The Somerton Man: Found Dead with a Cryptic Message

Paul Balmer
3 days ago
4 min read

Updated: 10 hours ago

On the morning of December 1st, 1948, a man was found dead on Somerton Beach, just south of Adelaide, Australia. He was well-dressed, lying on the sand with his head propped against a seawall, legs crossed neatly, and an unlit cigarette resting on his lapel. To the casual eye, he may have appeared to be sleeping.

But he wasn’t.

The man was dead, and the mystery of who he was — and how he died — has haunted investigators, researchers, and conspiracy theorists ever since.

A Man with No Name

The deceased wore a pressed suit, polished shoes, and a tie. Oddly, every label on his clothing had been removed. He carried no wallet, no passport, and no identifying documents of any kind. Inside his pockets were everyday items: chewing gum, a used bus ticket, a comb, and a pack of cigarettes. But nothing unusual—at first glance.

There were no signs of trauma. No visible injuries. No evidence of a struggle. The autopsy revealed an enlarged spleen, congestion in the organs, and bleeding in the stomach—symptoms consistent with poisoning—but no traces of toxins could be found. The official cause of death was undetermined.

Then, months later, police made a peculiar discovery.

Tamám Shud

Hidden in a small fob pocket sewn into the man’s trousers, detectives found a rolled scrap of paper. On it were just two words: Tamám Shud.

The phrase was quickly identified as Persian, meaning “it is ended” or “finished.” The paper had been torn from a rare New Zealand edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—a 12th-century collection of poems meditating on fate and mortality. It was a poetic flourish in an otherwise clinical mystery.

A public appeal was made, and remarkably, a man came forward with a copy of The Rubaiyat that had been tossed into the back seat of his car, left unlocked near Somerton Beach weeks earlier. The torn edge of the final page matched the scrap perfectly.

Inside that book were two critical clues: a series of capital letters arranged like a cipher, and a local phone number.

The case had just shifted—from unusual to utterly bizarre.

A Shadow of the Cold War

As news of the cryptic death spread, rumors swirled. Some believed the man was a spy, killed in a Cold War plot. Others suspected suicide, a lover’s betrayal, or a criminal cover-up. But none of these theories could be proven—and the man, whose fingerprints matched no records worldwide, was never officially identified.

His body was embalmed, buried in a local cemetery, and his death mask preserved in plaster. For decades, that mask and the photograph of the man’s oddly peaceful face became iconic symbols of the case.

But the deeper investigators looked, the stranger things became.

The 'Unknown Man' was buried at a local cemetary.

The Cipher, the Nurse, and the Man with No Past

When investigators traced the phone number written in the back of the Rubaiyat, it led them to the nearby home of a young nurse known publicly as Jestyn (a pseudonym). She lived just blocks from where the body was found.

Jestyn admitted to owning a copy of the book and claimed to have once given a copy to a man she knew during the war—but she denied knowing the Somerton Man. Police noted that, when shown a cast of his face, she appeared visibly shaken. Her reaction was suspicious, but not enough to implicate her in any crime. She asked that her real name be kept from the press, and for decades, it was.

Despite efforts by professional cryptographers, intelligence agencies, and countless amateur codebreakers, no one has ever conclusively decoded the message that was found in the book. Some believe it was a personal code; others think it was nothing more than a poetic structure or nonsense meant to distract.

Theories Multiply

The unusual items, the missing labels, the rare book with a Persian phrase torn from it, and the cryptic writing all fueled a growing suspicion: the Somerton Man may have been involved in espionage. The Cold War had just begun, and Adelaide had a nearby military testing facility. Was he a spy? An agent poisoned in a covert operation?

Others offered different theories: a jilted lover taking his own life near the woman he couldn’t have; an assassin who failed a mission and paid the price; or a man whose mental health unraveled into obsession and secrecy.

Still, no one knew who he was.

A Breakthrough, 70 Years Later

For decades, the case remained cold. The Somerton Man’s remains lay buried in a modest grave marked only by the mystery he left behind. But in 2021, his body was exhumed as part of a renewed effort using forensic genealogy — the same technology used to identify the Golden State Killer.

A team led by researcher Derek Abbott, in collaboration with American genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick, analyzed mitochondrial DNA from hair trapped in the death mask. In July 2022, they announced a likely identification: Carl “Charles” Webb, born in 1905 in Melbourne. He was an electrical engineer with a troubled personal life, known to have disappeared around the same time.

Webb had no known connection to espionage or the nurse. He left behind no criminal record, no suicide note, and no clear motive.

A Name, But No Resolution

After decades of theories, books, and documentaries, the Somerton Man finally had a name—but no answers. Why he came to Adelaide, how he died, and why he carried a torn poem in his pocket remain unsolved.

Sometimes a name solves everything. In this case, it only deepened the mystery.

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