This is a story about three men, two of them alive and the other long dead: and, as Steve Martin famously said at the start of L.A. Story (1991), “I swear, it’s all true“…

The Somerton Man

Mysteriously, our first protagonist was found dead on Somerton Beach near Adelaide on 1st December 1948: his identity, despite the passing of several decades since, has still not been determined. Yet it recently turned out [*] that this ‘Somerton Man’ was known by at least one person – a nurse who once signed herself “Jestyn”, but whose real name was Jessica Thomson (neé Harkness), and whose Adelaide phone number was written on the back page of a book later connected to the man, though she never disclosed his identity to anyone (if indeed she ever knew it).

As far as evidence goes, the cold case associated with this man has heaps of (for want of a better word) “micro-clues”: and we really should be able, with all our modern databases, computers, and crowdsourced collaborationware, to identify him without much difficulty. Yet apart from the fact that he was a fit-looking guy not much older than forty with an enlarged spleen, we don’t know (a) who he was; (b) where he was coming from; (c) where he was going to; (d) what he was doing; or even (e) what killed him, let alone anything so fancy as (f) why.

All of which is defensive researcher-speak for we know diddly-squat of importance about him: the truth is we haven’t even got started.

As a result of all this, what can only be termed wretchedly hopeful theorieswas he romantically connected with the nurse? was he an American spy? a Soviet spy? a uranium prospector? a car thief? a black marketeer? a Third Officer on a merchant ship? etc etc – hover over his long-dead corpse like flies above dung.

But the thing he now most resembles is a blank Sudoku grid – a puzzle which has at least as many answers as people scatching their heads over it. Why not insert your own pet theory (or indeed theories) into his still-basically-blank grid? Some days it seems as though every other bugger has: welcome to the world of the Somerton Man. 🙂

Derek Abbott

Professor Derek Abbott is our second main protagonist. A few days ago, a long-form piece in the California Sunday Magazine laid out his personal journey from obsessive London schoolboy to Professor of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide.

But most importantly, the piece finishes up with something that has been an open secret within the Somerton research community (as if anything so ramshackle and disparate can have so grand a title): that a few years ago Abbott married Rachel Egan, by whom he has three young children. Oh, and if you didn’t already know, Egan’s grandfather was Robin Thomson, the nurse’s son: which certainly directly links Abbott to the mystery of the Somerton Man, and quite possibly to the dead man himself.

Unfortunately, Abbott has devised a whole host of strategies to work around his well-trained stance of scientific impartiality, because he has become utterly convinced that the Somerton Man was Robin Thomson’s real father, despite having (as far as I can see) no proof of this whatsoever beyond really wanting it to be true. And so, over the last few years, Abbott has conjured up all manner of petition-backed legal motions to exhume the Somerton Man (essentially, a techy ‘fishing trip’ to extract DNA from the dead man’s teeth or bones), every one of which has been rejected.

Abbott’s latest variant on this theme – to convince American crowdfunders to back his group’s ongoing research via a £100,000 Indiegogo campaign – currently seems fairly dead in the water (having raised roughly £227 after 18 days, i.e. less than 0.25%), despite his efforts to promote it to gullible open-minded American backers, even floating the possibility of some long-winded family connection between the Somerton Man (or, to be precise, between Robin Thomson who he believes to have been the Somerton Man’s son) and Thomas Jefferson’s family.

For me, the two biggest problems with Abbott’s Indiegogo campaign are (a) that it doesn’t actually specify where the money would go, just that it would be spent on a range of things Abbott believes would best achieve the goal of identifying the Somerton Man, even though he only really has a single theory in play that he wishes to try to prove; and (b) that, given that he plans to put a fair tranche of this Phase 1 cash on building videos and lobbying to promote a putative “Phase 2” (raising even more cash and doing even more complicated tests), he hasn’t exactly been open about this.

Actually, it turns out that crowdfunders are far less gullible and, frankly, far cleverer than Abbott seems to believe them to be. They like proper details on a project page (ones they can actually check for themselves); they like plans that are specific, believable and actionable; and they like to back people who are taking on difficult things that benefit everybody, not just themselves. Abbott clearly believes that he has ticked all of these boxes: I don’t think he has.

