On this day, November 30th 1948, Mr & Mrs John Lyons headed out on their regular evening stroll along Somerton Beach to the Broadway and return. The distance outbound from their home in White Street, down to Somerton Beach, along the beach to Broadway and return is aproximatley 3 klms. A slow walking pace would be 3 lms per hour, a comfortable walking pace is around 4.5 klms per hour. If the latter is the case then the time taken for their walk would be 40 minutes approximately.
This then was the beginning of the Somerton Many Mystery.
*Please note that we do not know the exact time that the Lyons ouple set out or returned from their walk. The timing has been assumed to have been prior t the arrival of Gordon Strapps and Olive Neil when thy sat on the bench at 7.30 p.m.
You will notice that as they walk along there is no one lying in the sand alongside the steps that lead up to the Children's Home. They did not mention having seen him then, it was only on their return.
In this image we see Mr & Mrs Lyons on their return leg of their journey and this time they see the man on the beach who raises hs arm and moved it in an outward circular movement. Mr. Lyons in his statement put the distance from which they saw the man as around 15 yards. An important note. It was was said that on their outbound walk, that Mr & Mrs Lyons had not seen the man near the steps, having seen this reconstruction, it is possible that on their outbound walk there view may have been obscured by the steps when approaching them from the South.
The Light Was Fading
The scene below is set at Dusk, between 7.30pm and 8 pm on November 30th 1948. In the frame you can just see the man lying on the beach and seated on a bench on the landing just behind and to the left of the man you can see the two witnesses, Gordon Strapps and Olive Neil. Behind them at the top of the steps there is a man who it is said was watching the man on the beach, Olive Neil mentioned him in her statement at the inquest. Consider this, it's dusk, the light is quickly fading, when they first arrived at 7.30 pm it may have been a little lighter.
The Research
The research carried out regarding the distance between Gordon Strapps and the man, showed that distance to be approximately 15 feet or 5 yards. Yet Strapps in his statement said that he was 10 yards away from the man. I used a process called Photogrammetry to calculate the distance based on the width of the steps being 2 feet, a stanndard size for step widths in those days. At this distance in failing light, it is in my view, improbable that Gordon Strapps was able to make out the striped trousers that he said he saw in his statement. Olive Neil on the other hand disputed his claim. It was Olive who told of the man with the fedora standing near the railing apparently watching the man. Again there is no other witness who saw the man.
A Political Affiliation
There are some questions that remain, the first question is, how do we know that Gordon and Olive were actually there? In the statements it is apparent that Mr and Mrs Lyons did not see them that evening. We only have their words for it. It is possible that if we can get a copy of the Court Reporters transcription from the Inquest hearing, that point might be cleared up. One last issue which I came across relatively recently is that both Gordon and Olive were members of the Eureka Youth League, the young Communist movement.
The Police Arrive
The image below is a reconstruction of the scene at Somerton Beach on the morning of December 1st 1948. The two jockeys with horses are as decribed in the original statements. Note that there are two ambulances on the road above as was described by a witness who came forward a few years ago telling of what he saw when he was a young boy first name Rodger, was out walking his dog early that morning. I will update with those details later today. I posted about it in a comment in June 2024,
Read more about the Story in this newspaper article August 22nd 2021
Read more about the Story in this newspaper article August 22nd 2021
The video and the still image reconstructions shown here are the first of a number of short AI generated clips or images with explanations that will be posted on this page. They are reconstructions intended to provide our audience with another 'accessibility' avenue to the Somerton Man story.
Apologies to all, there's a bit of a backlog of comments that I seriously haven't had time to address. As you know we achieved a significat milestone over the wekend with more than 1,250,000 web page visitors since 2013 and we hold the record for the longest continuously operating blog focused purely on the Somerton Man case. That plus the commitment to getting the book completed and it's a fair old workload to contend with. Not to mention learning how to use AI Image and Video generation, it has a mind of its own at times :) Research takes up most of my time currently, that and lisasing with the editor, multiple streams of activity associated with the book. It will not be a 5 minute read, it is cover to cover research, the focus has been finding the Truth of the Somerton Man case and it has been no easy job but we got there Or rather we will get there when the editor gives it a big tick. The first draft/manuscript went off last week and already there are tidy ups to do.The latest discovery information also went to the Coroner and Sapol. Will post an update shortly and thanks for your continued support!
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get the photos from? I’ve read about it lots of times but seeing it like this in a video and photos makes the story more ‘real’ if you know what I mean. I think it’s the detail of the ambulances and the Police guy who looks like he’s turning that body over that makes it for me anyway.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, the ‘photos’ and the video I created using AI tools. To be precise, the base image for them was the actual beach scene in the Police photographs and then I made use of the various inquest statements and the 2021 press article. The latter suggested two ambulances for the still image where you see the jockeys with horses, Mr. Lyons in his swimming trunks and Constable Moss examining the body. I am sure it could be improved on, I have some learning to do when it comes to constructing the correct prompts. In my defence I got the Mr & Mrs Lyons video correct:). As it happens the subject of that particular clip when they walk along the beach on their outbound stroll to the Broadway and didn’t notice a man near the steps, was s something I discovered recently. What it could mean is that the man arrived there after they walked past which has to be an option. Alternatively, they may have been busy talking and didn’t see him there. The bottom line is that they were alert enough to see him on the way back but not on the way there. Hmmm.
ReplyDelete