An Update…January 27th 2025

Day by day the results of the coroners inquest into the identity of the Somerton Man, are getting closer. To my understanding information is still being gathered which comes as no surprise given that we’re now into the 77th year since the man’s body was found on Somerton Beach. There’s an enormous amount of information to be processed with many voices to be heard and their input to be assessed. A major and unenviable task for the Coroner and his team.

It is important to acknowledge that the focus of this inquest is the identity of the exhumed body.  Whether or not it is that of the Somerton Man is another but strongly related issue. 

As has been discussed numerous times on this blog, there is only one item that can prove that those remains are those of the man found on the beach and that is the hand written dental chart taken by Dr.Dwyer, the man who performed the autopsy on the body of the man from the beach. If you search the information here you will find that in his evidence, Dr Dwyer confirmed that the chart produced was in his handwriting and it was the one he took at the autopsy. 

DNA cannot prove that last vital link to the Somerton Man without a proven comparison.

Regarding the Carl Webb claim, my view remains the same namely that there was only a single rootless shaft of hair sent to Astrea for analysis and according to Professor Abbot, in 2012, Janet Edson found a cluster of hairs and she was able to remove the strands without breaking them or damaging the plaster. These full strands were later sent for analysis but all the roots were useless.  There is no mention anywhere that can be found of rootless shafts of hair being extracted by Janet but Professor Abbot introduced such a reference without any provenance. 

Add to that, the shaft of hair was submitted for analysis and thus it no longer exists, the claim cannot therefore be verified/tested, the one and only sample no longer exists. There is no mention at all of where, when, how, by whom and from whom any hair samples were taken for the purpose of comparison with the hair shaft analysis results.

I also note that until quite recently, the colour of the hair has been referred to variously, as reddish ginger, pale ginger, light ginger/mousey but now Professor Abbot has dropped any reference to ‘ginger’ and uses only the term ‘Mousey’ a slight but important change has been introduced to the narrative.

I would describe the Carl Webb claim as being weak and unconfirmed. If there are any useable hair samples found amongst the remains, then it is possible to run a comparison but only by using documents and not an actual hair sample to compare with any recovered samples.

To correct a misperception. Around 2010, I informed Professor Abbot that there hairs protruding from the bust and raised with him the possibility that they may contain DNA, he dismissed that suggestion based on the value of the bust as an historical artefact.  In Gerry Feltus’s book published in 2010, The Unknown Man, page 194, he describes how he had considered the possibility of DNA extraction from the hair on the bust but had reached the conclusion that it was not possible. He based that conclusion on there being no other sample with which to compare. Technology has certainly changed since then but at the time Gerry was well ahead of us all and in many ways, he still is.

This inquest may possibly tell us who the man is but what he was is yet another question.

To finish this update, a forecast. I would not be surprised if a bombshell or two, appear around the days of the publication of the Inquest results. Something to think about!

I’ll be tied up for the next couple of weeks so may not have time for another post….