SOMERTON MAN: TIBOR KALDOR DIRECT LINK TO THE CODE PAGE?

Above is a clip from Tibor's last letter, it is, in fact, the first page to the bottom right of that page.

 you should be able to relatively clearly make out micro written numbers with some letters within the marked/elliptical areas; they are darker grey against a light grey background, you will need to let your eyes rest and become accustomed to the shade differences.

To the top right of this image is another clip overlayed and outlined in a rectangular red box. It is from another instance of microcode and you will see that the arrow is pointing at a small letter 'x'. Not in particular the style of that 'x', t is stylised to the extent that the lower part of the two strokes are slightly curved. Now compare that 'x' to the one on Tibor's letter, it also has a small arrow pointing to it. they are very similar in shape enough to suggest that they could have been written by the same person.

For the record, the micro-writing in the rectangle was lifted from the code page from a location just beneath and between the first letter S and A on the last line.

The good news is that Tibor's letter is still in existence and we have access to it for further examination. We'll update you as soon as we have any fresh information.

SOMERTON MAN: THE CARDAN GRILLE AND VERSE 70

THE CARDAN GRILLE

This templates above were an essential part of the 'Cardan Grille' code. It dates back to 1550 and was invented by Giralamo Cardan. In most cases a cardboard or paper template would have holes cut into it. When this template was placed on top of a written page, certain letters would show through the holes revealing the message. Variations include using a printed book page or a jumble of letters.

Consider the function of this device, it acts in such a way as to leave visible only the target words and letters of the message. Most importantly, by default, it positions the words and letters precisely by covering up the superfluous information on the page.

DOES THIS APPLY TO VERSE 70?

In Verse 70, we already have the letters' in fact a name, DANETTA, which I would imagine would be easier to memorise than a set of letters.  The question now is, in the absence of a grille device, how do we point our accomplice to the correct letters. I say that because there are a number of words that contain similar letters to those required to spell out the name DANETTA. The idea is to have the exact right letters because it is they that have the secret, hidden, micro written code.

A careful reading of the passage would reveal letters that would spell out the target name but we had a number of letters to choose from. To reveal the correct letters you need to know the right line and position for each 'message' letter and we may need to know the right sentence. Could the answer be that we would have been given a set of sequential numbers as in 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 or maybe even just the last number as in '7'? In other words, you would choose only those letters that matched the sequential number code. As Milongal discovered with the letter 'e', choose the wrong one and you don't get the sequence.

What I am saying is that this or a very similar code may well have been used to hide the word Danetta in Verse 70 and to recover it.

One enthusiastic and boisterous commenter went so far as to claim that he could find the same name hidden in almost any passage, but it's not that simple, it has to be the right letters and they must have the right sequence as in physical position within a line and/or sentence or other markers such as the end or beginning of a paragraph.

This is not a case of confirmation bias, this is the result of research. What needs to happen now is that it should be tested and that will be done in the next post on the topic. Comments are welcome, would be interested to hear your thoughts.

SOMERTON MAN: TIBOR KALDOR DEATH CERTIFICATES 1945, UPDATED 22/06/18 Translation

TWO TIBOR KALDOR DEATH CERTIFICATES FROM  AUSTRIA 1945

The two certificates above were forwarded by a friend from Austria, they relate to two men named Tibor Kaldor who died in the same hospital within just weeks of each other. Sadly they had both been victims of the Holocaust.

You will note that these documents are in German and I have a translation underway. What I know is that one of these men was born in April 1904, just a little older than the Tibor Kaldor who supposedly took his own life in Adelaide in 1948.

I have posted these as they form part of the story of Tibor, whether there is any connection I really don't know at this time. Now that we have someone on the ground in Austria, perhaps we will be able to unearth more information.

Update 22/06/18. 1800 hrs
The updates are translations of the two Death Certificates for the men known as Tibor Kaldor. We sadly don't know their individual ages or occupations. just writing this post is quite distressing.

