THE SOMERTON MAN

This article is an update of a Squidoo lens that I have since deleted about a man who died all alone on Somerton Beach in November 1949.
Was he a spy? Well he certainly died like one!
Was he murdered? It would account for why there was nothing on the body, was he dumped by a loved one? The sad poetry could mean this I suppose.
Was he from another world? I put this in because there were a lot of sightings around this time and if you were left behind and you were from another planet you would probably want to die!
Was he off a merchant ship that had sailed without him? The articles that were in his suit case suggest that he was a sailor in the merchant navy and also the code in the book could have been letters that he had trouble with when indentifying freight.

Who knows! Maybe some one out there can remember this sad mystery from the past
the thing that gets me is the detail the man went to in making sure that no one would know him. Maybe he was a spy and he took the pill that would leave no trace.
One strange thing that interests me is, why put a suit case into storage if you were NOT going to collect it back again .Why not throw it all into the bin.
Read the strange story of THE SOMERTON MAN and add your comments to the comments section at the bottom of the article   

THE UNKNOWN MYSTERY MAN 

An unknown man dies on Somerton Beach South Australia leaving virtually no clue as to he was!

On the morning of 30 November 1948 a lone man went into the luggage office at Adelaide railway station and booked a fairly new suitcase into the system.
The suit case contained clothing in good condition, a stencil brush, a knife with a very sharp point, a pair of scissors, also with a very pointed end.
All the clothes had the labels ripped off them and there were no identification marks of any sort to identify the owner in any way.
He then bought a second class ticket to Henley Beach but according to the records he decided not to go out there and caught a bus out to Glenelg instead.
The Glenelg bus ticket was found in his coat pocket along with the unused Henley ticket.

From here, things become rather obscure. We do know that the contents in the stomach contained a pastry, but nothing else. The next time he was sited was about 7pm the same night ,when two people walking down by the ocean ,saw him lying in the sand, slightly moving and it was assumed by both parties that the man was in a drunken state and they decide to leave him alone.

At around 10.30 to 11pm a boy and girl who were sitting close to the man were trying to get up enough courage to go and check out the lone, immobile figure lying in the sand. They didn't!! . Had they gone to check at that moment they might have saved his life because at 2 am the following morning the man left this earth forever.

Next morning the boy who had seen him on the beach the night before came down for a swim and upon seeing the man in virtually the same position realized that something was really wrong. He called the police to the scene letting them know that he had passed the night before but believed him to be intoxicated and decided to leave him be.
His wallet wasn’t present, no papers were ever found. His fingerprints were taken and distributed around the world and with the exception of a few countries that couldn't be checked, nothing showed up.

In January of 1949 the suitcase was discovered and along with the items already mentioned they found hidden in a fob pocket of one of his suits, a piece of paper with the words TAMAN SHUD
Police were baffled until a reporter from THE ADVERTISER told them that the two words were from a poem by Omar Kyam called " THE RUBAIYAT" written 900 years ago. The philosophy of this poem was that we should live our life to the fullest and when the end comes we should not have any regrets and the two words meant THE END.

This lead police to change their investigation a little and they started looking for a book that had the last page ripped out of it and after a few inquiries a doctor came forward producing a book with the last page ripped out. He said he found the book on the front seat of his car and had no idea where it came from and he guessed someone had thrown it into his car while it was parked.

The book indeed after analysis proved to be the book from which the last page was taken and for what purpose no one was sure. It also contained a telephone number which was of no use at all and a strange code,

MRGOABABD
MTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB

The middle O in the third line had a small cross above it and to this day this code although deciphered all around the world the mystery still remains.

In June 1949 Mr. Paul Lawson, Taxidermist created a bust of the man and it still didn't bring any new information to the police working on the case.

The man was eventually buried in West Terrace Cemetery by the Salvation Army and the funeral paid for by the Bookmakers Association in Adelaide.

THE STRANGE FACTS OF THIS CASE ARE
1 Did he commit suicide?
2. He had no identifying marks
3. The substance that killed him was unknown all around the world and apart from the stomach being filled with blood it left no traces.
4 No one missed him and although we had problems in some countries with information, the Australian Police Force had no success in identifying the man.
5. Because the man was in very good condition physically, it left the police wondering whether someone had poisoned him.
6. Could he have administered the poison himself, taken all identification off leaving no trace as to who he was? If so, why leave his bag in storage, why not just throw it away!
7. Was he a spy!? Who knows! At that time, the cold war was in progress and also it was the time of the Berlin Blockade so things were going on in Australia that would have maybe have suggested that ,but why kill himself?
And there's the poem. The last verse

"And when you with silver foot shall pass
among the guests star- scattered on the grass
and in your joyous errand reach the spot
where I made one- turn down an empty glass!"

You know a lot of people die on this earth and most people belong to someone but there are numerous people who have died without anyone knowing who they were or what has happened to them and there must be heart ache somewhere in this world for lonely figure that died on a deserted beach way back in 1948.

Brownlickie