The Image above is of the code page with the ink removed and showing the microcode
PART 1. THE CODE PAGE AND
THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
We can't really talk about the code page without first learning as much as we can about the copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam that was found and associated with the Somerton Man. This association was made by virtue of the small slip of paper, the 'torn piece' found rolled up tightly and pushed down into a hard to find fob pocket of the Somerton Man's trousers. It was on a page of this book that was found a written, supposed, code and some telephone numbers.
First, The Rubaiyat:
Below is an image of the outer dust cover for the book, you can see that it belonged to the Courage and Friendship series.
Some more facts:
The first known adverts for this book appeared in a Sydney Newspaper in 1942.
The series was published in a range of pale colours featuring two colours in a copy.
The edges of the book cover were 'YAPPED', that is they were slightly bent over and inwards to protect the edges of the pages. You should be able to see the outline of the Yapp around the edges of the cover in the image above. The pages themselves were not 'yapped'
The dimensions of the book inside the dustcover were 22.5 cms wide across the opened pages, a single page, therefore, measured 11.25 cms 9.0 cms.
The dimensions of the image file of the code page as supplied initially by the Adelaide Advertiser, are 11.44 cms X 9.14 cms. This image file is available for download from this blog or from the Adelaide University Wiki site.
The book was originally found on the back seat of a car parked in Jetty Road Glenelg. The book was most recently said to have been found by a local Chemist named Freeman, another version says it was found by his brother in law who placed it in the glovebox.
The date it was found towards the end of November 1948, around the time of the local, Parafield Air Show.
Following an appeal, the book was eventually handed in to the SA Police on 22nd July 1949, after the Somerton Man's first inquest hearing.
Police documents from the time make no mention of there being a dustcover found with the book.
The Somerton Man book was said to have been white in colour, no other white coloured edition of the Courage and Friendship series have been found.
Newspaper article: Torn Slip
The image to the right shows a page from a Courage and Friendship series Rubaiyat with an image of the torn slip overlaid. Both book and slip are to scale.
The shape of the torn piece does not match the shape of the torn out area.
A scientist stated at the time that the type of paper in the slip was 'similar' to the type of paper used in the book.
A Police report from 1949 says of the book that the 'back leaf was missing'. In bookbinding terms, a 'leaf' is comprised of two pages. Books are bound in sets of two pages.
The assumption is made that the Detective Sergeant who wrote the report was referring to the last, back, page of the book.
Bear in mind that if the back page was missing then the other half of that page would have been the front page of the book
In a discussion with Gerry Feltus, he made it clear to me that there were 'pencil markings' on the code page and that these 'markings' were indentations left by someone writing in pencil on yet another page and by pressing the pencil down in order to write, left indentations on the page beneath.
This being so, then the back leaf would more than likely be the page on which the code was originally written and the next page in the book would have had the indentations which, using specialised techniques, the Police recovered.
The orientation shown on the left has the top of the code page is close to the centre joining point with the book.
Another option is that the top of the code page was on the outer edge of the book and the difference in shading that you see at the top is from the YAPPED edge.
The book pages were not yapped, the cover was thus the orientation shown on the left is more likely to be correct.
Here's a download link to the full PDF copy of the Whitcombe and Tombs, Courage & Friendship Rubaiyat
GO TO PART 2 OF THIS POST
The series was published in a range of pale colours featuring two colours in a copy.
The edges of the book cover were 'YAPPED', that is they were slightly bent over and inwards to protect the edges of the pages. You should be able to see the outline of the Yapp around the edges of the cover in the image above. The pages themselves were not 'yapped'
The dimensions of the book inside the dustcover were 22.5 cms wide across the opened pages, a single page, therefore, measured 11.25 cms 9.0 cms.
The dimensions of the image file of the code page as supplied initially by the Adelaide Advertiser, are 11.44 cms X 9.14 cms. This image file is available for download from this blog or from the Adelaide University Wiki site.
The book was originally found on the back seat of a car parked in Jetty Road Glenelg. The book was most recently said to have been found by a local Chemist named Freeman, another version says it was found by his brother in law who placed it in the glovebox.
The date it was found towards the end of November 1948, around the time of the local, Parafield Air Show.
