing, is the genealogical gold standard. Mitochondrial DNA will be very useful in unraveling the identity of SM but it won’t be as easy as unraveling the autosomal DNA data. As an example my autosomal DNA links me to over 4,000 living people. These genealogical connections can go out as far as seven or eight generations and the sheer number of these connections means that there is enormous redundancy, and hence the potential error checking and error correcting attached to the associated genealogical information. Every match (ie. 4,000 in my case) can be cross-checked against every other.
The autopsy photographs of SM clearly show that the lateral (the side nearest his ears) half of his eyebrows have very sparse hair growth. This is a sign (called Hertoghe’s sign or Queen Anne’s sign) of myxedema, hypoparathyroidism, heavy metal poisoning, syphilis, Dubowitz syndrome or atopic dermatitis. I think hypoparathyroidism, syphilis, Dubowitz syndrome and atopic dermatitis can be ruled out based on his appearance and the autopsy results. That leaves myxedema and heavy metal poisoning. We know that two samples of SM’s hair contain extremely high concentrations of lead and this suggests that SM may have been suffering from the symptoms of lead poisoning immediately prior to his death.
I note that myxedema can often cause heart arrhythmias and fainting, and can cause heart failure.
It is known that digitalis drugs must be used with great caution in hypothyroid patients. “Thyroid abnormalities alter digoxin kinetics; a hypothyroid state reduces both volume of distribution and clearance ….”. Which is to say that a hypothyroid state would reduce the safety margin (which is only a factor of four in any case) between a toxic dose and a therapeutic dose of digitalis drugs.
I have previously noted that lead and/or bismuth poisoning both cause hypokalemia (low potassium in the blood and tissues) which increases the toxicity of digitalis drugs.
The primary reason why the medical experts thought that SM died from a lethal dose of a digitalis drug is because it was noted that SM’s heart stopped in systole. Which is to say his heart was paralysed and the digitalis group of drugs are the only common poisons that will do this.
At this point I will suggest a scenario. SM has pre-existing hypothyroidism and then absorbs large amounts of lead (which may be accidental, or may be deliberate poisoning). He feels terrible (which is understandable) and he chooses to go to a osteopath/naturopath for some reason. Maybe SM didn’t have the money to see a medical practitioner, maybe he was just tight with money, maybe he was keeping a low profile, or maybe he knew, or knew of, a naturopath in Somerton. Or any other of an almost unlimited number of other possible reasons. SM goes to see the naturopath who examines him, listens to SM’s heart and all the rest of it. The naturopath then gives SM a naturopathic tonic containing extracts from foxglove. I have previously mentioned that foxglove was only used as a herbal medicine by Norwegians and Irish Celts prior to the discovery of the therapeutic use of digitalis by William Withering in 1785. So I surmise that Scandinavians or Celts would be much more likely to accept a naturopathic brew containing foxglove (which is very bitter – nastily bitter IMHO). SM then leaves Number 15 Esplanade but doesn’t get very far before the effects of the digitalis elixir make him feel decidedly off-colour, so he rests on the beach and later dies from the effect of the digitalis which is potentiated by the hypokalemia (caused by lead and/or bismuth poisoning) and myxedema.
OK, at this point you are muttering that the last paragraph is pure supposition. “Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative” (W.S. Gilbert). Fair enough. It is only intended as a hypothesis to be tested. And the hypothesis is potentially falsifiable in the Popperian sense, so it is OK as a working hypothesis.
But what if I told you that an osteopath/ naturopath (Douglas Arnold Nunn) lived less that 100 yards (at 15 The Esplanade, Somerton Park) from the set of steps where SM’s body was found? And what if I tell you that Nunn was married to an American and had lived in the USA for several years in the 1930s. And Nunn’s wife seems to have come to the attention of the intelligence authorities (there is a security file for Ella Nunn in the NAA collection). Douglas Nunn is also on record (in a court case) saying that he used “… proprietary medicines containing valuable ingredients” in his osteopathy practice. So it seems he dispensed medicines and he might have even compounded formulations containing foxglove (digitalis).
Ella Mary Elizabeth Nunn nee Schrade. Born 25th March 1917 New York City, USA.
Mother: Ella Cecelia nee Murphy. Father: Oscar George Schrade
Douglas Arnold Nunn, born 8th April 1916 Adelaide.
In her 1964 immigration declaration Ella Nunn gave her last overseas address as “518 Madison Avenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey.”
There is an interesting coincidence (or maybe it isn’t a coincidence?) in that the Pharmacy in Jetty Road, close to where the discarded ROK was found, was owned by pharmacist Peter Lionel Nunn. Peter was not a close relative of the osteopathy Nunn brothers but I wonder if they might still have had a social and professional connection?
Finally, DA has said that Jestyn had a life long interest in pharmacology so I wonder if she was ever employed by the osteopath/naturopath Nunn brothers? Jestyn lived at 90a Moseley Street which is 1,600 feet (480 metres) from Douglas Nunn’s house at 15 Esplanade, Somerton Park.
And a final, final coincidence. Tibor Kaldor had a goitre (a thyroid problem) so there is a vague possibility that Tibor was related to SM. Thyroid problems seem to have a strong genetic component. See SNPedia for more details.
I have just seen updated mass spectroscopy (MS) data for Somerton Man’s hair. The results show many anomalies and throw up many more questions than they answer at present. There are many leads to follow and I am sure that SM’s occupation and/or hobbies, and the localities where he spent the last two weeks of his life, will become clear when the MS data are fully evaluated. At present there is just too much to check and digest but there are two matters that seem to be straightforward enough to warrant immediate comment.
First, SM’s hair contains what could be regarded as normal levels of the nuclear associated elements uranium 238, thorium 232 and lithium 7. I know that U238 isn’t the primary isotope used in fission weapons but it would generally serve as a marker for exposure to un-enriched uranium such as uranium mining and ore processing, transport and enrichment. The same applies for Thorium 232 and lithium 7. It does not preclude the possibility that SM was involved in other nuclear related matters because these do not involve ingestion/exposure to significant amounts of uranium etc. I will suggest to DA that uranium 235 MS data should be extracted and maybe the other lithium and thorium isotope data should be extracted as well.
Second, SM’s hair contains abnormally high concentrations of both silver and gold. In general SM’s hair contains elevated concentrations of many elements, particularly metals that are associated with ore deposits of base metals such as lead, zinc and copper, and this suggests that SM might have been an extractive metallurgist – a metallurgist involved in extracting metals from ores, or a chemist working at an ore processing facility.
Byron: thanks very much for flagging this up, this is a fascinating new data set that we will need to mine carefully – I’ll post about it very shortly. 🙂
Nick, a thesis by DA’s student, Yifan Ma, at the Uni of Adelaide is online and it presents a new analysis of the SM “code”. The analysis involves “Hamming and Levenshtein distance” and the “SimHash algorithm” and Ma’s conclusion is that “the code consists of initialisms of English.” This is what the previous analyses have shown but Ma says that the new analysis is more conclusive than the previous work. Google ““Yifan Ma” Somerton” for the thesis and Google ““Yami Li” Somerton” for the hair mass spectrometry thesis.
