How Tall Was Carl Webb? A Verifiable Answer…5 feet 8 inches….

 In today’s post, our focus is on the vexing question of the height of the Somerton Man pretender, Carl Webb.

Since Carl 'Charles' Webb was identified as the likely candidate, every detail of not only his life but those of others in his family tree have been under at times quite intense scrutiny. I should point out that many of the researchers who became involved in the task, did so fairly and professionally although there were a few who strayed from that widely accepted rule.

One of the most significant points of contention is that of Carl Webb’s height. The man found on Somerton beach was measured and recorded to be 5′11′′ on the mortuary slab, but was Carl Webb that tall? We first tackled this question in 2024, and since that time a new, more precise method has yielded some compelling results.

In our 2024 post we made use of Photogrammetry techniques and we arrived at a conclusion on that occasion. We really needed something extra, something that would build on our 2024 post to the extent that the result we achieved would leave little, if any, doubt about just how tall Carl Webb was. 

It is a critical issue and in my view it has been treated far too lightly ever since Professor Abbott made his announcement that he had finally proven the identity of the Somerton Man. Only one instance has been recorded where the Professor referred to Carl Webb’s height and it was not a direct reference. You can find it in an ABC news item amongst other miscellaneous comments. In it he mentions that Carl Webb was 3/4 of an inch taller than his sadly deceased nephew. That nephew was John Russell Keane, who was killed in a flying training accident in Northern Ireland in 1943. On his service record, John’s height was recorded as being 5’ 10 1/4 inches.  Thus the 3/4 inch difference quoted by Professor Abbott would have made Carl 5’ 11 inches tall, which is coincidentally the same height as the Somerton Man. The Professor does not mention the source of his referred height dimension. Here’s the link to the Professor’s article:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-08/somerton-man-found-in-nephews-clothe-researchers-believes/101405152

As you will read, there is a significant difference between how we approach the Somerton Man case and Professor Abbott’s approach.

The 2024 Post 

In the 2024 post the method used to estimate Carl Webb’s height was simple enough, it was a standard photogrammetry approach, having found an article on the family group of 4 members of the Webb family that could be physically measured. If you look at that photograph you will see that Carl and his brother Roy were both wearing identical open neck sports shirts. The collar of this shirt was visible and could be measured and it was on the target photograph. 

What that meant was that I could use that shirt collar length to effectively measure the upper body height including the head of each man. Statistics exist which show that there is a head to body height ratio and that ratio is 1: 7.5 meaning that the body is 7.5 times the height of the head.  Using that ratio and the dimensions that were found courtesy of the collar length, the result that I arrived at was that Carl was a shade under 5 feet 8 inches. 

It’s important to note that the head to body ratio is a generalised estimate, it varies depending on a number of factors. The bottom line was that we really needed a more precise method. And the search was on. You can check this out on the 2024 blog post here: https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2024/04/tamam-shud-carl-webb-height-issue.html

Sometimes it’s not a bad idea to stew over things for a while, the mind is a wondrous thing, it can sometimes work on a problem even while we are sleeping and come up with some astounding results.

So, I let it stew, and stew and stew even more. And lo and behold when I looked at the family group of 4 again, I saw something that I had missed before. There were two other items on the family photograph, heights of two men that were not only known but documented.  You may have already seen this but if not, the two ‘items’ were actually Richard and Roy Webb’s height. In his much younger days Richard had apparently fallen foul of the law and had acquired a Victorian Police record, and on that record his height was recorded at 5 feet 8 inches. In Roy’s case, his height was dutifully recorded as also being 5 feet 8 inches on his Army Service record. For the record, it’s not for us to pass judgement on Richard and his arrest back then. In 1895, times were very hard and who’s to say what you and I would have done in order to feed our young families.

In the family photograph, we only see part of the bodies of the 3 men, the upper part, so I asked myself the question, how can we get a close height estimate from a photograph in these circumstances? 

I found the answer in the principles used by modern photogrammetry software. The challenge is always the same: if you have objects of a known size in an image, can you accurately measure an unknown object? The answer is yes

To capture the information, I used a software technique similar to that used in airport surveillance cameras that can measure height and other dimensions instantly. It is a photogrammetry method plus some modern day enhancements. I have to tell you that in this instance, the software is simple to use and the results are impressive.

The tools to capture the specific raw pixel image information, were available but we needed something else to make it all work. We needed an algorithm that would take the pixel measurements that I was able to retrieve from the photograph and then impute from the dimensions of the upper bodies of Richard and Roy a good estimate of the height for Carl Webb. Thankfully I was able to acquire the services of a good friend who happily set to work on creating our own imputation algorithm. 

The algorithm was designed so that it could use the two known and documented  heights—those of Richard and Roy—as a reliable benchmark. This custom algorithm works by comparing the pixel dimensions of Richard and Roy's upper bodies to their documented heights. 

It then applies the specific, calibrated ratio from those first pixel measurements taken from Richard and Roy’s images to the pixel dimensions of Carl's upper body, imputing a probable height for him.

And the height that the algorithm arrived at? 5 feet 8 inches. The same height estimate that we achieved in the 2024 post. 

The fact that this second. new and more rigorous analysis, produced the same height estimate as our 2024 post as in Carl Webb’s height being 5’ 8 “, provides strong corroboration for the initial findings. What it does is to retroactively validate the original assumption that the shirt collar of the open necked sports shirts worn by Carl and Roy Webb was indeed approximately 6 inches long, that makes this a mutual reinforcement of the accuracy of both independent methods.

So, where does this leave us? Both our original and our enhanced analyses point to a height for Carl Webb of 5′8′′. While our new method provides a range of error (5′6′′ to 5′10′′), it also shows the probability drops sharply as you move away from the 5′8′′ mark. In fact because both methods arrive at the same conclusion, the height of Carl Webb is no longer a ‘strong estimate’, it becomes a highly probable fact. 

The algorithm method alone indicates the likelihood that Carl was 5′8′′ is three times greater than the chance he was 5′11′′. Given the Somerton Man's autopsy report listed him as 5′11′′, our findings now more than strongly suggest that despite other as yet unsubstantiated claims, Carl Webb and the Somerton Man were two different people.

The additional confirmation of the conclusion that Carl Webb is 5’8” tall, is massively amplified because it is independently supported by a second, different analytical method. It demonstrates that the result is not a fluke or an artifact of one specific algorithm.

As usual, if a claim or statement is made here then I should be prepared to substantiate it or state that it is an unsubstantiated view. It applies to this post as it does to the rest of these posts. Thus if you would like a copy of the algorithm that was used in this exercise together with a step by step description of the detailed process used, please message me via the ‘contact us’ form and provide your details and I will organise it for you.