RedHanded - Bonus - Tamám Shud: The Mysterious Case of the Somerton Man

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

On 1 December 1948 a fully clothed man was found dead on Somerton beach, South Australia. The bizarre discoveries that followed - including a couple of genetic abnormalities, a rare book of Persian poetry and a mysterious code - led to this becoming one of the strangest and most obsessed over mysteries in history... This is as weird as it gets.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to your second and final thanks for getting us into silver position bonus episode as voted for by you, yourselves, red-handed listeners. Congratulations to you and to us, I guess. Did you see the person that tweeted us after Holly and Jessica who said that?

I know what you're going to say. He was like, oh, all you did was pat yourself on the back for five minutes and then give us a case that's 18 years old. I was like, people voted for it, fucker. What do you want me to say? I know. I was really baffled by that. I was like, thank you for listening. Maybe I'll still hear.

I don't know. Here's a fucking even older case. It's almost 80 years old. So you're welcome. Again, you know, you guys voted for these two cases. I thought you did really well with the Holly and Jessica case, especially given that it was the 18th anniversary, the month you wanted us to do it.

Again, never found out if that was a coincidence or not, but thank you. And this one, this is always just going to be a firm fan favourite, isn't it? This is just a classic. Yeah, in a way. I was obviously, this is a democracy and you guys can do what you want. But in a way, I was a bit sad we couldn't do it for a live show. I know. I thought the same thing same thing because honestly if you know this case you already know how weird it is if you don't know this case oh my god are you in for a fucking wild

ride for the next hour or so that you're going to be listening to the show because I would say this is probably one of the weirdest cases out there in so many ways yeah I agree like Hannah and I were holding off on covering this case, especially because there was some sort of developments looked like they may have been coming out this year that haven't really come out, but we're still waiting on them. And also just it would have been a fucking great live show. But you forced our hand. We're here. We're doing it. We agreed to the terms and conditions. You voted for it, so it's happening. So let's go. We're going all the way back to 1948 today, to December the 1st. The olden daysies. Gonna go and see the oldos and the pastos.

Pastos. Mega pastos. That's the entire theme of today's episode, is us trying to decipher, would that have been weird in the 50s? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. So let's give it a try. We're all in it together now. So on the 1st of December, 1948, early in the morning, just after sunrise, two amateur jockeys were, I don't know, jockeying about on the beach, doing whatever it is that jockeys do. With horses or like pretending to be on horses? I want to say on horses, not like a hobby horse or a fake horse, like a proper horse or each other.

It was two amateur jockeys and two amateur horses. And by that we mean two people pretending to be horses. I don't know. I don't know what they were doing. But yeah, they were out on the beach. We're in Australia today. We're in South Australia near Adelaide, Somerton Beach to be precise. And I guess that that would probably explain why two amateur jockeys with or without their real horses would be on the beach in December. Yeah. Middle of fucking summer. Yeah, precisely. Wouldn't be happening here. That's for fucking sure. But their jovial horse frolicking, and that is just a journalistic picture that I'm painting. I don't know exactly

what it is they were doing. Maybe they were having a horrible time. But whatever it was, was interrupted when they spotted a man slumped against a wall at the edge of the beach. Maybe the guy was just drunk and asleep. Certain beaches near me, if I spotted that, certainly wouldn't be weird at all. It would be weirder if I didn't see drunk people passed out at some of the beaches I've been to. But what was weird here was that the man was completely clothed, dressed in a full suit and tie. And as you said, in Australia in mid-December, that is fucking peak summer. What are you doing wearing a full suit and tie at the beach? Asleep early in the morning. It's weird. But it is the 40s. People only had suits. This is also true. I was talking to my brother about it and he was like,

what else would a man in 1948 have been wearing? He wouldn't have been there in his fucking speedos. Even their pyjamas look like suits. That is also true. I was talking to my brother about it and he was like, what else would a man in 1948 have been wearing? He wouldn't have been there in his fucking speedos. Even their pyjamas look like suits. That is very true. Bed ties. Precisely. So it seemed to the jockeys that this man had just perhaps fallen asleep. And they also noticed that he had an unlit cigarette resting on his collar, like it had just like slipped out of his mouth as he dozed off. But as they approached him, they quickly realised

that the mystery man definitely wasn't just asleep. He was dead. And it was weird right from the off. Who was this man? How had he died? Why was he there? And to be honest, we don't really have the answers to any of those questions, but we do have a lot of theories and quite a bit of chat. Stick with us. The mystery man was found sat in the sand dressed in formal attire with his feet crossed and with no signs of a struggle or any violence or obvious injury to explain why he had died they thought it was