Byron: I’ll be sure to check that out too. But it does sound a little futile to reprise what Eric Nave worked out in a day (and got right). :-/
BD: I can well understand that mixing pills and potions from from questionable sources are potential time bombs and might well be considered as a reasonable hypothesis in the case of SM. I have noted previously that Pier pharmacy of the herbalist L P Nunn was also used as a chiropractic clinic run by R W Fox who must surely have had a private room within the premises to perform his massage and manipulations. As such we have a perfect storage facility and rear lane discreet disposal point for a cadever should certain medications provide a fatal outcome and I see from one of your old posts that Mr. Fox seems to have given up his practise by at least 1950. Considering that SM may have had some pre-existing problems other than the ailment he presented with then his demise could well have been accidental and I can’t help but wonder whether he may not have succumbed to the effects of Solanine poisoning, a consequence of having eaten a potato pasty. As you will be aware acute symptoms of this glycoalkaloid are rare but should be considered baring in mind that they would be similar in affect to those of the more potent glycoside overdosing and likewise undetectable.
John, I can give you the address and phone number of Bob Fox’s daughter if you want to follow it up. Nick can give you my email address or you can find me without much trouble on Google.
Redmud
BD: I can recall attempting to reach Don Pruzinski once only to ascertain that others had beat me to it and am somewhat reluctant to do something like that again without a proper brief. I think it most likely that such communication with Bob’s daughter should be undertaken with a great degree of caution and only by someone who is fully smicked up on what is likely to be gleaned from her. I take it that she would be a lady of a certain age but possibly not old enough to be all that familiar with the events pertaining to her dad’s involvement with the SM business. If he is the fellow who died at Loxton in ’03 and we’re happy about his relationship to Les, I feel that more can be achieved by following the path, albeit more confidently and seeing where it leads. I take it that we can discount the Burma railroad man and the other chap mentioned in your chat with DA but I must add that the Fox/Middleton business still has me somewhat perplexed. Do you find it strange that everything keeps leading in the direction of that sparsely peopled Sth Eastern corner of the state known as the mallee? I find it really weird as I also have a near death experience associated with one of the towns of that region.
There was only ever one book, which is the one Les Wytkin found as he said on his bus, and which he later placed in the car owned by his brother-in-law Bob Fox the chiropodist from Nunn’s apocathary in Pier St. Glenelg. Bob was aware that the book belonged to Les and they may have discussed it, but neither man had any thoughts about its origins and it may be that they were unaware of the Tamam Shud slip’s removal. Following its discovery by John Cleland in SMs fob pocket some months later and a public call for the book’s whereabouts, Bob Fox checks and finds the missing space then dutifully contacts the detectives telling them how he came by it in his vehicle, nominating Les as a witness but omitting to reveal his involvement in its acquisition. When Les came forward afterwards he told his own story with the provisor, possibly true that he did place the book in the tramways LPO but later took it when it remained unclaimed after what was considered a decent interval. This of course is open to conjecture as Bob thought that he first saw the book about the time of the airshow earlier in November before SMs body was found on 1 December. The police being unable to detect any nefarious doings on the part of the pair, released their statement to the press and that’s exactly how it was reported. There is a catch however and of course its the possible involvement by Messrs Fox and Nunn in the accidental death by incorrect dispensing of illicit drugs and subsequent interfering with a cadaver. As all partys who may have been cognizant of the existence or non existence of the relevant facts at issue are no longer with us then all we are left with are the age old what ifs, unless of course someone was told something secret at some time during the intervening period which might give us some slender cause for optimism.
I can just hear all you armchair critics scoffing and asking quite reasonably, why would Bob Fox come forward if he’s been implicated in the death of a man whether accidently or not. Although Bob and Les are related there has recently been a bust up between Bob’s sister Edith and her husband which involves Les taking up with another woman. Bob can see the potential for his brother-in-law now implicating him in the SM business unwittingly or not, which leaves him no choice but to come forward of his own volition to put things in order. Although it is a risky move, he weighs up the odds, believing that there is no other option, and as it transpires Les who knows nothing about Bob’s mishap tells the truth as he sees it. So all’s well that ends well for the lads at least.
John Sanders: that wasn’t even in my top 20 questions… #1 was: How do you know he even had a car?
Nick Pelling: He may not have; I can only go with the statements he was claimed to have made to police. Are you suggesting that he didn’t. That would certainly create some cadaver transportation problems to the beach and all, wouldn’t it?
John Sanders: someone certainly made some statements to the police, but whether or not it was the person you seem to think it was is another matter. 🙂
The bit I genuinely don’t understand is why, 68 years on, we still have no idea who the person was or what his/her car was. Surely – as with Dr Malcolm Glen Sarre here – they’ve passed away by now?
Hi BD – Couldn’t find the Ella Nunn security file. Found 2 Immigration ones, and then searching again turned up 4 Immigration ones (and Schrade didn’t seem to help either). Not really sure why 4 records, but to me they appear mundane DIMIA ones – but the naturopath idea certainly is interesting nonetheless
And (pedantically, as always) I find it leads more to the Riverland (centered somewhere around Berri) than the Mallee (might be personal opinion – google seems to think the Mallee is in Vic, and if I force it to look in SA comes up with Murray Bridge (Murray Mallee)), but I thought the Mallee was further South (around Pinaroo and the Ngarkat Conservation Park (useless fact: the “Ng” at the beginning of some Aboriginal words is pronounces like the “ng” in a word ending with “ing” – with the G more obvious than the N….that’s according to someone who lives in Ngunnawal, ACT – I just erred on the side of caution and referred to it as Gungahlin….)).
But either way, it’s sort of clear that the country population of SA was attracted to the water source of the Murray.
The car is a convenient vehicle (pardon the pun) which makes too much sense for us to deny its relevance or, for some, even its existence. Gerry has no problems with it and nor should we in my view; and of course its positioning almost outside the Nunn premises in an unlocked state lends weight to its association with someone connected to that establishment. At the end of the day it matters little whether or not SM , Les Wytkin, Bob Fox or crooked Lionel Nunn placed the book there and in reality there doesn’t seem to be any reason to lie. Detectives Leane, Brown and Canning had no problems accepting the explanation and I think if a crafty lot like that were not at all suspicious than neither am I. If SM succumbed whilst under the ministrations of Messrs. Nunn & or Fox, the Minx itself would likely play a pivotal role in the subsequent disposal of his dead or dying form, however I am getting a little ahead of my thoughts on the end play and that line of action might not come to anything so drastic. It would fit rather nicely though we must admit and what’s more, those tormented souls of the conspirators might rest a little easier. There but for the Grace &C..
FWIW, something I read today (slow day at work) quite explicitly talked about “Doctor or Chemist…..in car outside THEIR house” (that is, while many things talk about “Outside the pier hotel”, this was more directly saying “this wasn’t some random parked at the pub, it was someone who had parked at home” (which might coincidentally be the house either side of the pier hotel or something).
