The Somerton Man Mac OS
(Top left) A micrograph of a strand of the Somerton Man’s hair. The black area at the top of the root, called post-mortem banding, is what you expect to see when a hair is taken from a dead person. Just days after Somerton man's discovery, the case was as cold as the body on the slab. No name, no clues, a dead end. On December 10th the body was embalmed, the first time anyone could remember this happening to an unidentified person. For the next six weeks, Somerton man was little more than a local curiosity, all enquiries exhausted. In 1948, a man was found dead on an Adelaide, Australia, beach. Well-dressed and unmarked, he had a half-smoked cigarette by his side, but no identity documents. Six decades later, the Somerton Man's identity and murder are still a mystery. Tamun Shud – Unsolved Case The Taman Shud is the Mystery of the Somerton Man which remains an unsolved case of an unidentified man who was found dead at 6.30 am on December 1, 1948, on Somerton beach in Adelaide, South Australia. The newspaper ran a photo of the body referring to the deceased as “The Somerton Man.” Leads poured in. Three people identified the man as Robert Walsh, a woodcutter who had gone missing several months earlier. But there was a problem. Walsh was 63-years old when he had vanished and the Somerton Man was younger—in his mid-40s.
One of our personal favorite unsolved murder mysteries here on Ways to Die is the Tamam Shud Case, which is also known as the Mystery of the Somerton Man and is also incorrectly referred to as “Taman Shud”. This is as bizarre and intriguing as it gets and if you are new to this case then we can guarantee that you will be as hooked and as creeped out as we are by the time you finishing reading this article.
What is the Tamam Shud Case?
The Tamam Shud case revolves around the death of a man whose body was found on Somerton beach in Adelaide Australia, in 1948. What began as a simple murder mystery unravelled into something much stranger as police delved a little deeper.
Firstly, the words “Tamam Shud” come from the Persian words for “Finished” and were printed onto a piece of paper that was found in the pocket of the man’s trousers. This page had been torn from a book by a 12th century poet. Once this book had been tracked down, detectives discovered an unidentified number and what appeared to be an encrypted message, which to this day has still not been deciphered.
Who Was the Somerton Man?
This is another one of the many mysteries of the Somerton Man: no one knows who he was. In fact, there is very little that we actually do know about him. International authorities were contacted, including the FBI in the United States and Scotland Yard in the UK, but they had nothing on record that could identify who the Somerton Man was.
One of the things that made this such an interesting case is that it occurred during the Cold War, just before tensions escalated between the United States and the USSR. There are beliefs that an undetectable poison was used and that The Somerton Man was a spy or double agent who was basically hushed by either the Soviets or the Americans.
In this theory, the code left in the book could be a code that was meant to be relayed to an intelligence agency. However, this doesn’t really explain why the body was found in South Australia, a long way from the major intelligence agencies involved in the Cold War.
Taman Shud Theory
There have been many theories, with the main ones revolving around spies, double agents and cults. There is nothing to prove this, but there is nothing to disprove it and that’s why such theories exist.
One of the few tangible pieces of evidence to come from the Tamam Shud case is the phone number taken from the book. This belonged to a nurse who lived in the area and police tracked her down. But she claimed to not know who the man was and she wasn’t helpful.
It is worth noting, however, that later interviews regarded this nurse to be evasive, acting like she didn’t want to talk about it. This could be taken to mean that she was hiding something, but it could also be that she was just sick of being asked questions about a case she knew nothing about.
Apparently, when she was first shown a plaster cast bust of the dead man she was “Taken-aback”, turning away and not looking back. She also asked that her name not be used on permanent records less her reputation be forever tarnished. The police agreed.
Taman Shud Code
The following is the code taken from the Somerton Man and known as the Tamam Shud code:
WRGOABABD
MLIAOI
WTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
The second line of this code had been crossed through and all of it was handwritten. This code has yet to be deciphered because it is very difficult to decipher a code of such short length when you have nothing to base it on. Longer codes can be deciphered using basic cryptography methods because it’s easier to find patterns and to convert them.
