Saturday 25 November 2017

SOMERTON MAN: THE GRINGMUTH NOTATION




The image above shows a cutting from a wiki, it is headed ICCF which I think stands for 'International Chess Federation". The numbers you see therein represent chess moves, there were many ways that these moves were described but this method was specifically for chess by correspondence and also, most interestingly, Chess played by radio.

PAKIES CLUB


In July 1947, the renowned Pakies Club played host to such a game of chess by radio between Australia and the UK.
It gets interesting when you realise that when playing chess in this mode, the whole of the transmission is in morse code. Even more interesting when you look at the code page:









Each of the first 4 lines begins with the letter 'M' in two distinct styles. In the Gringmuth notation/code, the letter M represents the Black and what follows in each line is a potentially a series of chess moves. But, what about the numbers? Where are they? See below, the numbers are in the ICCF code and hidden inside each letter.



Our friend Fedor Nosov a TASS journalist and spy, often played chess and was a frequent visitor to Pakies not to mention of course his 1947 visit to South Australia to talk about, amongst other things, the game of chess.

This fascinating piece of information has come to me via a long-term follower of this blog, Rowan, and many thanks to him not only for this most interesting detail but also more which we will publish in due course. This will hopefully include a very interesting article written by Rowan, just waiting for final permissions.

Before anyone gets overly excited, Rowan pointed out that he first saw information about the Gringmuth Notation in a 1949 article about the Somerton Man and the work done by a number of amateur code breakers at that time. They did not succeed in cracking the code, but then again, they were not aware of what lay hidden within each letter.

The next step from here is to connect with suitably qualified code/cypher people and see what if anything can be recovered that matches this coding method.

Whilst I have spent a good deal of time examining the page and its content, it has always puzzled me why the code was written the way it is, surely if someone wanted to write in microcode they would have hidden it within a normal letter or a poem as indeed was the case with Verse 70.

This new information now opens up the possibility that the reason why it was a series of letters is that the person who wrote it was recording a series of chess moves the details of which were coming over the radio and in morse code:



Those who have had experience at using morse code would know that when receiving a message you didn't write down the dots and dashes, you translated them on the fly into letters or numbers.
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Friday 24 November 2017

SOMERTON MAN: UNUSUAL NEWS ABOUT THE TAMAM SHUD TORN PIECE>>>



Talking with Clive and Pete Bowes recently about a number of topics and a comment came from  Pete regarding the torn piece, in particular about when it was found. Pete has since done a very interesting post on the topic and it certainly worth a read on his blog here..

Back to this post, there does seem to be some murkiness surrounding just when the slip was found, we have Cleland saying he found it first in April 49 but nothing in the press around that month well at least as far as I have searched, it was late June before the news was really out there.

But, and it's a big but, on 23rd July 1949, there was an article in the Advertiser, it discussed the whole case and made specific mention of the torn piece and it says that when he was found on December 1st 1948..'  all he had in his pockets was a train ticket, a bus ticket and a neatly trimmed piece of paper with the printed words TAMAM SHUD. Now this of course could be a journalistic error but what a strange mistake to make, read on...



TODAY'S PICTURE of the book "Omar Khayyam" (top) found last November in the back seat of a car which had been left parked in Jetty road, Glenelg. The last line in the book has been torn out. BELOW—The fragment of paper found in the clothing of the Somerton victim which may have been torn from the book.

A copy of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" with a torn page which has been sought by police throughout Australia in the hope that it might provide the missing clue to the identity of the mystery Somerton body, has been found in Adelaide.

Last night an Adelaide businessman read of the search in "The News" and recalled that in November he had found a copy of the book which had been thrown on the back seat of his car while it was parked in Jetty road, Glenelg. The book, the last page of which is torn, has been handed to police. If scientific tests, to be con-ducted next week, show the scrap of paper found on the dead man's clothing had been taken from the book, police will have brought off a million-to-one chance. 

On December 1, when the body of the mystery man was found on Somerton beach, police discovered that the name tags had been cut from the clothing and all he had in his pockets was a train ticket, a bus ticket, and a neatly trimmed piece of paper with the printed words "Taman Shud." Investigators found that these words had been used by Omar Khayyam at the end of his verses and meant "the end" or "the finish." A study of the printing indicated that the words might have been torn from a copy of Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam. In the belief that if the book could be found it might show the movements of the man before his death, police through-out Australia have been looking for it. The finder of the book today handed it to Det.-Sgt. R. L. Leane. On the last page the words "Taman Shud" had been torn out. On the back of the book are several telephone numbers and a series of capital letters, written in pencil, the meaning of which have not yet been deciphered. As the scrap of paper found on the dead man had been trimmed, police were unable to identify the book merely by fitting it into the torn page. Proof will now rest with tests on the paper and the print.
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Wednesday 22 November 2017

SOMERTON MAN: UPCOMING PRESENTATION UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY



PRESENTATION AT UTS THIS 

WEDNESDAY 23rd NOVEMBER 2017


For all interested, Rowan Holmes is giving a short presentation about his study of the Somerton Man Case.

In a message from Rowan, he makes it clear that this presentation has been considerably compressed to meet the tight time schedules of the day. As a consequence, he would like people to know that the presentation is more for the new follower of the SM story rather than those who have already amassed knowledge of the case.

