Full Transcript for The Somerton Man

dressed that sharp in a full suit without a hat? 00:02:14.060 --> 00:02:24.280 already reads us off. Every single one. Which 00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:27.199 I'll admit is unusual, but tailors did sometimes 00:02:27.199 --> 00:02:30.020 strip labels for resale or repair. Not from every 00:02:30.020 --> 00:02:32.639 garment on one body, Eli. That's not tailoring. 00:02:33.060 --> 00:02:35.020 That's someone sitting down and methodically 00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:40.840 making sure this man could not be traced. Is 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:44.370 there though? Fair, let's keep going. Months 00:02:44.370 --> 00:02:47.009 later, a plain brown suitcase turns up sitting 00:02:47.009 --> 00:02:49.310 in the cloakroom at the Adelaide train station, 00:02:49.590 --> 00:02:51.909 gathering dust on a shelf, checked in the day 00:02:51.909 --> 00:02:54.349 before the body was found, and never once picked 00:02:54.349 --> 00:02:57.710 up. Inside, more unlabeled clothes, a stencil 00:02:57.710 --> 00:03:00.710 kit used for shipwork, and thread, an unusual 00:03:00.710 --> 00:03:03.330 orange thread that matched a repair on his coat. 00:03:03.500 --> 00:03:06.219 That thread match is one of the few hard forensic 00:03:06.219 --> 00:03:08.840 links we actually have. It's not speculation. 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:11.520 It's physical evidence tying the suitcase to 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.159 the body. Right, but nobody ever claimed that 00:03:14.159 --> 00:03:16.819 suitcase. Think about that for a second. In a 00:03:16.819 --> 00:03:19.340 country that size, in an era when people didn't 00:03:19.340 --> 00:03:21.860 just vanish, someone leaves a bag sitting at 00:03:21.860 --> 00:03:25.199 a station and no one, not one person, comes forward? 00:03:25.379 --> 00:03:28.099 People don't always come forward. That's not 00:03:28.099 --> 00:03:31.520 evidence of a conspiracy. That's just... people. 00:03:32.300 --> 00:03:34.740 Hold that thought. Because I haven't even gotten 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:37.319 to the pants yet. Before we get to the poem, 00:03:37.539 --> 00:03:40.080 let's talk about the body itself, because this 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:42.099 part gets skipped a lot and it shouldn't be. 00:03:42.460 --> 00:03:45.340 This is my favorite part, honestly. Of course 00:03:45.340 --> 00:03:48.620 it is. His calf muscles were unusually developed. 00:03:49.159 --> 00:03:51.699 Really pronounced. The kind of build you'd see 00:03:51.699 --> 00:03:54.379 on a dancer, or someone who spent years wearing 00:03:54.379 --> 00:03:56.879 tight, pointed boots that forced the muscle to 00:03:56.879 --> 00:04:00.099 sit differently. Hmm. That detail comes from 00:04:00.099 --> 00:04:02.780 one pathologist's opinion, decades after the 00:04:02.780 --> 00:04:06.159 fact. It's not a settled finding. Sure, but layer 00:04:06.159 --> 00:04:09.340 it in. No calluses on his hands, which usually 00:04:09.340 --> 00:04:12.259 means no manual labor. No rough work at all. 00:04:12.939 --> 00:04:14.939 Combine that with the calves and you get someone 00:04:14.939 --> 00:04:18.040 who is performing, not laboring. Or someone with 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:20.540 a desk job who happened to like walking. You're 00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:22.959 building a whole dancer out of two soft data 00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:25.839 points. His teeth didn't match typical Australian 00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:28.430 dental patterns for the era either. The wear, 00:04:28.709 --> 00:04:31.069 the fillings, all of it looked foreign to local 00:04:31.069 --> 00:04:33.730 dentists at the time. Some researchers think 00:04:33.730 --> 00:04:36.170 that points to him being from overseas. Which 00:04:36.170 --> 00:04:39.089 just means he traveled. That's not exotic. That's 00:04:39.089 --> 00:04:42.569 a passport. A passport nobody could ever find. 00:04:43.050 --> 00:04:46.189 Okay, that part's fair. He also had an enlarged 00:04:46.189 --> 00:04:48.990 liver and spleen, which some read as consistent 00:04:48.990 --> 00:04:52.089 with... Consistent with a dozen ordinary conditions. 00:04:52.449 --> 00:04:55.529 Alcohol use, illness, nothing sinister required. 00:04:55.759 --> 00:04:58.519 You always have the boring version ready to go, 00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:01.639 don't you? That's the job. Here's where it gets 00:05:01.639 --> 00:05:05.120 its reputation. Months after the discovery, someone 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:08.120 finally checks a fob pocket sewn into the man's 00:05:08.120 --> 00:05:11.680 trousers. A pocket so small and so tightly stitched, 00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:14.620 it's barely there. The kind meant for a pocket 00:05:14.620 --> 00:05:17.759 watch, not a note. That's exactly why it got 00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:21.259 missed the first time around. Inside, a scrap 00:05:21.259 --> 00:05:23.860 of paper no bigger than a matchbook rolled into 00:05:23.860 --> 00:05:26.000 a tight little cylinder. Like it was meant to 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:28.660 be hidden rather than read. Two words printed 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:32.420 on it, torn from a book. Tamam should. Persian, 00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:35.819 roughly. Well, it translates to, it is ended 00:05:35.819 --> 00:05:38.939 or finished. It's the closing phrase used at 00:05:38.939 --> 00:05:41.680 the end of a specific edition of a poetry collection. 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:45.060 The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. And they actually 00:05:45.060 --> 00:05:48.040 found the exact book. A man threw a copy into 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:50.620 the back of a parked car near the beach, months 00:05:50.620 --> 00:05:53.220 before the body was even found, and it had a 00:05:53.220 --> 00:05:56.000 torn out back page. that match the scrap in the 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:59.639 man's pocket, torn edges lined up exactly. That 00:05:59.639 --> 00:06:02.660 match is verified. That part isn't speculation. 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:06.199 There's more. And in the back of that book, faint 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:09.620 in pencil, almost ghost

-like on the page, five 00:06:09.620 --> 00:06:12.439 lines of letters, never definitively decoded, 00:06:12.899 --> 00:06:15.839 look like a code, read like a code. Or their 00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:19.079 initials, a shorthand list, something mundane 00:06:19.079 --> 00:06:21.480 written by whoever owned that book before it 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:23.829 ended up in the car. A phone number is written 00:06:23.829 --> 00:06:27.250 in the back too, Eli. Unlisted. Belonging to 00:06:27.250 --> 00:06:29.230 a nurse who lived less than a mile from where 00:06:29.230 --> 00:06:32.310 the body was found. Okay, that one... that one 00:06:32.310 --> 00:06:34.850 I don't have a clean answer for. Neither did 00:06:34.850 --> 00:06:37.889 she. Picture the moment. A detective sets that 00:06:37.889 --> 00:06:40.350 book down on the table in front of her. No warning. 00:06:40.750 --> 00:06:43.209 And by every account in the room, the color just 00:06:43.209 --> 00:06:45.550 drains out of her face. She looks like she's 00:06:45.550 --> 00:06:48.029 about to go down right there. She denied knowing 00:06:48.029 --> 00:06:51.550 him. Consistently. For the rest of her life. 00:06:51.819 --> 00:06:54.980 People deny plenty of things they know. There's 00:06:54.980 --> 00:06:57.220 one more name worth mentioning here, because 00:06:57.220 --> 00:06:59.759 it complicates your spy angle more than it helps 00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:04.660 it. Alfred Boxall. The nurse's former... whatever 00:07:04.660 --> 00:07:07.459 he was. Suitor, I think, is the polite word. 00:07:08.019 --> 00:07:10.939 Boxall was given his own copy of the same Rubaiyat 00:07:10.939 --> 00:07:14.680 edition by that same nurse years earlier. Naturally, 00:07:14.800 --> 00:07:17.279 when this all broke, police assumed he was the 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:20.620 dead man. Except he wasn't. He turned up alive, 00:07:20.860 --> 00:07:23.379 book in hand, completely unbothered by the whole 00:07:23.379 --> 00:07:26.500 thing. Which to me suggests a coincidence of 00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:29.800 ownership, not an international plot. Same book, 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:33.040 same city, same social circle. Of course two 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:36.079 copies overlap eventually. Or it suggests she 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:38.540 was connected to more than one man tied to this 00:07:38.540 --> 00:07:41.899 case. And in 75 years, nobody's really sat with 00:07:41.899 --> 00:07:44.899 that. That question I don't have an answer for 00:07:44.899 --> 00:07:48.600 either. You're racking those up today. Speaking 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:51.550 of her. Can we just sit on the nurse for a second? 00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:53.990 Because I don't think we give her enough weight. 00:07:54.569 --> 00:07:57.529 Go ahead. Her name was Jessica Thompson. Went 00:07:57.529 --> 00:08:00.569 by Justin. Nurse. Lived close enough to walk 00:08:00.569 --> 00:08:03.069 to where the body was found in under 10 minutes. 00:08:03.550 --> 00:08:06.389 Owned

a matching copy of the exact same rare 00:08:06.389 --> 00:08:10.529 book edition. Sure. All true. Also true. None 00:08:10.529 --> 00:08:12.829 of that is a crime. And none of it proves she 00:08:12.829 --> 00:08:16.009 actually knew this specific man. Her daughter, 00:08:16.189 --> 00:08:19.060 decades later, said her mother told her. flat 00:08:19.060 --> 00:08:22.220 out told her that she knew who the Somerton man 00:08:22.220 --> 00:08:25.439 was and asked her to keep it quiet for the rest 00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:28.839 of her life. That's not nothing. That's a deathbed 00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:32.960 adjacent confession. No. Secondhand, reported 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:36.100 by a family member long after the fact. That's 00:08:36.100 --> 00:08:39.039 testimony, not evidence. Sure, but layer it onto 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:41.299 everything else. The book, the phone number, 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:43.820 the reaction when police showed it to her. A 00:08:43.820 --> 00:08:47.059 reaction one detective described. One person's 00:08:47.059 --> 00:08:50.419 read of one woman's face in one stressful moment 00:08:50.419 --> 00:08:53.919 75 years ago. There's also the theory that her 00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:56.559 son resembled the Somerton man's facial reconstruction 00:08:56.559 --> 00:08:59.100 closely enough that some researchers think they 00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:02.360 were related. Like, unmistakably, according to 00:09:02.360 --> 00:09:05.120 people who've compared the images. Which, if 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:08.100 true, is genuinely significant. And if false, 00:09:08.340 --> 00:09:10.759 is exactly the kind of pattern matching I keep 00:09:10.759 --> 00:09:14.450 warning you about. Faces are subjective. Resemblance 00:09:14.450 --> 00:09:18.190 isn't a paternity test. No, but a name kept secret 00:09:18.190 --> 00:09:21.690 for an entire lifetime? That's a choice. People 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:25.190 don't protect strangers like that. No, they generally 00:09:25.190 --> 00:09:28.789 don't. That's the part I can't let go of. Honestly, 00:09:29.070 --> 00:09:32.590 not the code. Her. Before you close that out, 00:09:32.710 --> 00:09:35.110 I want the poisoning theory on the record, because 00:09:35.110 --> 00:09:37.409 it's the one that actually unsettles me, if I'm 00:09:37.409 --> 00:09:41.070 being honest. Go ahead. The pathologist who examined 00:09:41.070 --> 00:09:43.330 him believed poison was the most likely cause 00:09:43.330 --> 00:09:46.330 of death, specifically something like digitalis, 00:09:46.549 --> 00:09:49.190 which at the right dose stops the heart and can 00:09:49.190 --> 00:09:51.629 be almost impossible to detect once the organs 00:09:51.629 --> 00:09:55.590 have started breaking down. Okay. Digitalis wasn't 00:09:55.590 --> 00:09:59.110 exotic in 1948. It was a common heart medication. 00:09:59.509 --> 00:10:01.629 Half the pharmacies in Adelaide would have had 00:10:01.629 --> 00:10:04.370 it sitting on a shelf. Common to

obtain, sure, 00:10:04.570 --> 00:10:07.509 but knowing the exact lethal dose? timing it 00:10:07.509 --> 00:10:10.370 so it looks like natural causes, leaving zero 00:10:10.370 --> 00:10:14.509 trace afterward? That's not common. That's, I 00:10:14.509 --> 00:10:17.909 don't know, that's precision. Careful, that word's 00:10:17.909 --> 00:10:22.610 taken. Fine, that's expertise. Or it's a man 00:10:22.610 --> 00:10:25.490 who already had heart problems, self -medicated 00:10:25.490 --> 00:10:28.090 poorly, and the coincidence of timing makes it 00:10:28.090 --> 00:10:30.750 look intentional in hindsight. His organs were 00:10:30.750 --> 00:10:33.330 never properly preserved for later testing. By 00:10:33.330 --> 00:10:35.250 the time anyone thought to check more thoroughly, 00:10:35.529 --> 00:10:38.610 the evidence was just, Gone. That's not proof 00:10:38.610 --> 00:10:41.710 of poisoning, but it's not nothing either. No, 00:10:41.970 --> 00:10:44.389 it's not nothing. And combine that with the way 00:10:44.389 --> 00:10:47.470 he was actually found. No struggle, no visible 00:10:47.470 --> 00:10:51.070 trauma, legs crossed, arms folded. Almost arranged 00:10:51.070 --> 00:10:53.250 against that wall like someone laid him down 00:10:53.250 --> 00:10:55.870 gently rather than left him where he fell. That's 00:10:55.870 --> 00:10:58.169 not what most deaths look like. That's what a 00:10:58.169 --> 00:11:00.809 controlled one looks like. Or died naturally. 00:11:01.029 --> 00:11:04.090 Full stop. You're allowed to just die on a beach, 00:11:04.409 --> 00:11:06.519 Simone. Not with a coded poem in your pocket. 00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:09.240 I'm not allowing that. Before we get into theories, 00:11:09.500 --> 00:11:12.340 let's do a quick round. Smaller details, less 00:11:12.340 --> 00:11:15.000 time each. No arguing about the big picture yet. 00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:18.820 I love quick hits. I know. One. Witnesses reported 00:11:18.820 --> 00:11:21.000 seeing a man matching his description on that 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:23.580 same beach the evening before, apparently unable 00:11:23.580 --> 00:11:25.899 to move one arm, just letting it hang there. 00:11:26.179 --> 00:11:28.659 Could be a stroke. Could be a drink. could be, 00:11:28.679 --> 00:11:31.679 frankly, a completely different man. 2. No one 00:11:31.679 --> 00:11:34.460 at any hotel, boarding house, or rental in the 00:11:34.460 --> 00:11:36.899 entire city ever reported a guest who matched 00:11:36.899 --> 00:11:39.379 him and never checked out. Which suggests he 00:11:39.379 --> 00:11:41.879 wasn't staying anywhere formal, consistent with 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:44.799 someone passing through, or sleeping rough. 3. 00:11:44.990 --> 00:11:47.230 The stencil kit in the suitcase was the kind 00:11:47.230 --> 00:11:49.830 used by ship stewards for marking crates. But 00:11:49.830 --> 00:11:52.009 no shipping line had a matching crew record. 00:11:52.210 --> 00:11:54.970 Not one. Records from

that era are incomplete. 00:11:55.289 --> 00:11:57.730 That's not mysterious. That's just old paperwork. 00:11:57.929 --> 00:12:01.669 Four. And this one gets me every time. His shoes 00:12:01.669 --> 00:12:05.090 were recently polished. Really picture that. 00:12:05.389 --> 00:12:07.929 Hours before he ends up against that seawall. 00:12:08.090 --> 00:12:11.070 Somewhere, this man is standing still, working 00:12:11.070 --> 00:12:13.870 polish into leather with a cloth until it shines. 00:12:14.470 --> 00:12:17.350 That's not the last act of someone in chaos. 00:12:18.549 --> 00:12:21.350 Okay. That one's a genuinely strange detail. 00:12:22.190 --> 00:12:24.950 A man about to die by violence or misadventure 00:12:24.950 --> 00:12:27.269 doesn't usually stop to polish his shoes that 00:12:27.269 --> 00:12:31.610 morning. Huh. See, that's the thing about quick 00:12:31.610 --> 00:12:34.690 hits. None of them close the case. But stacked 00:12:34.690 --> 00:12:37.070 together... Stacked together, they still don't 00:12:37.070 --> 00:12:40.370 equal a conclusion. They equal a very well -documented 00:12:40.370 --> 00:12:44.129 shrug. A shrug with polished shoes. Let me build 00:12:44.129 --> 00:12:46.590 my side properly, because I know exactly where 00:12:46.590 --> 00:12:54.750 you're headed. Of course. It does, and that's 00:12:54.750 --> 00:12:57.590 exactly the problem. It's a good story, and good 00:12:57.590 --> 00:13:01.269 stories get believed over boring truths. Adelaide 00:13:01.269 --> 00:13:04.289 in 48 sat near sensitive weapons testing sites. 00:13:05.049 --> 00:13:07.690 So the spy theory shows up fast, and it sticks 00:13:07.690 --> 00:13:11.090 like nothing else does. Because it fits. Because 00:13:11.090 --> 00:13:14.330 it's dramatic, not because it's supported. There's 00:13:14.330 --> 00:13:17.950 no confirmed espionage link. No agency has ever 00:13:17.950 --> 00:13:21.049 produced a name, a file, a handler, anything 00:13:21.049 --> 00:13:24.769 at all. No. Absence of a file is an absence of 00:13:24.769 --> 00:13:27.169 the operation. That's kind of the whole point 00:13:27.169 --> 00:13:30.269 of espionage. That logic proves anything you 00:13:30.269 --> 00:13:32.769 want it to prove. I could say the same thing 00:13:32.769 --> 00:13:37.009 about aliens. Don't tempt me. And even the code, 00:13:37.169 --> 00:13:40.840 if it is a code. Nobody's cracked it in 75 years, 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:44.259 including actual cryptographers with actual resources. 00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:47.620 If it were real tradecraft, someone competent 00:13:47.620 --> 00:13:49.879 would have broken it by now. Unless it was never 00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:52.919 meant to be broken by outsiders. That's the whole 00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:56.139 design of a one -time pad. Unbreakable by anyone 00:13:56.139 --> 00:13:58.980 who doesn't already hold the key. Now you're 00:13:58.980 --> 00:14:02.440 just describing spy fiction back to me. Sometimes 00:14:02.440

--> 00:14:05.080 spy fiction gets it from somewhere real. Okay, 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:08.100 here's mine. My read. This is almost certainly 00:14:08.100 --> 00:14:10.779 a personal tragedy wearing a mystery's clothes. 00:14:11.240 --> 00:14:13.899 A man with a hidden second identity, possibly 00:14:13.899 --> 00:14:17.659 fleeing debt, a bad marriage, a diagnosis. Something 00:14:17.659 --> 00:14:19.940 private enough that when he died, no one who 00:14:19.940 --> 00:14:23.419 actually knew the truth ever spoke up. That's 00:14:23.419 --> 00:14:26.659 a very sad, very boring answer for a man who 00:14:26.659 --> 00:14:29.539 died next to a coded poem and an unlisted nurse's 00:14:29.539 --> 00:14:32.820 phone number. Boring and true beat exciting and 00:14:32.820 --> 00:14:37.500 unproven, every time. No. Here's my problem with 00:14:37.500 --> 00:14:40.519 boring answer. You don't accidentally end up 00:14:40.519 --> 00:14:43.620 with no labels, an untraceable identity, a torn 00:14:43.620 --> 00:14:46.340 page from an obscure foreign poetry book, an 00:14:46.340 --> 00:14:48.840 encoded message, and a secret connection to a 00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:51.179 woman one mile away who reacts like she's seen 00:14:51.179 --> 00:14:55.080 a ghost. Coincidences compound. That's what makes 00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:58.759 them coincidences. At some point... At some point 00:14:58.759 --> 00:15:00.919 you're pattern matching because the pattern is 00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:04.980 satisfying, not because it's real. The 2022 DNA 00:15:04.980 --> 00:15:08.799 identification gave us a name, Carl Charles Webb, 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:12.399 an engineer estranged from his family. And you 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:15.500 know what that name actually explained? Go on. 00:15:16.059 --> 00:15:19.639 Almost nothing. It didn't explain the poem, didn't 00:15:19.639 --> 00:15:22.600 explain the code, didn't explain the nurse. We 00:15:22.600 --> 00:15:24.940 finally got the one piece of the puzzle everyone 00:15:24.940 --> 00:15:28.820 assumed would unlock the rest, and it just unlocked 00:15:28.820 --> 00:15:31.720 nothing. That part I'll give you completely. 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:36.159 That's my whole case. Not spy, just this was 00:15:36.159 --> 00:15:39.039 a man deliberately built to be unreadable. And 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:43.659 75 years later, he still is. All right. So where 00:15:43.659 --> 00:15:45.879 does that leave us? We have a confirmed name 00:15:45.879 --> 00:15:49.019 now. We have a confirmed book match, a confirmed 00:15:49.019 --> 00:15:52.039 thread match, hard points on the board. And we 00:15:52.039 --> 00:15:54.820 have an unsolved code, an unexplained phone number, 00:15:55.100 --> 00:15:57.580 and a man who erased every trace of himself on 00:15:57.580 --> 00:16:00.419 purpose. The evidence didn't close this case. 00:16:00.620 --> 00:16:03.480 It just made the mystery more specific. I still 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:06.039 think there's a mundane human explanation underneath 00:16:06.039 --> 00:16:08.639 all of it. One we're simply missing pieces of. 00:16:08.919 --> 00:16:11.139 And I still think a man doesn't go to that much 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:13.740 trouble to disappear unless he's protecting something 00:16:13.740 --> 00:16:17.120 or someone. No verdict here. Just a man who spent 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:19.620 his last hours polishing his shoes and folding 00:16:19.620 --> 00:16:22.259 his arms, making absolutely sure that whoever 00:16:22.259 --> 00:16:24.639 found him would never know his name. Everything 00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:27.559 he took the trouble to hide, still hidden. To 00:16:27.559 --> 00:16:31.460 mom should. It is ended. Except it isn't, really. 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:33.620 No, it really isn't.