Translation:
1)
Name Tibor KALDOR
male
Birthday and place unknown
Death: 22. May 1945
profession unknown
Residence unknown
Death Place Wels, Hospital, Dr. Schauerstrasse 9
Doctor looks at the body  22. May 8 a.m.
Illness
Enteritis
Marasmus
Kreisläufschwäche – Circulatory Weakness
died because Kreislaufschwäche –“-
Doctor – Dr. Dressler
Wels, 22. May 1945 – Dr. Schnitzler

2)
Tibor KALDOR
male
Birthday and Place unknown
died 26. May 1945, 5 a.m.
profession unknown
Death Place Gymnasium Hospital, Wels
Doctor looks at the body 26. May 1945 8 a.m.
Illness
Fleckfieber – Typhus Fever
Kreislaufschwäche – look 1)
died because Kreislaufschwäche –“-
Doctor Dr. Dressler
Wels, 26. May 1945 – Dr. Schnitzler

SOMERTON MAN: ThE QUESTION OF CODES

A fair bit of time spent on codes lately! What we have thus far is an acrostic code found in Tibor Kaldor's last letter, this has been examined further and we have been able to add more information on the implementation of this particular code. What we found was that apart from the standard acrostic code which relies on first letters of specific words, In this case DANETTA, there was also a numerical sequence which were shown to relate to the position of the carrier words of the code within the message.

We found what may well be another piece of code in an ad placed by Prosper related to a Tudor Gold watch which had been lost somewhere in Adelaide City or suburbs on an undetermined date. The code in this ad also had a numerical sequence attached to the placement of letters within words.

More recently, Milongal from Cipher Mysteries set out on a task to prove if possible that what we were seeing was 'confirmation bias', he looked at the Verse 70 piece and found that the word DANETTA could be derived from it, this was a letters only exercise but it showed that the name was decidedly present but was it a pure coincidence? I went through and checked it and found that once again there was a sequential numerical sequence such that the carrier words were accurately positioned within the verse.

A word or two on confirmation bias, here's a definition:

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses.

In this case, there were no pre-existing beliefs that I held, the original acrostic code was uncovered by an acrostic decoder not by me. Thus anything that followed was by way of additional research on what had already been found and I shared that via this blog. What was found was the fact that in the case of Verse 70, not only was the name DANETTA uncovered by Milongal but we also found that the words that carried the individual letters of DANETTA had a definite logical, numerical sequence. To further support that, the Verse 70 acrostic was not found by me but by Milongal and a great piece of work it has turned out to be. It stands to be tested and that's as it should be.

We can say the same about microcode and micro-writing, these things exist and have been substantiated both in terms of their existence and in terms of their use by various intelligence agencies over the years. What I have done is highlight that and to demonstrate the techniques used. That is decidedly not confirmation bias. If we were to accept that 'rule' then there would be no experimentation and no progress made in any field of endeavour ever. It strikes me that 'confirmation bias' is word wrongly applied on many occasions much as 'Occam's razor' has been wrongly applied for years.

Let me repeat that micro writing is on the code page and in verse 70, it has been proven beyond any doubt and I stand by that. I have shown images of  micro writing on the code page and in Verse 70 and I have demonstrated exactly how micro writing and micro code is executed. No if's no buts and no question.

I respect the rights of others to hold their views and I have no problem if their views conflict with mine, it's their right. I passionately believe in people not being demeaned, belittled or denigrated when they put forward their ideas which may challenge ours. On the contrary, they are to be encouraged and respected. Their ideas should be examined, questioned and tested fairly and openly not just put down because it goes against the status quo.

Here endeth the lesson :)

SOMERTON MAN: SOE/MI6 CONNECTION TO TIBOR KALDOR UNCOVERED. Updated 21/06/18

WW2 BBC RADIO CODED MESSAGES 

In an amazing piece of investigation and follow through, Clive came across what could be the most important piece of information that links an SOE/MI6 operative to Tibor Kaldor.

A great deal of work has been done over the past 18 months on Tibor and his sad ending, in the most recent posts we uncovered and shared the use of a particular number sequence that pointed to the name DANETTA. Followers will recall that this name was first uncovered using n Acrostic Decoder.

This last discovery was a major boost to our theory that Tibor was somehow involved in Espionage. The knowledge and skill required to encode his last words whilst we believe he was under extraordinary duress, could not have been anything other than the result of training. But who could have taught him?

The Referee

We'll cut to the chase here, during WW2, under the direction of the Special Operations Executive, BBC London used to send clandestine/coded messages to members of the resistance in France and other countries. These messages were created by SOE and then read out by announcers including the legendary Alvar Liddel. In the clip above you can listen to some of those messages. It goes without saying that interpreters provided by SOE were needed as many of the messages were transmitted in the appropriate language for the target region.

