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SOMERTON MAN: REALISTIC PROFILE IMAGE RELEASED

February 19, 2018, 12:07 am
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THE SOMERTON MAN PROFILE IMAGE

I did this work on the Somerton Man profile image perhaps 5 years ago. For those interested, I firstly rotated the post-mortem profile image through around 90 degrees clockwise so that we would see his face as it would appear if he were in a 'near enough' standing position.

The modifications I made were to first erase the 'bump on the forehead and then to tidy up the hair so that it would hopefully look as close as possible to how it would have appeared when he was alive. The slight overbite is apparent and I did little to change that.

Comments welcome.


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SOMERTON MAN: A QUESTION OF RESEARCH?

April 1, 2018, 9:45 pm
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SM, SUICIDE? THE NUMBERS...


Some 5 years back I posted a question regarding just how unusual was the apparent suicide of the Somerton Man. By that, I mean that given that the statistics are available, just how many males were believed to have ended their own lives in let's say, the period 1945 to 1950?

This is a question for the researchers amongst us so Clive, JS and perhaps Milongal may take this on as a small project. 

Here's the criteria:
1. Unidentified males between the ages of 40 and 50 years
2. The period between 1945 and 1950 (A year by year comparison might be interesting)
3. Death by poisoning
4. Found on a beach

Please feel free to further qualify the research, for example, you might want to add the criterion 'death by unknown poison.'

Over to you...
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SOMERTON MAN: A TALE OF TWO PHOTOGRAPHS

April 5, 2018, 3:26 am
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LAUNDRY MARKS 


This image, amongst a number of others, was taken by Police, likely Jimmy Durham, at some time following the discovery of the Somerton Man's body on December 1st, 1948.

The marks were found on the rear pocket of the Elasta strap trousers he was wearing at the time of the Somerton Man's death. At least this is what has generally been accepted albeit without much proof apart from this one photograph and a distant image showing two Detectives displaying the man's garments and contents of the suitcase. In the latter photograph, these markings can just be made out whilst they are much clearer in the image above.

My contention has been that the laundry marks, much like the letters of the code page, had been overwritten by the Police or some other agency.

And today, this image turned up:


Notice the brand marking to the top right, this does not appear on any other photographs from the files, it suggests that this may be a hitherto undiscovered photograph.

The comparison image below shows more revealing information:

On the left is the image that has long been available and on the right is the image discovered today. Notice the differences?

1. The first set, 1171/1 in the image on the left is at an entirely different angle to the image on the right

2. The second set, 4393/3, is far bolder in the image on the left compared to the image on the right

3. The last set, 305-3/1 includes a clear dash in the image on the left but not so in the right-hand image. Again, the numbers are noticeably bolder for the set on the left.

Of these 3 sets, the first one, 1171/1, is most curious, the image on the left seems to be completely different to the set on the right not only because of the angle but because of the shapes of the numbers.

From this information, it seems reasonable to assume that the image on the right pre-dates the image on the left. To my knowledge this has not been noticed before. It provides evidence that the police photographed the laundry marks prior to there being written over and again afterward.

Here's the Newspaper article, Brisbane Truth, Sunday, 30th January 1949:



I believe that we can now make a reasonable assumption that the Police files included, before and after, marked up photographs of the code page.

We will add this to the list of discoveries made by this blog unless someone has evidence of it being found earlier.

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SOMERTON MAN: A THIRD PHOTOGRAPH SURFACES WITH A TWIST

April 9, 2018, 11:30 pm
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THE THIRD PHOTO...


A very brief post for now but I think it interesting enough to warrant a heads up for all those interested.

Thie photograph appeared on 15th January 1949 in the Mail. This is quite probably the very first image distributed. It is a little blurred but if you look at the first number set at the top, it looks to me to be 7171/7 and not 1171/7.

Is that number difference significant, I honestly don't know but I do know that we now have 3 different images of what is supposedly the same set of laundry marks, yet all have apparent differences.

Both Clive and I have been pouring over all of the Trove articles in an effort to find further photographs of the laundry marks but without success to this point. If anyone else can take a look that would be great.

There's more very interesting information to add to this post but other commitments prevent spending more time until tomorrow.
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SOMERTON MAN: THE LAUNDRY MARKS, CHASING THE NUMBERS YIELDS SOME RESULTS

April 12, 2018, 3:07 am
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TROVE RESULTS....

3 SEPARATE ADS & A SHIP

As many will know, Trove (trove.nla.gov.au) is an invaluable resource for both new and experienced researchers/investigators.  The last few days I have spent what spare time I have had liaising with Clive and following up on some of the comments that have been generated.

The outcome is interesting, Clive came across a ship that had departed Fremantle in April 1948 and it had a link to a number 7171, the name of the ship was 'William A Graham', it was headed to the UK. Being the thorough bloke that he is, he quickly uncovered that the number referred to the tonnage of the vessel. It doesn't necessarily rule it out but it looks less promising than at first thought.

I carried out a search on all three sets of numbers, removing the forward slash and just treating them all as 5 digit numbers. In cryptology, there is a precedent for surplus numbers or characters being inserted into some kinds of messages.

Here's what we turned up:


Dated September 1947, the ad above relates to second-hand motor vehicles and a Government tender in Western Australia. Followers of the SM case will recognise the significance of second-hand vehicles there being a possible link to Jestyn's husband who was in that business.

Next, 
The ad below relates to a property portfolio that contained a Pin number, 43933 from Perth Western Australia, a name to follow up on perhaps?



