December 7, 2021 • 46 mins
On December 1st, 1948, Somerton beachgoers discovered a well-dressed, anonymous corpse. More than 50 years later, investigators still aren't sure what happened.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's classic episode explores a mystery that remains unsolved in
the modern day. Some people on the beach in Somerton
found a very well dressed person holding a very cryptic
page from I Believe the Rubyats and no one knew
who he was. Yes, and we're talking about just south
(00:20):
of Adelaide, Australia. That's where this occurred. Very very strange
situation with this unsolved mystery. Really it's actually unsolved. Let's
dig in right now from UFOs two ghosts and government
cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want
(00:41):
you to now. A week or morning in the bowl
of night has flung the stone that puts the stars
to flight and blow. The Hunter of the East has
caught the Sultan's turret in a of light dreaming. When
(01:02):
Down's left hand was in the sky, I heard a
voice within the tavern cry, awake, my little ones, and
fill the cup before life's liquor in its cup be dry.
And as the cock crew those who stood before the
tavern shouted, opened then the door. You know how little
(01:23):
while we have to stay, and once departed may return
no more. Wow. That was that was different? What did what?
What was that from? Then? Uh? Yeah, we did not
write that. That is from something called the Rubiat, which
will specifically the English translation by a guy named Fitzgerald,
(01:45):
which will become important, we promise as this episode proceeds.
But first, Matt, the heck are we what are we
doing here? Well? My name is Matt Spoilers. Uh yeah,
I and Ben we're here of worse as always with
the the third of our musketeers, the numero trace of
(02:06):
our three amigos, are super Producer Nol the Aussie Brown.
You know, I was wondering, you know, I think I
don't think Aussie is is a derogatory term at all,
But I was wondering if we should have gone with Fosters,
because the Fosters beer commercials were quite popular here in
(02:26):
the US for a long time. Oh yeah, yeah, I
remember those. I have fond memories of those. I think
I remember them around the time that I started to
be able to drink. And then I remember trying one
and thinking, Okay, that's a beer. You weren't bowled over,
you weren't impressed. I don't know, maybe that's just maybe
(02:48):
that's just me. Well, maybe it's like guinness to you know,
the stories that the guinness here in the US is
garbage in comparison to the guinness brewed in Ireland and
those areas. Yeah. Yeah, it's also a sense memory. Taste
can be a sense memory almost as strongly as oil
(03:09):
factory or smells. But you know, I think, I think
that's such an interesting point. There's a study that I
cannot remember, and it has nothing to do with this episode, really,
but there's a study that you should dig up and
toss at your wine snob friends, which is that when
people are influenced by the environment or the context of
(03:32):
a taste, than it affects their perception of the taste.
Not not just psychologically, their brain reacts differently, yes, also
by a person that they perceive as someone of authority. Sure, yeah,
telling you that this terrible wine is just amazing. Right.
So Yeah, here's the way the experiment worked. The the
(03:54):
people conducting the experiment took several different kinds of blind
variety of ages, variety cost, variety of perceived quality, I guess,
and the they they would have somebody come out and
if I'm if I'm remembering this correctly, they would pour
some of the two buck chuck or whatever, which is
not not a bad wine. I'm not a wine guy.
(04:16):
But they would pour some sort of boxed wine into
this decanter and like carefully carefully poured in front of
the person while someone is describing authoritatively and with lustrous language,
the different um, the qualifications, yet, the bouquet, the pedigree,
and then they would have another very very um, very
(04:39):
fine wine, or at least considered as such. Uh, And
they would serve that and they would go, okay, well,
this is just some stuff we got off the shelf, uh,
which is true, like a moderately priced wine. Um, you know,
just what what do you think? How could you describe
the flavors? And then they would switch it around, and
people consistently found these amazing flavors in wine that they
(05:02):
were told was very important. I advanced to you that
in many cases, ladies and gentlemen, the old story is true.
The emperor has no clothes, and everybody just wants to
be cool and be an expert of some sort, including us.
At sometimes well, you know that's probably I'm such a
(05:23):
such a fil sine that I probably wouldn't understand or
appreciate wine at all, no worries. Man, many of us
you and I guess don't. So I know I'll try.
I'll try wine. But also I do just in in
the defense of all the people who might be training
to be small ya's. I don't know if that's a
big part of our audience space, but in their defense,
(05:46):
there clearly is an ability to differentiate and and they're
pretty different taste. The point of that experiment is just
how easily people are swede, right, how much people love
solving things, solving everything from is this wine of ex quality?
Or maybe perhaps oh hey, why why is that guy dead? Yes,
(06:11):
ladies and gentlemen, we are doing this this week. Uh
and for maybe a couple more episodes, we're going to
be looking at some of the most prominent unsolved cases
unsolved crimes in history. So, Matt, can you set the
scene for this one? Oh? Sure? Well, first of all,
we're not going to cover some of the ones who
may be thinking of Jack the Ripper, Zodiac killers. Yeah,
(06:35):
we're not gonna jump into that stuff yet, but we
might one day. That's those are separate things that we
could cover. I know history class has covered Jack the
Ripper pretty well. Yeah, I think stuff you should know,
definitely did We've we've got those you can check out
in the meantime. But what we want to do is
um at least especially with serial killers, we have some
(06:55):
other things up our sleeves, although we won't cover many
serial killer cases in this episode. Uh, just act surprised
later spoiler, right, So what will we do? So today,
we're gonna look at one of the crimes that we
looked at in the video that came out this week,
(07:16):
and uh, then we might I don't know, we might
do a couple more in the future. Yeah, and you know,
as long as are you on board nol Yeah, I speak.
Oh no, No, We're just gonna keep going with the studio.
I'm on board. You know, I'm on board with whatever
you guys got, all right, So we're also we're just
(07:36):
gonna take a quick look at one particular case in
this example, and then we're gonna look at maybe some
developments that have occurred with the case, because the first
one that we're gonna talk about happened a while ago. Yes, yes,
And at the end of this episode as well, we
have a have an interesting announcement, just some some background stuff.
(07:57):
But stay tuned for that, so yes has happened a
while ago. Specifically, on the first of December nineteen eight,
people find a body on Australia's Somerton Beach. This is
an Adelaide Australia. I know that my American accent is atrocious.
It's okay, it's gonna happen several times to both of
(08:18):
us in this episode and perhaps the only you know,
one of my Australian friends said that they found the
American accent grating. But that's just one person, not not
the best sample size. Would it be idol idolid? I
don't know. I don't know. One time on car stuff,
very helpful listener wrote in and said, okay, guys, you're
killing me. Here is here is a legend, you know,
(08:40):
independence of how to pronounce the following city names. But anyhow,
Somerton Beach, he's there, he's dead, or I should say
it's dead, because it's just a body object in space. Now,
especially when a forensic person comes up, they just okay,
this is a body. You identify that it's mail or female.
(09:00):
But it's just a body. No visible signs of death,
no signs of a struggle, and no identification Now, at first,
this is just a case of oh wow, okay, this
this body is here, this man is clearly dead. Um,
did he perhaps commit suicide? Was you know, was this
(09:20):
a homicide of some sort. They're not finding any serious
problems or let's say, wounds that would that would make
an investors say, okay, that's obviously the thing that happened. Sure.
And then as they're kind of rummaging through his clothing
and his possessions, they find a couple of strange things.
(09:42):
They find a second class, second class rail ticket to
another city to Henley Beach, I believe, uh ticket that
had already been used. That Let's see a comb. They
found a comb because you know, sometimes you gotta make
your hair right, some juicy fruit wing gum. Uh, cigarette
pack and let's see, oh in some matches because you
(10:05):
gotta like the cigarettes. That makes sense. Well, that checks out.
But that's not all they found, is it. No. They
found a small piece of paper that was hidden in
a pocket and his pants. And not like just a
pocket that you would usually find. This one was a
little more. It was a secret pocket. Yeah, at the
very least, it took them a little bit longer to find. Yes, exactly.
(10:26):
They didn't just rummage through and grab it. Well. On
this piece of paper it had two words tomin tom
mum should yes and to mom shud or toman shud.
You'll hear it spelled t A m A M t
A m a in as in north. This is uh.