I don’t recall the source, but a lot of what I was reading was transcripts with (among others) Len Brown when they were making the 1977 doco (that said, it might not have been in that (I found lots of stuff today I hadn’t seen before), and I don’t want to put words into mouths…..)
milongal: I don’t recall seeing that written anywhere, so please let me know if you happen to find the source etc. 🙂
If it is still deemed to be still relevant, inlght of the new interest in Dr. Sarre, perhaps one of our genealogy sleuths might like to sort out this mess with the Fox/Angus/cuttle/Middleton/mattulick family affair because it has me really rattled. To start with everything is centred around both Lucy Slater Fox and the man she married Alfred Fox who died as a Middleton. Lucy and he appear to have had 6 children together all originally named Fox. She had two others born out of wedlock by a different father one of whom was a Fox and the other a Mattulick. Alfred had been married previously and perhaps that’s where we end up with Bob the foot butcher, but if so then this could not be my Bob who was born in ’19 which seems too young although who can tell with this crowd. He certainly had a dad named Alfred and with the whole family being interred either in Loxton or Renmark, the only possible exception being Les Wytkin’s wife Edith. Her father was Alfred Middleton and although raised by foster parents Angus, she gave herself up as a Middleton when she married that bounder and she hopefully found a resting place closer to her son Francis who was carried away in infancy. In view of the foregoing and once again if deemed relevant, old Burma Bob might still might fit the bill and he is of the right age to have been sired by randy old Alfred which would also keep the bro-in-law claim in play. It might be asked why am I trying to enlist others to unnravel all this family’s past bloodline proliferation, believe me my efforts have barely scratched the proverbial and I feel that perhaps Miska or Byron might like to complete the task, if they have not done so already.
Alfred Middleton Fox was born in 1867 and died 13 September 1930. He married Lucy Slater Matulick in 1901 and they had seven children. William, Ellie (m.Tillett), Harriett (m.Pickering), Eva (m.Ekins), Robert, Thelma (m. Mortimer) and John.
I could be wrong but I don’t believe this is the same Alfred Middleton (1862-1913) who married Berta Doolette (in 1906) and died tragically in a boating accident in February 1913. He left a widow and five children including Edith Jessie (born 1909) who later married Leslie Francis. One of his five children was born after his death. Articles about the boating accident can be found on Trove. Berta later married George Angus and had at least one child with him.
Yesterday I was reading about the Rubaiyat being handed in, and it talked about the person saying that his kids had found it (and by the sound of it used it/played with it/read it/something it) and he thought nothing of it – until the police were looking for it. It also sounds to me like the letters were actually penciled in the book, and not (as I had previously thought/assumed) faint indentations that had been recovered by shading with a pencil (although it doesn’t make that much difference, I suppose). It did get me thinking, however, whether the children may have (inadvertently, perhaps) created the code – whether it was a game they were playing that resulted in the letters in the back. I could sort of imagine kids 8-12 being imaginitive enough to write a pretend “code” (and it’s not necessarily mean as a code), but sheltered enough not to know about the stink it is causing (especially if it’s not immediately in the press – although I’ve noticed while kids seem to remember extraordinary things, there’s a lot of detail in their minds that is unimportant and just disappears quickly too). Further, it might explain the inconsistency (I still think some of the letters that appear more than once appear different on each occurence) and ambiguity of some of the letters – either because the kid is still learning to write, or because it evolved from multiple children.
There is something a little childish about everything (in my mind especially the cross/X) – although the struck out line might be a bit inconsistent (I alternate between thinking it’s struck out, or the one above it is badly underlined).
On non-childish interpretations, with MLIABO/MLIAO I keep thinking it could be:
“My Love, I am only,….” (struck out) and later “My Love, I am but…”<I can't think of a good 'O' word here….) – I remember a discussion here about it being a home-made, romantic stanza but I don't recall whether these specific words were discussed.
milongal: it sounds as though you have been reading an unreliable source on the discovery of the Rubaiyat. Even though Gerry Feltus doesn’t name his name (and I don’t necessarily believe that the car was actually a “Hillman Minx”) or even his profession, he says that the man’s brother-in-law discovered the Rubaiyat on the floor in the back of the car, fanned through the pages, thought that it was the man’s, and so put it in the glove compartment, where it remained until the subject came up in the newspapers months later (p.105).
There have been plenty of “backronyms” for the letters. Barry Traish’s is perhaps the best of the bunch: http://ciphermysteries.com/2015/09/12/barry-traishs-backronymic-poem
ok, it wasn’t Brown who sai d “outside their house”. Pages 37-40 of “The inside story” PART 2 (on NAA search for “Somerton Beach” – it’s an interview transcript and it gets a bit confusing as they ask questions across multiple takes) he talks about the car being parked outside the pier hotel, and the kids playing in the car finding it….of course, it’s not totally clear whether the book was found in the car at that location, or whether the book was presumed to have been put in the car at that location (or possibly both).
MLIABOAIAQC
My life a book open and I a queen concealed. I’m not sure but that’s just what came to me naturally as for everything else I don’t know
WRGOABABD
Wild Rice Glazed
over
Aubergine Basil
and
Boiled Duck
The Gelenelg Chinese takeaway special that day, you know it makes sense.
Petebowes: with respect, going on about “Basil and Boiled Duck” will turn boring in microseconds. Please avoid! Nick “E T” Pelling.
@PB: Do we say ‘Aubergine’ in Australia? I’ve always known it as Eggplant as do the Yanks (and I think the Ruski’s say ‘Baklazhan’). Are you suggesting the recipe code likely comes from a Pom* or a Frog?
(*According to Wikipedia (which tells no lies) “Pom” has been ruled by both Australia and NZ as inoffensive).
milongal: it’s not “Pom” that’s offensive to Poms, it’s the silent “(whinging)” prefix bit. 😉
I am fairly convinced that SM was Robin’s father. The fairly rare teeth and ear peculiarities that are present in both SM and Robin suggest a connection with a confidence level of something like 99.9% certainty. Robin’s DNA (via Robin’s daughter) has many connections to Virginia, USA, and the Pleasants family in particular. Judging from the DNA matches information provided by DA it seems the connection is to Tarleton Woodson Pleasants at the second or third cousin level. Tarleton Woodson Pleasants was born about 1775 at Henrico, Virginia and died 1850 at Goochland, Virginia. He married Talitha (Tabitha?) Crew 1788-1819 and they had several children and it is from these children, or maybe from Tarleton’s siblings that SM and Robin are descended.
If the above is correct then it should be possible to trace all the blood lines from Tarleton and his siblings to find all males born 1898-1908. I estimate that this group will not exceed 20 men. From there it is a matter of investigation each in depth. Existing photographs and physical description and any other details. Then a search of the shipping records and military records. Then a search of Social Security numbers (I have never done this, so I don’t know if it is possible) to see if any of the target group disappeared about 1948.
I did start tracing the descendants of Tarleton but I got feed up half way through with a lot of contradictory evidence to sift through. Someone with more patience is required. I’m old and crotchety.
Some of the possible surnames for SM that I found from Tarleton’s descendants are as follows.
Adams Bailey Bates Brooke Crew Cunliffe Ellis Glenn Hargrave Jordan Mathis Pleasant Pleasants Railey Randlph Wetherill Woodson
I estimate that these are only about 40% of the relevant surnames so there are plenty of leads to follow. Hop to it.
ah of course NP….I thought it was implied.
Wow BD – nice work. Please tell me Wetherill doesn’t get bastardised into Weatherill….Maybe the South Australian Premier is a distant relative?
milongal: don’t tell me I put all that effort into sounding as if I was whinging about it and you didn’t even notice? Bah!
