Tamám Shud

The Somerton Man, Post-Mortem

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Perhaps we can add WTF?

It's 1948. The Second World War has ended, but the Cold War is just beginning. The Spectre of Communism has begun haunting Europe in earnest.  Anyone, anywhere could be a spy.....

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

In 1948, a John Doe was found lying on Somerton Beach, a suburb of Adelaide, Australia, propped up against the rocks like a man taking a nap, perhaps recovering from a night on the town.  Or lying down to watch the sea as his life slipped away. 

Many seemingly strange details about the Somerton Man have caused many people to speculate that the man was a spy.  No labels on his clothes, some of which were determined to be American.  An unused train ticket.  No ID.  Well-shaven.  The body of an athlete or a dancer.  A strange code linked to a rolled up pîece of paper found in a hidden pocket.

His suitcase was found 6 weeks later at the local train station. Which turned up more clues that led nowhere.  It contained the usual stuff:  slippers, extra clothes, etc.  But there was also "an electrician's screwdriver; a table knife cut down into a short sharp instrument; a pair of scissors with sharpened points....and a stencilling brush."  (This quote and the basic story comes from Wikipedia, but I have read a lot of articles, and there really are a lot out there.)

Somerton Man's tools....

A few weeks after his death a police inspector found a rolled up scrap of paper in a hidden pocket sewn into Mr. Somerton's pants.  It is printed with the expression "Tamám Shud."

Someone pointed out that this is the final phrase from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám and translated from Persian means "It is ended."  The end, basically.  It was a popular book at the time. I myself have a copy dating from about the same year as the Somerton edition.  My grandmother's, I believe.  It was translated by Edward Fitzgerald in the 1860s and still seems to be a popular and respected translation.  Many early translations of other books haven't aged so well.  Most translations of the roughly contemporary Les Chants de Maldoror by Franco-Uruguayan Isidore Ducasse (as Le comte de Lautréamont) are lambasted by translator Alexis Lykiard.  No holds barred.  I don't have my copy at hand (just moved) but I've never seen a translator speak so harshly about the work of others.  And the example he cites justify words like "travesty".

Wild, wild, world, because a few weeks later, the very same copy of the book from which the phrase was torn, turned up; the scrap found on Somerton matched where it had been torn from this copy.  It had been tossed onto the back seat of someone's car. The book, oddly, had been found 10 days before Somerton's body was discovered. That, to me, is very strange. If he tossed the book into the car, why didn't anyone report seeing him in the ten days he was in the area? Could it indicate he wasn't the one who'd tossed the book?  Could it indicate Somerton was murdered and the scrap of paper was placed in the hidden pocket?  If it was Somerton, what was he up to in the ten days after he tossed the book and died on the beach?  Maybe the guy who found it had a wonky memory of when it was found.  

The random (?) letters which start this post were found scribbled in the book, along with a phone number. Amateur sleuths have attempted to decrypt the letters as if it were a code, and some think one would need a specific book to solve the cipher.  But 'til now, nothing has been made of them.  Others say it was probably just his way of keeping track of the horse races, or something equally banal.  Why horses?  Easy, the man recently identified as Mr. Somerton was keen on the races.

Code....or shopping list?

The phone number led to a nurse, Jessica Thompson, who lived half a kilometer from where Mr. Somerton was found. She was brought in to see the death mask that had been made. She claimed not to know the man, but was apparently clearly upset when she saw the plaster cast, to the point one man present thought she might faint.  It could be that she was upset at seeing the visage of a dead man.  But she was a nurse and might be expected to know how to deal with death.  Plus, her number was in the book.  Maybe Mr. Somerton didn't write it.  

But, dig this. The woman's daughter thinks her mum was lying and knew the man. Mum, you see, spoke Russian, but was cagey about how, when, and why she'd learned it. Mum also apparently told the daughter she did know Somerton but lied to the police because it was "not at their level." Is the daughter lying? Was mum? Was either telling the truth? Dead people tell no tales....All these details make tales of espionage more credible but more importantly, prove nothing.

Said nurse also had a son, Robin Thompson.  A professional dancer.  Of course. Remember Somerton had legs some described developed like a dancer's.  Somerton also had a rare ear configuration found in 1 to 2% of the caucasian population.  He also had hypodontia, a rare genetic disorder affecting the teeth, found in about 2% of the general population.  Guess what, Jessica's son, the dancer, had both conditions, which experts say is up to a 1 in 10 or 20 million shot, coincidence-wise.