Of course, it’s down to individual crowdfunders where they put their money, and Abbott might yet get stumble into a nest of random accidental energy billionnaires who end up throwing a wodge of Monopoly oligarch money in his direction. All I can say is that as far as codes and ciphers go (this is, after all, Cipher Mysteries), all Abbott and his students have managed to do in eight years is essentially what Aussies super-codebreaker Eric Nave did in one day in 1949 (and without computers to help him). Hence I wouldn’t expect them to make any progress with the specifically cipher mystery side of this story any time soon.

Feltus

The California Sunday magazine piece also lays out Abbott’s bitter ongoing rivalry with former South Australian detective Gerry Feltus. Feltus, who retired back in 2004, considers Abbott a pest, and – I’m sure it’s there between the lines somewhere, but please correct me if I’m wrong – an annoying prick with it. Furthermore, though Gerry has never said such a thing to me, I’d be unsurprised if the phrase completion “…and Costello” looms large in his mind whenever he hears the Professor’s surname. Let’s face it, the Aussies really are masters of sledging, so Abbott’s surely bound to come out wet in any pissing contest.

The key difference between these two men’s appraches is plain to see. While Abbott knows exactly what family history he wants to prove and is willing to spend £100K of other people’s money (in Phase 1, and probably double that in the Phase 2 lined up in his mind) to do it, Gerry Feltus is the opposite: patient, meticulous, careful, and seemingly immune to theories. He thrives on the fuzz of doubt: and what he says and writes is all the better for it.

You also don’t have to look very deeply to contrast Abbott’s attempts to embrace the wonders of crowdfunding and Internet self-promotion with Feltus’s dislike for the Internet’s noisy troll-yappery. In many ways, Feltus’ book The Unknown Man is the epitome of doubt, care and patience: the two men may be united by the Somerton Man, but in every other aspect they really are chalk and cheese.

Yet in a way, this kind of starkly opposite pair of trenches isn’t a helpful part of their discourse: in my opinion, pure credulity and pure doubt are both inadequate methodologies for tackling something as historically complex as the Somerton Man.

And so it is for me that even though Abbott often comes across as though he is a scientist doing bad history, Feltus is still thinking too much like a detective, and not enough like an historian – and there’s a big difference.

For sure, Feltus’s overall approach is hugely better than Abbott’s: but – in my opinion – what differentiates the best historians is a driven willingness to choose just the right kind of a limb to go out on to help them find the key evidence they need, and I’m not sure Gerry – who I like, if you hadn’t worked that out by now – has yet developed that ability. (Abbott thinks he has, but he plainly hasn’t.)

The Lessons Of History

Oddly, the cipher mystery world has seen something similar to all this before, insofar as Abbott is trying to raise funding for what constitutes a full-frontal attack on the Somerton Man mystery. Argably the closest parallel is Colonel Fabyan’s Riverbank Labs from a century ago, that famously brought William Friedman and Elizebeth Friedman together. Yet the central point of what Fabyan was doing was to try to prove something that he firmly believed was an a priori truth: that the real genius behind all William Shakespeare’s fine words was none other than Francis Bacon.

Despite the fact that the whole exercise yielded good incidental results (though I would expect that the Friedman’s would have met and perhaps even married through Govermental crypto channels), Fabyan’s attempt to prove Bacon’s authorship was still a foolish thing to be trying to do.

Perhaps Abbott’s efforts will incidentally / accidentally yield secondary long-term benefits: it’s always possible. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t think he’s ultimately doing just as foolish-minded a thing as Fabyan was doing, back a century ago.

[*According to her family in a recent TV documentary*]

36 thoughts on “The curious case of Derek Abbott and the Somerton Man…

  1. Pete on June 6, 2015 at 10:14 pm said:

    Nick: where is your evidence that supports the claim that Jessica knew the dead man?