This is what you don’t want to think about …. the outstanding 60 % of Byron’s work on surnames provides enough capitals to fully satisfy the code.
Petebowes: that makes no sense to me at all. 🙁
Hi Milongal, I had a look at the Wetherill Pleasants line to see if there might be a connection to the South Australian Premier, but I quickly realised that I hadn’t read my notes properly and Wetherill was a surname on the female side. So, disregard Wetherill.
My aim in listing the surnames of Tarleton’s descendants is to give some hope and support to anyone who has a candidate for SM. If your candidate carries one of the relevant surnames then you will know to check the appropriate Pleasants lines.
I was making very slow progress tracing all the descendants of Tarleton so I decided to switch to quick, but rough methods. There are 478 public family trees in Ancestrydotcom that include Tarleton but it would take several hundred hours (maybe 1,000+ hours) of research to sort though them. Many of these trees disagree on important matters so the rough and ready method might be the smart option. If Tarleton’s descendants can’t reasonably agree as to who begat whom then what chance does li’l o’l me have short of a lifetime of research?
I suspect there are readers who are investigating possible SM matches. I am still researching the “speciality” dancer and circus performer Jock Armstrong who entertained the Glenelg returned servicemen in 1934 (Chronicle Adelaide 29th November 1934 page 46) and I will post what I have found – after I have checked any Armstrong descendants of Tarleton of course.
Rick A. Roberts: On 12/2/14 you spoke of a deciperment which produced the name (amongst others), of Harry Willam Solomons. A Harrie Walter Solomon lived at 30 and 59 Partridge St. Glenelg. He later changed his name to Bridgland and was the father of Walter, who to my way of thinking, may well have been a key player in the Ron Francis Rubaiyat book and code page conundrum…Harrie and Walter were city businessmen and both served as Mayors of Adelaide in their time.
Nick: I hope we might encourage the old team to renew it’s interest in SM as a likely cipher mystery in the fitting formative context of your blog….Some people might be inclined to the view that some members of our original Mangnoson family may not have been the brightest stars in the night sky; but they could well be dead wrong in my reconning. Old mother Ida Wistrand came from a large family of immigrant Swedish/British stock and her father George wrote newpaper columns under the ndp of ‘Sirius’, the brightest celestial object in the heavens, so there you have it. He arrived in Australia in the early 1870s with some rather impressive credentials ie. engineer, educator and chess grand master. He did have rather an ordinary inutiation to his newly adopted homeland but after doing a stint in a Victorian lunatic asylum, he married and settled down to help raise a family in his own intellectual image no doubt. When not writing his games page columns which were syndicated to all the top newspapers of the day and working with S.A. Education Board, he introduced telegraphic chess competition to the Antipides for which he received well due universal acclaim. It would be most unlikely therefore that a young Ida was not aquainted with Kieseritzky killer moves and the like, or that she did not pass on these skills to her own offspring. Not being familiar with the game myself, I assume that it must be played in an intellectually stimulating mode much like other board games such as drafts and Chinese chequers, so I get the general idea….Is the four line Rubaiyet code a quad game meta stefanographic stratagem compiled perhaps during a long tedious train trip to while the time away by a prodigal son, returning home after a long absence, whereupon to hopefully join in celebrations for his parent’s golden wedding anniversary say. Might the crossed second line represent a stalemare and might Tamam Shud simply be substitute for Shah Mat or checkmate which I assume signifies the winning end move…I shall advance on my own particular strategem if and when called upon to make such offering, this post only representing a passing whim of potential relevance as it is.
John Sanders: http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=1548 – Wilson, George Abraham Westrand (c.1852-1893). (Born Gustaf Abraham Wistrand). Teacher and journalist. Chess player and chess editor at the Bunyip and the Chronicle, writing articles on topics including hunting and agriculture as ‘Sirius’. Also contributed to the Observer and the Australasian. Was puzzle editor of the Education Department publication, the Children’s hour. (See PRG 869.) (South Australian Register, 7 August 1893, p. 6)
Nick: you seem to have reiterated on part of what I just said, so thank you for your kind acquiescence…..We have a loving family including 7 children of both sexes including 3 sons who are irregularly placed within the sibling grouping. We wish to announce betrothal of our middle son by age to his sweetheart Winifred in the newspaper and in order to get the protocol correct, how should we refer to him apart from his name. eg. middle son, second son, or should the sibling order be stated to include his sisters?…
John Sanders: save your money for the wedding, if and when it happens. Heaven knows the pair of them will be living in your house long enough before then.
Nick: Your response was unfortunately too late to prevent the inevitable; our middle? son went bonkers in the bush, went off to war, married a babe, lost his infant son and his mind, while sweet Winnie married a better man and seemed to have lived a happy childless life in far off Sydney. Our useless older son had earlier taken off to avoid his own matrimonial responsibilities; stole my good family name and ‘we don’t know where he are, Gawdstruth’ Our other lad’s fate remains somewhat of a mystery after the war, though we understand that tragedy befell him also. Some dedicated soul will get to the bottom of it eventually for our sake, then poor old Pop and I can rest in bloody peace.
john sanders: glad to have been of some limited assistance in your tragic psychodrama. The usual fees apply.
Nick: Don’t feel as if I’m not indebted; we all have our limitations afterall. The spiriit of fairness will always prevail over all other predictable human flaws and you certainly possess that rare gift in abundance. I still think a check on a certain Frisco based IP could well be warranted however and don’t worry; your other check (sic) is in the snail mail…Cheers and long live the concept of pschodramatic conclusions.
I have just had my interest again rekindled, this story often recurs in the Adelaide press from time to time…
On a cursory look, and without spending too much time… I think the following…
I am a musician, I write songs, on bits of paper which I leave everywhere.
Guy was a dancer perhaps, he simply wrote out dance moves… google them… they exist, and they actually fit, it is a language.
This is not a secret code, he was working out a routine for a new dance… simple.
after spending about 30 minutes learning about this I’m pretty sure I got it. The man was a spy. Somerton Park. is in a town in Australia named Adelaide. not far from there is an army base Hampstead barracks I believe. The man was an MNLA spy during the Malayan Emergency war. the pocket with the note contained a pill that if his cover was blown he must take (a poison pill). my assumption is that after falling in love with a woman and having a kid with her, he then tells her the truth and the real reason he was even in Australia this probably ended in a large fight where the women (i forgot her name) threatened to report him or something like that. all this ended in what we know as “the Somerton park man” it was an embarrassment to army officials to be infiltrated and they didn’t want to frighten the public in that time of war so everyone kept quiet and the women that was interviewed that wouldn’t stop crying supports it. excuse the grammar i do not write often
Hampstead isn’t the closest barracks (not by a long stretch) – Warradale would be a lot closer, and so would Keswick – so why Hampstead?
Should’ve been a lot easier to cover up too – that’s part of my problem with a lot of the espionage theories. It seems a bumbling cover-up given it should have been easy for a John Doe to be dismissed as unsovled without adding all the Rubaiyat mumbo jumbo, which only attracts attention….
but you get bonus marks for calling Adelaide a town – I think most of Australia agrees it’s just a ‘big country town’.