Here are the details:

ROWAN HOLMES, THE SOMERTON MAN CASE

The time slot for this presentation is between 3.30 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. Wednesday 23rd November 2017

UTS SYDNEY

ROOM Number: CB05B.04.038

Here's a map of the campus for those attending


We wish Rowan well in his continued study of the case and look forward to hearing more from him.


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Monday 20 November 2017

SOMERTON MAN: GERRY FELTUS, THE UNKNOWN MAN EBOOK DOWNLOAD URLs



The Unkown Man book by ex-Detective Sergeant Gerry Feltus has now been released as an eBook, it can be accessed for direct reading or download at the following locations:


Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074H8QJ94

Amazon Aus: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B074H8QJ94

Booktopia – https://www.booktopia.com.au/....

Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/the-unknown-man-2

iTunes AU – https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-unknown-man/id1266569434

If you haven't already bought a copy, it is seriously recommended, it's factual because it's been well written by a seasoned 'old style copper' who well deserves the respect and admiration of us all. Gerry first published his book in 2010 and since then he has sold copies not only in Australia but also 23 countries around the world. That is one huge achievement, I understand from Gerry that he'll be taking things a little easier for a while, I wish you well GF!

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Monday 13 November 2017

SOMERTON MAN: INTRODUCING ROWAN



ROWAN HOLMES

A Most interesting Paper...


Recently I posted on the issue of the code page and the fact that Pakies Club had, in 1948, organised and hosted an international Chess tournament to be played on the radio. In those days they used morse code for the purpose of transmitting various moves.

The information about the Pakies Chess game came from Rowan Holmes, a quick-witted, intelligent and enthusiastic follower of all things Somerton Man and in fact many of those things that surround the case. Whilst I knew of the association with some high profile chess players, Fedor Nosov comes to mind, it was the first time I personally had heard mention of the use of radio and ipso facto, morse code.

It was Clive who found a reference to a recently published and very interesting paper on the Somerton Man, and I gratefully and yet again acknowledge Clive's invaluable input.

Clive found the paper on the globalhistories.com website it had been written by Rowan. In it he demonstrated his extensive knowledge on the subject, he tested some of the notions in the field and put forward a number of ideas for consideration.

I contacted Rowan and we have had a number of online discussions on various topics within the range of the SM case and sometimes extending out from there.

My view is that Rowan is someone who can add a great deal to the whole SM conversation, he has an open mind and brings a fresh and engaging approach to the table.

I heartily recommend that you read Rowan's paper:


I will mention that in his paper he spoke about the use of Microcode and subsequently it became a topic of one of our conversations. I put forward some information that Rowan was not aware of at the time of his writing and he very kindly acknowledged certain aspects, here's his comment:


I have been asked to add some clarificatory remarks to my paper by Gordon Cramer, administrator of the 'Tamám Shud' blog mentioned in the text, and I am more than happy to do so.

In the first place Mr Cramer asks me to point out that his own background is that of a police detective rather than an intelligence worker.

Secondly, I would like to correct a possible misapprehension regarding the potential presence of micro-writing within the letters of the still-unsolved code found in the back cover of the Rubáiyát associated with the dead man. On p. 154 of my article I stated my opinion that claims about the existence of this writing “seem hard to sustain” given their provenance in a heavily enlarged photograph of ink tracings of the code. The tracings were derived from inscription marks made on the back page of the book as the original code passage was written above it on a page which was then torn out of the book and has never been recovered.

Mr Cramer has discussed his views with me and I think it only fair to pass them on to the audience. The particular technique of micro-writing writing which he feels was being used, the 'Ink H' method, was a known component of the repertoire of the WWII British covert operation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Details of this method of micro-writing can be found in the official operations manual of the SOE, recently released by the Imperial War Museum. Mr Cramer believes that the special physical properties of this method would survive the technical limitations I have mentioned, and yield themselves to analysis of the sort that he has done.

The reader will already have gathered that I respect the research of Mr Cramer in a general sense; for instance, I spend some time discussing his identification of 'Somerton Man' as Pavel Fedosimov, which my own research suggests is at least one of the best possibilities, and which should be made the subject of further research by those unfortunates taking an interest in this very strange case. I do not have the expertise to evaluate the specific claims of micro-writing, and I take note of various objections made by various parties, but at the same time it should be said that it would at least be extremely difficult to prove that there is not micro-writing present in the code and possibly in other material connected to the case, as suggested by Mr Cramer. It is still an open question which awaits further research. 


Welcome aboard Mr. Holmes, I am sure that your contributions will be very welcome, I am sure that Clive and  Pete Bowes over at the TomsByTwo blog will join me in acknowledging your work and in stating that we all look forward to hearing more from you.


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Wednesday 8 November 2017

SOMERTON MAN: THE STORY OF RED


PUTTING THE JELLYFISH 

BEFORE DESCARTE


For those who enjoy the stories of the Bohemian set in Sydney, a book, 15 years in the writing was launched on November 2nd in Melbourne.

A story of two political idealist families, the book is a mine of information about the years between the wars with the use of ASIO files, talk of spies, Pakies and what book about idealists would be complete without Bob Wake?

My copy's been ordered and delighted to see that 'Clive Knows Best' :)

Read on here...
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Learn more about, when the blog started our location plus a long list of 'finds' and new evidence discovered by this blog