Fly Versus Flutter...FitzGerald's 2nd Edition

 

Some months ago, in February 2025, I posted about the anomalies in the Collins version of the Rubaiyat which has I have been able to prove to be the correct version of the book from which the torn slip came and which also matches the shape and aspect ratio of the Somerton Man code page follow this link for more. this was despite many years spent chasing the wrong book as in a Whitcomb and Tombs version.

This post builds on that initial article as you will read below.

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Using The Wrong Book To Crack the Code   

In a February 2025 post, I demonstrated that the book found in the Somerton Man case was not the Whitcombe & Tombs edition, as long believed, but a Collins publication this was first pointed out by Detective Brown in his statement at the 1949 Inquest. This was proven through page dimensions, image analysis, and a direct match with the torn "Tamam Shud" slip.

But identifying the publisher was only half the battle. The content of that specific Collins edition changes everything that people thought they knew about the Somerton Man code

The "Missing Leaf"

Here's the logic.The 1959 Police Report stated a specific, nagging detail: the book handed in to the police had a "missing back leaf."

• The W&T Edition: This edition had no back leaf. It ended with the text and a dust cover.

• The Collins Edition: This edition contained two blank back leaves following the end of the text.

This discrepancy while something of a problem at first, actually solves the mystery of the indentations and how they would have gotten there.

If the Collins book had two blank leaves and one was torn out, the remaining blank leaf is exactly where the code would have been written and whoever wrote that code would have used the other page and the back of the book to rest on. The impressions found on the back of the book were not on the cover, they were on the remaining blank leaf, pressed through from the missing one.

The Two-in-One Trap

There was a critical detail that that slipped under the radar: The Collins edition did not just contain FitzGerald’s most famous First Edition. It contained both the First and Second Editions.

So, what's the difference? The First Edition has 75 quatrains or 4 line verses. The Second has 110 quatrains. Crucially, the wording between editions changes

The "Fly vs. Flutter" Anomaly

To understand why previous code-breaking attempts have failed, we need to look at Verse 7. This verse appears in both editions, but the text is not identical.

First Edition (The text used by most researchers):

"The Bird of Time has but a little way

To fly—and Lo! the bird is on the wing."

Second Edition (The text found in the Collins Book):

"The Bird of Time has but a little way

To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing."

At a glance, this looks like a minor poetic change. But in cryptography, it is catastrophic.

The Cryptographic Failure

The difference between the First Edition ("Fly") and the Second Edition ("Flutter") changes the character count and grid position of every letter in that line.

First Edition Line 4:

T o f l y a n d L o ... (10 chars to 'Lo')

Second Edition Line 4:

T o f l u t t e r a n d t h e ... (15 chars to 'the')

Why this matters for the Somerton Man Case

Given that "Code" (the strings of letters back of the book) now appears to have been written  using the Collins book as a 'One-Time Pad' or a Running Key Cipher, the agent creates the message by counting letters based on the verse, a book cipher in effect. Read more on BOOK CIPHERS Here. (Note in particular that the example as explained by the good people at Bletchley Park specifically mention, 12 to 15 characters)

If the agent uses the "Collins/Second Edition" (Flutter) and the codebreaker uses the "Whitcombe/First Edition" (Fly), the decryption will fail 100% of the time. The grid is misaligned by 5 characters in just one line.

The Blind Spot

In 2012, Professor Derek Abbott and his team at Adelaide University conducted extensive statistical analysis on the code page. However, they worked on the premise that the source text was the W&T First Edition.

They were looking for patterns in a text that the Somerton Man may not have been using.

I recently analyzed Verse 7 of the Second Edition—the text unique to the Collins book. The analysis confirmed that the structural "fingerprint" of the text is fundamentally different. By using the First Edition text, researchers haven't just been struggling to crack the code—they've been using a key that doesn't fit the lock.

The Danetta Link

Finally, we must look at Verse 70. In the First Edition, this is the verse associated with Jestyn and Alf Boxall, containing the acrostic "DANETTA." In the Second Edition, Verse 70 is completely different text.

If the Somerton Man was carrying a book that contained the Second Edition, and if that edition is the key to the indentations, then the investigation needs to reset its baseline. The Collins Rubaiyat isn't just a different book; it is a different codebook.

To demonstrate just how critical this "Edition Error" is, I have uncovered a specific extraction sequence within Verse 7 of the Second Edition that spells out the code word DANETTA.

This extraction relies on a numerical position sequence found within the verse lines. However, it only works if you are using the Second Edition text.

The DANETTA Sequence (Second Edition):

• D: 1st letter (Reading Right to Left, Line 3) — BirD

• A: 2nd letter (Reading Right to Left, Line 3)— wAy

• N: 3rd letter (Reading Left to Right, Line 4) — wiNg

• E: 4th letter (Reading Left to Right, Line 2) — RepEntance

• T: 5th letter (Reading  Left to Right Line 4) — flutTer

• T: 6th letter (Reading Left to Right, Line 2) — RepenTance

• A: 7th letter (Reading Left to Right, Line 2) — RepentAnce

The "First Edition" Failure

If you attempt to run this same numerical sequence on the First Edition—the text used by researchers for 77 years—the code crack attempt instantly fails at the 5th letter.

In the First Edition, Line 4 reads: "To fly—and Lo! the bird is on the wing."

The word "flutter" is replaced by "fly"

The letter 'T' required for the sequence does not exist.

You cannot extract "DANETTA" from the Verse 7 in the First Edition. The key is physically missing. What this proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that any cryptanalysis attempting to solve the Somerton Man mystery using the Whitcombe & Tombs (First Edition) text is mathematically doomed to fail, as fail they did.

This is a small glimpse into the critical, evidence-based research that underpins The Somerton Secret, coming soon from C. Gordon Cramer. Be sure to subscribe to the exclusive email list for more details on the groundbreaking evidence. It contains explosive information on the real nature of the Somerton Man case