strange that his shoes were spotless considering he was found on a beach also weird cigarettes are really light like how is that not blown off that makes no sense to me no idea in some places i read that it had been lit some places i read that it hadn't i don't know i went with the more reputable sources and they seem to be saying it was unlit either way though how hasn't it blown away it's weird or just rolled off like they don't stay in the place they're supposed to very often maybe those people you know they starched the fuck out of their shirts. Maybe he had a very starchy collar and it just held it there perfectly in place. Maybe. Weirder still, when the police inspected the body, they saw that the labels from all of the clothes he was wearing had been cut out. Which, sometimes they're scratchy. Exactly. I love to cut my labels out

because they're horrible and scratchy. So maybe that's what this man did. Who knows? They used to be great. They used to be silky labels. I used to take them out to bed with me. Like when I was a kid, I used to cut the silky labels out of all of my clothes and just like rub them against my face. I did. What a weird anecdote, but thank you for sharing it with me. Anyway, I don't know whether they had silky face rubbing labels in the 50s or scratchy, horrible ones. I remember when they changed to scratchy, horrible ones. I was about eight years old.

It was travesty. Welcome to my childhood. No video games and silky labels instead of toys. Are you sure you're not a pasto? I don't believe it. I mean, at this rate, maybe I fucking am. I think so. But I've decided because Boris has now said that we can't have more than six people in the gathering, at this rate, maybe I fucking am. I think so. But I've decided because

Boris has now said that we can't have more than six people in the gathering, my 30th birthday is in three weeks. So that means I can't do anything for it. So I've decided I'm actually going to stay 29 this year. I think you should. That's what I've said to all my friends who are turning 30 this year. I was like, until we can celebrate it, you don't actually turn 30. I think that's the rule. I think that's what we should do. Yeah. I'm just going to ignore it. I'm just going to completely ignore it. Accept any presents people want to buy me and be like, oh, thank you for this random present that has absolutely no age significance for me and just do it next year. Well, we've got to go away to do that thing that we're not allowed to talk about yet until like we've actually done some of it. I don't think we're actually not allowed to talk

about it. I just can't bring myself to talk about it until we've done something with it, to be honest, because it just gives me massive anxiety every time I think about it. Why don't we just go away for that week of your birthday and we can either ignore it somewhere far away or we can just take lots of wine and get drunk there. And I would be the only person there, but I would be there and you would be there and we'd be somewhere else. Yeah, maybe that's a good shout. I'm very happy to do that. So I think we should do that. Let's come back to it. We'll take that offline. We'll take that offline. You'll take that offline. You're all invited.

No, you're not. Not live streaming my birthday. I just mean to be crying into some wine. No, no, no. No crying. Only laughing. Only laughing. Anyway, as well as the labels being gone,

the man had in his pockets some chewing gum, a couple of combs, a bunch of unused bus and train tickets, and a pack of cigarettes. I would argue that the only thing weird in there bunch of unused bus and train tickets and a pack of cigarettes. I would argue that the only thing weird in there is the unused bus and train tickets because it denotes that he was intending on going somewhere else afterwards. Yes. We'll come back to the bus and the train tickets. They are actually, I don't know, I feel like people make a very big deal about them on the internet. Shock horror. I feel like possibly they don't actually play that important

a role. But we'll talk about that when we get to that bit, because I've got it. Got it in the notes. It's there. Got it in the bag. The Somerton man, as he would go on to be called, looked like he was somewhere in his mid-40s and he was in excellent physical condition. The pathologist who carried out the autopsy the day after he was found also noted that the man had incredibly well

defined calves good for you summerton man and people sort of use this to point towards the fact that he may have been an athlete or even a dancer possibly he also had very large very soft very yellow stained hands so it was most likely that he was a middle-class heavy smoker. So they estimated that this time of his death was somewhere around 2 o'clock that morning. But despite being in what seemed to be externally peak physical condition, the pathologist did note that the Somerton man was missing about 14 of his teeth.

And to be honest, that shocked me at first when I read that. 14 teeth? That's a lot of teeth to be missing but then I'm like it was 1948 how good was dental care back then maybe it wouldn't have been that strange for a man in his 40s to be missing that many teeth both of my grandparents had all of their teeth whipped out at 18 and sold them I think you've told me that before but I've forgotten why yeah on the Irish side it was really common in rural Ireland because dental work was so expensive it was cheaper all around to have all your real teeth out and just have dentures from the age of 18 so that's what they both did. Wow. That probably would have been like 30s 40s maybe it's not that bizarre to have 14 missing but like it is a lot.