  2. Pete: you saw the same documentary that I did, so you know it’s not my claim. 🙂

  3. pete on June 7, 2015 at 1:43 am said:

    Fair enough … thanks. I don’t think there is any direct evidence.
    When Erroll Canney knocked on the door he didn’t know who was going to answer it. All he had was a Thomson phone number.

  4. Diane on June 7, 2015 at 6:36 am said:

    Great post.

  5. Diane on June 7, 2015 at 2:15 pm said:

    What I like about Feltus is that even though he does indulge in the vague sort of derogatory remark designed to make one think that it would be a loss of one’s intellectual standing to so much as read, let alone to take seriously, the opinions of a natural “busker”, he does actually trouble to address the evidence adduced, and the argument made from it.

    Perhaps its the online-culture, but so often we find that instead of properly considering a contrary position, the “oh-what-a-tiresome-creature” response is activated in lieu of intelligent argument. It’s a crowd-pleaser, no doubt about it.

  6. Pete on June 7, 2015 at 9:23 pm said:

    We have a little more that diddley-squat over my way, but then you have an aversion to anything conspiratorial, don’t you Nick. Give me something to go on you asked, a sign, something tangible, not just hypothetical, real.
    We have real. I found the needle in the haystack. Feltus is not happy.
    tomsbytwo.com …. read it and weep.

  7. bdid1dr on June 7, 2015 at 10:04 pm said:

    Y’know, Nick, I’m just about fed up with both of my sons privacy issues. So, here are a couple of names which might appear in the Sydney (Australia) marriage records (1943-1948)
    Normaleen Park(s) ( Australian) m. Lee E. Shackelford.(USA). Their first two sons were born in Australia; their third son was born at White Sands.

    I know very little more about Normaleen except she adored herself, and loved to talk about several generations of her family apparently being developers of the Sydney Zoo.
    One other thing she would talk about was her husband being a physicist at White Sands New Mexico, and according her, he posed as a garbage collector while stationed at White Sands. (She never discussed his disappearance, not long after their youngest child was born.
    Her oldest son also talked about their father teaching him advanced mathematics and physics.
    So (with or without a grain of salt) you might find some records which might validate “my side of the story” as having some relevance to the “Somerton-Man” history and disappearance or appearance on Somerton Beach.
    Good luck!

  8. Robyn on June 8, 2015 at 2:40 am said:

    what does any of that mean? why do I never hear the full backstory?

  9. Gordon Cramer on June 8, 2015 at 3:47 am said:

    I think that, to be historically correct, Derek and Rachel were married late last year in Phoenix.

  10. Robyn: it’s because unless you were a journalist given an access-all-areas pass by Derek Abbott himself, it would be hard to verify the truth of all the claims that have been made. And I try not to use Cipher Mysteries for passing on claims and suppositions – there are doubtless plenty of Facebook forums and chat-rooms for those. 😉

  11. Gordon: thanks for that!

  12. bdid1dr on July 7, 2015 at 3:14 pm said:

    Fabyan — that’s the name I was trying to refer to (earlier) in re acquaintance with Friedman, Tiltman, et al and the US and England ‘secret’ document teams.

  13. Cindy Sheets on February 6, 2016 at 9:45 pm said:

    I have been researching this story recently, (I’ve helped authorities in my area close cases, not major things though.) anyway, as I looked over all the info, on SM, I realized that basically, we know NOTHING, everything is theory about who he could be. So I applied Occam’s razor & stepped back & looked again,
    long story short, I KNOW who he is.
    He used several different aliases & the DNA from Jessie’s son “Robin” stating Native American,( & Jessie did not have Native American ancestry) says a lot. The Native American DNA comes from the Sioux tribe. Anyway I’m gathering up evidence & going to take it to the media.
    Tamam Shud.

  14. Cindy Sheets: why are you so sure that Robin’s DNA is connected to the Somerton Man’s DNA? It’s only Columbo who could close cases with a hunch, and he always had some smirking murderer to ask that well-aimed “one last question” to, a luxury that we all – 70-odd years later – simply don’t have.

