THE SOMERTON MAN 2020, A SEISMIC SHIFT >>>

 

From an investigation and research perspective, everything has now changed. Everything needs to be viewed through the lens of an espionage case, the man's death was probably an assassination...

If you were to call the recent breaking open of the Somerton Man Code on this blog a 'Momentous Occasion' it would be an understatement. 

It has been a long haul since around 2010, to get to this point where we can clearly show the presence of microcode beneath the marked over areas seen on the Police photographs of the Somerton Man Code page. However, this is not the time to talk through all of the ups, downs, and challenges on that journey, that can be addressed at a later time.

What we can and should do now though, is to seriously consider the impact of the discovery.

A SEISMIC SHIFT

Two words that I think, most accurately reflect the impact of the discovery. Everything, every theory, every lateral thought, and every claim made about the Somerton Man case, now has to be rethought. 

The microcode appears to be carefully constructed in the main beneath the marked over letters but with areas that remain unclear. They will remain that way whilst efforts continue to improve the visibility of individual characters. The code itself appears to be a basic 'Shift' code, 'transposition', or 'rail code' I suppose would be another way to describe it. 

There is an online decoder which I have used before and which seems to do a reasonable job although to be fair there have only been a few decrypts managed to date as per previous recent posts on this subject. 

What we can say with some certainty is that this is not the kind of code work that would likely be used by anyone other than someone engaged in the field of espionage. It is an example of 'clandestine communications' relying on steganography, hiding messages in plain sight. In 1948, it was the height of the Cold War and according to a statement attributed to Gerry Feltus, the SA Police ex Detective Sergeant who had the case on his desk, Adelaide at the time was 'Wall to Wall Spies'.

It is known from ASIO records that the Soviets had 4 active agents in South Australia in 1948. Two were Soviets and two were Australian born Russians. Their duties were split between Woomera and Salisbury where the Long Range Weapons Research Establishment was to be found.

THE STORY THAT WAS NEVER TOLD

So, here we are. Known spies operating in the area, secret code discovered, experimental weapons research and testing in the same State and a man found dead on Somerton Beach, near Adelaide on December 1st 1948. The labels on the man's clothing labels had been torn away, there were no identification papers on him, the precise cause of death was not completely confirmed except by later opinion.

It was some months later, according to Police files, that a book, a Whitcombe and Tombs copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was found not far from the location of the body. On examination, Police found feint 'pencil markings', Gerry Feltus told me that the markings were 'indentations', marks left by pressing through one page to another beneath it. In fact, indentations can be traced through a number of pages beneath the original. A later Police report noted that the back page of the book that was found was missing,

That was the story that was told, that and the later discovery of a small torn piece of paper that, it is said, had been torn from that very same book, the paper bore the words 'Tamam Shud', the last two words in that copy of the Rubaiyat.

A thorough examination of the page of the book bearing the indentations revealed a series of 50 individual letters with some additional markings. It is not certain exactly what process was used to recover the indented writing so that it was visible but it may have included Iodine Vapour and possibly together with various lighting techniques. The Police say that the indentations were marked over so that they could be shown more clearly to the press and the public.

Naval Intelligence in Melbourne examined the code at the time but reported that the letters found did not form any known code. Since that time many people have tried to break the code. Adelaide University Professor Derek Abbott even had teams of his students involved in the effort. All to no avail.

The story that wasn't told, is the story that you can now see on the code page following the careful removal of the thin layers of ink that once covered the indented microcode.

From an investigation and research perspective, everything has now changed. Everything needs to be viewed through the lens of an espionage case, the man's death was probably an assassination.

The Police, or whichever agency was involved, had actively taken part in the concealment of the microcode. Naval Intelligence did their bit, note that what they said was true, there was no known code that matched the larger letters. But that did not include the hidden microcode.

There were no doubt compelling reasons why they concealed the real story, 1948 was a time of extreme stress and tension between Australia, Russia, the USA, and the UK. There were riots, marches, and strikes. The Communist Party of Australia was growing rapidly and Australia's Intelligence services were barely adequate to deal with homegrown threats and that posed by increasing activity by the KGB and NKVD and their agents. Add to the mix a number of right-wing organisations, some with tacit Government approval, and the probability that the body on the beach was somehow involved in espionage becomes far more likely.

The questions fly thick and fast, who could have been involved in this concealment? Which agencies or organisations took part? What substance was it that killed this man?

The man's possessions, the suitcase and its contents, the notion that he traveled on an overnight train from Melbourne, all are now questionable to say the least. But where to start?

An update shortly.