Especially because if he was quite middle class as they sort of hint at throughout the sort of evidence that is there, then maybe although he could afford to go to a dentist, maybe dental care was only at the stage of like, that tooth's fucked, I'll pull it out for you. And that's what they just did. So yeah, maybe not that strange, but worth noting. What definitely was more strange, though, was that Somerton Man's spleen was incredibly enlarged. The reports from

the pathologist say that it was about three times the size that it should have been so that is significant and it most certainly would have been the sign of some sort of like ongoing illness and I looked it up on the NHS website and it looks like an enlarged spleen could be down to a number of different factors. It could be anything from an infection to cancer or even to a condition like lupus. We don't know. We don't know what he was suffering from. But suffice to say, like it wouldn't have been something that wouldn't have affected his life and his health. I'm not convinced I know what a spleen does. Is it your spleen that produces bile? I don't think so, but I might be wrong.

I think it's your pancreas that does, and then it goes and sits in your gallbladder, and then it's used from there. I believe what the spleen does, and this is just really reaching, is I think it breaks down red blood cells after they need to be recycled. Oh, interesting. I think. Oh my God, if we're wrong, that's going to be so humiliating. I can't remember.

I think it's that. We'll do a God, if we're wrong, that's going to be so humiliating. I can't remember. I think it's that. We'll do a corrections later if I'm wrong. But anyway, so the overall autopsy on the Somerton man revealed certain strange things, as we've discussed, but it also left a lot of things unanswered. For example, the pathologist, Professor John Burton Cleland, wasn't able to figure out the cause of death. And I found like a scan of the death certificate and there under basically every single heading,

the professor has written not known. Just have no information. He couldn't figure anything out at all. But he did emphatically say that he suspected poison. The problem was that although Sammerton Mann's organs showed the signs of poisoning, all of the blood work, all of the tests that they ran, found absolutely no trace of any poison.

They tested for everything, cyanides, alkaloids, barbiturates, carbolic acid. And in the end, all the coroner could say was, quote, I feel quite satisfied that if the death were caused by any common poison, my examination would have revealed its nature. If he did die from poison, I think it would be a very rare poison. He meant the rarity in use as a poison, not necessarily a rare thing like a fucking emerald or whatever. Pixie dust.

They just look in his throat and he's choked on an emerald. I found it. Yeah. I just couldn't think of anything rare. My will to live recently. so not rarity of existence it just means like i don't know some mushrooms are like super fucking poisonous i bet they don't test for them precisely that is an important distinction to make because as you go on to see there is a lot of like espionage chat and a lot of spy chat and was he killed like you know some fucking russian shit possibly don't

know we'll get to the theories later but what it is important to note is he's not saying it's some mysterious rare poisons from the depths of the fucking ocean deepest darkest peru precisely just padding to bear that's what's in his fucking suitcase mate the emeralds and poison all he's saying is just it's a poison that they wouldn't necessarily know to check for because it wouldn't usually be used as a poison. That's all they're saying. The issue with the poison hypothesis, however, is that as far as anyone could tell, the Somerton man hadn't vomited. Not only had he not vomited at the scene, which leads some to suggest he vomited elsewhere before coming to die at the beach, but the thing, he can't have vomited anywhere because there was still an undigested pasty in his stomach.

Would a pasty be your last meal? I do not think so. I mean, this is the thing. Like, for him to have been sick, he'd have had to been sick and then go and eat a pasty and then die. Like, you can't have. And also, would you want a pasty to be your last meal? I don't know. There are some pretty tasty pasties out there. Depends how long I've got, you know. have it. And also, would you want a pasty to be your last meal? I don't know. There are some pretty tasty pasties out there. Depends how long I've got, you know. If I've got a long time, or you can eat buffet. If I had been sick, obviously, I am not a man in their 40s. But if I had been sick, a pasty just seems like such a heavy thing to eat if you're not feeling very well.

That's what I mean. Like, you just have like a soup or an orange juice or something to be like, oh, I need to make sure I don't pass out in the next hour. Or a flat Coke. Flat, full, fat Coke, people. Stop you throwing up all day long. The dream. The dream.

That is what it was made for. That is actually what it was made for. You are welcome. Or an entire ginger. How big is an entire ginger? Okay, maybe not an entire one, but like... Some. A little like limb.