This is the final phrase of an English translation by
(10:50):
a guy named Edward Fitzgerald. Uh. He the thing he translated,
the actual rub Yat of Omar Kaym is a bunch
of poems and anthology of poems, and they're about how
you shouldn't live life to the fullest essentially. Yeah. Yeah,
And that was what you read at the beginning of
(11:11):
this episode, right, that was the very opening of it. Uh.
The the freeze itself means something like the ending finished. Yeah,
it is finished, right, which is why it goes at
the end of at the end of the thing. So
the police, not the not the band if you're called,
they're not around yet, but the the actual law enforcement
(11:32):
of Australia at the time is baffled. This kind of
thing is not finding weird. Finding weird well dressed corpses
in Glenn Eld, South Australia is not what they usually Uh.
What they usually count on. Yeah, it seems cryptic to
say the least. Just why this piece of paper with
(11:55):
this thing on a man who just died that says
it's finished or finished or the strange? Interestingly enough, Glenn
elg the the sort of like the beach suburb of
Battely where this happened, is the oldest European settlement on
mainland South Australia. Yet the oldest in general is it's
(12:17):
not the Olds in general, but the Oldster for South Australia.
A lot of history there. I don't think. I don't
think that ties in, but anyhow who knows? Man? So yes,
So this uh, this theme of the rute yacht that
you should not one should not have regrets and do
live your life as though you will ah die tomorrow
(12:39):
and this is your one chance. You know, no second lives,
no continues, et cetera. This guy police theorizing profiling a
little bit and they said, well, this guy may be
committed suicide by poison, but that was their only evidence
of it. You know, usually if somebody poisons themselves, you'll
(12:59):
see writhing as the body spasm, and you can get
toxicology reports. Even then you can look through contents and
find something. Right, you can get um, you would see
vomit and stuff. The actual death was ruled heart failure. However,
the police also sent out again not the Sting Band,
(13:19):
the Law Enforcement of Australia. Sorry, we did a thing
on earworms earlier and I have all these songs stuck
in my head. Yeah so this but anyway, point being
the the law enforcement had an Australia wide announcement where
they said, we're looking for this book. Yeah the specific
someone tore this out of this book, do you have it?
(13:42):
And they found it. Yes, they did find it in
a strange way. Allegedly they found it, right, I mean
they found the book that had this thing torn out,
corn out of it, and it appears to match and
it yeah yeah, and it appears to have some other
clues that lead us further down the rabbit hole. The
thing that has weird to me is apparently there was
some guy who just said, oh, yeah, I have it.
(14:04):
I was part nearby and then someone through to my
car someone gave me this book for free. I thought, cool,
don't tell me, like, don't put me in the news
or anything. Yeah, please don't. Yeah. So the thing is
this this book. When they found this book, it had
handwriting showing pencil markings in the back right, and they
(14:25):
were presumed to be a code of some sort. They
were in pencil. Uh. You can see pictures of this everywhere,
but it's pretty much it's it's pretty much. These five
lines are a series of letters that might be a cipher,
that might be um, just acronyms or shorthand stuff to know. Right,
(14:47):
So people have been people have tried to figure this
out ever since it came out, and you can hear
people saying that they're closer to cracking the code. We
will have some undates on that. Let's fast forward to
January next year, nineteen forty nine, just two months later.
So two months later, if if we're thinking about where
we are, I guess on the beach. Not far from
(15:11):
there is the Adelaide railway station. And at that station
a brown suitcase is discovered. It's uh, it's just hanging out.
They it's one of those things like nowadays, if this
was discovered, there would have been a bomb squad there.
They would have probably blown the thing up or at
least send in some kind of team of police to
(15:33):
look at it. Um, let's see, I think I don't
think it had a label of any sort on it.
You know, the label had been removed, but they did
know when it had been checked in. That's right. It
was checked in on the thirty November, so about a
day before this guy is discovered. Dead. People for various reasons,
(15:54):
believe the suitcase was owned by the man, the Somerton man.
They found some weird up in there. So inside that
suitcase there were several things. There was a dressing gown,
some pajamas, a shaving kit, let's see, a screwdriver, some
another pair of pants that had sand in them. Apparently
(16:15):
perhaps he was there longer. Perhaps I don't know, maybe
he was just like hanging out on that beach a lot. Uh,
some slippers, a pair of scissors that were sharpened seemed
maybe they were weaponized. A couple other things. Uh what else?
There was a brush, a stenciling brush, and I think
(16:35):
I don't know, there are a couple other things there, right. Well,
that's the This is where we get to a very
interesting point in the story because of all the things
that we name that were found on the man's body
when he died, A receipt for the coat check was
not one of them. And the way this stuff works
is anyone with the receipt can grab something. So it's possible,
(16:56):
if not likely, that someone else came in with the
receipt and took things from the contents of the bag.
I don't know. It's an interesting thing to think about,
but the truth is it doesn't seem like the receipts
on his body. And maybe there's one very important thing
in there right and this There are some updates we
(17:17):
can give here, but before we get straight into those,
let's take it to the present day, and then we'll
go do a few years ago. There's a guy named
Professor Derek Abbott. He is He is a active researcher,
probably the m I would say, without a doubt, the
most serious researcher of this case, at least in the
(17:38):
public eye, unless the spy thing turns out to be
true and the guy has a file on him somewhere
in uh M I six or you know, somewhere in
the CIA files or something. But but where would they
have and where would they have gotten that? That's a
different story. So with a huge thanks to the work
of Professor Abbott, we'd also like to point out to
(18:01):
listeners that if you want more information about this case,
then just check his name and look into some of
the stuff he's doing. He's still very active on here.
So let's get to the updates. I guess we should say.
Here's where it gets crazy and recent and recent. Yes, okay.
(18:21):
In two thousand eleven, wait, let me rewind a little bit.
There was another thing found in that copy of the
Rube yacht, and that was an unlisted phone number which
police tracked down. So and and later dr Avitt does
as well. But okay, So two thousand eleven, an Adelaide
woman contacts uh anthropologist, a biological anthropologist, about an I
(18:47):
D card that she found in her father's belongings. This
card was the kind of card that the US would
give to foreign uh semen or s e A. M Okay,
I don't think you're that's correct with myself anyway. The
name on it is an HC. Reynolds, Um. Yeah. And
(19:14):
facial experts are looking at the photograph of the Summerton Man,
you know, the late Summerton Man, and then this photograph
of this Hennenburg thing, and they're saying that due to
some distinct features of the ears in the mouth or
the teeth rather that they can positively identify the guy.
(19:34):
But there's some problems, right, we know, we know a
lot of stuff about this I d card. Well, yeah,
the most important thing is that Mr HC. Reynolds didn't
seem to exist, right. Yeah, they've got the uh, the
date of issuance February eighteen to Mr Reynolds. He's listed
(19:57):
as an eighteen year old British Man. Let's searching the
U S National Archives. What else the uh? Some of
the Australian archives and the War Memorial I believe in
the UK National Archives turned up nothing but kids. Who's
the dude? Zero? Yeah? Who was this dude? Well? Obviously HC.
(20:22):
Reynolds is either name lost the time or a name
manufactured rather than owned. So the number that they find
in the back of the book, it belongs to a
nurse who lived or who used to be a nurse,
who lived in a place called Mosley Street, and that
was about four maybeet. It was pretty much right next
(20:48):
to where they found this body. And here's her story.
She originally said that she was working in Sydney during
World War Two. She had a copy of the Rubiyat
and at the Clifton Gardens Hotel she gave it to
an army lieutenant alf Voxhall and you know they have
(21:11):
been involved, perhaps um romantically, so because her phone numbers
listed there. Right. The authorities show her a plaster cast
of the Somerton Man and she says, no, no, I
don't I don't know him. I don't know who that is.
But people who were there also say that she and
(21:32):
by people who were there, I mean like medical examiners
also say that she refused to look at the body
afterwards of the cast. She had a palpable reaction. Um.
But she didn't want her name to be out there
because she didn't want to be in the public eye
and personal some personal reasons maybe not to be associated
(21:54):
with absolutely. So the police said, okay, that's it. The
dead man is alf be Boxel. Yeah, even though she
said no, it's not him, right right, All well and good,
except for the fact that he wasn't dead and he
shows up later. Uh they gave they and he shows
(22:16):
up with his copy of the root Yacht. Yeah. So
they gave her in voiceover and stuff like that. They
called her Justin based on the signature following the verse
that she had written in the front of the book. Um,
this might have been like a pet name. You know,
(22:37):
what happens in relationship. Maybe they don't know. Maybe they're
styling on it a little yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe a
lot of truth is told in justin or something. But
so this uh, this person has been interviewed, um. And
when she was interviewed in two thousand two, she just
(22:58):
didn't want to talk about it. She said family didn't
know about the connection to the case because she was married.
The people interviewed her believed that she absolutely knows the
identity of the Summerton Man at this point. Also, um,
apparently she said she was married, but she wasn't well.
(23:18):
At least they couldn't find a record. They couldn't find
a record at the time. They thought her real name.
Originally her real name was important because it might be
the decryption key what this guy wrote. And we'll see
what dr Abbott has to say about that in a moment. First,
let's go back further in time, because there's another thing
(23:41):
that's really weird that happens years before the Summerton Man. So, yeah,
three years before this man dies in nineteen thirty thirty
four year old guy who hails from Singapore named Joseph
Marshall was found in Sydney dead. Now here's the thing, Ben,
(24:03):
he had a copy of The Rubiat, just like this,
just like these other people who just happen to have
copies of the Rubiat because this is, you know, I guess,
a popular book. Right. His death ruled to be a
suicide by poisoning risk. Funny that you say that about
the Rubiat, because we do have to ask if this
is only coincidence, it's possible. Well, here's the thing. Here's
(24:26):
the thing. The Rubiat was a very popular book at
the time. Sales of its skyrocketed every Valentine's Day and
people are trying to hook up, and they're saying, how
sensitive I am here, Like, here's a hey baby, here's
a book that's all about how you know you should
live life. That's right, I mean, let's get some coffee. Uh.
(24:47):
And perhaps I'm being a little bit um No, I
I totally I see that. I saw it in my heaven.
But it is, but it is, you know, I'm saying,
it is possible these are unrelated. Except when they held
an inquest for this guy he named wedded. Dorothy Graham
testified and was found dead thirteen days later, face down naked,
with or risk slet. So this means it does open
(25:11):
up the possibility then that that may be the Rubyat
or a specific translation of it could be used as
sort of a decoding thing for the spies totally. But
the problem is that the Rubyat this guy had, the
Rubiat Marshall had is not the same addition, and you
it generally needed to be the same addition, so everything
(25:34):
would match up, right, one would assume, or at least
maybe parts of it did match up. So this is
where we find several distinct possibilities. It's more or less
proven that there was some sort of relationship between uh,
this person known as Justin and this person known as
the Somerton Man. It is heavily implied that there could
(26:01):
be a possibility of spying and shenanigans. So I guess
the question I would ask is, before we go on
any further, what what do you think? Uh, what do
you think that? Do you think there's a spy thing?
It reeks of of behavior of let's say spying, But
(26:23):
I would say maybe they're a part of a different
secretive group. That maybe isn't even officially a part of
some government. Maybe they are communicating, maybe they're criminals. Maybe
that's how they're communicating, and they were being super serious
about it. Maybe somebody in their group had some background
(26:44):
with spycraft and they're like that, we're going to use
this rubyat this is how we're going to communicate. The
thing of writing the codes in the back of the
book seems a bit sloppy to me. Yeah, because I'm
I'm trying to put myself in that position of this
is this is my book of codes, right, I don't
want anyone to know it's my book of codes. I'm
(27:04):
going to write in the back of it some codes
I don't know. I don't know. So yeah, there's a
great thing you can see on Reddit under the Unresolved
Mystery subreddit. Fantastic, pretty good read. Uh. Professor Abbott's responding
to people. This is an old threat, but earlier this
year he's responding to people about how he believes this
(27:28):
woman knew who the Sumrton Man was, and and she
may have I'm going to quote him here, she may
have played a role in removing his identity after the fact.
So there's a motive, if not evidence, but still even
this case, and you know I will see this. Dr
(27:50):
Abbott proceeds very um, very judiciously. You know, he's not
jumping to any any crazy um conclusions just because they
would be the cool thing. But he did find the
real name of the lady and the real name of
justin it J. E. Thompson, and he did some crack
(28:18):
investigative work to track this down. And at this point,
you know you can you can find that information. But
but it all comes back to this. Despite all of
the excellent research that Professor Abbott has done that the
original interviewers have done, the fact of the matter is
(28:39):
that if she had a child out of wedlock with
the Somerton man, then maybe the maybe the guy was
trying to visit his kid. Maybe something went south with
reporting on UK aircraft. That's another theory that private investigator has.
(29:03):
Whatever happened, one of the best shots we have at
getting some hard evidence about this guy's identity would be
a DNA test to prove whether or not those descendants
of the nurse are related to the Somerton man. And
to do that, you know, we have to have a
we have to have the body yeah, and it exists.
(29:26):
We know where it is. It's in a cemetery called
West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide. Uh, I mean it's been
there since. Here's the problem we we we uh, the
investigators can't get permission to to take the corpse out,
or at least they're refusing to do something right and
(29:47):
apparently it's a legal minefield to try to navigate. That
Professor Abbott did say, and this was earlier at the
beginning of that he feels it's inevitable that at some
points this this disinterment will occur, and it's really too
I guess, filling some missing pieces for the family. So
(30:10):
if we want to get to the speculation here, that's
that's what we know so far. That's like the real,
the real deal with a little bit of speculation. But uh,
the there's that sixty minutes interview that I think we
might have mentioned when Jessica Thompson or j Thompson uh,
her daughter, was interviewed a lady named Kate Thompson. She
(30:32):
says she thinks her mom was a Soviet spy, may
have had a hand in the murder of the Summerton man.
So maybe it was a spy situation gone wrong and
she had to dose. Um it wasn't isn't there speculation
that there was a flower used, possibly in his death
as poisoning. I haven't heard that one, I think. I mean, look,
(30:53):
that's just me rolling around in places that maybe aren't
so reputable on the Internet. But I think there was.
There was a theory, and I apologize it on my
computer on me, a theory that there was a flower
used that is native to that area and it's harder
to trace, I guess, but it's it's highly toxic. I
(31:15):
don't think it's as toxic. Wow. Now I'm just speaking
from the depth spend, but I'm interesting. But looking up
check it, check it out, just search for it, I think.
I think on the wiki even there's a there's a
tiny little entry and picture of that. Okay, about the
idea that there could be a flower used there. The
(31:37):
concept two of Russian spies is we we know that
there have been real deep cover spies. There are people
with multiple names and no real name in the world
and have been for decades at the very least. But
this doesn't but they're probably much more rare then than
(31:59):
we believe or they're much better at not getting caught.
We we also have one of those UM. One of
those reports, I think we mentioned micro writing, the idea
that much smaller things could be written inside the loops
of stuff. We mentioned that in the video. It comes
from a former detective in the UK named Gordon Kramer.
(32:19):
He has parts of this code match with Morse code
letters found in World War two radio operator stuff from
that and you can read his you can read his
reports on this. But from this he believes that there
may have been a conversation about a post war UM,
post war UK aircraft called the Venom X four six
(32:43):
to one. And if you look at the Venom for
X four six to one UH, we don't find too
much except for the reports about this guy who believes
he's discovered it. But you know, there is a there
(33:05):
is a jet aircraft called the Venom that the Haveln
d H Venom. It's a it was sort of the
the stop gap between British British jet fighters from the
first generation UH to the the later ones like the
Hawker Hunter are the C Vixen and it saw service
(33:29):
in New Zealand. So it's quite possible right that they
were there the the stuff that they were working on.
You know, the timing kind of gives up to like
it was introduced in nineteen fifty two, but first flight nine,
(33:50):
which means they were working on it before then, So
it's possible if it's a spy thing. Another weird thing,
apparently this guy has ballet feet, kid, you not like
kind of crunched a little again these weird wedge wedge
shapes to his feet, and he had really pronounced calv muscles.
So what if he is a ballet dancer, an illegitimate
(34:12):
child and came back to try to talk to the
kid had existing medical condition that resulted in a heart failure.
And what if this lady just gave copies of the
Rubiat too people multiple times. Have you ever given out
multiple copies of a book I have? Yeah, maybe it's
her calling card. Maybe maybe the cigarette that he was smoking,
(34:37):
like halfway through smoking laced with something. Maybe. Yeah, But
that's that's kind of tough because so many people smoked
and swapped smokes back then. If you laced a cigarette,
you'd have to be really close, like saying, in a
romantic relationship with him. Well, you also have to be
careful not to pollute the other cigarettes. It would almost
certainly be other people dying. Well, yeah, but if you
(34:58):
have one pack cigarettes and just do the whole pack,
I guess, or maybe do one in his pack. Yeah,
that is true. You never know if he gives a
cigarette out, which one is the lucky one. I don't know.