This final ad below was found in an issue of the Melbourne Age dated 10th April 1948, a chemist and his wife looking for accommodation in Melbourne. Chemists have always been persons of interest in this case due mostly to the suspected use of a rare poison on the Somerton Man. The box number is 71717.





Our recent anonymous commenter thought that the numbers referred to, in sequence, dates, that being so it would mean that the numbers on the pocket were written in reverse order?

That's all we have for now, will update this post as and when we manage to retrieve items of possible interest.
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SOMERTON MAN: OVERLOOKED?

April 15, 2018, 9:34 pm
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HAS COWAN"S STATEMENT BEEN OVERLOOKED?




Might be that I missed this being published elsewhere but here goes! What Mr. Cowan is saying by default is that the poison wasn't taken by mouth. That being so, how else was it administered?

Was it Hydrogen Sulphide as per the later mysterious deaths by unknown poisoning, Bogle and Chandler. Was it an early nerve agent? A gas gun or spray? Mr. Cowan's statement seems quite specific and I think worthy of more research although in the article he does almost distance himself.

I wonder if anyone has any knowledge of sewage outlets near the spot of Somerton Beach at that time? Is it possible that some foul and toxic waste was pumped out at night by a rogue chemical manufacturer? Quite honestly I wouldn't know but I am not at all certain that the thought has been previously pursued; if it has then my apologies.


You can find the full article here: 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36372869?searchTerm=%22tamam%20Shud%22%20Cowan&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc

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SOMERTON MAN: THE LAUNDRY MARKS, A HIDDEN CODE?

May 10, 2018, 12:53 am
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A CODE?




Taking a longer look at what seems to be the first image published of the laundry marks, you can see quite clearly in this magnified version of the image, that the first number is indeed a 7.

Let's look at the second image:



In this image, there is no sign of the first number being anything like a number 7.

Why is that important?

Let's look at the third and last image of the sets of numbers:



Here you can see that in the last set, 3053/1, there is now a break between the 5 and the three, it's not there in the previous images though. Could that break have another meaning?

Are the laundry marks a code?

Firstly let me acknowledge you Milongal, I know that you were not sure about that first number but hopefully, now you can see that it is quite definitely a number 7 and not a 1.

So what we have are 3 sets of numbers:

1. 7171/7
2. 4393/3
3. 3053/1

Set 1: 7171/7. There are 2  numbers 7 in the first part of the set and that number 7 is repeated after the virgule (forward slash).

Set 2. 4393/3. There are 2 numbers 3 in the first part of the set and that number 3 is repeated after the virgule.

Set 3. 3053-3/1. We do not have a repeated number in the first part and the number 1 only appears after the virgule. Is that just a dash between the 5 and the three or is it a minus sign?

Given the similarity between sets  1 and 2 and not in 3, I wondered whether there was another way that you could, by using the first 4 numbers in each set, arrive at the end number shown in each set.

Here's what I came up with:

Set 1. 7171...7+1+7+1 = 16. If we add the last two digits, 1+6 we get 7

Set 2. 4393...4x3+9x3= 12+27 = 39 = 3+9 = 12 = 1+2 and we get 3

Set 3.3053...30+5-3 = 32 = 3-2 and we get 1

I don't pretend to be a code breaker but I am able to find codes as per the micro writing on the code page and verse 70, this example is screaming out for an experienced code breaker to take a good look at what we have here and contribute to the furtherance of the work or take it off the list.

A couple of additional thoughts in closing, well one thought and then a set of images.

Is it possible that these number sets are some kind of poem code? Are the numbers referring to pages, quatrains, paragraphs, lines and words? The intention this weekend is to test that out.

Now that image, within reason, you can improve/enhance some aspects of images by reducing them in size. When I looked at the third image above, I could make out some odd markings in the background:



Here are two smaller versions of this image plus a super small version:



What do you see in the backgrounds to these images? 








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SOMERTON MAN: A RESPONSE TO TOMS BY TWO POST, "ANOTHER SCENARIO"

May 16, 2018, 8:55 pm
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Pete Bowes in his usual style brought the issues surrounding the Somerton Man case down to a simple but quite believable scenario in his latest post: Toms By Two
I thought I would respond to that post supporting his view and by adding some additional thoughts.

Firstly, I agree with your thoughts Pete. I think that the SA Police quickly came to the conclusion that this was very likely an espionage case, probably as soon as the morning CIB shift arrived and sifted through the overnight happenings which included an apparent sudden death at Somerton Beach. Perhaps the file arrived on DS Leane's desk before midday and, having spent the last several years working alongside the various security agencies in SA and interstate, he alerted his contacts to the find. To clarify, it is important to remember the environment in which these men worked, SA had its fair share of spies throughout WW2 and in 1948, they were on the front line of a not so Cold War with highly advanced weapons, as in A-Bombs, and associated technologies being developed right on their doorstep in Adelaide, in Woomera and elsewhere in the State.

I think that once the details were known, a story was put in place by DS Leane, his contacts, and his superiors to explain the case. There are some that have written the subsequent events off as sloppy work by SA Police but I cannot see that being likely given the environment and the nature and experience of those involved.

In my view, from day 1 onwards a story was developed and 'evidence' introduced to back it up. Consider this, if you had found a high profile enemy agent in this condition and had also found information that he was about to deliver, what would you do to ensure that the enemy believed that nothing had been found?

Outwardly the Police were seen to be going through their usual gyrations, taking photographs, calling for people to ID the body and then uncovering a series of 'clues' which were published for all to see. But inwardly, that was a different story:

1. A body that no one was able to identify with some saying he looked nothing like the photograph, (reconstructed), in the press. Do you think that amongst those who viewed the body there was one and maybe two people who were sent by the opposing side to confirm the death of their high profile target?