One such person directly involved in this work of coding and translating was a name that we first came across whilst researching documents related to Tibor Kaldor. 

That name was Miss Elizabeth Bethune Stainforth:

She was one of 3 referees who provided evidence of good character for Tibor in his application for citizenship. Here we have a clear and direct link between an SOE operative and Tibor Kaldor.

Elizabeth was an employee working under the guise of the BBC on the translation and coding of secret messages.

There is work underway to find out as much as we can about Elizabeth, we do know the following:

1. There is no record of her having traveled to Australia from the UK until March 1951.
2. There is no record that we have been able find thus far of her arriving in Australia at any time
3. It is known that she attended and worked at the first meeting of the UN in the UK in January 1946, a meeting attended by many well-known diplomats and their aides including one Pavel Fedosimov.

This is the first in a planned series of articles on this topic, it seems to Clive and myself that this is very likely the beginning of the unraveling of the whole story.

Below are the signed certificates from the 3 referees, note that Elizabeth's surname is underlined. Will be checking Tibor's writing against this signature. Given that Elizabeth supposedly wasn't in Australia at the time, one wonders how Tibor would have known her. Time to ask some FOI questions I suspect.

The name Elizabeth Bethune Stainforth is an unusual one being partially Scottish and English, we are checking to see if we can find others of that name in Australia at that time. As you will see there is no photograph in the article and we will do our best to see if we can trace one down. Final point, the headline shows that this Elizabeth Stainforth not only worked for the BBC, she also worked with displaced persons, the latter point being of particular interest.

Update, 21/06/18:

We have a Miss Elizabeth Stainforth, a teacher at Garden Vale, Melbourne, she was heading off to the UK on a teacher exchange programme around the same time that the Somerton Man was found. Could this be the lady who signed the form? A good possibility. Well, it looked promising for a while. This of course has no effect on the nature of the various codes found in Tibor's last letter, the strange Tudor Watch ad nor the findings of Milongal in Verse 70.

Plus this information from the UK, it shows that an Elizabeth Bethune Stainforth did indeed leave the UK bound for Melbourne in 1951as well as other ladies with a similar name,  Elizabeth H Stainforth being one of them who departed the UK for Melbourne.

SOMERTON MAN: PROSPER LINKED TO TIBOR : THE UNRAVELLING?

PROSPER LINK TO TIBOR

Many will remember this ad, it was placed by Prosper Thomson on 18th December 1948 in the Adelaide Advertiser. Many have remarked on how strange this ad was. A very valuable gold watch, which the Tudor was, in fact, the company was later bought out by Rolex, yet strangely no day, date or time that the watch was lost and nothing precise about the location. More about that a little further down the page. 

As you know Clive and I have been working hard at this particular Tibor Kaldor lead for some time and the issue of the acrostic code found more than 18 months ago reared it's head once again in the post previous to this one. Not only had we found an acrostic coded name but we also found a strict numerical sequence for the carrier words and letters within that code, 4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10.

The ad above reads as follows:

"CITY or suburbs. Tudor gold watch.  Nearly new, good reward. Thomson, 90a Moseley St, Glenelg  X 3239"  

Now let's look in particular at the first 4 words:

"CITY or suburbs. Tudor gold watch.  Nearly new, good reward. Thomson, 90a Moseley St, Glenelg  X 3239" 

Inside those first 4 words, "CITY or SUBURBS. TUDOR" are the letters of the name TIBOR, could that be a coincidence do you think? Well, before you make that decision, let's take a look at the placement of those letters within the carrier words:

T = 1st letter in Tudor

I = 2nd letter in City

B = 3rd letter in Suburbs

O = 4th letter in Tudor

R = 5th letter in TudorThis ad appeared on the 18th of December, just 4 days after Tibor's apparent suicide.

Yet again, as in Tibor's last letter and the acrostic name, we have another strict numerical sequence pointing out the letters and resulting in the name:

1,2,3,4 and 5

What's more, the same approach has been used as in a reversed sequence, the letters move from right to left positions and then back again to the right. In Tibor's last letter, the letters moved from towards the end of the shortened paragraph to the first line of the message and then back down again.