Byron: Would you think it is possible that Bob Cowans efforts to identify the poison in SM’s system, would degrade the submitted blood, urine and tissue samples to the extent that they would be of no use to police in their efforts to identify their john doe. Obviously I’m refering mainly to blood type comparisons, for elimination purposes, though other things come to mind such as limited genetic and/or disease profiling. I don’t recall having seen evidence to suggest that such was undertaken whilst there is certainly plenty to indicate the contrary.
Matt: For what it’s worth coming from an old bush school graduate, there is neither a problem with your grammar, nor your perfect spelling. It does seem however, that your college might have given you better grounding on the so called Malayan Confrontation. As someone familiar with the MNLA and it’s charter such as RFB Wake, could have told you, that clandestine organ of the communist inspired terrorist force, was not in existance at the time of “the Somerton Park man’s” demise (though not far off).
I worked out what it all stands for.
Will Robin grow old and be a bad dad?
My life is all over now (changed his mind at the last second and crossed out the sentence, deciding it was better placed in the next paragraph)
Wanting to be in my past and not entering the present
My life is all but over and I am quite certain.
I’m trying to muster the strength and my spirit to grab a bus.
John,
No, the test procedures and samples handling and storage protocols for autopsy samples in 1948 would have adequately preserved the various samples. The inadequate (actually incomplete) testing I think came about because the possible importance of the case was not appreciated for a couple of weeks and the samples had been destroyed by the time Bob Cowan was informed that it wasn’t just another anonymous death. If the blood sample had been available I am sure Bob Cowan would have had the blood type tested and much more.
The problems inherent with forensic toxicology testing in the 1940s was that the analyst had to have a fair idea of what to look for to have any hope of success. General screening tests like Gas chromatography – mass spectroscopy weren’t available in 1948 and analysts could only use general “class” tests in the hope of getting a positive result, and then using more specific tests to identify which member of that class was involved. Say, a general colorimetric semi-quantitative test for barbiturates for example, followed by an instrumental test (UV spectroscopy at best in 1948).
The Bogle-Chandler case of 1963 is a good example of the difficulties of forensic toxicology. The test methods and equipment had improved considerably in the 15 years post SM but the basic problem of a) the lack of general methods – mass spectroscopic methods have overcome this problem now; the analyst doesn’t have to make many assumptions now. b) the sensitivity of the test methods available now is many millions of times better than the methods available in 1948. This means that there is no danger of running out of sample. This was a very real problem in the past. The Bogle-Chandler case is a good example where the samples were all used up in the tests before the poison had been identified.
I have a book (somewhere) that recounts the Bogel-Chndler case and includes a long list of the tests that were carried out. Bottom line: the samples ran out before any poison had been identified.
I should explain that once a sample (a sub sample) is used in the tests generally available in 1948 it usually couldn’t be used for further tests, so each chemical test uses up a significant amount of the original sample.
Kevin: an excellent try – though I must admit a soft spot for Barry Traish’s poetic attempt: http://ciphermysteries.com/2015/09/12/barry-traishs-backronymic-poem
Byron: A very simple, logical explanation and most enlightening so thanks heaps for that. Seems they took it for granted that they had a suicide on their hands and merely ran the normal tests in order to establish the chemical means. By the time they came to a dead end on the usual suspects for self administered poisoning, they had exhausted all useable samples and were at their wits end. Its a joke that they were so inept that they couldn’t even find sufficient to come up with a common blood grouping. js
I think what I noted November 18th 2016 above is relevant.
” … what if I told you that an osteopath/ naturopath (Douglas Arnold Nunn) lived less that 100 yards (at 15 The Esplanade, Somerton Park) from the set of steps where SM’s body was found? And what if I tell you that Nunn was married to an American and had lived in the USA for several years in the 1930s. And Nunn’s wife seems to have come to the attention of the intelligence authorities (there is a security file for Ella Nunn in the NAA collection). Douglas Nunn is also on record (in a court case) saying that he used “… proprietary medicines containing valuable ingredients” in his osteopathy practice. So it seems he dispensed medicines and he might have even compounded formulations containing foxglove (digitalis).
Ella Mary Elizabeth Nunn nee Schrade. Born 25th March 1917 New York City, USA.
Mother: Ella Cecelia nee Murphy. Father: Oscar George Schrade
Douglas Arnold Nunn, born 8th April 1916 Adelaide.
In her 1964 immigration declaration Ella Nunn gave her last overseas address as “518 Madison Avenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey.”
There is an interesting coincidence (or maybe it isn’t a coincidence?) in that the Pharmacy in Jetty Road, close to where the discarded ROK was found, was owned by pharmacist Peter Lionel Nunn. Peter was not a close relative of the osteopathy Nunn brothers but I wonder if they might still have had a social and professional connection?”
From memory Misca conducted an extensive search for ElLa and the Nunn relatives but I can’t remember what Misca’s conclusions were.
Persian script from right to left. The readable Tamam shud is actually recorded duhs mamat. The first line of wrgoababd from duhs mamat is obtained with the Vigenère cipher (simple enough for anyone to teach the nurse, and using the end of the text ala ortega from Zhangada Jules Verne) via txzwobobk. The second line (the unfinished crossed out mliaob and repeated below as mliaboaiaqc) via txzwobobk will give tojennmhqxf. to jenn can be attributed to a greeting (on the covers they usually write gift inscriptions) and a personal short love nickname from jestyn (jestyn is a copy of Boxall and she could call herself that to patients). The rest of the mhqxf is actually separated by a cross over o and can be read differently – perhaps the right-to-left arrow through the cross indicates a change in the direction of further transformation (in the last line the first I may not be a letter but the same arrow from top to bottom). The cross is somehow very convenient for completing the first phrase and to show that the way to start is correct.
The third line of 11 characters matches, for example, OmarKhayyam or mayyahkramo. And the last line is deciphered with the help of both keys from TamamShud and OmarKhayyam via Vigenera and arrow keys. Ie, without the last word, it is impossible to read everything, therefore it was taken away. It was encrypted from her husband – not to give the same book with a signed love confession to a married woman. Learning the code could be flirting with a patient in treatment, but threw away the book because he thought it was too hard for her to do.
It is a poem. Each first letter represents a word. Pretty simple.
“My rose grows old and by and by decays.
Most thread-bare in my penitence and ne’er enough to pay.
My life is all but over and I am quite content;
I’ll take the moon, the stars, and my soul, to grovel and repent.”
I’m pretty new to this, so maybe my comment will be quickly slapped down, but..
Aren’t the letters that we have in this “code” the product of a detective writing over a photo with an inkpen? From what I’ve read so far, it seems like there is a good chance the letters we’re looking at are not what was originally written at all. I know there are enhanced photos that seem to support this, with different pencil marks (visible, albeit obscured” beneath the ink.
Am I way behind on this?
James H: I’ve discussed this a number of times on this blog, e.g. I’ve suggested that something like an early laundry marker might well have been used to write on a photo. Here are some links to get you started:
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2014/07/11/gordon-cramer-microwriting-somerton-man
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2015/03/24/the-rubaiyat-note-and-gordon-cramers-q
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2014/07/25/a-history-of-sapol-photography-to-1950
Wrong Abroad.
Meant to be in my place and not eternally peaceless
My liars became obvious x anxiety
It’s time to move toward seaside as my sister to get a breath.
My road goes on, a big and bad descent,
My tablet breaks in my pasty, And never eases the pain.