2. A suitcase with a stack of belongings but only a thread to match them to the man, no fingerprints taken nor mentioned.

2. A torn piece that turns up much later with the edges carefully folded for public consumption so as to conceal its true shape. The focus being purely on the meaning of the words and not what else was found.

3. A photograph of the book that also turned up much later with a shape that didn't match that of the torn piece. Great lengths were gone to, apparently to match the type of paper between the two but there were, in fact, hundreds if not thousands of copies of that same edition in circulation. That comparison would not pass muster in any court let alone a group of hard-nosed Detectives who'd seen it all before.

4. A copy of a code page which, for the public at least had some faint pencil marks on it that turned out to be letters of what could be a code. The reality was that they were not direct pencil marks but were in fact indentations, a very different piece of evidence altogether. By marking over them the Police, or whoever, would give the impression that the real information hidden in those letters, had been completely missed.

There's more to be said later but for now, my view is that the whole case was a campaign of misinformation designed to lull the opposing side into a sense of false security, they were meant to think that their important coded information had not been found.
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SOMERTON MAN: LAUNDRY MARKS, LAUNDRY BAG?

May 24, 2018, 2:14 pm
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Given the last few posts, we would all be pretty familiar with the image above., it is of the laundry marks found on SM's trousers. Whilst we have spent quite some time on these, the story hasn't finished just yet, there are still a number of emails awaiting responses that may contain some more useful information on these markings.

In between times there are some downloads for all who may be interested, they are PDF documents containing information on the beginnings of the US laundry mark database including how the information on laundry marks was organised. You will read that markings were sometimes stamped onto clothing or on strips and, as in this case, handwritten directly on to the items. Essentially the marks consisted of :

1. Serial number only
2. Serial number and date (Alphabetical, Numerical)
3. Serial number and name
4. Serial number and number of pieces
5. Serial number, name and date
6. Serial number, name and number of pieces

...and variations thereof.

Downloads:
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4193&context=jclc

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3379&context=jclc

One of the interesting aspects of following up on laundry marks was the almost total absence of online images showing handwritten laundry marks. There are a few exceptions to that and below are some images:





This brings me to another interesting but missing item found in the suitcase, the laundry bag, a white laundry bag to be precise. I managed to track down a few examples, images shown below:

These first images are of a white laundry bag that was once owned by a US Army Air Corps pilot by the name of T. O'Craig, the letter T is something of  interest as you will read:





In the image below, the T looks a J but it has been confirmed to be a T, I wonder how often that mistake was made? The initial on the Keane tie may well have been a J do you think?



Next up a white laundry bag from the WRNS, in the first image you can make out a service number:



Now a US Army white laundry bag:


These are the few I have managed to find, it is interesting to note that the individual bags seem to have been owned by Officers, for enlisted men, the practice was apparently to have a barracks or perhaps platoon level bag.
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SOMERTON MAN: TIBOR KALDOR CODE DISCOVERY

June 4, 2018, 12:38 am
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TIBOR KALDOR

Some time ago we posted a lengthy series of articles on this man, Tibor Kaldor. This was the man who was found dead in a Hindley Street, Adelaide Hotel two weeks to the day following the discovery of the body of the Somerton Man. Tibor had also died of poisoning.

There was an enormous amount of detailed information that Clive and I had uncovered about Tibor this included the fact that he had been a 'Dunera Boy' one of a group of about 2000 men who had been deported from the UK because of their Nationality, German, and some would say because of their religion. On arrival in Australia, Tibor was interned first at Hay and then Tatura internment camp.

Links to the numerous posts will be found at the base of this post.

Those who followed the trail that we uncovered will know that Tibor left a suicide note, unusual in its style, very structured and 'matter of fact'.

Of great significance was the fact that when I ran the text of the letter through an Acrostic Decoder, it spat out a name. Not just any name, a Jewish woman's name, DANETTA. Knowing of some of the techniques used by those who practiced clandestine communications, We ran the entire output from the first decoding session through the decoder once more, the output this time was interesting to say the least. This time it spelled out:


'AND SEE DANETTA AND SUITCASE DANETTA DANETTA DANETTA DANETTA'

 This name came from the first paragraph of the letter and whilst we made every effort at the time to find someone who might be this mysterious lady, we were unsuccessful.

That did not mean that we had forgotten his intriguing information. Recently Clive and I have been discussing Tibor and the Acrostic code. It struck me that whilst we had read the output and found the name, what we didn't do at the time was to verify the finding by checking out the first paragraph to see just how the acrostic had been implemented.

The result was an eye opener, not only had Tibor created the coded name, he had inserted it into the first paragraph in a particular way. He had used what is known as a steganographic approach, he had 'hidden' the letters in a very smart way.

First let me explain that in an ordinary acrostic code the first letters of the first word in each line form the code. This was not the case in Tibor's letter.

Instead of reading down the paragraph to find the word, Tibor had reversed the sequence not once but twice. He stuck to the rules as far as using the first letters of words are concerned.

The marked image below shows just how this was done.



Reverse Sequence


1. D ecision
2. A 'a'
3. N obody
4. E nd

Normal Sequence

5. T ablets
6. T he
7. A 'a'

The Discovery

What this discovery means is that Tibor not used a standard acrostic code, instead, he used a full clandestine communication method to deliberately conceal the name within the first paragraph. He knew precisely what he was doing and he knew that this was his only chance to get the message passed whoever it was that had very likely made him write his note under duress.