  15. I donot think your Somerton Man cut that peice of paper out of the book and put
    in his pocket.
    And l do not think he threw it into this random car.
    I think it was done later.
    To exclude Jestyn and make it look like suicide.
    They just dod not expect the notoriety or the fact that
    The origins of the book would be found.
    I think they wanted to make it look like a mysterious suicide.
    And get rid of any links to Jestyn.
    Looks a lot like J.E styn too.
    Maybe a code on its own.
    Sure a lot of people have said all this.
    But l think that some one planted the message on the guy and threw the
    To her.

  16. john sanders on February 5, 2018 at 2:45 am said:

    Cindy Sheets: I wouldn’t be so anxious to take anything concerning this case to the media; they would only botch things as they have in the past. Better that you let the police do it their way; at least they have the legal authority and 69.2 years of experience in the botching business. I kid you not; fair injun.

  17. john sanders on February 6, 2018 at 6:05 am said:

    Pete: It seems that Bob Wake is about to take over your TBT dreadlines once more. A timely piece of deja vu, after expending the past week on the Leane incompetent investigation deja vu, but do so if you must, along with your musty team of crime fighters, dutifully responding to your every ‘Dorothy Dix’ prompt-line. Actually you have reminded me to see if I can do a ‘jail break’ for a copy of ‘No Ribbons or Medals’, Val’s book on his boyhood memories of his Dad’s debatable war record. Let’s see now, it appears that he flew into Sambawang to close down the 17 sigs. (GCHQ) listening post about new years day ’42, the very same time that Flt. Lt. Fred Bowes and his squadron were bugging out and leaving the poor 8th Division lads to their four years of hell with the Japs. So for that at least there should have been two gongs, the same two that the soon to be Sqdn. Ldr. Bowes was issued. But as for the third, the coveted Pacific Star which must have taken pride of place in our Kerrie’s own childhood memories; well I’m not sure that Robert The Wake ‘Hereward’ would have had entitlement. Of course Fred Bowes on the other hand, after a two year stint protecting the homeland invasion path at Wagga Wagga & Bankstown NSW, did eventually go off to the Admiralty Is. with 76 Sqn. at the tail end of hostilities, mainly involved wuth straffing operations against wounded and starving nips. So he surely gets the GSM to make his rack of three which was the standard set for desk pilots and other ranks. Forgive my rambling on; its just that I must gear up for another defence and check against a possible two prong counter attack, not forgetting the much better armed enemy within of course…Tally ho & pip pip old spore.

  18. john sanders on February 6, 2018 at 9:32 am said:

    Pete: Point out the demeaning parts that you seem to have problems with and I’ll give them due consideration for withdrawal. In the meantime perhaps you might give due consideration to staying out of the kitchen. It gets hot! does it not?..

  19. Pete/Kerrie: Well done old son; want to discuss the legacies of those other good folk that have been demeaned, and whose families are rather displeased; people such as Leon Leane, Len Brown, Alf Boxall, Prosper & Jessie Thomson; shall I go on?….Hey just to change the subject; when did you decide that your God given name was unsuitable.

  20. john sanders on February 7, 2018 at 7:14 am said:

    Pete: Oh what a tangled web &c…..As is your sleazy form, you seem to be the one responsibe for your dad’s demeaning. The term to bug out does not have any conotations of cutting and running, or cowardly indiference to the plight of others. Though it is common knowledge that the 453 Squadron and others were able to effect their transport across to Sumatra, thence home. It is also historically correct to say that most of the Australian eighth Division were left to their fate, so if you make something else of that, that’s up to you and others that you transmit your liesheet to. In so far as the matter of wounded and hungry nips, being straffed by 76 squadron that is also an historical fact and it seems that they were not alone in this activity. The enemy were not inclined to surrender and most of the boys at the sharp end, were naturally only too happy to oblige. In your flowery dirge, you state that your father’s mentor was beheaded on the beach by his captors; taking that into consideration, perhaps subsequent cruel treatment of the nips would have been seen by some on the ground to be justified..But I didn’t bloodywell say that, did I.