Maybe the reconstruction was made to resemble the nurse's son, but they do resemble each other....

So, Somerton has the number of a woman living 400m away from where died, who nearly faints upon seeing his death mask. Somerton had a dancer's legs and two rare conditions affecting his teeth and ears. The woman's son is a dancer with the very same rare features of the teeth and ears.  The woman speaks Russian, was interested in Communism, and according to her daughter, lied to the police about knowing Somerton because it was "above their pay-grade".  Weird stuff.

What's even weirder is that a researcher found Robin's daughter and was able to test her DNA, and found that Robin was NOT related to Somerton. How weird is it that a woman who some say clearly knew Somerton had a son who shared so many rare features with him, yet the son wasn't his?  This woman spoke Russian and had an interest in Communism.  Whose own daughter thinks she was lying?  There are so many made-for-TV intersections which suggest espionage that -- truth being stranger than fiction -- probably are in fact just coincidences....

Somerton may have been a spy, but many of the seemingly strange details can also be explained more prosaically. I have nothing profound to add to the case by way of speculation, but like many others, I find it a compelling mystery, quite sad. The man was no bum. He was well-dressed, clean-shaven, and had a thing for poetry. But the anonymity of his death, alone on a beach, probably by suicide, well, it's sad.  At what point did this man's life go off the rails....and why?  

If you accept the spy theory, perhaps he was murdered. He was poisoned by digitalis. I don't know if the Soviets in 1948 were as keen on poisoning people as the Kremlin has been under the Putin regime, but heck, it's not inconsistent.  If true, he didn't spend all of his final hours alone....so with whom?

When I found out about this story, I was kind of obsessed for a few days.  I got turned on to it by recent developments which perhaps reveal the man's identity. 

The Wikipedia article and the following video pretty much sum up the case.  The latest theory is that this man was named Carl Webb, an electrical engineer who'd abandoned his wife a year prior to his death.

People turn up dead every day. Not sure why this case from decades ago still strikes me so much....Carl Webb was apparently one of six children. He had an estranged wife. This case was a sensation at the time, and no one who knew him heard about it?  Or came forward to identify the body?  Possible.  I suppose Australia in 1948 was still fairly wild and woolly.  Like the US, very big with lots of small towns dotting large, open spaces.  Radio and telephones existed, but not the internet, no computerized databases, and TV wasn't introduced in Australia until 1956.   Still, there were a lot more newspapers filled with photographs.  No one filed a report that could have led to an ID?  No one saw a paper and said, holy-moly, it's Carl.  Wouldn't the family be on the lookout after he'd abandoned his wife?

Australian authorities contacted the FBI and Scotland Yard, turning up nothing; this further fueled speculation about the espionage. Perhaps he was from behind the Iron Curtain....?

Webb was apparently some kind of engineer or technician who lived in the proximity of people in military positions of a sensitive nature. To what degree this is significant is debatable. Some researchers don't flat out reject it, but remain hesitant to accept the Webb identification.  If it wasn't Webb, the whole "living near special ops people" is irrelevant.  So, was this a saga of espionage or an affair of the heart?  Or neither?

Who knows in the end? Wikipedia has pretty thorough summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerton_Man

YouTuber Joe Scott does a really good job of summarizing the facts with lots of images. He avoids undue speculation.  Sometimes Scott's mannered presentation annoys me, but I've watched his stuff and they are well-organized and illustrated.  I'd recommend looking at his videos on any subject he's covered that strikes your fancy.  He really does do good work.  

The following article talks about the possibility that the man is Carl Webb, who disappeared after leaving his wife in 1947.   The Somerton Man died in 1948. It also addresses whether or not the Somerton Man, Webb or not, was in fact a spy.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-02/is-carl-webb-really-the-somerton-man-and-was-he-a-spy/101375542

All in all, this is a really fascinating story and an interesting window on Australia in the years immediately following WW2.  The Webb ID isn't too fantastical, which in my book, lends it credence.  I'm a pretty sceptical person though, so until the 5-O/Po-Po/Keuf concur, or family steps forward, I mark Webb a good probability but not a certainty.  It seems to fit.  Dying a year after he left his wife; a family connection to a man named Keane (a name found on one article of clothing from which the labels hadn't been removed); a love of poetry; a photo of Webb's brother....they bear more than a passing resemblance.  All circumstantial.  None of these deets preclude him from being a spy, either, so for those with their hearts set on a Cold War drama, if the man is proven to be Webb, you'll have a lot more to work with.  