Here's an excerpt from a wiki that discusses this form of code and specifically makes mention of reversing the technique:

'Often the ease of detectability of an acrostic can depend on the intention of its creator. In some cases an author may desire an acrostic to have a better chance of being perceived by an observant reader, such as the acrostic contained in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (where the key capital letters are decorated with ornate embellishments). However, acrostics may also be used as a form of steganography, where the author seeks to conceal the message rather than proclaim it. This might be achieved by making the key letters uniform in appearance with the surrounding text, or by aligning the words in such a way that the relationship between the key letters is less obvious. This is referred to as null ciphers in steganography, using the first letter of each word to form a hidden message in an otherwise innocuous text.[5] Using letters to hide a message, as in acrostic ciphers, was popular during the Renaissance, and could employ various methods of enciphering, such as selecting other letters than initials based on a repeating pattern (equidistant letter sequences), or even concealing the message by starting at the end of the text and working backwards.[6] 

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

It appears that Tibor may well have been trained in this method; other information that we are working on tends to support the likelihood of Tibor being involved in some kind of clandestine work and it is quite possible that more coded information will be found in the letter.

Example Steganography/Acrostic




Courtesy of:  http://www.twinkletoesengineering.info/shakespeare_cryptograms.htm


A Standard Acrostic


More posts to follow on this topic.


Earlier related Post Links:

https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2016/09/somerton-man-tibor-kaldor-last-letter.html
https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2016/10/somerton-man-tibor-kaldor-acrostic-code.html
https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2017/04/somerton-man-tibor-kaldor-news-update.html
https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2017/09/somerton-man-tibor-kaldor-clives-visit.html
https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2017/09/somerton-man-did-tibors-last-letter.html

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SOMERTON MAN: TIBOR KALDOR, 4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 ,ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH

June 14, 2018, 7:47 pm
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THE LAST LETTER



Above you can see the enhanced image of Tibor's last letter, in many ways it appears to be a sad but simple suicide note but, as followers of this blog would know, when we passed this letter through an Acrostic decoder, we found a name hidden in the words/letters of the first paragraph. See below:


The name was Danetta and you can see how the individual letters were, I believe, skillfully placed and they conformed to the standards of acrostic codes being the first letters of specific words. It is important to note that no other names or suspect words were found by the decoding exercise within this letter.

We should also take note of the fact that the message itself started in the second sentence of the letter, not the first. Neither did it commence in the salutation, 'Dear Sir'. This complies with the general guidelines given by SOE for example about avoiding obvious keys or indicators to the existence of a secret message in what should be to all accounts an 'Innocent Letter'. In fact, they specifically made mention of the dangers associated with the salutation in particular.

Hidden codes can comprise a number of techniques, acrostic, and its variations were discussed in the last post on this subject. Agents were encouraged to use flexibility in the way they built their messages to minimise the likelihood of discovery.


ANOTHER BREAKTHROUGH?

Closer examination of the letter revealed a numerical sequence associated with the name DANETTA. As you have read, various techniques and combinations of techniques were used in clandestine communications. Acrostic is one, Playfair codes another and anagrams played a part in some coded messages.

To the point, when a code is first put together, the person who creates it uses a draft to help plan the layout and location of the letters to be hidden. In this case, it appears that Tibor may well have used numbers to plan his message.

The basic aspect of an Acrostic code is that it would normally use the first letter of specific words and that these words would be positioned in a paragraph, a sentence or a line. The exact position would be numbered. I decided to check the numbers that may be associated with the name DANETTA in the first paragraph of Tibor's letter. Bear in mind that the locations referred to could be within the paragraph, within one of the five lines or within a specific sentence.

To add a little spice, Tibor reversed some of these characters, that is he started the letters in the word from the bottom working upwards to the top and then down the paragraph.


THE TASK

The task was to spell out DANETTA. He opted to commence the message with the second sentence and with the 4th line of the message as the starting point:

Line 4, the 8th and 9th words from the last word of the paragraph, 'decision' and 'a'. We now have the first two letters of the name and the numbers are 8 and 9.

Line 3, the 10th word of the second sentence of the message 'Nobody'. We now have the letters DAN and the numbers 8,9 and 10 associated with them.

Second sentence and Second line in the paragraph, line 1 of the message, 5th word'end', we now have the 'e' and a part name DANE. The number tally thus far is : 5,8,9,10.

At this point Tibor 'reversed' the code and started working down the paragraph.

Line 2 of the message (line 3 of the paragraph), 6thword,'tablets'. This gives us the part name DANET and the number tally is now: 5,6,8,9,10.

Again line 2 of the message, 7thword in that line, 'The', we now have the part name DANETT and the number tally: 5,6,7,8,9 and 10. For the uninformed, two of the same letters normally cancel each other out in a coded message but this is not a standard code, this is an acrostic which is about all of the letters to be found and an anagram which mixes the various letters so the word is not instantly revealed.

We are left with a missing letter 'a'. Move down another line to line 4 of the message (line5 of the paragraph) and the 4th word in is the letter 'a', it has been used twice but there are no known rules about that :). We now have the full name DANETTA and we have a set of 'positioning' numbers:

4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10

Earlier in this post, I mentioned the use of anagrams and so if we look strictly at the sequence of letters moving from top to bottom we would have: ETTNADA with the A repeated as shown.

A coincidence? I think not.

There is another exercise underway that looks very promising. Anyone is welcome to do some research and attempt to find and crack open any hidden content in this, Tibor's last letter. 

