Carl Webb (Somerton Man): Tamam Shud Mystery Solved

On the warm summer morning of Wednesday, December 1, 1948, on Somerton Park beach near Adelaide, South Australia, passersby discovered the impeccably dressed body of an unidentified middle-aged man resting against the seawall. In a hidden fob pocket inside his trousers was a tiny, tightly rolled scrap of paper torn from the final page of Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, reading two Persian words: "Tamám Shud" ("It is ended"). For seventy-four years, the "Somerton Man" stood as one of the world's greatest espionage and cold case enigmas.

Discovery, Clothing & Cryptographic Evidence

The decedent was in top physical condition, approximately 40 to 50 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall, with broad shoulders and graying brown hair. All identification labels on his tailored clothing had been carefully snipped away. An autopsy found his spleen was enlarged and congested, leading early pathologists to suspect an undetectable poison, though toxicological screens were inconclusive.

Months later, detectives located the exact book from which the paper scrap had been torn. In the back of the volume was an unlisted telephone number belonging to a local nurse named Jessica Thomson, as well as a five-line cipher of capitalized letters that cryptanalysts at the Australian Department of Defence and British MI6 spent decades attempting to decode.

Chronological Case Timeline