You know, that's a that's a good point, man, it
could be. But um, the most exciting part of this
(35:19):
is that if the professor is right, and I see
no reason that he wouldn't be, uh, the exhumation of
this body will will put us, as chevy Chase's character
in community would have said, streets ahead in the investigation
and maybe even the unraveling of this this person's identity,
(35:41):
which is something you know, which is something that any
surviving relatives probably deserve to know. Uh. I will say
that Professor Abbott is continuing now. He had a petition
for people to sign petitioning the Government of Australia to
allow for uh, for the DNA testing or getting this
(36:03):
body out of the cemetery. And I believe that he
is the forefront of that pursuit. He's the one seriously
pursuing it. So best of luck to you, professor, and
to you listeners, if you would like to learn more
about this case, then just check this guy out. He's
got a lot of stuff there. There's there are also
(36:23):
a couple of of good books you can read regarding
this Say his name one last time, Ben, his name
is Dr Derek Abbott. Awesome, awesome. Oh and one last note,
if we could have a sound cue from a super
producer here, we're gonna take care of just a little
bit of housekeeping, I guess, as Chuck would call it, right.
(36:53):
So we have a clarification that we would like to make.
In our earlier episode on Washington d C. We got
a lot of great feedback and a lot of very
polite feedback, especially from the Mason's several Mason listeners. So
what we need to clarify here is that the House
of the Temple is only the headquarters of the Scottish
(37:16):
Right Organization, not Masonry entire And I was very happy
to receive this feedback from our listeners who were Mason's
and you and I had talked to Matt off the air.
We'd love to do a full audio podcast on masonry
just entirely in the future, because it seems like, especially
(37:37):
because we had some great letters. You know, I have
to say the the letters we got were extremely polite
and I am happy to receive letters from those guys
and any time about any subject. Sure. Yeah, and uh,
doing an episode on masonry, just masonry entire in the
future would be something that we're super interested in. So
(37:59):
if you, whether you are a mason or not, please
feel free as as we're working on doing this. We
don't know exactly when we'll get to it, but please
feel free to write to us and let us know. Uh,
some stuff you'd like to see covered. You know, no,
no idea is too crazy, but we will look at
them honestly and say if we find any evidence or proof. Right.
(38:23):
So with that being said, uh, there is there is
one other announcement. Oh but we can't make it with
just the two of us. Oh no, we we have
to call to knowl So let's do our nold call
together here, ready, let's do it together. No, No, it's
(38:46):
really unsettling. It works, though it works every time. Definitely
shook me out of my stupor. It's like, you know,
it's it's like the reason they use automated voices on
trains and planes. No one listens to a regular their
voice say step away from the door. That's true. So
uh well, let's start the way we start all the time.
(39:08):
How you doing, Okay, I'm doing quite well. Just busy
as always. Nice. Nice. We just got back from d C. Yeah,
I'm feeling a little sun tanned, I mean burned. Was
it was? It was it sunny. It was like beach
beach weather. Let me tell you about it. It was
(39:30):
like swampy it. Oh you know, I don't mean to
sound disrespectful to the founding fathers that the generation before,
but surely, surely there was a better place. Of course,
we know that DC is not the first seat of
the US capital, but come on, man, it's a swamp.
(39:51):
It's malaric. Yeah, it was crazy. It's no wonder the
yellow fever was a problem. You used an analogy of
the heat was like a giant, invisible rubber blanket that
just hit you and just sticks to you and stays
on you until you give up. I still haven't watched
all of it off. That is a very layered metaphor.
(40:15):
Uh so have you have heard of this case before?
I had not. It reminded me, have you seen that movie.
I think it's called the Snowtown Murders. Also, Yeah, at
first I thought maybe that's what it was, but I
don't think it's not the same. But yeah, there's some
other stuff that went down in that area too. I
think there's a place called the Family. The Snowtowel Murders
(40:38):
were these uh these series, the series of murders with
multiple people committing them and they were putting bodies and
barrels right, very upsetting film worth watching. It's good yea.
And a documentary there were. There was a documentary, but
then there's also a like a narrative like a feature
that I think was based on the document unless I'm
(41:00):
totally making that like based on a true story. Kinnis though, Yeah,
and there was there there were some other things there
as well. But I'm excited to hear. This is something
that listeners have written into us about before, and it
sounds like it's closer now than ever before too. I
guess being solved or making headway, I'm not sure. Yeah,
(41:22):
it's also one of those stories that maybe doesn't matter
that much to like the general public. However, it's one
of those things that once you know about it and
you know that it's still unsolved. It's just I mean,
I just like, I still I want to meet the
toy be tile guy so bad or the people doing
(41:43):
it um, And I guess you know there's that old question,
is the is the easiest way to meet a group
like that to start doing it on your own and
get in trouble? Yeah, I mean I'm not gonna yeah,
I'm not gonna go take a permanent v beach vacation
at all. But alright, so this announcement is uh, his
(42:05):
personal thing. And you guys let me know if I'm
off base for saying it. But we're in pretty jolly
spirits here in the studio because a fun piece of trivia. Uh,
Matt Nolan, I all have birthdays in a very short
space time. True. I only realized yours, Matt because Facebook
(42:26):
told me, did it? Really? I thought? I disabled? Man?
You can't trust Zuckerberg, man, So you put a fakeman in? Yeah,
I do need to put a face so you know
who your friends are. It's a little paranoid maybe, but
uh but yeah, so, uh so yours is today? Right?
(42:47):
Uh huh, Well, okay, that's just funny. I think that's
five eight eleven. Oh, but I don't get eleven threes. Man,
that's there's three nine, number nine, number nine to let
me get let me get my white board. Crazy thing
(43:09):
that people in our office, especially in the video department,
we all have birthday, not all of us, I think
the majority of the people in this room. I'm sorry,
Math and I are not the best of friends, but
the majority of people in this area where the video
department works have birthdays between July, late July and late August.
(43:31):
Summer of the man telling you, yeah, all of them
are what our parents are doing. Yeah, that's it's uh.
I don't read too much into it, but I do
think it's neat. Um. I don't know if are you
guys planning like a group party thing? Are we gonna
go to like David Busters? Or please? Can we Dad?
(43:53):
I went for the first time recently with my daughter
and it was pretty fun in the bathroom the year
urnals let you play a little game with your p
stream that's a fact. You went to the one here? Yeah?
What yeah, so like p and the standing neural or whatever,
and there's like a little screen at the top that
lets you guide ducks or shoot ducks or something. With
(44:16):
your p There's a sensor in the in the toilet
and it it controls what happens on the screen. Somebody
not that. That's like my primary takeaway from David Buster.
Is there a game for number two? Like bombs you're drop?
That's inappropriate? Family across there, I like, how with me?
(44:38):
Do you the one a cross the line? Alright? That's
unfair man. But so we're going to We're going to
head out. We have some um, we have some things
in the works. We have some plans that do not
involve making video games for urinals but are still kind
of cool. And uh, let's see what what else that
(45:00):
we have? Any teasers, any spoilers. I do want to
just announce that if you are not already looking for
us on Periscope or via Twitter account, just checking us
out every once in a while, we're gonna start doing
that quite frequently. And you might see Superproducer Nol, you
might see some friends from How Stuff Works on that feed.
(45:21):
You really never know what you're gonna be gonna see
some weird stuff. There's gonna be weird things. Scully is
gonna get involved. I mean, you know, we like to
hang out in that infinite darkness. Sometimes things just come
out to play with us, right Yeah. The abyss stairs
back at you, right stairs into you, however it goes,
definitely is quite acquainted with us. Yeah, thank you for
(45:41):
bringing up the periscope thing. We're definitely gonna do that.