For those interested, below is a 3-page excerpt from the SOE Innocent Letter tutorial:































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SOMERTON MAN: PROSPER LINKED TO TIBOR : THE UNRAVELLING?

June 17, 2018, 10:07 pm
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PROSPER LINK TO TIBOR




Many will remember this ad, it was placed by Prosper Thomson on 18th December 1948 in the Adelaide Advertiser. Many have remarked on how strange this ad was. A very valuable gold watch, which the Tudor was, in fact, the company was later bought out by Rolex, yet strangely no day, date or time that the watch was lost and nothing precise about the location. More about that a little further down the page. 

As you know Clive and I have been working hard at this particular Tibor Kaldor lead for some time and the issue of the acrostic code found more than 18 months ago reared it's head once again in the post previous to this one. Not only had we found an acrostic coded name but we also found a strict numerical sequence for the carrier words and letters within that code, 4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10.

The ad above reads as follows:

"CITY or suburbs. Tudor gold watch.  Nearly new, good reward. Thomson, 90a Moseley St, Glenelg  X 3239"  

Now let's look in particular at the first 4 words:

"CITY or suburbs. Tudor gold watch.  Nearly new, good reward. Thomson, 90a Moseley St, Glenelg  X 3239"  

Inside those first 4 words, "CITY or SUBURBS. TUDOR" are the letters of the name TIBOR, could that be a coincidence do you think? Well, before you make that decision, let's take a look at the placement of those letters within the carrier words:

T = 1st letter in Tudor
I = 2nd letter in City
B = 3rd letter in Suburbs
O = 4th letter in Tudor
R = 5th letter in Tudor
This ad appeared on the 18th of December, just 4 days after Tibor's apparent suicide.

Yet again, as in Tibor's last letter and the acrostic name, we have another strict numerical sequence pointing out the letters and resulting in the name:


1,2,3,4 and 5

What's more, the same approach has been used as in a reversed sequence, the letters move from right to left positions and then back again to the right. In Tibor's last letter, the letters moved from towards the end of the shortened paragraph to the first line of the message and then back down again.

Is this part of the unraveling that we have been working towards? Before we can be absolutely certain, there is more to do and follow up on not the least of which is the yet to be released post on more words found in Tibor's last letter and they also follow a logical sequence.


What do you think Pete Bowes?

It was a standard tradecraft practice for seemingly dumb ads to be placed as a form of clandestine communication, Prosper's ad certainly appears to fit the bill.
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SOMERTON MAN: SOE/MI6 CONNECTION TO TIBOR KALDOR UNCOVERED. Updated 21/06/18

June 19, 2018, 8:04 pm
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WW2 BBC RADIO CODED MESSAGES 



In an amazing piece of investigation and follow through, Clive came across what could be the most important piece of information that links an SOE/MI6 operative to Tibor Kaldor.

A great deal of work has been done over the past 18 months on Tibor and his sad ending, in the most recent posts we uncovered and shared the use of a particular number sequence that pointed to the name DANETTA. Followers will recall that this name was first uncovered using n Acrostic Decoder.

This last discovery was a major boost to our theory that Tibor was somehow involved in Espionage. The knowledge and skill required to encode his last words whilst we believe he was under extraordinary duress, could not have been anything other than the result of training. But who could have taught him?

The Referee

We'll cut to the chase here, during WW2, under the direction of the Special Operations Executive, BBC London used to send clandestine/coded messages to members of the resistance in France and other countries. These messages were created by SOE and then read out by announcers including the legendary Alvar Liddel. In the clip above you can listen to some of those messages. It goes without saying that interpreters provided by SOE were needed as many of the messages were transmitted in the appropriate language for the target region.

One such person directly involved in this work of coding and translating was a name that we first came across whilst researching documents related to Tibor Kaldor. 

That name was Miss Elizabeth Bethune Stainforth:



She was one of 3 referees who provided evidence of good character for Tibor in his application for citizenship. Here we have a clear and direct link between an SOE operative and Tibor Kaldor.

Elizabeth was an employee working under the guise of the BBC on the translation and coding of secret messages.

There is work underway to find out as much as we can about Elizabeth, we do know the following:

1. There is no record of her having traveled to Australia from the UK until March 1951.
2. There is no record that we have been able find thus far of her arriving in Australia at any time
3. It is known that she attended and worked at the first meeting of the UN in the UK in January 1946, a meeting attended by many well-known diplomats and their aides including one Pavel Fedosimov.

This is the first in a planned series of articles on this topic, it seems to Clive and myself that this is very likely the beginning of the unraveling of the whole story.

Below are the signed certificates from the 3 referees, note that Elizabeth's surname is underlined. Will be checking Tibor's writing against this signature. Given that Elizabeth supposedly wasn't in Australia at the time, one wonders how Tibor would have known her. Time to ask some FOI questions I suspect.


The name Elizabeth Bethune Stainforth is an unusual one being partially Scottish and English, we are checking to see if we can find others of that name in Australia at that time. As you will see there is no photograph in the article and we will do our best to see if we can trace one down. Final point, the headline shows that this Elizabeth Stainforth not only worked for the BBC, she also worked with displaced persons, the latter point being of particular interest.

Update, 21/06/18:
We have a Miss Elizabeth Stainforth, a teacher at Garden Vale, Melbourne, she was heading off to the UK on a teacher exchange programme around the same time that the Somerton Man was found. Could this be the lady who signed the form? A good possibility. Well, it looked promising for a while. This of course has no effect on the nature of the various codes found in Tibor's last letter, the strange Tudor Watch ad nor the findings of Milongal in Verse 70.

