ANAMORPHIC HEADER
Followers of this blog might recall looking at the header of the Somerton Man Code page quite some time ago. At that time I hadn't come across the clever use of perspective and lighting angles as was recently discovered in both the Hay Internment Camp banknotes and in the Boxal Rubaiyat. In the latter case, the edges of the cover of the book had been used to conceal anamorphic writing that could only be viewed from an oblique angle.
In this case, the same approach to concealment has been used and it has been doubly concealed because the image of the Somerton Man code shows only a blank space at the head of the lettering with some light markings in place as shown here:
I turned the image you see above into a negative with the result that you can see at the head of this post. It just looks like a scrambled and jumbled up assortment of shapes much as it appears in the Boxall Rubaiyat Book cover.
But the highlighted area beneath the upper darkened section at the top, tells a different story:
Look carefully between the two orange-colored lines, you'll see a series of letters and numbers visible. If you have an iPad or iPhone you'll see it quite well.
I have managed to get around 80 characters out of the sequence and am looking at the various codes and ciphers to see which one it is, at the moment it looks like it is a Mornbit cipher but I need to do some more checking out.
If you enlarge the image above, you can assemble your own list of cipher text. the Dcode site is here: https://www.dcode.fr/cipher-identifier, After you have entered the letters and numbers that you find, the tools will endeavor to identify which cipher is being used. If it is a Morbit cipher, it will need a 9-digit keyword or key number. That is the challenge.
What is significant is that we now have the Boxall ROK and the Somerton Man Code page both containing the same concealment method, Anamorphic writing. My best guess is that you need to view the top of the page from an angle of approximately 20 degrees. Good lighting helps. When I took the image above, I took it looking from the base of the code page upwards.
As soon as I have found the correct cipher and tried out some decrypts I will post again.
AHa! The missing link I think..
ReplyDeleteIs this the method that sets the relationship between Alfs book and the code page? Bingo!
Exactly, the common use would make it very possible but we can't be certain as yet, it needs just a little more evidence to tie it down. At the moment you have Jestyn's phone number and now the anamorphic header. If we can get sufficient characters extracted from this anamorphic then we have a chance of decrypting it. I think is probably the best continuous string of characters that we have ever had and they're clearer to view. Fingers crossed!
ReplyDeleteImportantly, this find shows us a string of characters that weren't inked over. That could mean that the assumption I have made regarding the micro letters and numbers being indentations could be incorrect. I spoke with a colleague and her thought was that it is always possible that there were both indentations and pencil writing on the page. Detective Brown's words still ring true that the nurses number was written in really tiny lettering. That says that the telephone number wasn't indentations. Interesting isn't it?
Time will tell and I will keep on digging.
Any chance we can get a clearer image of the top of the page with the numbers on it?
ReplyDeleteSure, I'll get on to that in the morning, should be able to improve on it.
ReplyDeleteHow come the Police didn't see that on the page? It should have been staring them in the face. it wasn't hidden and it wasn't inked in. How could they miss it?
ReplyDeleteA good and relevant question. Here's what I think. The original image was dark, It is not certain exactly which photography process the Police used and there were a few options open to them. Indented writing recovery for example, can be done with oblique lighting that would show up indentations as shadows. A photograph was taken and if it was glass plate or even if it was 35 mm film, the first vision of it to the developer was a negative vision, that which was white goes dark and that which is dark turns white or lighter. That would mean that the background image of the photograph of the indentations would be white and the indentations being lighter in colour would turn dark. If the Police had opted to use Iodine vapour which was available to them at the time then the effect of the vapour would turn, say, a white paper a mid brown and any writing on it would turn deep brown in colour or black if it was a black and white photo. That's one of the reasons why I suspect that Iodine vapour was a good candidate for the method used by SAPOL at the time. So we would have the background paper turn to a mid dark to light grey and the pencil markings turn into a black. By adjusting as they could in those times, the exposure, they could create the page to look as it does now. So, the dark part of the top had no obvious lettering in it so they ignored it. They weren't to know that the random marks on the top of the page were in fact a disguise for the anamorphic code. It was left as white space or negative white space in this case as the area was dark in colour and was turned negative.
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge the Police have never said that they marked over the lettering on the page, I am not entirely certain about that and I am not sure who it might have been.. I know a number of people have stated that it was done but it has never been substantiated. Is that important? It might be but who knows.
Thanks Veritas, I am embarrassed, I truly appreciate your more than kind words.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, you are correct, there's more to come and it will change the way a lot of people think. Not giving anything away just yet though.
Thanks again, enjoy your retirement!
How come Adelaide University never spotted the anamorphic code? They spent years teaching students about the Somerton Man code and didn't find anything, a fruitless exercise and at what cost? All the guys that went through that carried on to get their degrees or whatever and part of it was based on something that was never going to go anywhere. Lets hope they do the right thing by them and update them on the facts at least then it won't be a total waste of time and money.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't just Adelaide University that didn't spot it, no one did. All Christmas past now though.
DeleteIt's not only the anamorphic they missed, they missed the real code hidden beneath the bigger letters, that was the first and biggest failure. I recall the Professor talking to a US online magazine a few years ago and rubbishing the idea of micro writing and here it is, large as life :) Pun intended!
ReplyDeleteLet's move on from that, they got it wrong and not just on the code page as we will see here shortly. The role here is not to take shots at others, it's to further investigate and research the evidence that we now have. We can extract as much in the way of code as possible and see what can be done to decrypt it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the major hurdles with the Morbit cipher for example, is that it has a 9 character keyword. The characters can be letters or numbers or a combination of both. I am on a course at the moment that should help a little but it takes time
OK, let's move on, new post on its way with a few big surprises.
ReplyDeleteGavin, Send me a message via the comments on this blog, I won't publish it.
ReplyDelete