SOMERTON MAN DANETTA CODE: THE FOURTH MAN PART 1. ANOTHER INSTANCE OF 'DANETTA'

 

A BODY IS FOUND....

...A short while ago, I published a part of this image, it is one of a number of Police photographs taken of the scene of the discovery of a man's body in scrubland in Sutherland Shire, near Sydney, New South Wales. He was found on 5th December 1948 after having been reported missing on 17th November 1948.

The man's name was Michael Goreloff, a White Russian, an emigre who lived and worked as a chef in Sydney at the time, having previously lived for some years in Melbourne and was known to the Authorities. He was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. It was thought in some circles that it was his involvement with the Church and a dispute between Michael and a Red Russian group at the church that may have led to his death.

This story has its twists and turns with a mysterious, Russian-accented lady who went by the name of Christine Gorodin or Borodin making claims as to some of the circumstances surrounding Michael's demise. The lady has never been traced.

Whilst some empty APC  powder wrappers were found near the body, there were not enough to have caused more than some slight drowsiness. A post-mortem failed to find the exact cause of death although he had some twine around his neck which was in turn attached to a small nearby sapling. 

A notebook was found with the body and a short last letter which was not addressed to his wife but seemingly to whoever found his body. The notebook contained details of menus and other assorted jottings.

Here's the last note:

Followers will know that one of the recurring features, in the Somerton Man case, is the use of the codeword  DANETTA. The name is encrypted into the wording of a letter such as this one. To reveal it all you need to do is to look for the first letter, D.

It needs to fall in the first position within a word, line, or paragraph. In this regard, it shares much with a standard 'Book' or Poem code. The letter can be read from left to right or right to left. In the letter above it really is quite simple, there is only one word that has a letter D placed, in this case, reading right to left. The 6th line contains the abbreviated word for road, Rd. There's the first letter. Next, you need to find the rest of the letters as in ANETTA in location sequences 2,3,4,5,6,7. 

The next letter we need is the letter A and it must be in the second position in a word.  The A also appears in the 6th line being the second letter in the word BAY read from either left or right. I could work through the rest but I thought you may want to test it for yourselves, the next letter you're looking for is the letter N and it must be in the 3rd position.

The decrypt goes well until the last letter A, it is there, and it is the 7th letter in a word but there is a little twist to it.

We have the codeword DANETTA  in the last note, a note about which his wife said that it was his handwriting but there was something not right about the way it read. 

There will be a lot more to follow, I think you'll find an intriguing case...

Many thanks to Peter Davidson, a very skillful researcher, and his input has been invaluable.

An Update on THE DANETTA CODE book, sales are still good and the next chapters, though somewhat delayed, will contain some extremely interesting and new facts.