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SOMERTON MAN: ThE QUESTION OF CODES

June 21, 2018, 12:05 am
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A fair bit of time spent on codes lately! What we have thus far is an acrostic code found in Tibor Kaldor's last letter, this has been examined further and we have been able to add more information on the implementation of this particular code. What we found was that apart from the standard acrostic code which relies on first letters of specific words, In this case DANETTA, there was also a numerical sequence which were shown to relate to the position of the carrier words of the code within the message.

We found what may well be another piece of code in an ad placed by Prosper related to a Tudor Gold watch which had been lost somewhere in Adelaide City or suburbs on an undetermined date. The code in this ad also had a numerical sequence attached to the placement of letters within words.

More recently, Milongal from Cipher Mysteries set out on a task to prove if possible that what we were seeing was 'confirmation bias', he looked at the Verse 70 piece and found that the word DANETTA could be derived from it, this was a letters only exercise but it showed that the name was decidedly present but was it a pure coincidence? I went through and checked it and found that once again there was a sequential numerical sequence such that the carrier words were accurately positioned within the verse.

A word or two on confirmation bias, here's a definition:

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses.

In this case, there were no pre-existing beliefs that I held, the original acrostic code was uncovered by an acrostic decoder not by me. Thus anything that followed was by way of additional research on what had already been found and I shared that via this blog. What was found was the fact that in the case of Verse 70, not only was the name DANETTA uncovered by Milongal but we also found that the words that carried the individual letters of DANETTA had a definite logical, numerical sequence. To further support that, the Verse 70 acrostic was not found by me but by Milongal and a great piece of work it has turned out to be. It stands to be tested and that's as it should be.

We can say the same about microcode and micro-writing, these things exist and have been substantiated both in terms of their existence and in terms of their use by various intelligence agencies over the years. What I have done is highlight that and to demonstrate the techniques used. That is decidedly not confirmation bias. If we were to accept that 'rule' then there would be no experimentation and no progress made in any field of endeavour ever. It strikes me that 'confirmation bias' is word wrongly applied on many occasions much as 'Occam's razor' has been wrongly applied for years.

I respect the rights of others to hold their views and I have no problem if their views conflict with mine, it's their right. I passionately believe in people not being demeaned, belittled or denigrated when they put forward their ideas which may challenge ours. On the contrary, they are to be encouraged and respected. Their ideas should be examined, questioned and tested fairly and openly not just put down because it goes against the status quo.

Here endeth the lesson :)

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SOMERTON MAN: TIBOR KALDOR DEATH CERTIFICATES 1945

June 21, 2018, 4:16 pm
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TWO TIBOR KALDOR DEATH CERTIFICATES FROM  AUSTRIA 1945







The two certificates above were forwarded by a friend from Austria, they relate to two men named Tibor Kaldor who died in the same hospital within just weeks of each other. Sadly they had both been victims of the Holocaust.

You will note that these documents are in German and I have a translation underway. What I know is that one of these men was born in April 1904, just a little older than the Tibor Kaldor who supposedly took his own life in Adelaide in 1948.

I have posted these as they form part of the story of Tibor, whether there is any connection I really don't know at this time. Now that we have someone on the ground in Austria, perhaps we will be able to unearth more information.


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SOMERTON MAN: THE CARDAN GRILLE AND VERSE 70

June 23, 2018, 11:27 am
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THE CARDAN GRILLE





This templates above were an essential part of the 'Cardan Grille' code. It dates back to 1550 and was invented by Giralamo Cardan. In most cases a cardboard or paper template would have holes cut into it. When this template was placed on top of a written page, certain letters would show through the holes revealing the message. Variations include using a printed book page or a jumble of letters.


Consider the function of this device, it acts in such a way as to leave visible only the target words and letters of the message. Most importantly, by default, it positions the words and letters precisely by covering up the superfluous information on the page.


DOES THIS APPLY TO VERSE 70?

In Verse 70, we already have the letters' in fact a name, DANETTA, which I would imagine would be easier to memorise than a set of letters.  The question now is, in the absence of a grille device, how do we point our accomplice to the correct letters. I say that because there are a number of words that contain similar letters to those required to spell out the name DANETTA. The idea is to have the exact right letters because it is they that have the secret, hidden, micro written code.

A careful reading of the passage would reveal letters that would spell out the target name but we had a number of letters to choose from. To reveal the correct letters you need to know the right line and position for each 'message' letter and we may need to know the right sentence. Could the answer be that we would have been given a set of sequential numbers as in 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 or maybe even just the last number as in '7'? In other words, you would choose only those letters that matched the sequential number code. As Milongal discovered with the letter 'e', choose the wrong one and you don't get the sequence.

What I am saying is that this or a very similar code may well have been used to hide the word Danetta in Verse 70 and to recover it.

One enthusiastic and boisterous commenter went so far as to claim that he could find the same name hidden in almost any passage, but it's not that simple, it has to be the right letters and they must have the right sequence as in physical position within a line and/or sentence or other markers such as the end or beginning of a paragraph.

This is not a case of confirmation bias, this is the result of research. What needs to happen now is that it should be tested and that will be done in the next post on the topic. Comments are welcome, would be interested to hear your thoughts.
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SOMERTON MAN: TIBOR KALDOR DIRECT LINK TO THE CODE PAGE?

June 24, 2018, 9:56 pm
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Above is a clip from Tibor's last letter, it is, in fact, the first page to the bottom right of that page.
 you should be able to relatively clearly make out micro written numbers with some letters within the marked/elliptical areas; they are darker grey against a light grey background, you will need to let your eyes rest and become accustomed to the shade differences.

