So,
In 1948 there was a mysterious man found on an Austrailian beach, it was December 1st when local enforcement were first called to the scene.
The evening before November 30th at around 7pm a couple taking an evening walk saw a man on the beach, cross legged and with one arm in the air, assuming he was drunk, trying to light a smoke they ignored him and carried on their walk, had they investigated maybe this atory would end up being different? who knows!
Around 30 minutes later a second couple walked passed and saw a man in a similar position, they noticed that he had flies and mosquitos on his face, one jokingly said "he must be dead to the world to ignore those flies", they also assumed he was a drunk and walked on past.
11 years later another person came foward with their accounts on that evening, he stated that he had been to the same beach in the early hours of the morning and saw a man carrying another unconcious man over his sholder, towards the location that the body was later discovered, it was dark and he was unable to identify either of the men he had seen, why he kept this knowledge for 11 years is unsure, was he apart of it? why didnt he report anything?
at around 6:30 am the next day (1st december) the husband from the first couple returned to the beach for an early morning swim with a friend, he says he saw some men on horseback in the same area that he saw the man the evening before, feeling intrigued he approched the location to find a man in the same position as the evening before, he claims he didnt see the mans face the night before so was unable to comment on if it was the same person or not, he did however find it a bit weird and contacted the police.
the little information on this man is listed below
He was 5'11" (180 cm).
He had grey eyes.
His hair was a mousy ginger color, greying around the sides and receding in the front.
He was estimated to be between 40 and 50 years old.
He was uncircumcized.
He weighed between 165-175 pounds (75-80kg).
He was missing 18 teeth, including his 2 lateral incisors, which were most likely never grown in due to a genetic defect.
He had small scars on this left wrist, left forearm, and left elbow.
His hands and feet were clean and callous-free, indicating he did not do manual labor.
upon investigating the body, Dr John Barkley indicated that the gent had passed away at around 2am due to the onset of Rigor Mortis, the cause of death was heart failure due to potential poisoning, since revealing this the time of death has been questioned due to the affects poison has on rigor mortis.
the only posessions this man had on him were as followed, a train ticket from Adelaid to Henley Beach, a bus ticket from Adelaide to Glenelg, a pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum, some Bryant & May matches, an aluminum comb, and a pack of Army Club cigarettes containing seven cigarettes of another, more expensive brand called Kensitas. The man was smartly dressed in a suit and heeled shoes, but the maker's labels had been snipped out of the clothes. He was wearing a knit pullover and double-breasted coat which is weird, because although i can not find the weather for that year/day, december in adelade is usually between 23c&18c(according to an online weather report). One pocket of his trousers had torn, and been neatly repaired using orange thread.
A full autopsy preformed on 2nd December revealed more detail, The man’s leg muscles were very high and toned and his feet were oddly pointed. this suggests he had worn high heeled and pointed shoes, possibly a ballet dancer. Also his pupils were smaller than normal, his spleen was three times the usual size, the liver was distended with congested blood, his stomach contained more blood, aswell as the remains of a pasty(atleast he had eaten, maybe thats how he was poisoned?!). Due to these reasonings this strengthened the poisoning theory, but lab tests revealed no traces of any known poison. The pasty was also tested, and came back negative, attending pathologist, John Dwyer, was astounded that nothing was found. Thomas Cleland, the coroner, later suggested that there were two deadly poisons that decomposed in the body in a short time, leaving no trace behind(is this even possible?)
It soon became obvious that this wasnt just a case of a man randomly dying of natural causes while on a beach retreat, the police had taken the finger prints and ran them through the data base revealing nothing (how annoying) they also released photos of the deceased man in the local papers to see if anyone recognised him. also this had no leads, after all attempts locally had failed and the fact that the gent wasnt dressed for the location or the weather, they opened up the investigation to the wider population, a call to local buisnesses asking about any abandoned luggage/empy hotel rooms etc. brought the cases first break! (yay)
A brown suitcase had been deposited to the Adelaide Railway Station’s cloakroom on November 30(the day before police were called), and never picked up. It was now January 12 the property was now considered abandoned, staff remembered nothing about the person who had dropped it off. However, a search of its contents produced a promising item. A reel of a rare orange Barbour thread apparently not found in Australia, was among the items in the suitcase. This thread was a perfect match for the orange thread used to repair the Unknown Man’s trouser pocket. Between that unlikely match, and the luggage being dropped off on the day before the body was discovered, it seemed almost certain that this suitcase belonged to the Somerton Man. However they were soon dissapointed, the contents of the suitcase held no other clues as to who the man was.
Several months later, while looking through the evidence the police found a hidden pocket in the gents suit, upon opening the stitching for this hidden area they found it contained one piece of paper with a code and the words "Tamám Shud", Frank Kennedy a local police reporter, instantly knew what the words meant. A twelfth century book of poetry, the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", had become quite popular in Australia during the war, especially a translation by Edward Fitzgerald. “Taman Shud” was a Persian phrase that closed the final page of the book, loosely translated to “It is ended” or “The End, the police had a new lead, they needed to find the a copy of the book that missing that page, the last page in the book(the paper from the pocket came from that book) eventually in July 1949 a man from Glenelg, slightly north of Somerton Beach(there was a bus ticket to here found on the dead body), brought a copy of the book to the Adelaide police station. The final page, which had contained the phrase “Taman Shud,” was torn out. Testing revealed the scrap of paper matched one that used in the book. The Glenelg man explained that just after the body had been discovered in December of the prior year, he had gone for a drive and left the car parked near Somerton Beach. They found a copy of the Rubaiyat in the back seat of the car, but both silently assumed the other had left it there, and threw it in the glove compartment without another thought. It wasn’t until a news report mentioned the police search for the book that the man realized he might be holding key evidence, by some wild coincidence it was the same copy of the book that they had meen looking for, the paper, the print everything was a direct match to this copy, now knowing what the book was and who wrote it, they approched the NZ based company who released this edition, only to find they did not release the edition this man had, this was a completley unique edition they couldnt find another copy of this edition so, once again, they had nothing.
to this day this case is unsolved, do you think you can crack the code? do you think you may know the Somerton Man? i mean, if you do i dont know who you can tell but that bit sounded good..
LINKS TO PICTURES FOUND ONLINE BELOW
the-mystery-of-the-somerton-man-taman-shud-case.webp (700×559) (saymedia-content.com)