Alright, my sincerest apologies once again! You are absolutely right. My aim is to make these stories perfect for a podcast, and bullet points and “pros and cons” headings definitely disrupt that natural, conversational flow. My mistake.
I’m going to completely rewrite “The Somerton Man” blog post, ensuring that the discussion of theories and evidence is woven seamlessly into the narrative, making it sound like I’m telling you the story directly.
Here is the revised version, designed specifically for a smooth, engaging podcast reading:
Alright, settle in, because today, we’re going to talk about a mystery that has baffled investigators, obsessed amateur detectives, and haunted the imagination for over 75 years. It’s a story that begins on a quiet beach in Australia, with the discovery of an unknown man, a hidden code, a scrap of paper with a cryptic phrase, and a secret that, to this day, remains stubbornly locked away.
This is the chilling, strange, dark, and mysterious case of the Somerton Man. And trust me, you’re going to be wondering about this one long after the story is over.
Now, if you find yourself drawn to these kinds of unexplained enigmas, do me a quick favor and consider hitting that like button. It truly helps the channel, and it lets me know you’re ready for more stories that defy all logic.
The Morning Discovery – A Man on the Sand
Our story begins on a warm summer morning, December 1, 1948, on Somerton Beach, just south of Adelaide, South Australia. It was a beautiful day, the kind of day where people would be out enjoying the sun and the ocean breeze.
Around 6:30 AM, a couple taking an early morning stroll made a grim discovery. Lying on the sand, slumped against the seawall, was the body of a man. He was dressed in a suit, neatly pressed, with a tie and polished shoes, as if he had simply laid down for a nap. He was lying on his back, his head resting against the wall, his legs crossed. He looked peaceful, almost serene.
But he was very, very dead.
The couple immediately called the police. When officers arrived, they began their initial investigation. What they found immediately struck them as odd. The man had no identification whatsoever. No wallet, no driver’s license, no passport, no letters, no papers, nothing that could tell them who he was. His clothes, though well-made, had all their labels meticulously cut out, as if someone had deliberately removed any trace of their origin.
He had a half-smoked cigarette behind his ear, and another in his lapel. In his pockets, they found a few mundane items: a packet of chewing gum, a box of matches, a bus ticket from Adelaide, and an un-used second-class train ticket from Adelaide to Henley Beach, a nearby suburb. That was it. No money, no keys, no watch. It was as if he had been stripped of his identity.
The man himself was described as being in excellent physical condition, a fit individual, likely in his 40s. He had strong shoulders, well-maintained hands, and no obvious signs of struggle or injury. His face was unremarkable, making it difficult to identify him from memory.
The initial police theory was simple: perhaps he had committed suicide by poisoning. But there was no obvious poison bottle, no note, no clear indication. The mystery was just beginning to unfold.
The Autopsy – A Body Full of Questions
The man’s body was taken to the morgue for an autopsy. Dr. Dwyer, the pathologist, examined the unknown man with meticulous care. What he found only deepened the enigma.
The man’s internal organs were congested, particularly his spleen, which was significantly enlarged. There was also congestion in his liver and kidneys. His stomach contained traces of a pasty meal, consistent with a meat pie eaten a few hours before death.
Crucially, Dr. Dwyer found no external injuries that would suggest a struggle or violence. There were no signs of a struggle on his body, no defensive wounds, no bruises. However, the most perplexing finding was the complete absence of any foreign substances in his system. No poison, no drugs, no alcohol. Nothing that could explain his sudden death.
Yet, the pathologist was convinced the man had been poisoned. He believed the congestion of the organs, particularly the enlarged spleen, pointed to a powerful, fast-acting poison that would have left no trace, or one that was quickly metabolized by the body. He suspected a barbiturate or a powerful hypnotic drug, perhaps administered orally, that would have caused rapid heart failure.
But without a trace of the poison, it was impossible to confirm. The official cause of death was listed as “cause unknown.”
So, here we have it: an unknown man, found dead on a beach, with no identification, all labels removed from his clothes, and no discernible cause of death, despite strong suspicions of poisoning. The case was already strange, dark, and mysterious. But it was about to get much, much stranger.
The Hidden Clue – “Tamám Shud”
Weeks passed. The police had no leads. No one came forward to identify the man. His fingerprints didn’t match any on file. His photograph was circulated widely, but no one recognized him. It was as if he had appeared out of nowhere.
Then, on January 14, 1949, almost a month and a half after the body was found, investigators made a crucial discovery. They decided to re-examine the man’s clothing, taking it apart piece by piece, looking for anything they might have missed.
And they found it. Tucked away in a small, hidden fob pocket, sewn into the waistband of his trousers, was a tiny, tightly rolled-up piece of paper. It was a scrap, torn from a larger page. On it, printed in a distinctive font, were two words: “Tamám Shud.”
“Tamám Shud.”
These two words, Persian for “finished” or “ended,” immediately became the central, most haunting clue in the entire mystery. It was a phrase that spoke of finality, of completion. Was it a suicide note? A message? A code?
The police immediately recognized the phrase. It was the final phrase from a collection of poems called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a famous 11th-century Persian book of poetry. This particular edition was a translation by Edward FitzGerald.
This discovery changed everything. The police now had a tangible lead. They issued a public appeal, asking anyone who owned a copy of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat with the final page missing to come forward. It was a long shot, but it was their only hope.
And remarkably, someone did.
The Book and the Code – A Deeper Enigma
In July 1949, about six months after the body was found, a man came forward. He had found a copy of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat on the back seat of his unlocked car, which had been parked near Somerton Beach around the time the body was discovered. The book had been placed there sometime in mid-November 1948, before the man was found. When he heard the police appeal, he checked his copy. Sure enough, the last page, the one containing the phrase “Tamám Shud,” was missing.
This was a major breakthrough. The scrap of paper found in the dead man’s pocket perfectly matched the torn page from the book. This confirmed that the book belonged to the Somerton Man, or at least, was connected to him.
But the book held another secret. When investigators examined it closely, they found faint, almost invisible indentations on the back cover. These were not random marks. They were letters, pressed into the paper, as if someone had written on a page placed on top of the cover.
The letters formed a cryptic, five-line code:
WRGOAB MLIAOI WTBIMPANETP MLIABOAIAQC ITTMTSAMSTGAB
This code, seemingly random, was a new layer of the mystery. Was it a message? A cipher? A list of names? Despite efforts by codebreakers from the Australian military and intelligence agencies, the code has never been definitively cracked. It remains a tantalizing, frustrating enigma, hinting at a secret life.
And the book itself also contained a phone number.
The Woman – Jessica Thomson and Her Secrets
The phone number found in the Rubaiyat belonged to a woman named Jessica Thomson (later known as Jo Thomson). She was a nurse who lived in Glenelg, a suburb very close to Somerton Beach.
Police immediately went to interview her. When shown a photograph of the Somerton Man, Jessica Thomson reacted strangely. She reportedly turned pale, almost fainting. She denied knowing the man, stating she had never seen him before. However, she admitted that she had owned a copy of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat, the very same edition. She claimed she had given it to a man named Alfred Boxall, a former army officer and poet, years earlier.
Police then tracked down Alfred Boxall. He was alive and well, and to the surprise of everyone, he still had his copy of The Rubaiyat, with the “Tamám Shud” page perfectly intact. This meant that the book found in the car, and connected to the Somerton Man, was not Alfred Boxall’s copy.
This left a huge question mark over Jessica Thomson. Why did she react so strongly to the photo? Why did she deny knowing him, yet admit to owning the book? And if it wasn’t Boxall’s book, how did a copy of her edition end up in a car near the beach, connected to an unidentified dead man?
Years later, in interviews, Jessica Thomson continued to deny knowing the Somerton Man. However, her daughter, Kate Thomson, would later reveal that her mother did know the man, and that she believed he was a spy. Kate claimed her mother spoke Russian and had a secretive past, but refused to elaborate further, citing a fear of repercussions. Jessica Thomson passed away in 2007, taking her secrets with her.
The connection to Jessica Thomson, her strange behavior, and the uncracked code, all began to point towards a much larger, more complex narrative than a simple suicide or accidental death.
The Theories – Unpacking the Bizarre
The confluence of unusual circumstances in the Somerton Man case – the lack of identification, the removed labels, the suspected poisoning, the hidden code, and the connection to a woman who seemed to be hiding something – quickly led many to believe that the Somerton Man was a spy.
Think about it. The year was 1948. The Cold War was just beginning to heat up. Espionage was rampant across the globe. The idea that an agent, perhaps from the Soviet Union or another foreign power, could have been operating in Australia, and then been eliminated by rival agents or even his own side, fits many of the strange details we’ve uncovered. An agent would certainly have no identification, and their clothes would have all labels removed to prevent any trace back to their origin. The suspected poisoning, with no discernible trace, is also a classic method for intelligence agencies to eliminate targets without leaving obvious forensic evidence. And that hidden code? Well, that just screams “spycraft,” doesn’t it? A code that has remained unbroken for decades suggests a highly sophisticated cipher. The “Tamám Shud” phrase itself, meaning “ended” or “finished,” could be a dead man’s switch, a signal that a mission was complete, or that his life was simply over. Even Australia, while seemingly remote, was a strategic location during the Cold War, involved in intelligence gathering and scientific research. And Jessica Thomson’s behavior – her fear, her denial, her daughter’s later claims of her speaking Russian and believing he was a spy – all add significant weight to this theory. Could she have been a handler, a contact, or even a fellow agent? This spy theory is incredibly compelling because it provides a framework that explains almost all the bizarre elements of the case, suggesting a world of hidden operations, secret identities, and ruthless eliminations. However, without concrete proof, without cracking the code, and without a confirmed identity, it remains, tantalizingly, just a theory.