For instance, we know that letters such as “E” and “A” are two of the most common in the English language. If these letters have been exchanged for a single symbol and there is a lot to go on, then a simple tallying up of the symbols and their related regularity can give the decoder an idea of what symbol represents what letter.
This is the basic idea of code breaking and obviously more complex codes can’t be deciphered with such simplicity, but the idea that more is better still applies and such short codes can be near impossible to crack.
Has the Somerton Man Case Been Solved?
No, not yet. There have been a few apparent explanations over the years, but these have yet to materialize into anything concrete and they are often disputed straight away. Not long after the Tamam Shud case began, a local newspaper reported that they had discovered who the Somerton Man was and went as far as to name him as E. C. Johnson, only for Mr. Johnson to show up at the police station a few days later, no doubt baffled as to why the local news was telling the world’s media that he was dead.
There were close to a dozen identifications of the Somerton Man in the 2 years following his death. Witnesses came forward to say they knew him, some suggested that they had shared a drink with him. He was thought to be a military man and he was thought to be man who died at sea, but the former couldn’t be proved and the latter was disproved by friends of the supposedly deceased man.
Like the Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper and many other unsolved cases, this has the feel of a case that will never be solved. The problem is, the fact that it has been over 70 years since the death of the Somerton Man means that anyone involved with the murder and cover-up, as well as any real witnesses, are probably dead. So, unless there is a confession hiding in the databanks of some clandestine agency just waiting to be uncovered, we will probably never know the truth about the Tamam Shud case.
Cases Similar to Taman Shud
If you love a good creepy unsolved mystery, then make sure you take a peek at our article on one unbelievable creepy forest in Japan. It is known as the Suicide Forest or the Death Forest, for reasons that will quickly become clearly once you start reading. Just make sure you don’t read too close to your bedtime, otherwise you probably won’t be getting any sleep tonight.
As always, you can check in with our Unsolved Serial Murders article and section as well. Here we cover some gruesome serial murder cases that you might never have heard of (including the Tylenol Murders), which is made all the more creepier when you consider that they were never caught and that some of them may still be out there.
Help solve a mystery! Who was the Somerton Man? On December 1st, 1948, a man was found dead on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia. His true identity remains unknown today.
Below are 10 interesting facts about the Somerton Man and the mystery involved. It will be noticed the facts seem to lead to more questions than answers, and although a tragedy, it is an intriguing mystery with multiple twists and turns.
It’s possible the only way to ever discover who the Somerton Man was is by the solving of a mysterious code found linked to the Somerton Man. What the code reveals could open doors for who he was and the secrets he kept. Can you solve the code?
1) The Somerton Man was Poisoned
The Somerton Man is believed to have died from a poisonous dose of Digitalis. This poison is not thought to have been self or accidentally ingested. He is believed to have been murdered. He was found sitting up against the wall of the Somerton beach but had displayed signs of lividity not conforming to the way found. The lividity of his body indicated he most likely died lying down, and this suggests he was then placed on the beach in the position found.
2)No Identification of Any Kind Was Found on the Somerton Man
The mysterious Man did not have any money or form of identification on him. Some labels on his clothing had been removed as well. He was found wearing brown trousers, white shirt, tie, knitted pullover, coat, socks and shoes. Also found on his body was a handkerchief, underpants, a singlet, train ticket to Henley Beach, a bus ticket, Juicy Fruit gum, two combs, box of Bryant and Mays matches, and an Army Club Cigarette Packet- but the 7 cigarettes inside were of a different brand; Kensitas.
