

The Mystery Of The Somerton Man

In December 1948, an unidentified, well-dressed man was found deceased on Somerton Park beach in South Australia, with all labels cut from his clothing. A tiny, rolled-up piece of paper bearing the printed words "Tamám Shud" (Persian for "it is ended") was discovered in a hidden fob pocket. The paper was traced to a specific copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which contained an unlisted phone number and what appeared to be a complex coded message. While the phone number led to a local nurse who denied knowing the man, an autopsy suggested he died from an untraceable poison. For over seven decades his identity was unknown, until 2022 DNA research proposed he was Carl "Charles" Webb, though this finding has not yet been officially confirmed by authorities, leaving the circumstances of his death an enduring puzzle.