But what if it’s not a spy story? What if it’s something more mundane, though still tragic? The initial thought was always suicide by poisoning. The pathologist was convinced he was poisoned, even without finding the substance. Perhaps he ingested a fast-acting, untraceable poison. The “Tamám Shud” phrase could simply be a final, poetic message, indicating he was “finished” with life. However, the lack of a container for the poison, the deliberate removal of all labels from his clothing, and the hidden code don’t quite fit the typical pattern of a simple suicide. Why go to such lengths to erase your identity if you’re just ending your life?
Then there’s the possibility of a tragic accident or a natural death that was simply misdiagnosed due to the strange circumstances. While the pathologist suspected poison, the official cause of death was “unknown.” Could he have had an undiagnosed medical condition that led to his sudden collapse and death on the beach? Perhaps a heart attack or a stroke that left no obvious external signs. But even if the death was natural, it still doesn’t explain the missing labels, the hidden code, or the strange behavior of Jessica Thomson. Those elements point to something far more deliberate than a simple medical event.
Some have even speculated about a romance gone wrong, a secret affair that ended in tragedy. Perhaps the Rubaiyat was a gift from a lover, and the code was a private message between them. The “Tamám Shud” could signify the end of a relationship, leading to despair. And the poisoning could have been an act of revenge or a desperate pact. This theory tries to explain the Jessica Thomson connection, but it still struggles with the sheer level of secrecy and the spy-like elements of the case.
Modern Developments – DNA and New Hope
For decades, the case of the Somerton Man remained cold, a persistent whisper in the annals of unsolved mysteries. His body was embalmed and buried, with the hope that one day, he could be identified.
In the 21st century, with the advent of advanced DNA technology, new hope emerged. In 2011, the Somerton Man’s remains were exhumed. Investigators hoped to extract DNA that could finally identify him or link him to a family.
The initial DNA analysis was difficult due to the age and condition of the remains, but in 2022, a significant breakthrough was announced. Professor Derek Abbott, a researcher who had been obsessed with the case for years, working with a forensic genealogist, claimed to have identified the Somerton Man.
Using DNA from hairs found on the man’s bust (a plaster cast made of his head during the original investigation), they were able to trace his family tree. Their research pointed to a man named Carl Webb.
According to their findings, Carl Webb was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1905. He was an electrical engineer and instrument maker. He had a history of marital problems and had reportedly disappeared from his family’s life.
This identification, if confirmed, would be a monumental step. It would give the Somerton Man a name, a history, and a family. However, even with an identification, many questions would still remain. If he was from Melbourne, why was he in Adelaide, on Somerton Beach? And why were all the labels from his clothes removed? This is still highly suspicious for a seemingly ordinary man. What killed him? The cause of death remains officially unknown. And what about the “Tamám Shud” scrap and that intricate code? How does it fit into Carl Webb’s life? And perhaps most importantly, how did Carl Webb know Jessica Thomson? Was she a secret lover, a friend, or was there a deeper connection related to the spy theory?
The identification of Carl Webb, while incredibly promising, doesn’t immediately unravel the entire web of mystery surrounding the Somerton Man. It gives him a name, but the circumstances of his death, the hidden code, and the strange connections still beg for answers. It’s possible that Carl Webb was simply a man with a troubled personal life who died under unusual circumstances, and the spy theory is just a red herring. Or, perhaps, Carl Webb was involved in something far more clandestine, a secret life that only now, decades later, is beginning to surface.
The Enduring Enigma
The Somerton Man remains one of the most compelling and frustrating cold cases in history. It’s a story that has everything: an unknown victim, a beautiful beach, a suspected poisoning, a hidden code, a mysterious woman, and the tantalizing whisper of Cold War espionage.
Despite modern DNA technology bringing us closer to an identity, the core questions persist. What truly happened to the man on Somerton Beach? Was he a heartbroken lover, a desperate runaway, or a secret agent caught in a deadly game? What did that code mean? And what secret did Jessica Thomson take to her grave?
The “Tamám Shud” man, the man whose life “ended” on that quiet Australian shore, continues to haunt us. His story is a chilling reminder that sometimes, even with the passage of time and the advancement of science, some secrets remain stubbornly buried, leaving us with nothing but questions, speculation, and the enduring echo of a strange, dark, and mysterious enigma.
What do you think happened to the Somerton Man? Let me know your theories in the comments below. And until our next strange, dark, and mysterious tale, stay curious, and stay safe.