My life is a burdened one, and I am quite spent
It talks to me, Tamam Shud. Any more strife to gain? – A.B.
or if the letters are a bit different….
When roses grow old, all buds and blossoms depart.
When the block in my path appears, not even token peace.
My love is a blooming orchid, although I am quickly crushed.
It’s time to manage the sadness, and my soul to grave and beyond.
but of course there’s nothing to say he wrote the letters, or that they had any meaning, or any reason to think any of our specualtions could ever be deomnstrably true.
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
My life is all but over and I am quite content
I (TTM) to satan and my soul to God. AB
Some ideas for TTM, still working on it.
TTM – Turn then myself (or similar)
Only one person on here mentioned Jestyn being Jessica yet Wikipedia suggests that Jessica was questioned by police and although she claimed not to know the SM they felt she was holding back on the truth.
Jessica was also said to have recoiled and looked away when shown a plaster cast bust of the SM and and asked, of the police, for her name to be disassociated with the case.
Even her own daughter felt like she (Jessica) knew more than she was letting on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamam_Shud_case
Nix, it’s to know which way to go, Jessica, Jestyn, Jessie or Jo.
SM gets a mention in an article on news.com.au 2/09/2020. Search on the site for “Body hunter” (the title of the article was something like “Victorian Man’s grisly discovery”, but as with many things there, titles change).
Nothing particularly interesting, although the “code” picture they have appears to have someone’s attempt at frequency analysis or something on it.
@milongal That’s how I ended up here after Googling the ‘code’ to see if someone had deciphered it yet.
Nick, have you seen this? Maria Crocifissa della Concezione recent developments.
A pity we didn’t know then what we know now, eh Nick, imagine where this conversation might have gone ..
Peteb: I’ll leave you be with milongal and the written 9 (5?) 11 11 13 examination; though another small matter concerning 4 X AB in only three lines might need consideration before you call game over for the A team.
The game is never over, Johnno, the fun is in chasing the leader.
“Mr. R. Goabab D
Mr. Liao I
Mr. T. Bimpanet. P
Mr. Liabo Australia, port Southern Cross
Italy, port Tremiti samstagabend”
This is what the note reads like written in full, according to the Tremiti meeting interpretation. This interpretation concerns the cryptic note written in the copy of the book Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam that is part of the inventory of the Tamam Shud case. The details of the interpretation are as follows.
If “M” stands for “Mister”, it would logically be followed by a last name. Indeed, each line that starts with an “M” contains a string that consists of a last name: “Goabab”, “Liao”, “Bimpanet” and “Liabo”, which are African and Asian last names (Namibian, Chinese, Kenyan and Congolese). This would make it a contact list, with the other letters possibly initials, status or affiliation.
The next that strongly stands out is that the string “samstgab” seems to be a very recognisable abbreviated word, namely “Samstagabend”, which is German for Saturday evening. It also suggests that the writer’s native language was German.
This suggests that the message is not a code, but some sort of quick note with names, date and time which resembles a meeting note. The remaining letters therefore could indicate an abbreviation of a meeting location or event (such as a conference).
Indeed, “ITTMT” is a sea port code, standing for Italy, Tremiti. The Tremiti Archipelago was a confinement colony which was also used in WW2. After the war, it became popular as a tourist and diving location for its clear waters.
“AI AQC” most likely refers to Mr. Liabo, since it is written behind it, but seen the length of the string it is unlikely to be initials. It therefore more likely refers to a status or affiliation, like the letters D, I and P behind the other names. It could also be explained by being another seaport code, which should consist of 5 letters. Yet, there isn’t such a seaport code. Since the note was traced over by detectives, it is possible that it was not traced over correctly. If it were to be an australian seaport code, it should start with AU. With some good will, indeed a “U” can be decerned in place of the traced over “I”. It would then read “AUAQC”. Looking through the australian seaport code list, there is one very similar to that: “AUSQC”. It appears to be that of the seaport Southern Cross, in Melbourne. The note would then have been about a boat trip between Melbourne, Australia and Tremiti, Italy.
There is further corroborative evidence that the four surnames found in the cryptic note (Goabab, Liao, Bimpanet and Liabo) were indeed intended as such, in the presence of an apparent spelling mistake and more particular, that of seemingly misplaced accents.
At first, there is the spelling of LIAO. Written through the “A” an “O” can be discerned, as if it was first written exactly as it sounded: “Lioo”. Apparently it was spelled wrong, and then corrected as “Liao”, as in the Chinese surname.
Secondly, several accents can be observed placed on LIABO: Liabó, Liabò, and even faintly Liåbo. However the Norwegian surname is written as Liabø, with a strikethrough. Looking closely, there indeed appears to be a small yet fat strikethrough.
How is this relevant? It is rather relevant for the interpretation of the cryptic note, for these accents are not used in the English spelling. It strongly suggests the writer was struggling with the foreign spelling of what they heard and had to note down.
So as it appears, the writer most likely was a native German speaker (samstagabend), to which the surname of Liao sounded like “Lioo” as it does to English speakers, and who was not acquainted with the spelling of Liabø such as a skandinavian speaker. Carl Webb fits that description. The Congolese surname Liabo is spelled without accents, so it can be assumed the surname was intended as the Norwegian surname Liabø.
Ofcourse definite proof of this interpretation is needed by finding these foreign surnames united within the context of a document. A good candidate for that can be international ship’s crew lists. This is corroborated by two probable port codes present in the cryptic note. The cryptic note resembles the second page of a ship’s crewlist of 34, which always lists two ports along with the arrival date.
Clive: You Sir, may be nothing but a bloody mucking simple son of an Englishman but, this time you seem to have hit the jackpot, the prize being secreted within the once familiar red wooden PMG phone box in Whyat St. across from the John Miller public toilets. This while the rest of the team’s dullards be content regurgitating tedious versions of flawed hypotheses from the past, and in currying favour with the boss to keep their accreditations. Seems Sir that you’ve done it again and on your pat malone; so more credit to you for your Keane initiative and luck with future progress in it’s development.
Nice one Calypso. Your “Myer R” area link with it’s perfect reverse image of the maiden’s pose on Alf Boxall’s ROK. It’s amazing and so realistic too. I wonder if Gordon Cramer & Co. are onto it yet.
I don’t know, this cipher may have been cracked already, I just stumbled onto this mystery today and since I have payed for the latest version of the ChatGPT AI, I found it fun to ask it’s interpretation.
The answer was that it considered this to be of Bifid cipher which made the message look like this:
“ WELCOME
TO THE
WORLD OF
CRYPTO ANALYSIS
THIS IS YOUR FIRST LESSON”
Peteb: no big deal for the code encryption but first you need familiarisation with its multi layered transmission coordinates derived from an uncrackable Russian WW2 cipher. Some of the best minds at GHQ, British Admiralty and Alan Turing’s team at Bletchley weren’t up to the task; Churchill tried but he plainly hadn’t come up with a solution when he uttered ….” It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery within an enigma: but perhaps there is a key “. Turns out there was no key, that is, not until cipher supremo Gordon Cramer hit upon his three part ‘Danetta’ solution that he traced back to Russian spymaster Pavel Fedosimov aka Gerry Somerton. That’s it in a nut shell, apart from expressing a hearty good on you Gordon from we of the never never, I guess.