We're also going to continue this series on unsolved crimes
for a little while. We won't well for simple We've
got some more stuff we'd like to look into. And
that means even more importantly that we would like to
hear from you. What are some of your favorite obscure,
solved bizarre crimes. They don't have to be murders, uh,
(46:04):
they don't have to be super well known. It could
be something wore neck of the woods. We'd like to
check it out. And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
(46:24):
std w y t K. If you don't want to
do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at I heart radio dot com. Stuff
they don't want you to know is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Today's classic episode explores a mystery that remains unsolved in
the modern day. Some people on the beach in Somerton
found a very well dressed person holding a very cryptic
page from I Believe the Rubyats and no one knew
who he was. Yes, and we're talking about just south
(00:20):
of Adelaide, Australia. That's where this occurred. Very very strange
situation with this unsolved mystery. Really it's actually unsolved. Let's
dig in right now from UFOs two ghosts and government
cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want
(00:41):
you to now. A week or morning in the bowl
of night has flung the stone that puts the stars
to flight and blow. The Hunter of the East has
caught the Sultan's turret in a of light dreaming. When
(01:02):
Down's left hand was in the sky, I heard a
voice within the tavern cry, awake, my little ones, and
fill the cup before life's liquor in its cup be dry.
And as the cock crew those who stood before the
tavern shouted, opened then the door. You know how little
(01:23):
while we have to stay, and once departed may return
no more. Wow. That was that was different? What did what?
What was that from? Then? Uh? Yeah, we did not
write that. That is from something called the Rubiat, which
will specifically the English translation by a guy named Fitzgerald,
(01:45):
which will become important, we promise as this episode proceeds.
But first, Matt, the heck are we what are we
doing here? Well? My name is Matt Spoilers. Uh yeah,
I and Ben we're here of worse as always with
the the third of our musketeers, the numero trace of
(02:06):
our three amigos, are super Producer Nol the Aussie Brown.
You know, I was wondering, you know, I think I
don't think Aussie is is a derogatory term at all,
But I was wondering if we should have gone with Fosters,
because the Fosters beer commercials were quite popular here in
(02:26):
the US for a long time. Oh yeah, yeah, I
remember those. I have fond memories of those. I think
I remember them around the time that I started to
be able to drink. And then I remember trying one
and thinking, Okay, that's a beer. You weren't bowled over,
you weren't impressed. I don't know, maybe that's just maybe
(02:48):
that's just me. Well, maybe it's like guinness to you know,
the stories that the guinness here in the US is
garbage in comparison to the guinness brewed in Ireland and
those areas. Yeah. Yeah, it's also a sense memory. Taste
can be a sense memory almost as strongly as oil
(03:09):
factory or smells. But you know, I think, I think
that's such an interesting point. There's a study that I
cannot remember, and it has nothing to do with this episode, really,
but there's a study that you should dig up and
toss at your wine snob friends, which is that when
people are influenced by the environment or the context of
(03:32):
a taste, than it affects their perception of the taste.
Not not just psychologically, their brain reacts differently, yes, also
by a person that they perceive as someone of authority. Sure, yeah,
telling you that this terrible wine is just amazing. Right.
So Yeah, here's the way the experiment worked. The the
(03:54):
people conducting the experiment took several different kinds of blind
variety of ages, variety cost, variety of perceived quality, I guess,
and the they they would have somebody come out and
if I'm if I'm remembering this correctly, they would pour
some of the two buck chuck or whatever, which is
not not a bad wine. I'm not a wine guy.
(04:16):
But they would pour some sort of boxed wine into
this decanter and like carefully carefully poured in front of
the person while someone is describing authoritatively and with lustrous language,
the different um, the qualifications, yet, the bouquet, the pedigree,
and then they would have another very very um, very
(04:39):
fine wine, or at least considered as such. Uh, And
they would serve that and they would go, okay, well,
this is just some stuff we got off the shelf, uh,
which is true, like a moderately priced wine. Um, you know,
just what what do you think? How could you describe
the flavors? And then they would switch it around, and
people consistently found these amazing flavors in wine that they
(05:02):
were told was very important. I advanced to you that
in many cases, ladies and gentlemen, the old story is true.
The emperor has no clothes, and everybody just wants to
be cool and be an expert of some sort, including us.
At sometimes well, you know that's probably I'm such a
(05:23):
such a fil sine that I probably wouldn't understand or
appreciate wine at all, no worries. Man, many of us
you and I guess don't. So I know I'll try.
I'll try wine. But also I do just in in
the defense of all the people who might be training
to be small ya's. I don't know if that's a
big part of our audience space, but in their defense,
(05:46):
there clearly is an ability to differentiate and and they're
pretty different taste. The point of that experiment is just
how easily people are swede, right, how much people love
solving things, solving everything from is this wine of ex quality?
Or maybe perhaps oh hey, why why is that guy dead? Yes,
(06:11):
ladies and gentlemen, we are doing this this week. Uh
and for maybe a couple more episodes, we're going to
be looking at some of the most prominent unsolved cases
unsolved crimes in history. So, Matt, can you set the
scene for this one? Oh? Sure? Well, first of all,
we're not going to cover some of the ones who
may be thinking of Jack the Ripper, Zodiac killers. Yeah,
(06:35):
we're not gonna jump into that stuff yet, but we
might one day. That's those are separate things that we
could cover. I know history class has covered Jack the
Ripper pretty well. Yeah, I think stuff you should know,
definitely did We've we've got those you can check out
in the meantime. But what we want to do is
um at least especially with serial killers, we have some
(06:55):
other things up our sleeves, although we won't cover many
serial killer cases in this episode. Uh, just act surprised
later spoiler, right, So what will we do? So today,
we're gonna look at one of the crimes that we
looked at in the video that came out this week,
(07:16):
and uh, then we might I don't know, we might
do a couple more in the future. Yeah, and you know,
as long as are you on board nol Yeah, I speak.
Oh no, No, We're just gonna keep going with the studio.
I'm on board. You know, I'm on board with whatever
you guys got, all right, So we're also we're just
(07:36):
gonna take a quick look at one particular case in
this example, and then we're gonna look at maybe some
developments that have occurred with the case, because the first
one that we're gonna talk about happened a while ago. Yes, yes,
And at the end of this episode as well, we
have a have an interesting announcement, just some some background stuff.
(07:57):
But stay tuned for that, so yes has happened a
while ago. Specifically, on the first of December nineteen eight,
people find a body on Australia's Somerton Beach. This is
an Adelaide Australia. I know that my American accent is atrocious.
It's okay, it's gonna happen several times to both of
(08:18):
us in this episode and perhaps the only you know,
one of my Australian friends said that they found the
American accent grating. But that's just one person, not not
the best sample size. Would it be idol idolid? I
don't know. I don't know. One time on car stuff,
very helpful listener wrote in and said, okay, guys, you're
killing me. Here is here is a legend, you know,
(08:40):
independence of how to pronounce the following city names. But anyhow,
Somerton Beach, he's there, he's dead, or I should say
it's dead, because it's just a body object in space. Now,
especially when a forensic person comes up, they just okay,
this is a body. You identify that it's mail or female.
(09:00):
But it's just a body. No visible signs of death,
no signs of a struggle, and no identification Now, at first,
this is just a case of oh wow, okay, this
this body is here, this man is clearly dead. Um,
did he perhaps commit suicide? Was you know, was this
(09:20):
a homicide of some sort. They're not finding any serious
problems or let's say, wounds that would that would make
an investors say, okay, that's obviously the thing that happened. Sure.
And then as they're kind of rummaging through his clothing
and his possessions, they find a couple of strange things.
(09:42):
They find a second class, second class rail ticket to
another city to Henley Beach, I believe, uh ticket that
had already been used. That Let's see a comb. They
found a comb because you know, sometimes you gotta make
your hair right, some juicy fruit wing gum. Uh, cigarette
pack and let's see, oh in some matches because you
(10:05):
gotta like the cigarettes. That makes sense. Well, that checks out.
But that's not all they found, is it. No. They
found a small piece of paper that was hidden in
a pocket and his pants. And not like just a
pocket that you would usually find. This one was a
little more. It was a secret pocket. Yeah, at the
very least, it took them a little bit longer to find. Yes, exactly.
(10:26):
They didn't just rummage through and grab it. Well. On
this piece of paper it had two words tomin tom
mum should yes and to mom shud or toman shud.
You'll hear it spelled t A m A M t
A m a in as in north. This is uh.
This is the final phrase of an English translation by
(10:50):
a guy named Edward Fitzgerald. Uh. He the thing he translated,
the actual rub Yat of Omar Kaym is a bunch
of poems and anthology of poems, and they're about how
you shouldn't live life to the fullest essentially. Yeah. Yeah,
And that was what you read at the beginning of
(11:11):
this episode, right, that was the very opening of it. Uh.
The the freeze itself means something like the ending finished. Yeah,
it is finished, right, which is why it goes at
the end of at the end of the thing. So
the police, not the not the band if you're called,
they're not around yet, but the the actual law enforcement
(11:32):
of Australia at the time is baffled. This kind of
thing is not finding weird. Finding weird well dressed corpses
in Glenn Eld, South Australia is not what they usually Uh.
What they usually count on. Yeah, it seems cryptic to
say the least. Just why this piece of paper with
(11:55):
this thing on a man who just died that says
it's finished or finished or the strange? Interestingly enough, Glenn
elg the the sort of like the beach suburb of
Battely where this happened, is the oldest European settlement on
mainland South Australia. Yet the oldest in general is it's
(12:17):
not the Olds in general, but the Oldster for South Australia.
A lot of history there. I don't think. I don't
think that ties in, but anyhow who knows? Man? So yes,
So this uh, this theme of the rute yacht that
you should not one should not have regrets and do
live your life as though you will ah die tomorrow
(12:39):
and this is your one chance. You know, no second lives,
no continues, et cetera. This guy police theorizing profiling a
little bit and they said, well, this guy may be
committed suicide by poison, but that was their only evidence
of it. You know, usually if somebody poisons themselves, you'll
(12:59):
see writhing as the body spasm, and you can get
toxicology reports. Even then you can look through contents and
find something. Right, you can get um, you would see
vomit and stuff. The actual death was ruled heart failure. However,
the police also sent out again not the Sting Band,
(13:19):
the Law Enforcement of Australia. Sorry, we did a thing
on earworms earlier and I have all these songs stuck
in my head. Yeah so this but anyway, point being
the the law enforcement had an Australia wide announcement where
they said, we're looking for this book. Yeah the specific
someone tore this out of this book, do you have it?
(13:42):
And they found it. Yes, they did find it in
a strange way. Allegedly they found it, right, I mean
they found the book that had this thing torn out,
corn out of it, and it appears to match and
it yeah yeah, and it appears to have some other
clues that lead us further down the rabbit hole. The
thing that has weird to me is apparently there was
some guy who just said, oh, yeah, I have it.
(14:04):
I was part nearby and then someone through to my
car someone gave me this book for free. I thought, cool,
don't tell me, like, don't put me in the news
or anything. Yeah, please don't. Yeah. So the thing is
this this book. When they found this book, it had
handwriting showing pencil markings in the back right, and they
(14:25):
were presumed to be a code of some sort. They
were in pencil. Uh. You can see pictures of this everywhere,
but it's pretty much it's it's pretty much. These five
lines are a series of letters that might be a cipher,
that might be um, just acronyms or shorthand stuff to know. Right,
(14:47):
So people have been people have tried to figure this
out ever since it came out, and you can hear
people saying that they're closer to cracking the code. We
will have some undates on that. Let's fast forward to
January next year, nineteen forty nine, just two months later.
So two months later, if if we're thinking about where
we are, I guess on the beach. Not far from
(15:11):
there is the Adelaide railway station. And at that station
a brown suitcase is discovered. It's uh, it's just hanging out.
They it's one of those things like nowadays, if this
was discovered, there would have been a bomb squad there.
They would have probably blown the thing up or at
least send in some kind of team of police to
(15:33):
look at it. Um, let's see, I think I don't
think it had a label of any sort on it.
You know, the label had been removed, but they did
know when it had been checked in. That's right. It
was checked in on the thirty November, so about a
day before this guy is discovered. Dead. People for various reasons,
(15:54):
believe the suitcase was owned by the man, the Somerton man.
They found some weird up in there. So inside that
suitcase there were several things. There was a dressing gown,
some pajamas, a shaving kit, let's see, a screwdriver, some
another pair of pants that had sand in them. Apparently
(16:15):
perhaps he was there longer. Perhaps I don't know, maybe
he was just like hanging out on that beach a lot. Uh,
some slippers, a pair of scissors that were sharpened seemed
maybe they were weaponized. A couple other things. Uh what else?
There was a brush, a stenciling brush, and I think
(16:35):
I don't know, there are a couple other things there, right. Well,
that's the This is where we get to a very
interesting point in the story because of all the things
that we name that were found on the man's body
when he died, A receipt for the coat check was
not one of them. And the way this stuff works
is anyone with the receipt can grab something. So it's possible,
(16:56):
if not likely, that someone else came in with the
receipt and took things from the contents of the bag.
I don't know. It's an interesting thing to think about,
but the truth is it doesn't seem like the receipts
on his body. And maybe there's one very important thing
in there right and this There are some updates we
(17:17):
can give here, but before we get straight into those,
let's take it to the present day, and then we'll
go do a few years ago. There's a guy named
Professor Derek Abbott. He is He is a active researcher,
probably the m I would say, without a doubt, the
most serious researcher of this case, at least in the
(17:38):
public eye, unless the spy thing turns out to be
true and the guy has a file on him somewhere
in uh M I six or you know, somewhere in
the CIA files or something. But but where would they
have and where would they have gotten that? That's a
different story. So with a huge thanks to the work
of Professor Abbott, we'd also like to point out to
(18:01):
listeners that if you want more information about this case,
then just check his name and look into some of
the stuff he's doing. He's still very active on here.
So let's get to the updates. I guess we should say.
Here's where it gets crazy and recent and recent. Yes, okay.
(18:21):
In two thousand eleven, wait, let me rewind a little bit.
There was another thing found in that copy of the
Rube yacht, and that was an unlisted phone number which
police tracked down. So and and later dr Avitt does
as well. But okay, So two thousand eleven, an Adelaide
woman contacts uh anthropologist, a biological anthropologist, about an I
(18:47):
D card that she found in her father's belongings. This
card was the kind of card that the US would
give to foreign uh semen or s e A. M Okay,
I don't think you're that's correct with myself anyway. The
name on it is an HC. Reynolds, Um. Yeah. And
(19:14):
facial experts are looking at the photograph of the Summerton Man,
you know, the late Summerton Man, and then this photograph
of this Hennenburg thing, and they're saying that due to
some distinct features of the ears in the mouth or
the teeth rather that they can positively identify the guy.
(19:34):
But there's some problems, right, we know, we know a
lot of stuff about this I d card. Well, yeah,
the most important thing is that Mr HC. Reynolds didn't
seem to exist, right. Yeah, they've got the uh, the
date of issuance February eighteen to Mr Reynolds. He's listed
(19:57):
as an eighteen year old British Man. Let's searching the
U S National Archives. What else the uh? Some of
the Australian archives and the War Memorial I believe in
the UK National Archives turned up nothing but kids. Who's
the dude? Zero? Yeah? Who was this dude? Well? Obviously HC.
(20:22):
Reynolds is either name lost the time or a name
manufactured rather than owned. So the number that they find
in the back of the book, it belongs to a
nurse who lived or who used to be a nurse,
who lived in a place called Mosley Street, and that
was about four maybeet. It was pretty much right next
(20:48):
to where they found this body. And here's her story.
She originally said that she was working in Sydney during
World War Two. She had a copy of the Rubiyat
and at the Clifton Gardens Hotel she gave it to
an army lieutenant alf Voxhall and you know they have
(21:11):
been involved, perhaps um romantically, so because her phone numbers
listed there. Right. The authorities show her a plaster cast
of the Somerton Man and she says, no, no, I
don't I don't know him. I don't know who that is.
But people who were there also say that she and
(21:32):
by people who were there, I mean like medical examiners
also say that she refused to look at the body
afterwards of the cast. She had a palpable reaction. Um.
But she didn't want her name to be out there
because she didn't want to be in the public eye
and personal some personal reasons maybe not to be associated
(21:54):
with absolutely. So the police said, okay, that's it. The
dead man is alf be Boxel. Yeah, even though she
said no, it's not him, right right, All well and good,
except for the fact that he wasn't dead and he
shows up later. Uh they gave they and he shows
(22:16):
up with his copy of the root Yacht. Yeah. So
they gave her in voiceover and stuff like that. They
called her Justin based on the signature following the verse
that she had written in the front of the book. Um,
this might have been like a pet name. You know,
(22:37):
what happens in relationship. Maybe they don't know. Maybe they're
styling on it a little yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe a
lot of truth is told in justin or something. But
so this uh, this person has been interviewed, um. And
when she was interviewed in two thousand two, she just
(22:58):
didn't want to talk about it. She said family didn't
know about the connection to the case because she was married.
The people interviewed her believed that she absolutely knows the
identity of the Summerton Man at this point. Also, um,
apparently she said she was married, but she wasn't well.
(23:18):
At least they couldn't find a record. They couldn't find
a record at the time. They thought her real name.
Originally her real name was important because it might be
the decryption key what this guy wrote. And we'll see
what dr Abbott has to say about that in a moment. First,
let's go back further in time, because there's another thing
(23:41):
that's really weird that happens years before the Summerton Man. So, yeah,
three years before this man dies in nineteen thirty thirty
four year old guy who hails from Singapore named Joseph
Marshall was found in Sydney dead. Now here's the thing, Ben,
(24:03):
he had a copy of The Rubiat, just like this,
just like these other people who just happen to have
copies of the Rubiat because this is, you know, I guess,
a popular book. Right. His death ruled to be a
suicide by poisoning risk. Funny that you say that about
the Rubiat, because we do have to ask if this
is only coincidence, it's possible. Well, here's the thing. Here's
(24:26):
the thing. The Rubiat was a very popular book at
the time. Sales of its skyrocketed every Valentine's Day and
people are trying to hook up, and they're saying, how
sensitive I am here, Like, here's a hey baby, here's
a book that's all about how you know you should
live life. That's right, I mean, let's get some coffee. Uh.
(24:47):
And perhaps I'm being a little bit um No, I
I totally I see that. I saw it in my heaven.
But it is, but it is, you know, I'm saying,
it is possible these are unrelated. Except when they held
an inquest for this guy he named wedded. Dorothy Graham
testified and was found dead thirteen days later, face down naked,
with or risk slet. So this means it does open
(25:11):
up the possibility then that that may be the Rubyat
or a specific translation of it could be used as
sort of a decoding thing for the spies totally. But
the problem is that the Rubyat this guy had, the
Rubiat Marshall had is not the same addition, and you
it generally needed to be the same addition, so everything
(25:34):
would match up, right, one would assume, or at least
maybe parts of it did match up. So this is
where we find several distinct possibilities. It's more or less
proven that there was some sort of relationship between uh,
this person known as Justin and this person known as
the Somerton Man. It is heavily implied that there could
(26:01):
be a possibility of spying and shenanigans. So I guess
the question I would ask is, before we go on
any further, what what do you think? Uh, what do
you think that? Do you think there's a spy thing?
It reeks of of behavior of let's say spying, But
(26:23):
I would say maybe they're a part of a different
secretive group. That maybe isn't even officially a part of
some government. Maybe they are communicating, maybe they're criminals. Maybe
that's how they're communicating, and they were being super serious
about it. Maybe somebody in their group had some background
(26:44):
with spycraft and they're like that, we're going to use
this rubyat this is how we're going to communicate. The
thing of writing the codes in the back of the
book seems a bit sloppy to me. Yeah, because I'm
I'm trying to put myself in that position of this
is this is my book of codes, right, I don't
want anyone to know it's my book of codes. I'm
(27:04):
going to write in the back of it some codes
I don't know. I don't know. So yeah, there's a
great thing you can see on Reddit under the Unresolved
Mystery subreddit. Fantastic, pretty good read. Uh. Professor Abbott's responding
to people. This is an old threat, but earlier this
year he's responding to people about how he believes this
(27:28):
woman knew who the Sumrton Man was, and and she
may have I'm going to quote him here, she may
have played a role in removing his identity after the fact.
So there's a motive, if not evidence, but still even
this case, and you know I will see this. Dr
(27:50):
Abbott proceeds very um, very judiciously. You know, he's not
jumping to any any crazy um conclusions just because they
would be the cool thing. But he did find the
real name of the lady and the real name of
justin it J. E. Thompson, and he did some crack
(28:18):
investigative work to track this down. And at this point,
you know you can you can find that information. But
but it all comes back to this. Despite all of
the excellent research that Professor Abbott has done that the
original interviewers have done, the fact of the matter is
(28:39):
that if she had a child out of wedlock with
the Somerton man, then maybe the maybe the guy was
trying to visit his kid. Maybe something went south with
reporting on UK aircraft. That's another theory that private investigator has.
(29:03):
Whatever happened, one of the best shots we have at
getting some hard evidence about this guy's identity would be
a DNA test to prove whether or not those descendants
of the nurse are related to the Somerton man. And
to do that, you know, we have to have a
we have to have the body yeah, and it exists.
(29:26):
We know where it is. It's in a cemetery called
West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide. Uh, I mean it's been
there since. Here's the problem we we we uh, the
investigators can't get permission to to take the corpse out,
or at least they're refusing to do something right and
(29:47):
apparently it's a legal minefield to try to navigate. That
Professor Abbott did say, and this was earlier at the
beginning of that he feels it's inevitable that at some
points this this disinterment will occur, and it's really too
I guess, filling some missing pieces for the family. So
(30:10):
if we want to get to the speculation here, that's
that's what we know so far. That's like the real,
the real deal with a little bit of speculation. But uh,
the there's that sixty minutes interview that I think we
might have mentioned when Jessica Thompson or j Thompson uh,
her daughter, was interviewed a lady named Kate Thompson. She
(30:32):
says she thinks her mom was a Soviet spy, may
have had a hand in the murder of the Summerton man.
So maybe it was a spy situation gone wrong and
she had to dose. Um it wasn't isn't there speculation
that there was a flower used, possibly in his death
as poisoning. I haven't heard that one, I think. I mean, look,
(30:53):
that's just me rolling around in places that maybe aren't
so reputable on the Internet. But I think there was.
There was a theory, and I apologize it on my
computer on me, a theory that there was a flower
used that is native to that area and it's harder
to trace, I guess, but it's it's highly toxic. I
(31:15):
don't think it's as toxic. Wow. Now I'm just speaking
from the depth spend, but I'm interesting. But looking up
check it, check it out, just search for it, I think.
I think on the wiki even there's a there's a
tiny little entry and picture of that. Okay, about the
idea that there could be a flower used there. The
(31:37):
concept two of Russian spies is we we know that
there have been real deep cover spies. There are people
with multiple names and no real name in the world
and have been for decades at the very least. But
this doesn't but they're probably much more rare then than
(31:59):
we believe or they're much better at not getting caught.
We we also have one of those UM. One of
those reports, I think we mentioned micro writing, the idea
that much smaller things could be written inside the loops
of stuff. We mentioned that in the video. It comes
from a former detective in the UK named Gordon Kramer.
(32:19):
He has parts of this code match with Morse code
letters found in World War two radio operator stuff from
that and you can read his you can read his
reports on this. But from this he believes that there
may have been a conversation about a post war UM,
post war UK aircraft called the Venom X four six
(32:43):
to one. And if you look at the Venom for
X four six to one UH, we don't find too
much except for the reports about this guy who believes
he's discovered it. But you know, there is a there
(33:05):
is a jet aircraft called the Venom that the Haveln
d H Venom. It's a it was sort of the
the stop gap between British British jet fighters from the
first generation UH to the the later ones like the
Hawker Hunter are the C Vixen and it saw service
(33:29):
in New Zealand. So it's quite possible right that they
were there the the stuff that they were working on.
You know, the timing kind of gives up to like
it was introduced in nineteen fifty two, but first flight nine,
(33:50):
which means they were working on it before then, So
it's possible if it's a spy thing. Another weird thing,
apparently this guy has ballet feet, kid, you not like
kind of crunched a little again these weird wedge wedge
shapes to his feet, and he had really pronounced calv muscles.
So what if he is a ballet dancer, an illegitimate
(34:12):
child and came back to try to talk to the
kid had existing medical condition that resulted in a heart failure.
And what if this lady just gave copies of the
Rubiat too people multiple times. Have you ever given out
multiple copies of a book I have? Yeah, maybe it's
her calling card. Maybe maybe the cigarette that he was smoking,
(34:37):
like halfway through smoking laced with something. Maybe. Yeah, But
that's that's kind of tough because so many people smoked
and swapped smokes back then. If you laced a cigarette,
you'd have to be really close, like saying, in a
romantic relationship with him. Well, you also have to be
careful not to pollute the other cigarettes. It would almost
certainly be other people dying. Well, yeah, but if you
(34:58):
have one pack cigarettes and just do the whole pack,
I guess, or maybe do one in his pack. Yeah,
that is true. You never know if he gives a
cigarette out, which one is the lucky one. I don't know.