To the top right of this image is another clip overlayed and outlined in a rectangular red box. It is from another instance of microcode and you will see that the arrow is pointing at a small letter 'x'. Not in particular the style of that 'x', t is stylised to the extent that the lower part of the two strokes are slightly curved. Now compare that 'x' to the one on Tibor's letter, it also has a small arrow pointing to it. they are very similar in shape enough to suggest that they could have been written by the same person.

For the record, the micro-writing in the rectangle was lifted from the code page from a location just beneath and between the first letter S and A on the last line.

The good news is that Tibor's letter is still in existence and we have access to it for further examination. We'll update you as soon as we have any fresh information.
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SOMERTON MAN: ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY CONFIRMS MICRO WRITING ON THE CODE PAGE + EXAMPLES OF CLANDESTINE COMMUNICATIONS, MICRO WRITING

July 2, 2018, 4:20 am
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ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY CONFIRM MICRO WRITING ON THE CODE PAGE

Not as new as it sounds but very true. There's been some discussion of late about Detective Brown and his description of the back of the book and the existence of 'tiny writing'. As it turns out that isn't quite all there is to this story.

But first here's a quick overview of Detective Brown's career up to the time of the Somerton Man case courtesy of Adelaide University.

Len joined the Police in 1935 and served a 4 year stint in training as a Junior Constable at Port Adelaide. After that period he was sworn in as a probationary constable and posted to Renmark in 1938. After his time there he spent 2 years at Strathalbyn and then he was off up North to Port Augusta as a plain clothes constable. In 1946 he was posted to Adelaide CIB being promoted to Detective in October 1948. By the time 1948 came around Len had been in the service for 13 neary 14 years and was immersed in the customs of the South Australian Police and he knew the ropes well. He was not the kind to treat his position lightly and he worked by the book.

It was January 12th 1949 when Len was appointed  to work on the Somerton Man case, just 4 days after Detective Sergeant Leane joined that investigation. Len stayed with the case until after the completion of the Coronial Inquest and on June 21st he moved on to another case.

In short, Len was no longer on the case when the book was handed in a month later on July 22nd 1949. In other words, there was no way he could have altered the book for some imaginary reason as was put forward by one recent commenter. On that subject, I found it unfortunate that this particular person chose to denegrate and question the integrity of a well respected police officer.

When in later years he was interviewed by Professor Abbott regarding the book and the telephone number, Len related his thoughts and his memories of the event:

'Len remembers that the code and nurse’s phone number were in the back of the book in pencil. The phone number was in very tiny lettering. Len stated that the phone number was written under the code. (We are now able confirm that the code was indeed on the back dust cover of the book. Len's testimony that the phone number was below that code and not beside it does concur with physical evidence from what we now believe to be the exact size of the book).'

This information confirms that 'very tiny lettering' was present and it was actually on the code page, that's micro writing.

In discussions with Gerry Feltus, he made it clear that the code page markings found were indentations and not pencil. The two are not mutually exclusive of course. On the one hand you have a clear to see yet very small telephone number in pencil and on the other and on the same page, you have the indentations of the 'code' letters which needed a UV light in order to see them.

In relation to the existence of micro writing, Gerry Feltus said, 'I see what you see but I have no explanation for thee'.

The physical size of the book being 5.5 inches by 4.5 inches, that's important for those wishing to examine the official photograph of the code page that you will find on the wiki here:


As you will see below, contrary to the comments of the nay sayers, there are good examples of micro code and the use of micro writing as a form of clandestine communication. Add to that the existence of an SOE manual which describes the method known as Ink H which includes the concealment of letters/codes beneath larger letters and the  clear demonstration of just how it was done that you'll find on this blog plus the numerous photographs showing their presence and there is no logical argument about the existence of micro writing on the code page.

FIRST POSTED MAY 2015


I posted this piece more than 3 years ago, it shows beyond doubt the use of micro writing by British Intelligence, MI6 to be precise. The work conducted by myself and others has consistently shown the existence of micro written letters and numbers in many places on the code page and also within the Verse 70 piece written by Jestyn to Alf Boxall. In more recent times we have also seen evidence of similar micro writing on Tibor Kaldor's last letter. Micro writing links Jestyn, Alf Boxall and Tibor Kaldor to the case. We cannot say with absolute certainty that the Somerton Man is linked to micro writing although it would not be an unreasonable assumption to make.

So, here it is again mostly for the nay sayers, a timely reminder in many ways.

Micro written message in a symbol code
beneath a WW1
Dutch postage stamp contained a 1600 word intelligence report.


The actual size of this stamp was
 approximately 30 mm X 34 mm

Magnified image, please note whilst the base image is as
found, I have added colouration to the stamp to reflect the actual appearance.
This image was found as the result of research amongst UK Military Intelligence files and confirmed by other documentary evidence dating back to WW1. At that time 'MI C', the forerunner to MI6 which was based in a one-time hotel in Folkestone in the  UK.

One of the many people recruited by this section was Louise de Bettignies who formed the highly successful 'Alice Dubois Network'. Louise recruited some very special people including the man who prepared this coded micro written message, a Paul Bernard, Belgian Map Maker, The code translated to a 1600 word intelligence report and is believed to have warned the British of the locations of a number of German gun emplacements. As a result these locations were themselves bombarded.