Somebody prove to me the Freeman Rubaiyat ever existed as all Feltus could come up with up was that two ‘reliable’ witnesses (read fellow uniforms) said they saw it.
Other than that … nada.
Not that it matters eh? ..
Like the Voynich whatever … when you are unable to figure it out … just walk away, never mind the thousands of wasted hours spent banging away at it, right Nick?
Peteb: My take is that Feltus, your oft quoted impecable source for SM facts and fancies, spent half a good part of his novel discussing the merits of the Ronald Francis Rubaiyat solution plus his unrelenting search for a copy of the so called original far and wide.
Not that it matters … eh? ..
Vic & milongal: I might have mentioned before that TTS your three letters of intertest in the last line of code could stand for Tram Terminus Moseley Square whilst the preceeding I is likely to represent Intercept (target). More realistic in my view but, no doubting that a bit of flare and licence can make letter codes mean whatever you want them to.
Feltus writes that Brown was not involved with developments after the (alleged) Rubaiyat was handed in ..
What could a reasonable man read into that?
Peteb: for starters a reasonable thinking man could always go back to all the past comments I’ve made on the subject, e.g., my references to Brown’s own claim on Inside Story that he was transfered to other duties by 23rd July so didn’t get to see Feltus so named Ronald Francis Rubaiyat until much later.
I still like the idea that Carl’s code was some popular ditty. A bit like WTRRRGBBBA – when the red red robin goes bob bob bobbin along.
Leo Keane was creating these ditties about the Pyjama Girl (still waiting to hear someone sing it – Pajama Girl!). I imagine it includes a lot of derogatory language that AI would block. Carl’s college mate Vernon Lyle (who worked with Leo) created ditties. So why not Carl who seemed happy-go-lucky with his blond locks. His drug-fueled last few minutes may have brought some moment of crazed levity remembering when he was happy.
WRGOABABD
MLIAOI
WTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTCAB
“MLIAOI” is struck out, “[M]PANETP” is double underlined, and “TSAMSTGAB” is single underlined. “AB” is also separately underlined.
Any face book followers familiar with published works of Carl Webb who, according to Derek Abbott was some sort of morbid genre poet. I have a feeling the whacky professor is getting his ‘Charlie’ confused with another celebrated poet in Francis Charles Webb. He was raised by his paternal Grandparents Charles and Amy, was active from the late thirties and like Jack Keane, this Webb served with the RAAF in Canada during WW2 until discharge at the end of hostilities. Crazy Frank never married and spent most of the post war years up until his death (1973) in and out of mental institutions suffering from Schizophrenia.
David Morgan: what makes you so sure, like other converts that the second line MLIABO letters be struck out? makes no sense. The mark everyone takes for granted as being a pencil line could well be a zerox copy fold mark or consequence of the original police developing process like several similar questionable marks on the much reproduced code sheet copy.
Then we have the puzzling instance where the police only supplied a photo of the code to Naval Intelligence together with a ‘similar’ book.
Unlike Nick Pelling I’m no cryptologist but it would have made sense to me to send the Navy blokes the original ROK so they might determine if the code was in any way related to something written inside the book.
I remember asking NP about this years ago and after pressing him repeatedly for a response he finally said it would make no difference.
Milongal: I seem to recall that in an earlier four or five line version of SM’s bus trip from West Terrace to Glenelg via St. Vincents, I identified the last line I letter with ‘interchange’ in re omnibus and tramway connections.
I’ve now revised my position with benefit of a closer study of the so called struck MLIABO second line, a long held overall general acceotance from when Abbott first tendered it in it’s present form. Not necessarily so is my belief and I invite others to take a closer look at the image for themselves. Note the positioning of the strike line, which is positioned well below the centre line of each letter where one might expect it to have been drawn. Admittedly the line does come into contact with the base of most MLIABO letters but, that could well have been intentional so as not to interfere with the uncommonly close third line. I can envisage that the strike line itself had been added upon discovery by police earlier in order to highlight some added degree of perceived interest rather than intending to strike it out altogether.
Then of course there is the positioning of the letter A in every line of over 7 letters in the code ..
and what is beyond my meagre understanding of things cryptic is that cryptologist Nick Pelling thinks little of it other than the odds of it happening are by pure chance ..
@John: I know I wasn’t who you asked, but…I think someone has mentioned before that the code could be something transport related. It interested me enough at one time that Iooked for rail routes that might match some of the letters. But the ‘Q’ is problematic (as it is with almost any attempt to make sense of the letters). There are very few places in Australia that start with ‘Q’ (Australia Post lists 50 odd, but that’s probably a bit less if we filter them sensibly). Although most of my stuff was looking at country/interstate lines, the only Adelaide Q I could think of was Queenstown (sort of Part Adelaide way) – but looking at the list now the more likely one (if we believe in a Railway link) might be Quorn (on the Peterborough line (and of Pichi Rich fame)).
As for the TTS – it’s TTM, and once we start bastardizing the code we can convince ourselves of anything (and we’ve seen people do it). As an example of how easily a small change can sound plausible, if we speculate that ITTMTS has a superfluous T it might be “Interchange Tram Terminus Moseley Square” – but as ever Europeans have quaint expressions for such idiocy, the German version being “Wenn Oma Räder hätte, wäre sie ein Omnibus” (“if Grandma had wheels she’d be a bus”).
@Pete: I’d side with Nick that the ‘A’ is coincident (literally as well as figuratively, I guess). The English language has loads of connecting words beginning with ‘A’ that could appear in an amateurs attempt to mimic a Rubaiyat quatrain (and, as, about, after….) – and the ones that don’t necessarily have connecting words ‘A’ would still be a common initial (all, also, at, are…..). In fact, I think a wannabe poet trying to fit a particular meter would naturally tend toward connecting ideas like that. If anything, for mine the location of the ‘A’s hints strongly at the code being some sort of mnemonic for an attempted poem.
if we instead speculate that the code is some sort of directions rather than a poem we could have some combinations of ‘after’, ‘about’, ‘approx’, ‘at’ ( as well as still potentially having ‘and’)
I think A is sufficiently common that it appearing in a similar location on each line isn’t all that peculiar – especially once we start to think about what the code might represent and how the underlying secret (if there even is one) might be structured. Perhaps some of that changes shape if we consider languages other than English.
All of that being said, it *is* an interesting observation, and perhaps I dismiss it too readily.
Peteb: You now suggesting that Nick Pelling’s letter ‘A’ chance positioning in the code does not include the apparently struck second MLIABO line where ‘A’ is in fourth spot. Irrespective of it’s relevance or not, the scribe was not thinking of any particular positional sequencing when starting out.
Julian: if you go back and have a good shufti you’ll find numerous reference in past threads to the code’s possible connection to an intended travel route eg., by road, rail, sea and shank’s pony which includes place names ie., Queenstown and Quorn I kid you not.
Correction:
MILIAOI is actually the second line of the code not MLIABO which is of course part of the fourth line of the TS code, now cracked: see @ GC/BS/TS – 24/8/23). Sorry for misleading CM devotees and others including the anonymous poster? on Gordon Cramer’s incredulous BS/TS, widely regarded as the most distrusted fact and evidence – based (non forum) blog on the Somerton Man case” full stop.
JohnS: I was specific. The letter A appears in the 7th position in every line of over 7 letters.