  21. john sanders on February 7, 2018 at 8:03 am said:

    Pete: Perhaps you might like to explain just for the record where dad and Bill Newton VC actually crossed paths. They had enlisted within months of each other in 1940, so perhaps Bill trained your much older father in Australia before he went iff to Singapore in ’41, but then again Bill was with 22 Bomber Sqn. and Leigh with 76 Fighter Sqn. during the pacific war. The other somewhat puzzling aspect of their relationship is that Bill had been long dead by the time of dad’s late appearance in the Admiralty Group, which of course was also a long hop from Salamaua. Anyway I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of it in your own indomitable manner. To better show you what things were really going down in that particular Admiralty Islands action, out of the 4000 nips encountered, 3280 were killed, the majority by aerial bombing and of course straffing; only 75 were captured and I’m absolutely sure that their Yank captors treated them with the respect they deserved. By the way and as a matter of historical interest as a war buff, who did dad march with on Anzac Days, 76 or 21/453.

  22. john sanders on February 7, 2018 at 9:35 am said:

    Pete: Well I’ve done my utmost to buddy up Leigh with his flt. Instructor Bill Newton VC, but to no avail. According to the archival records, they only came close in ‘42 when they both served as same rank instructors, one Wirraways and the other Beaufort/Hudson bombers; though with your dad being the more senior pilot due to his war experience in Malaya/Singapore. That happened to be when they were at Wagga and nearby Urinquenty respectively, although I guess Bankstown or Camden field could have seen them having a beer together before Bill went overseas. Of course there’s no possibility that you may have erred to embellish your yarn is there old fruit? or is it something to do with inaccurate service records?…..

  23. john sanders on February 7, 2018 at 11:53 am said:

    Pete: Great news for you proud son. Whilst going over your tearjurking drivel, it occurred to me that I didn’t read any PDF brief about Fred’s service. I’m only involved in the Tamam Shud mystery and although I saw a post from Byron, it really didn’t occur to me that you might later use it to give me a serve. All the stuff I picked up on your dad was from his archival service records and the ever faithful wikipedia. So rest easy, your personal family secrets are safe….for the time being at least.

  24. john sanders on February 7, 2018 at 9:47 pm said:

    Flash G : By golly you could have something there old man…… “It tolls for thee”. But with the lead in, are you sure it all fits under the letter Q?…..

  25. john sanders on February 7, 2018 at 10:05 pm said:

    Pete: I’ve taken your lead and forwarded copies (secure snail mail) of your glossy OL to ‘me china up the crick’; the one I told you about that lost his kennel dogs a couple of years ago out the back of your spread. A very good man in a jamn; a little religious but in his own inimitable ‘Old Testament’ way. A very rough condensed Viet translation is being done for my nog mates in Bankstown and at Jupiters, for information.

  26. john sanders: actually, it would seem that the bell-end trolls for thee.

  27. john sanders on February 7, 2018 at 10:24 pm said:

    Pete: Yes, I looked a bit of a sad sack in uniform for my six; and corrupt along with it I’ll own. Care to tell us about your call to duty Kerrrie. Wouldn’t Marge sign your papers or did you and your stompy wompy friends hold a draft card burning party on Maroubra Beach.

  28. john sanders on February 8, 2018 at 3:34 am said:

    Nick: With your moderators hat off you might like to reflect on a couple of points that I raised on TBT as a rebutal to the moderators’s abuse. Firstly, rather than demean his father’s service career, I glossed over the sad truth of it, more to save him loss of pride and evidenced by not naming his unit, nor its well documented (Military Board of Enquiry into three unauthorised reteats in the face of the enemy; and failure to provide covering support for HMS Prince of Wales & HMS Repulse, thereaby occasioning their loss and accompanying grievous loss of life) disgraceful record during the Malayan campaign. As for Bozo’s claim that his father Frederick Bowes was in some way connected with Bill Newton VC, I’d say that it is most unlikely that the pair were aquainted in any way. Strangely enough I do know a fair bit about this particular brave man and his actions on the day of his capture in Febuary ’43 just prior to the Salaumoa campaign; 2/3 commando unit had spotted for him which included documnteer Captain Damien Perer, who possibly filmed the event to validate the subsequent VC citation. Pete’s father’s time in that region at eighteen months later was most likely in the rear as an aircon deskbound director rather than an operational pilot? (I can confirm). Where do we go from here on is of course up to your discretion, though my plan would almost certainly be head on and totally unrelenting.

