Somerton Man

Rare card · No. 28058

The Somerton Man is an unidentified man whose body was found on 1 December 1948 on the beach at Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. The case is also known by the Persian phrase tamám shud (تمام شد), meaning "It is over" or "It is finished", which was printed on a scrap of paper found months later in the fob pocket of the man's trousers. The scrap had been torn from the final page of a copy of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, a poetry book. Following a public appeal by police, the book from which the page had been torn was located. On the inside back cover, detectives could read indentations left from previous handwriting: a local telephone number, another unidentified number, and text that resembled a coded message. The text has not been deciphered or interpreted in a way that satisfies authorities on the case. Since the early stages of the police investigation, the case has been considered "one of Australia's most profound mysteries". There has been intense speculation ever...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Australian police. File originally uploaded on English Wikipedia in November 30, 2008 by Bletchley, Public domain