Julian: The positioning of the letter A has been inserted in each line so that on first glance the pattern is not apparent. You can check for yourself. I believe it is deliberate.
Peteb: come to think it, I do recall GC letting it be known that Alf’s dual language Rubaiyat was saturated with miniscule, not only Jestyn’s verse 70 hand job: Indeed, indeed.
Peteb: guess it’s your contention that the four A’s code author only got his idea partway through the second line which he struck then partly restored it in the third line. It then included two letters A, one at fourth place which was added to confuse the Navy decoders, t’other in it’s correct seventh place A sequencing to restore some form of order.
Is it already solved? However, this would fit (a dainty end…)
O NAISH SH(U)D
(ONE SIE…) cancelled
OR HE OBSCUR’ B
ONE’S HIS ESPY
ERROR C SO CRASH
JohnS .. devious minds construct devious methods, our problem is that the ROK was never produced and photographed and one explanation for that may be that a link was found between the code and something written inside the book …
W RGOABABD
MLIAOI
WTBIMPANETP
MLIABO AIAQC
I TTMTSAMSTGAB
Wandering, rather gloomy on a bright and breezy day.
My life is almost over. I
Wrap the bit inside my pocket and next eat the poison.
My life is almost bloody over. And I am quite content.
Itinerary: take train Melbourne to South Adelaide Moseley Street (or Square to) grab a bite.
TGAB: still trying to fit The Great Australian Bight as in a poetically way of ending a sucide note.
Had the second MLIAOI line of mode code been absent altogether, than the first pair of lines and the second pair, with a fair gap between them might suggest two stanzas of a rhyme; or else the distinct separatation means there be no connection with the other at all. Taking a closer look at the whole again it appears to me that the MLIAOI was squeezed in between first and second lines suggesting it may well be an addition to the passage as opposed to the long accepted contention that it was a mistake by the author. Who cares eh Peteb?
… secret poetry, down the romantic rabbit hole…
If the above is anyhow near the truth: intimidation, blackmail… 1(a) …or he obscures (something) 2(b) or if one espies his error 3(c) so crash. Could be he tried first ‘one’…’two’/’three’ but switched to ‘b’/’c’…, it’s apparently a worksheet not a final version of the poem
Pat: had you hailed from Melbourne, ‘Four and Twenty’ might fit with with your Great Australian Bight (bite) theme; Pies that is, not magpies nor blackbirds either.
@Pat – I like it, although “Moseley” seems a very specific reference for an out of towner (and for that I think I prefer Square to Street). But how many non-Adelaideans (e.g. here) would have heard of Glenelg, but not specifically Moseley Square?
@PB: While I still think it’s likely a coincidence, I actually think the MLIAOI line might sort of support your idea. It’s crossed out because he realised he missed the ‘B’ – which means that ‘I’ after ‘O’ should be an ‘A’ – so the whole line is ruined (in fact perhaps he’s noticed the mistake because he’s gotten to writing the ‘A’ and noticed “that should be after ‘O’ rather than ‘I’, so something messed up here.
The question sort of remains why that line is then added in a lower position (and I think there’s been a lot of speculation on that). Does it mean the order of the lines is irrelevant, the message is still conveyed? Does it mean the mistake meant that line was also in the wrong place (this seems odd, but maybe there is some sort of dependency)? Does it mean something else?
Perhaps he was writing the Left Hand sides first, so he wrote:
WRGOAB
MLIAOI
WTBIMP
Then he realises “Shirt, that 2nd line is wrong, so he strikes it out and writes MLIABO
So putting a lot of that together (and mixing it with an idea I’ve seen elsewhere), what if this is a list of mnemonics for a Challenge/Response – and the ‘A’ delimiter is ‘Answer’ – so if he is approached with a particular challenge phrase, the answer phrase identifies that he’s a trusted target. It’s maybe a little bit odd that they would be so structured that each challenge is exactly 6 words, but that could be by design, or it could be a result of the way they came up with these challenges. Of course coming up with an innocent challenge phrase that fits those letters and would seem innocuous to a random maybe makes that less likely
MLIABO (A) IAQC
“My lorry is a bit overheated” – “I am quite cool”
WTBIMP (A) NETP
“Where’s the best international meat Pasties?” – “Never eat the pasties”
NB: I say “he” – what if the left and right are written by different people?
Perhaps after the letter ‘A’ instead of a phrase, the response required by the challenger was the letters that follow the letter ‘A’?
@ Julian – I had wondered if it was a mnemonic for a Freemason’s challenge. Charlie’s father was a Mark Mason (Malvern Lodge) & there seems to be an extended family connection to the Freemasons’ temple in Prahran (Lodge of Euclid) via the Gaveys & Roy & Norman Webb’s families (Stuart Webb even had his 21st there in the 1990s!). I wrote to the Grandmaster for Victoria to see if they had any records for Carl/Charles Webb or any of his brothers but never received a response…
I’ve been holding off on this little gem but, better late than never. It has to be the first letters of a poetic death or in memorium notice inserted in the Advertiser daily. If not that then it’s a personalised gravestone epitaph and likely to be still legible or partly, at St. Jude’s Nth. Brighton cemetery. Anyone here from Adelaide?
Julian: Cornish pasties for mine, only problem being that they use turnips (swedes) rather than spuds in their original recipe. Maybe pathologist Dwyer didn’t know the difference. PS: My Love Is A Bloody Ocean And I am Quitting Cigarettes. Touche.
I reconsidered after posting…
It should be “Where’s the best international meat pies” (Never Eat the Pasties).
Reminds me of the youtube clip of the NZ copper:
“What must you always do……Always blow on the pie”
@JS: Turnips or swedes might be traditional, but I think a lot of commercial pasties use ‘tatos. A lot of bakeries also seem to distinguish between “pasties” and “cornish pasties” (but I assumed the difference was the presentation – the cornish pasty has a knobbly pastry “handle” that the miners would have used to hold the meal, and then discarded it when they’re done (the idea being that their dirty hands don’t contaminate the meal – but I’m pretty sure you’re familiar witht he orign of the pastie).
Any reason why St Jude’s cemetry as opposed to any other?
EDIT: Wiki reckons “Ethel” was occaionally used as a masculine name 1880s to 1910s – which might fit with someoen d1942
Julian: St. Judes being not only yards from the Whyte St. bus stop it’s also the most convenient getting off point for a short walk to Somerton beach stairs. On 22nd Nov., 1948 racing man and last owner of the Alvington Cripples Kid’s home, Reg Bickford (see bio) of Tarleton St. died and part of him was laid to rest at St. Judes (other part at West Terrace) coupla days before SM’s last hasty tasty pasty. PS: I’ve looked up Reg’s epitaph but it’s not the code so looks like a more thorough effort is needed. Clive can look after that, he being a local and all.
Taking the “x” as an instruction to ignore, let’s decode the message:
1. WRGOABABD → WELCOME
2. MLIAOI → MYLOVE
3. WTBIMPANETP → WAITFORMEATTHEP
4. (Ignored “x”)
5. MLIABOAIAQC → MYBOATISIN
6. ITTMTSAMSTGAB → ITWASTHEBESTOFAB
Putting it together: “Welcome, my love, wait for me at the pier. My boat is in. It was the best of AB.”