A Harkness Connection


Another valued member of Louise's team was Marie-Leonie Van Houtte. There is a lengthy story of the exploits of Louise and Leonie and we will be discussing that further in posts to follow. For now though the focus is on the use of Micro Writing by the British MI C section and the link via Leonie to her great niece, Marie-Ann Harkness who lives in the US. The surname could be a coincidence of course, it is her married name and at this time little is known of her husband's connections. I should also say that I have attempted to contact Marie without success to date, I am hoping that someone may know of her and her family if to do nothing more than to discount any connection to the relatives of Jestyn. I gratefully acknowledge the input and assistance of Byron in the initial investigation stages.

Back to the postage stamp, the size of the letters is around .5 mm and as you can see the writer was able to pack a significant number of them behind the postage stamp. Until the rediscovery of this stamp it was thought that clandestine messages were actually written on the back of the stamp however there is a good reason why that shouldn't be the case and it relates to the issue of ink types and the nature of adhesive on the stamp itself as well as the size of the letters. The 'glue' on the stamp would have formed ridges and whilst it would be possible to write larger letters, 1.5 to 2 mm in height, directly on to the stamp, writing at the micro letter level would have presented difficulties.

What does the code that has been written on the stamp actually mean? Thanks to input from Nick Pelling of Cypher Mysteries, we now that this is a simple 'PIGPEN' code comprised of symbols and each symbol equates to a letter of the alphabet. Referring back to the source documents, it is known that the Alice Network were particularly efficient at their work and were in the habit of adding another level of encryption to their codes. If that is the case here, then the letters that result from decoding the above stamp message could belong to another cipher, Playfair or Vigenere were in use at that time.

So, how would you go about decoding what lies beneath the stamp? Below is the key and an example for you to follow:


KEY TO CODE


EXAMPLE Reads: TEN US TRANSPORTS AT SEA

In our research we uncovered many other examples of Micro Writing used by MI6 and its predecessors, below is one example complete with another concealment method:
Micro Written Intelligence Report

Micro Message Concealed in a Pen.
Not wishing to be unkind to the learned detractors to the existence of Micro Writing, it does seem that they were well off track and perhaps now they will review their findings and may even set about some further valid research of their own.

It must surely follow that if these incredibly smart people back in WW1 could do what they did with micro-writing, encoding and concealment, and there is a lot more to come on that topic, it would be a very short step indeed to have them conceal their writing within larger letters as per the Somerton Man Code and that is exactly what happened as you will read in future posts.

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Somerton Man: What the evidence says... An oldie but a goodie...

July 3, 2018, 12:10 am
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THE EVIDENCE

There are many different views and lines of thought expressed across the internet on who SM may have been, how he died, who was involved, was the suitcase really his etc. etc. etc...

This blog has always focused on the evidence, in particular, the images but also including the evidence to be found in Lawson's diary and what we can learn from them all. Amongst those images are, the 'Code' page, the individual letters of the 'Code' page, the Somerton Man images, Jestyn's poem to Alf Boxall and Lawson's diary.

Starting with Jestyn's poem and the Code page, this is what I think the evidence tells us:

1. It is very likely that the 'Code' page was written by Jestyn. In support of that, some months ago I posted a comparison of the letter R from the code page and a letter R from Jestyn's poem, you will see below that they are quite similar. Please note that both letters are in the same aspect ratio and reasonably close in physical size, approximately 5mm in height. I have enlarged them a little again making an effort to keep the aspect ratios lined up. Others have copied this approach but missed out on the proper aspect ratio and its importance.


Note the way that the Police had marked the individual indentations beneath the image on the right from the code page, it's a kind of 'stippled' effect. You should be able to make out some of the letters so highlighted.

2. The poem to Alf Boxall and the code page both contain micro written letters and numbers as shown below, the first three being from the code page and the second three from Jestyn's poem:
Letter B line 3
Letter Q line 4
                                                                                       
Letter A line 4





There are some vastly improved images of the Poem in progress and they will be posted here shortly. Interesting to note that in a post on Pete Bowes site a few months ago, he mentioned the issue of the overwriting and apparent 'mistakes' in spelling, read on...

The Special Operations Executive & Ink H

The technique used to create both the code page and the poem was known as 'Ink H' and was in use by British SOE agents as per their manual for Espionage Agents operating behind enemy lines. The method was to first write out the larger letters in ink, then insert the smaller code letters in pencil into the individual larger letters and finally carefully overwrite all of the larger letters once more in ink. To develop the coded message meant immersing the full code into a string bleach solution which bleached out the ink leaving visible the once 'hidden' penciled letters. This method required a lot of concentration to ensure that each of the smaller letters were properly covered by the final layer of ink, mistakes were made and perhaps that's what Pete Bowes had spotted.

The SOE association is not restricted to the use of Ink H, SOE, under Leo Marks, made a point of recruiting nurses as code specialists and agents. It is in my view highly probable that a similar approach was used here in Australia given the close relationship between British and Australian Intelligence services. Could it be that senior people within the Australian Health field and specifically in the business of recruiting new nurses, worked hand in glove with Military Intelligence? Anyone followed that up or any takers?

Another way to view the hidden penciled letters was if the person who wrote the code had leant on a book or other soft surface then indentations would have been left and there certainly were and still are valid methods for recovering 'indented writing'. According to Gerry Feltus, the Rubaiyat had indented writing and that is what was photographed. The Police then traced over the smaller indentations that were fashioned into the shape of the larger letters found on the page.





























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SOMERTON MAN: MICRO NUMBERS AND A LETTER IN CLEAR SPACE OF THE CODE PAGE

July 4, 2018, 8:36 pm
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Look closely between the letters T and M on the last line, there's a highlighted box. In the close up below you will see just what was written in there:




283X

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