You know, that's a that's a good point, man, it
could be. But um, the most exciting part of this
(35:19):
is that if the professor is right, and I see
no reason that he wouldn't be, uh, the exhumation of
this body will will put us, as chevy Chase's character
in community would have said, streets ahead in the investigation
and maybe even the unraveling of this this person's identity,
(35:41):
which is something you know, which is something that any
surviving relatives probably deserve to know. Uh. I will say
that Professor Abbott is continuing now. He had a petition
for people to sign petitioning the Government of Australia to
allow for uh, for the DNA testing or getting this
(36:03):
body out of the cemetery. And I believe that he
is the forefront of that pursuit. He's the one seriously
pursuing it. So best of luck to you, professor, and
to you listeners, if you would like to learn more
about this case, then just check this guy out. He's
got a lot of stuff there. There's there are also
(36:23):
a couple of of good books you can read regarding
this Say his name one last time, Ben, his name
is Dr Derek Abbott. Awesome, awesome. Oh and one last note,
if we could have a sound cue from a super
producer here, we're gonna take care of just a little
bit of housekeeping, I guess, as Chuck would call it, right.
(36:53):
So we have a clarification that we would like to make.
In our earlier episode on Washington d C. We got
a lot of great feedback and a lot of very
polite feedback, especially from the Mason's several Mason listeners. So
what we need to clarify here is that the House
of the Temple is only the headquarters of the Scottish
(37:16):
Right Organization, not Masonry entire And I was very happy
to receive this feedback from our listeners who were Mason's
and you and I had talked to Matt off the air.
We'd love to do a full audio podcast on masonry
just entirely in the future, because it seems like, especially
(37:37):
because we had some great letters. You know, I have
to say the the letters we got were extremely polite
and I am happy to receive letters from those guys
and any time about any subject. Sure. Yeah, and uh,
doing an episode on masonry, just masonry entire in the
future would be something that we're super interested in. So
(37:59):
if you, whether you are a mason or not, please
feel free as as we're working on doing this. We
don't know exactly when we'll get to it, but please
feel free to write to us and let us know. Uh,
some stuff you'd like to see covered. You know, no,
no idea is too crazy, but we will look at
them honestly and say if we find any evidence or proof. Right.
(38:23):
So with that being said, uh, there is there is
one other announcement. Oh but we can't make it with
just the two of us. Oh no, we we have
to call to knowl So let's do our nold call
together here, ready, let's do it together. No, No, it's
(38:46):
really unsettling. It works, though it works every time. Definitely
shook me out of my stupor. It's like, you know,
it's it's like the reason they use automated voices on
trains and planes. No one listens to a regular their
voice say step away from the door. That's true. So
uh well, let's start the way we start all the time.
(39:08):
How you doing, Okay, I'm doing quite well. Just busy
as always. Nice. Nice. We just got back from d C. Yeah,
I'm feeling a little sun tanned, I mean burned. Was
it was? It was it sunny. It was like beach
beach weather. Let me tell you about it. It was
(39:30):
like swampy it. Oh you know, I don't mean to
sound disrespectful to the founding fathers that the generation before,
but surely, surely there was a better place. Of course,
we know that DC is not the first seat of
the US capital, but come on, man, it's a swamp.
(39:51):
It's malaric. Yeah, it was crazy. It's no wonder the
yellow fever was a problem. You used an analogy of
the heat was like a giant, invisible rubber blanket that
just hit you and just sticks to you and stays
on you until you give up. I still haven't watched
all of it off. That is a very layered metaphor.
(40:15):
Uh so have you have heard of this case before?
I had not. It reminded me, have you seen that movie.
I think it's called the Snowtown Murders. Also, Yeah, at
first I thought maybe that's what it was, but I
don't think it's not the same. But yeah, there's some
other stuff that went down in that area too. I
think there's a place called the Family. The Snowtowel Murders
(40:38):
were these uh these series, the series of murders with
multiple people committing them and they were putting bodies and
barrels right, very upsetting film worth watching. It's good yea.
And a documentary there were. There was a documentary, but
then there's also a like a narrative like a feature
that I think was based on the document unless I'm
(41:00):
totally making that like based on a true story. Kinnis though, Yeah,
and there was there there were some other things there
as well. But I'm excited to hear. This is something
that listeners have written into us about before, and it
sounds like it's closer now than ever before too. I
guess being solved or making headway, I'm not sure. Yeah,
(41:22):
it's also one of those stories that maybe doesn't matter
that much to like the general public. However, it's one
of those things that once you know about it and
you know that it's still unsolved. It's just I mean,
I just like, I still I want to meet the
toy be tile guy so bad or the people doing
(41:43):
it um, And I guess you know there's that old question,
is the is the easiest way to meet a group
like that to start doing it on your own and
get in trouble? Yeah, I mean I'm not gonna yeah,
I'm not gonna go take a permanent v beach vacation
at all. But alright, so this announcement is uh, his
(42:05):
personal thing. And you guys let me know if I'm
off base for saying it. But we're in pretty jolly
spirits here in the studio because a fun piece of trivia. Uh,
Matt Nolan, I all have birthdays in a very short
space time. True. I only realized yours, Matt because Facebook
(42:26):
told me, did it? Really? I thought? I disabled? Man?
You can't trust Zuckerberg, man, So you put a fakeman in? Yeah,
I do need to put a face so you know
who your friends are. It's a little paranoid maybe, but
uh but yeah, so, uh so yours is today? Right?
(42:47):
Uh huh, Well, okay, that's just funny. I think that's
five eight eleven. Oh, but I don't get eleven threes. Man,
that's there's three nine, number nine, number nine to let
me get let me get my white board. Crazy thing
(43:09):
that people in our office, especially in the video department,
we all have birthday, not all of us, I think
the majority of the people in this room. I'm sorry,
Math and I are not the best of friends, but
the majority of people in this area where the video
department works have birthdays between July, late July and late August.
(43:31):
Summer of the man telling you, yeah, all of them
are what our parents are doing. Yeah, that's it's uh.
I don't read too much into it, but I do
think it's neat. Um. I don't know if are you
guys planning like a group party thing? Are we gonna
go to like David Busters? Or please? Can we Dad?
(43:53):
I went for the first time recently with my daughter
and it was pretty fun in the bathroom the year
urnals let you play a little game with your p
stream that's a fact. You went to the one here? Yeah?
What yeah, so like p and the standing neural or whatever,
and there's like a little screen at the top that
lets you guide ducks or shoot ducks or something. With
(44:16):
your p There's a sensor in the in the toilet
and it it controls what happens on the screen. Somebody
not that. That's like my primary takeaway from David Buster.
Is there a game for number two? Like bombs you're drop?
That's inappropriate? Family across there, I like, how with me?
(44:38):
Do you the one a cross the line? Alright? That's
unfair man. But so we're going to We're going to
head out. We have some um, we have some things
in the works. We have some plans that do not
involve making video games for urinals but are still kind
of cool. And uh, let's see what what else that
(45:00):
we have? Any teasers, any spoilers. I do want to
just announce that if you are not already looking for
us on Periscope or via Twitter account, just checking us
out every once in a while, we're gonna start doing
that quite frequently. And you might see Superproducer Nol, you
might see some friends from How Stuff Works on that feed.
(45:21):
You really never know what you're gonna be gonna see
some weird stuff. There's gonna be weird things. Scully is
gonna get involved. I mean, you know, we like to
hang out in that infinite darkness. Sometimes things just come
out to play with us, right Yeah. The abyss stairs
back at you, right stairs into you, however it goes,
definitely is quite acquainted with us. Yeah, thank you for
(45:41):
bringing up the periscope thing. We're definitely gonna do that.
We're also going to continue this series on unsolved crimes
for a little while. We won't well for simple We've
got some more stuff we'd like to look into. And
that means even more importantly that we would like to
hear from you. What are some of your favorite obscure,
solved bizarre crimes. They don't have to be murders, uh,
(46:04):
they don't have to be super well known. It could
be something wore neck of the woods. We'd like to
check it out. And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
(46:24):
std w y t K. If you don't want to
do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at I heart radio dot com. Stuff
they don't want you to know is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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