Is this part of the unraveling that we have been working towards? Before we can be absolutely certain, there is more to do and follow up on not the least of which is the yet to be released post on more words found in Tibor's last letter and they also follow a logical sequence.

What do you think Pete Bowes?

It was a standard tradecraft practice for seemingly dumb ads to be placed as a form of clandestine communication, Prosper's ad certainly appears to fit the bill.

SOMERTON MAN: TIBOR KALDOR, 4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 ,ANOTHER CODE BREAKTHROUGH

THE LAST LETTER

Above you can see the enhanced image of Tibor's last letter, in many ways it appears to be a sad but simple suicide note but, as followers of this blog would know, when we passed this letter through an Acrostic decoder, we found a name hidden in the words/letters of the first paragraph. See below:

The name was Danetta and you can see how the individual letters were, I believe, skillfully placed and they conformed to the standards of acrostic codes being the first letters of specific words. It is important to note that no other names or suspect words were found by the decoding exercise within this letter.

We should also take note of the fact that the message itself started in the second sentence of the letter, not the first. Neither did it commence in the salutation, 'Dear Sir'. This complies with the general guidelines given by SOE for example about avoiding obvious keys or indicators to the existence of a secret message in what should be to all accounts an 'Innocent Letter'. In fact, they specifically made mention of the dangers associated with the salutation in particular.

Hidden codes can comprise a number of techniques, acrostic, and its variations were discussed in the last post on this subject. Agents were encouraged to use flexibility in the way they built their messages to minimise the likelihood of discovery.

ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH?

Closer examination of the letter revealed a numerical sequence associated with the name DANETTA. As you have read, various techniques and combinations of techniques were used in clandestine communications. Acrostic is one, Playfair codes another and anagrams played a part in some coded messages.

To the point, when a code is first put together, the person who creates it uses a draft to help plan the layout and location of the letters to be hidden. In this case, it appears that Tibor may well have used numbers to plan his message.

The basic aspect of an Acrostic code is that it would normally use the first letter of specific words and that these words would be positioned in a paragraph, a sentence or a line. The exact position would be numbered. I decided to check the numbers that may be associated with the name DANETTA in the first paragraph of Tibor's letter. Bear in mind that the locations referred to could be within the paragraph, within one of the five lines or within a specific sentence.

To add a little spice, Tibor reversed some of these characters, that is he started the letters in the word from the bottom working upwards to the top and then down the paragraph.

THE TASK

The task was to spell out DANETTA. He opted to commence the message with the second sentence and with the 4th line of the message as the starting point:

Line 4, the 8th and 9th words from the last word of the paragraph, 'decision' and 'a'. We now have the first two letters of the name and the numbers are 8 and 9.

Line 3, the 10th word of the second sentence of the message 'Nobody'. We now have the letters DAN and the numbers 8,9 and 10 associated with them.

Second sentence and Second line in the paragraph, line 1 of the message, 5th word 'end', we now have the 'e' and a part name DANE. The number tally thus far is : 5,8,9,10.

At this point Tibor 'reversed' the code and started working down the paragraph.

Line 2 of the message (line 3 of the paragraph), 6th word, 'tablets'. This gives us the part name DANET and the number tally is now: 5,6,8,9,10.

Again line 2 of the message, 7th word in that line, 'The', we now have the part name DANETT and the number tally: 5,6,7,8,9 and 10. For the uninformed, two of the same letters normally cancel each other out in a coded message but this is not a standard code, this is an acrostic which is about all of the letters to be found and an anagram which mixes the various letters so the word is not instantly revealed.

We are left with a missing letter 'a'. Move down another line to line 4 of the message (line5 of the paragraph) and the 4th word in is the letter 'a', it has been used twice but there are no known rules about that :). We now have the full name DANETTA and we have a set of 'positioning' numbers:

4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10

Earlier in this post, I mentioned the use of anagrams and so if we look strictly at the sequence of letters moving from top to bottom we would have: ETTNADA with the A repeated as shown.

A coincidence? I think not.

There is another exercise underway that looks very promising. Anyone is welcome to do some research and attempt to find and crack open any hidden content in this, Tibor's last letter. 

For those interested, below is a 3-page excerpt from the SOE Innocent Letter tutorial: