There seems to be some confusion amongst some commenters regarding the nature of the new Hi-Resolution images of the Code page and Verse 70. This post is intended to provide those who need it some simple guidance as the view the images.
First off the rank is Verse 70.
VERSE 70
Infrared and Flash image
ROTATE 90 DEGREES ANIT CLOCK WISE:
PAGES JOIN AT THE CENTRE
MICRO WRITING VISIBLE IN THE JOIN
No need for anything more than strong light, oblique angle camera, and lighting. Not at all hard to view with some very basic techniques.
FROM THE VERSE:
OFT BEFORE, TOP LINE
ROTATED ANTI - CLOCKWISE VIEW:
BOTTOM LEFT CORNER OF BOOK
TOP MIDSECTION ABOVE PAGE JOIN
In the image above you can see where some of the micro writing has been 'greyed' over. However, you can see the fine, faint pencil markings beneath the grey when you use strong light and infrared.
Verse 70 Summary
In summary, pages of the book containing the handwritten Verse 70 and its concealed code would have been very easy to view even in those days with some basic and readily available equipment. There are many more instances of concealment within this particular book.
THE CODE PAGE
This is the Hi-Resolution version of the Code page as per the last post. The question was put by a commenter elsewhere regarding how people in the 1940s could have viewed the code page micro writing if it has taken such a great deal of effort with modern tools to get to where we are now?
In this person's defence, they don't have the background or skill and hadn't run any of the tests that have been made available on this blog so they couldn't be expected to understand why this should be. In the end, after some years of trial and error, the answer really is quite simple.
In contrast to the Boxall, Verse 70, book and it's micro writing, the code page that we have, had been written over, more precisely, the individual letters and other markings had been painted over with a fine brush and with quite some skill. Personally, I think that they used a particular kind of ink as used by the censors in those days. What it means is that prior to the application of the censor's brush, the original glass plate photograph taken under special lighting revealed the 'faint pencil' marks and tiny lettering referred to by Detective Brown.
In contrast to the Boxall, Verse 70, book and it's micro writing, the code page that we have, had been written over, more precisely, the individual letters and other markings had been painted over with a fine brush and with quite some skill. Personally, I think that they used a particular kind of ink as used by the censors in those days. What it means is that prior to the application of the censor's brush, the original glass plate photograph taken under special lighting revealed the 'faint pencil' marks and tiny lettering referred to by Detective Brown.
The task was to somehow find a way to remove that layer of censor's ink so that everyone could see the original markings. That has now been found and the results are there for all to view.
Below is a close-up view of the crossed lines in the centre of the Hi-Resolution code page. It is one of many images that have been taken.
Below is a close-up view of the crossed lines in the centre of the Hi-Resolution code page. It is one of many images that have been taken.
CROSSED LINES CLOSE-UP
This image has been inverted, the view is from the top of the code page looking at an angle down the page. Whilst they are not sparklingly clear, you can clearly see the presence of micro letters and numbers within the lines. So, it is definitely not pareidolia, definitely not jpeg artefacts, but it is micro writing. It is to be found in every marked up letter and 'painted' area on the code page. Some of it is extraordinarily small being around .25 mm in height and that is very achievable with just a fine sharpened pencil.
There are numerous examples of the use of micro writing including such writing within cursive lettering.
I hope this post has clarified the situation for all concerned.
There are more images to be posted which will happen over the next week or so.
On a related but somewhat of an aside subject, the use of concealment methods and clandestine communications goes back hundreds if not thousands of years. In WW1, there were major advances in the subject area some of which could still be in use today.
Use was made of everyday items in the task so as not to arouse undue attention or suspicions. For example, tubes of toothpaste and 'ordinary' soap had in fact, concealed chemicals which were used in the secret ink/writing process. I will put a post together on the subject shortly.
Hi, thanks for this. I'm a bit confused as to what you are photographing. Do you have the Boxall Rubaiyat in your possession and are you photographing it? Or are you photographing a photograph of it? If so, where has that photograph come from? And how is it printed in order to photograph?
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in the "join" between the two pages in particular. It's hard to make out on the image above if the join is a physical feature of the book or whether it's a shadow.
Finally, on the 'greying out' you have found on an image of the Rubaiyat page, are you suggesting the image has been manipulated, but with digital "over-writing" with an opacity setting of less than 100%?
1. The Boxall Rubaiyat is in the possession of Professor Derek Abbott
ReplyDelete2. The photograph you see in the post was taken by Gerry Feltus and it's the source of this and other images from the case. I suggest you read Gerry's book, The Unknown Man dated 2010, you will find that Gerry published a much lower resolution image of the one you see here, in his
book.
3. With respect, I take it that you have little knowledge of digital image and editing, so I am going to suggest that you do some reading of relevant text on the subject. Specifically you should read widely on the issue of photographic copies of photographs. Contrary to popular beliefs, if you take a photograph of a photograph in the correct manner, it does not lose any quality. Here's a link to a basic starter tutorial:
https://www.wikihow.com/Photograph-Old-Photos
It mentions not to use flash in case of reflections but that only applies if you have the wrong settings. In this case I use flash/infrared light.
4. The objective is to get as fine a quality image as possible, to this end the recommendation is that you print out on bleed proof paper. Whilst standard quality printing allows for less ink and a faster dry time, high quality printing takes more ink and takes longer to dry. In order to
combat any bleed from the extra ink deposited, we use bleed proof paper which happily delivers a very 'fine' detailed image.
5. Regarding the join, I actually have a hard copy of the same Rubaiyat and a digital copy of another of the same edition. When you lay a book out flat, as it is in the image in this post, there is no shadow between the pages. Yet, in the original Boxall photograph from GF there is and there shouldn't be, hence the close up view which reveals the concealed code letters and numbers. In order to view the code, you don't need to photograph the image shown, you just need to download it and then magnify it, turning the full image 90 degrees counter clockwise and focusing on the join.