3) The Words Tamam Shud Were Discovered on a Hidden Slip of Paper
Later, upon further inspection of the Somerton Man’s clothing, a tiny piece of rolled up paper was found in a fob trouser pocket that he was wearing. Written on this paper was ‘Tamam Shud’, which is Persian for ‘The End’. This one clue was later linked to a mysterious book, code, phone number, and gave indication that the Somerton Man may have been a spy.
4)The Words Tamam Shud are Linked to a Book
The book, to which the piece of paper with the words Tamam Shud was torn from, was realized to be from a popular book of poems entitled the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
5) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is Found
The matching book with the missing page was incredibly handed over to Police in July 1949, months later, after the Police had released Press Notices requesting the public’s assistance to find the book. On the night of November 30th, 1948, a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was tossed inside a car parked near Somerton Beach. The owner of the car placed the book in his glove box thinking it was his brother-in-laws who had left it in his car. But after the Police had realized the slip of paper belonged to a page from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and called upon the public for help, the man remembered the book and asked his brother-in-law about it. It was not his. When retrieving the book from the glove box, it had the missing page. The Police were able to match the book to the slip of paper which had the words ‘Tamam Shud’ on it.
6) A Phone Number was Found in the Book
The book was noticed by police to have a phone number written on it. This was the Police’s first major lead since finding the dead man on Somerton Beach. This number belonged to a nurse living in the area.
7) The Nurse ‘Jestyn’ Gave a Copy of the Rubaiyat to Alf Boxall
The Police questioned the Nurse who matched the number (referred to as Jestyn), and she claimed to know nothing about the Somerton Man (However, this would later be questioned as when she was shown the likeness of him on a later date, she was clearly distraught upon seeing it). During questioning, she told the Police she had given a copy of the Rubaiyat to a man named Alf Boxall in 1945.
The Somerton Man Mac Os 11
8)Alf Boxall Was Not the Somerton Man
Thinking the mystery had been solved, and the dead man found on Somerton Beach was Alf Boxall, it was then a surprise for the Police to find him alive, and able to produce the book the Nurse had given him. But this was even more strange, because here was a woman linked to two different Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam books. And upon further investigation, it was discovered another man, Joseph Marshall, with a Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in his possession, was found dead under mysterious circumstances as well.
Somerton Man Identified
9)Was the Somerton Man a Spy?
This occurrence of multiple Rubaiyats linked to suspicious situations, supported other details found in the mysterious book of the Somerton Man. Besides the phone number of the nurse, it was noticed there were letters. These letters were believed to possibly be a code of sorts. Because of this, it was theorized the book could have been used as a One-Time Pad to encode/decode secret messages.
The strings of letters have never been understood, and if a code, they might hold the key to solving the mystery of the Somerton Man.
The Supposed Code consisted of five lines of letters with various markings throughout. It is shown below:
If solved, the message might reveal a secret which could lead to who the Somerton Man was.
10)Hidden Code Remains Unsolved
The Police aggressively attempted to discover the identity of the Somerton Man and solve the code. Numerous Press releases, describing the man as a physically fit man, believed in his 40’s, were distributed, urging the public to come forth with any and all information on persons which could fit the Somerton Man’s profile. There was no success.
And Professional codebreakers were brought in to break the code in order to discover the hidden message.
There has been no success on solving the code either.
Can you solve the code and help solve a mystery? Discussion can be made in comments below or on the MW Forum.
AND this post followed the receipt of the winning answer for the MW Treasure Hunt Game in the MW Newsletter!
The Somerton Man Mac Os X
The answer was SOMERTON.
Congrats to Moon Shadow!
The puzzle was: The Mystery starts here: P4B2M1C4N3T6N2S3
Clues of Poison, Book, Murder, Code, Nurse, Ticket, Note, and Sand were given. The beginning letter of the word, and numbered letter of that word spelled out SOMERTON. (P4= S (poiSon), B2=0 (bOok), etc…..
Somerton Man Update
Thanks all for playing and be sure to Subscribe to the MW Newsletter if you haven’t already for other hunts and prizes!
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