Following an appeal, the book was eventually handed in to the SA Police on 22nd July 1949, after the Somerton Man's first inquest hearing.
Police documents from the time make no mention of there being a dustcover found with the book.
The Somerton Man book was said to have been white in colour, no other white coloured edition of the Courage and Friendship series have been found.
Newspaper article: Torn Slip
Police image of the book |
The image to the right shows a page from a Courage and Friendship series Rubaiyat with an image of the torn slip overlaid. Both book and slip are to scale.
The shape of the torn piece does not match the shape of the torn out area.
A scientist stated at the time that the type of paper in the slip was 'similar' to the type of paper used in the book.
A Police report from 1949 says of the book that the 'back leaf was missing'. In bookbinding terms, a 'leaf' is comprised of two pages. Books are bound in sets of two pages.
The assumption is made that the Detective Sergeant who wrote the report was referring to the last, back, page of the book.
Bear in mind that if the back page was missing then the other half of that page would have been the front page of the book
In a discussion with Gerry Feltus, he made it clear to me that there were 'pencil markings' on the code page and that these 'markings' were indentations left by someone writing in pencil on yet another page and by pressing the pencil down in order to write, left indentations on the page beneath.
This being so, then the back leaf would more than likely be the page on which the code was originally written and the next page in the book would have had the indentations which, using specialised techniques, the Police recovered.
Code Page Orientation Relative To The Book.
Note the partial view of the code page. It shows that the orientation of the book when the code was written would have been portrait and not landscape as per this image.
Another option is that the top of the code page was on the outer edge of the book and the difference in shading that you see at the top is from the YAPPED edge.
The book pages were not yapped, the cover was thus the orientation shown on the left is more likely to be correct.
Here's a download link to the full PDF copy of the Whitcombe and Tombs, Courage & Friendship Rubaiyat
GO TO PART 2 OF THIS POST
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Andrey Vyshinsky
Courage and Friendship
Jetty Road
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Somerton Man code page
The Somerton Man
The torn piece
whitcombe and tombs
Peteb10 June 2024 at 12:07
ReplyDeleteGordon, as you say, getting to the heart of the Somerton Body case is extremely challenging. One challenge I’ve been facing is that when DS Leane sent Naval Intelligence a copy of the code nine days after he received it he did not accompany it with the book it was written on. My untrained view being that a cryptographer / code breaker would have found it necessary to have both in order to ascertain if the book contained information that would assist him. Do you agree?
It certainly is perplexing. In one internal document, the statement is made that the back page of the book was missing. That fits well with the notion that the 'code' was written on the back of the book because in order to photograph the code in the way that they did, it would need to be separated from the body of the book. This being the case, then the photograph was taken and developed in a particular way to show the indentations that were seen under the Uv or similar strong light. According to gerry part of the process was to turn the image negative, that puzzled me because in glass plate photography, the first image is already negative. It could be that they took it twice? Whichever, the photograph was developed and it showed, because it was now negative, the pale indentations as being black.
ReplyDeleteQuestion. If I had the photograph with all of its indentations why then did I need to write over them and is that primary photograph the one they sent to Melbourne? Somewhere I have a copy of the reply from Melbourne, I found it carefully worded, it didn't refer to indentations at all. That's where I am with it Pete.The only image we have of the code page is the marked over one although it is possible that an unmarked one might be around. Hope that helps.
Gordon, perhaps you didn’t understand my question… would having the book assist the code breakers or not?
ReplyDeleteAnd I remember reading about the back page being missing, that comment was made in a newspaper article and was a probable misinterpretation given that it was just the TS slip that was removed. Newspapers in my experience being the last places to look for accuracy.
Pete, How do we know he didn't send the book with the photograph?
ReplyDeleteWe know Naval didn’t get the book because of the nature of their response where they only mentioned examining the code.
ReplyDeleteAnd to add to that, why in your opinion didn’t the police photograph the Rubaiyat ? Feltus himself wrote that the published pictures were not of what pertained to be the original, together with those of the torn page. Then we have Brown’s notes where he says Leane lost the book in his filing system.
My view, and you may not agree, is as follows:
ReplyDelete1. We don't know what was sent to Melbourne, we only have a response that does not refer to anything other than the photograph they examined. How do we know what else was sent? Was anything else sent? Without the corresponding letter that should have accompanied the photograph spelling out the details and listing what was included, we can only make an assumption.
2. How do we know the Police didn't photograph the Rubaiyat? Is it enough to ay that there are no photographs of it therefore none were taken? From an evidence perspective its not enough so it remains a possibility but not a proven fact. How would Gerry have known the details of the book? Could he have seen it?
3. Brown's recollection on the book being 'lost' may be correct. Again it's a possibility in the absence of any documented evidence.
That's the problem with the case, so many possibilities and we both try to find whatever hard evidence there is.
This post above is hard evidence that anamorphic concealed letters and numbers exist in the Boxall ROK, there are a total of 10 concealment methods across both pages. It can be proven that a fake copy of the Boxall ROK is in existence with considerable efforts made to deliberately change the details on it. But, people make mistakes and they di in that process. So that's not just a possibility, it's a proven fact and I will post that.
Ideally we get a copy of the Boxall ROK from Professor Abbott who has in the past said that he has it and even made a video of it. I hope it hasn't gone missing along with another piece of evidence.
Please respond if you want, I won't be able to get to it until the morning though.
Gordon, I refer you to Feltus’ book page 114. ‘ On 29 July 1949 a photograph of the letters and a copy of a similar Rubaiyat were forwarded to the Director of Naval Intel in Melbourne.’
ReplyDeleteA similar Rubaiyat, not the original.
There you have it.
Naval were never given the opportunity to ascertain if the code written on the back cover was linked to anything written within the book’s pages.
Looking at page 114, it's interesting. What Gerry actually said was:
ReplyDelete'After the letters were revealed on the rear cover of the Rubaiyat Detective Sergeant Leane sort the assistance of the Navy Office at Port Adelaide. On the 29th July 1949 a photograph of the letters and a copy of a similar Rubaiyat were forwarded to the Director of Naval Intelligence in Melbourne'.
My thoughts are:
Gerry did not produce a document or police report that said what happened, the assumption you can make is that someone would have told him that. He doesn't say who told him or mention any source for that matter. As such, and strictly speaking, that's hearsay. Had the source been named it would have far more value and I am sure that Gerry would agree with that. The danger is that the source was the talk around the office although he does mention the precise date so he must have seen something but didn't produce it. Why?
Looking at the letter contents from Naval Intelligence, here's a copy of the entry in Gerry's book:
"Naval Intelligence Replies
On 25th August the Navy Office at Port Adelaide responded to Leane
Somerton Beach Mystery.
With reference to our earlier conversations in conjunction with the above subject matter, submitted is a copy from the Director of Naval Intelligence, Melbourne.
From the manner in which the lines have been represented as being set out in the original, it is evident that the end of each line represents a break in sense.
There is an insufficient number of letters for definite conclusions to be based on analysis, but the indications together with the acceptance of the above breaks in sense indicate, in so far as can be seen, that the letters do not constitute any kind of simple cipher or code.
The frequency of occurrence of letters whilst inconclusive, corresponds more favourably with the table of frequencies of initial letters of words in English than with any other table; accordingly a reasonable explanation would be that the lines are the initial letters of words of a verse of poetry or such like."
Copy of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat is returned herewith.
Gery has seen this letter in order to repeat it as he did but he did not publish the actual letter for some reason.
In the first paragraph, the Port Adelaide office refers to conversations, plural'.
Note that the first paragraph of the letter content refers to 'the original' which seems a little odd. Note also that Leane did not send the photograph and copy of the similar book to Melbourne, he gave it to the Naval Office at Port Adelaide and it was they who forwarded it to Melbourne.
There is no mention of exactly what was sent to Port Adelaide there is only a mention of what was returned from Melbourne. That's an important gap.
The words in the response were carefully chosen, note that they refer to 'any kind of simple cipher or code' and not 'any kind of cipher or code'
You could say that I am being picky but the truth or links to the truth always lies somewhere in the detail and in this case and in my view, there are unexplained gaps. If Gerry were to answer them then the problem goes away.
These comments have been moved from the June 10th 2024 post on the Boxall Rubaiyat and the discovery of Anamorphic codes.
I originally posted on the issue of Naval Intelligence in 2013.
ReplyDeleteHere's the link:
https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2013/09/somerton-man-just-what-did-sa-police.html