SOMERTON MAN, THE US CODEBREAKERS (An unrelated update)

 

Something of a departure from the current thread, just a temporary diversion whilst working on decoding a couple of lengthy strings found on the code page. It's a fascinating insight...

LABELS

There seems to have been some doubt regarding the labels on the Somerton Man's clothing the image below should clear it up:

This apparently a photo of the coat the man was wearing when found. You can see the bottom left corner beneath where the label had sat had been cut and then torn away judging by the threads and the absent threads along the bottom. The inquest documents say one thing, neatly removed' I think. But the picture tells a different story.

Having attended a few inquests and been involved with a fair few investigations, small events like this one occur quite frequently. Not uncommon for comments and questions raised at an inquest to be deemed not important or significant enough to be recorded. It seems that there wasn't a court reporter present at the SM inquest, well at least there are no stenographers reords made public.

Why is it important to know whether the label was torn away or removed neatly? I suggest that 'removed neatly' indicates that someone had the time to remove it whereas if it was torn, that would suggest that someone was in a hurry to remove the label and that of course could be an important factor.