THE SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY: THE TORN SLIP WITH MICROCODE REVEALED... #900

 

...In earlier times numerous articles have been posted here discussing how the letters  TAMAM SHUD contained microwritten letters and numbers which, it seems, are part of a cipher.

TWO CIPHERS

Two ciphers were identified by an online code identifier:

The first was the MORBIT cipher, it was based on a blend of Morse code and standard letters/numerals. We extracted several letters from the Morbit cipher: 'MTBI... NETP ', this was an exciting development as those letters were to be found on the third line of the code page and were in that general sequence.

The second was the NIHILIST cipher a variation of which was in use by the Soviets during WW2 and it also caused some excitement because in the process of attempting to decrypt the strings of information the word or name, MENTIES or possibly MENZIES cropped up. But that was all we have been able to get thus far.

The question arises, how could the letters and numbers be from different ciphers. The answer is that one code was used to cover another, a double encryption. This technique was used in WW2 and was referred to by a recent discussion by a Director of the Bletchley Park Museum when discussing the Pigeon cipher which attracted a lot of attention some years ago. One way of achieving this was to simply write one cipher over the top of another which could be done using different inks for example.

The image at the top of this post shows the presence of numerous letters and numbers which are a little difficult to view but still visible.

Across the crossbar of the T, you can see strings of numbers and letters:

...the numbers are:  5392358535823

Next, we have the upright of the T which is interesting, I see the numbers are written across the upright, from left to right, this makes them very small in size, around .3 mm in height but still very doable:

 ....the numbers are from the top juncture: 45  M53  W34  H33 55 154  X35. 

From there the numbers are arranged in the lower curved element of the T as shown in the next image.

But first, a look at an unusual aspect of the upright contained coded letters/numbers:

In this image of the upright, we have what appears to be a different set of numbers to the set in the previous image, reading left to right.

The characters in the upright now appear to be: 335343950. Told you it was interesting :)  


You can see how the characters overrun the outline of the typeset letter T which is also apparent in the letter as it appears in the phrase TAMAM SHUD:

The image above was printed on an Epson, inkjet printer using quality pigment-based inks. You can see the outlines of the cipher in each of the letters in TAMAM SHUD if you look closely, zooming in does not provide a better view.

Finally, let's look at the curved or 'toe' end at the base of the upright:

The characters in this part of the T are: 91333 as I see them.

SUMMARY

This is just the first of nine letters in the phrase. In the letter T, we have identified 46 characters including the second option set from the upright section.

According to the gurus of the cryptology world, 46 characters are simply not enough to get a meaningful decryption. So this work goes on and the rest of the letters with characters will be published as soon as I get sufficient time.