As Sherlock would say:  "The game is (still) afoot!"  

I know that sounds terribly insensitive, but this case has been famous since it first occurred 70+ years ago, which doesn't indicate a high degree of interest or concern among the family who survived him.  If it is Webb, that's 5 siblings and their children, grandchildren, and possibly great-grandchildren.  Not to mention cousins, aunties, family friends.  National news and not one friend or family member steps up?  A remarkably uncaring family?  Was Webb a total "good riddance best forgotten" prick?  

If the speculation that Mr. Somerton wasn't Australian bears weight....maybe he was from behind the Iron Curtain after all.  Prosaic or nefarious, this possible identification rakes up even more enigmas.  The Somerton Man was, and is, famous; and not a single person has stepped up to identify him.  Granted, those photos were post-mortem.  But surely a sibling or other relation would have recognized him?  That no one has done so again, makes me feel incredibly sad....Think if all you will be remembered for is that you turned up dead on a beach with some weird stuff in your pockets

We just have to wait and see....or....

Shai-hulud

The Voice of Shai-Hulud, from the Oral History

"Over here sand blows, over there sand blows. Over there a rich man waits, over here I wait."

Tamám Shud

XCIX.  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, 5th ed.  Edward "Eddie the Veggie" FitzGerald

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire 

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, 

Would not we shatter it to bits--and then 

Re-mold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

And finally: 

Owa Tagu Siam 

Stimes Addisson, A Brief History Roman Mystery Cults from Greece, Persia, and Egypt.

By 300 C.E., the mystery cult called the rites of Auca (originally Ghaz) surpassed Mithraism and Christianity among soldiers in Britannia and sewage technicians from Gaul, Germania, and Syria Palaestina to Rome itself.  If not for Constantine's well-hidden anatidaephobia, it may have won out over Christianity and the cult of Sol Invictus; a nagging seat of power in the outre-mer legions was dedicated to Mithraism, whose initiatory grades appealed to men accustomed to advancing in rank; the rites of Auca had no such progression.  Their "life-mantra" was the Latin phrase "Owa Tagu Siam" literally meant "Let me be."  Their "death chant" finished with the congregation saying the Persian "Tamám Shud".  The officiant then intoned "tazh shrw'e shdh ast" or "It has only just begun." 

Be careful out there, wannabe Baker Street Irregulars.  What is true and what is an absolute crock is harder to delineate in this info-bite world. The internet is often one big tautology: A cites B in it's references; B then cites A.  I learned that to my embarrassment circa 1996, when I sent an email with a photo purporting to show a missile downing a jetliner just after it left JFK.  This theory still has, er, wings, and there's even a documentary about it.  The NTSB blamed faulty wiring around the central fuel tank.  The alternate take is that the US Navy shot it down by accident during routine target practice.  TWA flight 800.  I'd presented conspiracy theory as fact.

I'm getting off track here; just reiterating my preoccupation with confirmation bias.  You want Mr. Somerton to be a spy and you will find plenty of evidence to support your theory.  At one point I played around with conspiracy theory and what is referred to as "twilight language" in order to get into the mind of the would-be conspiracy buster.  Read the facts and then theorize; don't theorize prematurely and bend the data to fit.  Not to sound like a know-it-all.  I'm certainly guilty of confirmation bias and the making the red-car-phenomenon something which it isn't.  As a perception phenomenon it is indeed a window on and a shaper of reality.  I think I'm generally aware of it though, and also aware that more often than not, I'm absolutely fuggin' right!  About everything.  Haha.  I kid.  

Was Somerton a spy?  I don't know.  He could have been from the Soviet bloc or an Australian asset.  There are so many unknowns about the most banal and what should be public details of the man,  that determining whether or not he was a spy is probably impossible to determine.  So, I've really flogged this one.  Like many people, something about the story grabbed me and is still holding on.  For all the flip and cavalier things I've said, I really mean it when I say it saddens me.  My gut feeling is that he was a troubled guy with a flair for the dramatic, who abandoned his wife to recapture a lost love, the nurse perhaps, and, not finding it, took his own life.  I may very well be wrong, and I don't insist on this notion in the slightest.  It's just an inkling.  OK.  Now I can say

Tamám Shud........?

Note:  Significant updates on 12/10.  So much for Tamám Shud! 😀