SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY: THE TRUTH IS....

 

 ...THE TRUTH IS ....

THE 'INK H' TECHNIQUE

OF CONCEALING CODE BENEATH LARGER HANDWRITTEN LETTERS NUMBERS AND LINES WAS USED ON THE SOMERTON MAN CODE PAGE & ELSEWHERE IN THE CASE...

The image below has been photographed as a TIFF or RAW file and then printed out on an inkjet printer at a high print resolution of 600 DPI, the best quality option was selected for the print and it was laid on to bleed-proof paper:

If you download and zoom in you will already see the presence of microcode beneath the darker lines and letters as well as the darker stains at the top left and top right

The image below has been doused in citric acid, it effectively removes a thin layer of ink which improves the visibility of the concealed microcode.:

Concealment of this nature goes back thousands of years, there is often some confusion between Steganography and Cryptography. Steganography means 'covered writing' while cryptography means 'secret writing'.  Some examples:

Herodotus spoke of a man named Harpagus who killed a hare, concealed a message within the body of a hare and had a slave disguised as a hunter deliver it. Simple but very effective.

Another man Histaieus wanted to send a secret message so he shaved the head of a slave, wrote a message on his now bald head, and let the hair grow back. The slave was sent on his way and the message was duly delivered when the slave's head was again shaved.

Herodotus also spoke of a man named Demeratus who wanted to report from the Persian court back to his friends in Greece that Xerxes the Great was about to invade Greece. He concealed his message under writing tablets. These were usually two pieces of wood, hinged as a book, with each face covered with wax. One wrote on the wax; the recipient melted the wax and reused the tablet.

Demeratus' technique was to remove the wax, write the message on the wood itself, and re-cover it with wax. He then sent the apparently blank tablets to Greece.  This story in its way is probably closer to the ink H technique used on the code page and elsewhere. 

You can find more on the SOE  INK H technique in these posts:

https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/search?q=INK+H

And here's the description from the SOE manual:

Please note that instead of the use of bleach as described in the document, you can very effectively use citric acid on the surface of a good quality print-out of an image of the document.

I will add more images of the concealed codes shortly...