  29. john sanders on February 8, 2018 at 4:37 am said:

    Nick: Just for the record I’ll be dashing this one off to our pal just for the record.
    Only two units in Australian Military history have suffered the indignity of having been called upon by official board of inquiry, to account for their actions and inactions deemed to be equivilent to gross dereliction of duty and cowardice in the face of anticipated enemy confrontation. You in particular will be undoubtedly familiar with one of the units in question, namely dear old dad’s beloved 453 Sqn. led by S/L Harper who had the gumption to at least give honest accounts of bad wartime memories of his unit for the said Court of Inquiry on 14/1/46. He makes no mention (away that day) of 453’s failure to give air cover to two capital ships Repulse and Prince of Wales which may have been attributive to their sinking with great loss of life; and possibly to the fall of Fortress Singapore…(21/243 Secret Report by Daniel Ford)…

  30. john sanders on February 8, 2018 at 4:55 am said:

    Nick: Feel free to put this up on record if you wish, or retain it for future defense of your grandfather’s name which will certainly come in for abuse at the hands of the clown; I’m almost certain that he will not post himself…I will hold off in the meantime. capisce?…

  31. john sanders on February 8, 2018 at 9:11 am said:

    Nick: My apologies are in order for being such a boor and many thanks for your tolerance. As long as we can maintain our initiative and decorum, we may now get on with business I’d expect. Be mindful of that letter Q problem which is bound to be a future concern if left unchecked; and thanks for being semi supportive, which I certainly don’t deserve. Cheers, js

  32. Seems that the JS ramblings have really stirred up a hornets nest over yonder and well it should; though the main thing connecting Big Bob Wake to NT is to be found on their own effluent site; something revealed quite a while back that was probably deemed too speculative to publish. The ever generous and kind hearted one might find the connection if he can crack his own simple Daneta code. Not only does it bring the game plan together but it also screams out in no uncertain terms, the name of the beast and his method of betrayal….18/13 Revelations should get you there Q.

  33. john sanders on February 15, 2018 at 9:18 am said:

    Pete: Perhaps I might suggest you apologies to Debra regarding Lake Boga as I think it was she who first brought Q’s ‘picturesque part of the country’ to our attention. It had been one of those places that was surveyed by Wake’s man Augo on behalf of the boss Brigadeer Bill Simpson (Evatt’s chum) who was looking to set up a camp there. In the end they put it to use as a Catalina service base, which of course your diligent personal research input would have been brought to your notice.

  34. john sanders on February 15, 2018 at 9:45 am said:

    Gordon FQ (not what you think). I’ll continue to manage your investigation from here so long as I’m able. You’re sort of on the right track with US interest in our internal security efforts being run by Bob Wake and friends. Now my advice is to do another about turn and go back to the Ballet for the big connection which started the ball rolling in ’36 at Port Said of all places. Our on board US ISO man would go on to make a name for himself as a senior army intelligence officer through the war years and not a bad effort for just a dance man with a head for languages as well as a very cunning mode of communicating with homefolks….. Heard from Kate your Ruskie informant of late.

  35. john sanders on February 15, 2018 at 10:56 am said:

    Pete: Of course he’s on your new white board and so’s his opposite number what’s more. A real cat and mouse game between the pair, though all in fun in those pre war days. A georgious English rose by his side and a penchant for the nags, weekends entertaining at Merrioola with the Bohemian crowd and nights with his fellow travellers at Pakies. I’ll keep you up to scratch as all that I’ve forgotten trickles back into the memory bank. Nice to see you and the troops on track, but don’t go and loose your nerve now, no sense in bugging out and leaving others to wear the flack.

  36. As usual, to all our on line VM and SM pals including all you quasi belligerents who keep us on our toes (en pointe); Chuc Mung Nam Moi Kung Hei Fat Choi and a happy, prosperous year of the dog to all who dare. Best wishes from we, the Can Tho Comancheros (non affilliated).

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