6. With regard to the photograph taken by Professor Abbott of the original Boxall book, the cursive writing has been over coloured with grey, I suspect that a Mac photo editor was used, the way that it is executed is to select a brush tool, then a colour and then a brush width and
effectively paint over the target areas. In the 2015 video that Professor Abbott took of the Boxall book, there was no shadow in the join but the microcode had been covered to match the page colours.
Reading this response, you'll see there are two dates, the initial image was taken by Gerry Feltus before 2010 and the video which exists was taken by Professor Abbott in 2015. Professor Abbott sent me a photograph in 2016 that showed the grey effect with the explanation that it must have faded. It appears to have faded to a consistent grey in parts of the letters and the actual writing around the edges and the outline of the lady with the fez had darkened considerably. Most odd don't you think?
Hope this helps.
The objective of these images was to show as much as possible, the presence of concealed microcode. To do that meant that a different kind of photograph needed to be taken, in this case it was Flash/infrared. That has the effect of making the initial appearance look faded when in reality what it has done is to show the concealed writing/microcode.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about the objective, it wasn't to take a nice clear image of a landscape or a person with lots of contrast, it was to reveal 'hidden' aspects on the image.
For the record, there is more to be found on other pages in the Boxall copy. There is a video on youtube which gives some clues on that issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMb45xS5q7I . I suspect it may not be available for long.
I need to clarify a number of inaccuracies emanating from a post by Pete Bowes. Here's Pete's list of items he attributed to me:
ReplyDeletePART 1.
Achievements, to date
(1) Strapps saw striped trousers.No reason to disbelieve that.
(2) Cramer positively identified the Somerton Man. UNTRUE> The truth is I put forward the name and photograph of Pavel Fedosimov as being by far the best fit for the Somerton Man, there was always room for another but no one has, as yet put forward an alternative. Incidentally, no photographs of Fedosimov have been found since the 1947 one that I posted on this blog. His name has been mentioned in number of documents since 1948 but no photographs have been found despite concerted efforts. If a photograph proven to be Fedosimov as per our picture and it dates after 1948 then, as I have consistently said, that would be the end of the story from the Fedosimov perspective.
(3) Leane suspected of delaying the investigation for seven weeks.
(4) Cramer positively cracked the code. UNTRUE> The truth is I found evidence of micro writing on the code page and have shown numerous images plus one of the letter Q which contains the letters/ numbers: J232 X RAN X 35 X CA23. The J232 was the RAN Corvette HMAS Deloraine and CA 23 was the USS New Orleans. Both ships were together only once in Sydney Harbour on 7rh March 1943. Another really good story and worthy of reading. That does not constitute cracking the code.
(5) Dude picked the car / safe breaking tools.
More to follow in PART 2...
PART 2.
ReplyDelete(6) Cramer found undecipherable secret messages in the words comprising V70 .. UNTRUE> The truth is I found more examples of micro writing within the cursive writing of Verse 70. No one has yet has offered to decipher the letters and numbers.
(7) .. and in between them. TRUE. There are in fact numerous examples micro written letters and numbers in various locations on the Verse 70 inscription page and elsewhere on that and the Title page.
(8) .. and the binding on Boxall’s Rubaiyat .. TRUE
(9) .. and in the book’s printing, front and back, UNTRUE> I have never mentioned the front and back of the book. Having said that, it wouldn't surprise me if there were examples there.
(10) the Tamam Shud slip .. UNTRUE> No decipherable messages have been found on the Tamam Shud slip, there are examples of micro writing
(11) .. and in the picture of the fez lady. Once again, no messages have been found but examples of microwritten letters and numbers
(12) Cramer positively established that Harkness was engaged in the writing of secret messages .. UNTRUE> I have made it clear that in my view Alf was training Jestyn in the use of clandestine communications which involved the use of micro writing. No messages have been uncovered as yet.
(13) .. under the expert tutelage of Alf Boxall. TRUE> I believe that is the case
(14) Cramer established that the code was in fact three layers deep. UNTRUE> The truth is that we have the code page which was overwritten by a 3rd party. Beneath is evidence of a technique developed by SOE in 1942/23, it was known as INK H. It involved writing individual characters in ink and then using pencil to add writing within each of the characters. Sometimes another layer of ink was added to hide the pencil markings and sometimes not. There are examples of a very similar technique in the HAY Banknotes created by the Dunera Boys Internees. The Verse 70 inscription has micro writing in plain sight. The torn piece has micro writing within the letters Tamam Shud, again hidden in plain sight
(15) Cramer achieved wide internet exposure and his picture in the paper. The last time I had a photo in the press or even a mention was about 5 years ago. True to say that there are hundreds of images from this blog throughout the internet, I have no say in what google includes and, u=interestingly many of the images are used and posted by others.
In the end, we are all here supposedly to solve the Somerton Man mystery. It's never been about press coverage for me personally, I have always strived to keep the SM case in the spotlight and keep up the levels of interest. It's true to say the blog is reasonably popular, it will record 500,000 visits within the next few weeks or so and that's since 2014. I am personally grateful to those followers for their support.
On the code front, I sometimes wonder whether the reason some bloggers get upset is that these tiny letters will need to be deciphered and just maybe they're not up to the job?
Personally, I am getting on with what I have done from the outset, working hard at finding as much new information as possible.
I Wish Everyone Well
Things are not always what they seem, the first appearance deceives many, the intelligence of the few perceives what has been cleverly hidden. Phaedrus.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up.