Oh. That settles your stomach right away. Or ginger beer. Ginger's like a remedy. I went to go have a COVID test yesterday, actually. Ooh. Yes. Well, I don't have any symptoms. I'm like completely fine now, but did have a bit of a cough like earlier in the week, but I don't think it is COVID. I just have a cold. And my brother is going

to Greece to volunteer at the like refugee camps there. And they were like, you have to have a COVID test before you come here. And then he was like, do you want to come? And I was like, yeah, all right, let's go. But I had to do it myself. And I'm really like, did I do it right? Oh, I had to do mine myself as well. Yeah. I'm just worried I didn't do it properly. No. So I think obviously you'll get your results either like today or tomorrow. Because Sarah and I went and I was also a bit worried like, oh, maybe I haven't done it properly. But because we both came back negative and we were both in the same car,

I think the chances are that it's fine. Exactly. And to be honest, if mine comes back inconclusive, it's not the end of the world. His needs to come back, like, clear so that he can go. Yeah, we'll see. No, I was going to say, I just felt really sick, like, on the way there and on the way back. I think it was just, I don't know, fear. Another interesting find on this autopsy was that Somerton's man's ears were highly unusual.

I had to stick my fingers directly into my ear holes to figure this out this morning. So in a normal person's ears, quote unquote normal, the most regular type of ear shape is that once you're past the flaps and you're into like the hollow holey bit, there's two sections and usually the bottom one is bigger than the top one. I feel like that is the standard. My ears are certainly like that. But the Somerton man was living in the upside down topsy-turvy land because his upper hollow was bigger than his lower one. So airports, he would have been fucked. You're right. We found a white man who couldn't use airports.

So very interesting feature. And apparently only 1% of the population of the world have ears like that. You know, if you think that's not recognisable enough, this is something. It's kind of like aliens tried to reconstruct a human and just got it a little bit wrong. It's like they couldn't have a long enough look. So they were drawing from memory. Yeah, exactly. And they're just like a little bit off, a little bit like Uncanny Valley,

where you're like, there's just something not quite right. But not that I'm saying that, you know, if you have these things that you look like there's something wrong with you. I'm just saying like, there's just a couple of other things that are off as well about him. Like they said, he had like much larger than usual hands as well. And there's just a couple of things that make him stand out. That's what I would say. And another thing that made him stand out, which I've never even heard of this,

it's his teeth. The Somerton man had quite an odd smile. His canines were right next to his two front teeth. So usually you have your central incisor, which is, you know, the ones in the middle, and then your lateral incisor, the next one over. And I'm literally touching my teeth as I say this. And then your canines, which are the pointy Dracula ones. But the Somerton man had no lateral incisor so it's

literally two teeth and then pointy fangs yeah exactly very unusual and i didn't even know what the term for that was to try and find out like what percentage of people have that so i couldn't figure out like how rare or how common that is but it was rare enough that the pathologist noted it down as being a notable thing so i don't think it's that common at all. But all of this, while it was very interesting, didn't get the investigators any closer to figuring out who this man was. However, they did quickly conclude that the Somerton man was most likely an American

or at least had come there from America. And there are a few reasons for this. One of the reasons is that you'll remember that Hannah said that he had a couple of combs in his pocket when they found him. Well, one of the combs was an aluminium comb. And apparently, these were not really available in Australia in 1948. Probably the only place would have been the US. He also had in his pocket gum. And this was a particular brand called Juicy Fruit Gum. And again, apparently, this was not at all very popular in Australia, but it would have been in the US. Because it's fucking gross. Juicy Fruit Gum.

Yeah, man. Vile. Like, I always travel, especially when I'm doing like long plane journeys, I always take Airwaves gum with me because sometimes like your sinuses just get a bit funny on planes. And I was in LA, not the time we went, the time we went before. I was with my friends and someone was like, oh, does anyone have any gum? And I was like, oh yeah, I do. And they don't have anything like airways in America. So my friend's boyfriend took the piece of airways. He was like, this is the most disgusting thing I have ever put in my mouth.

He was like, what is this? This is fucking crazy European gum. I was like, oh, well, it's kind of like for when you're sick. And he was like, this is bullshit. I can't believe you've given this to me. I'm sorry to say I have to kind of agree with him. hate airways it's too strong it's just too strong it's not enjoyable and I actually quite like juicy fruit gum oh but you're a proper fake fruit flavor person that's like your fave it's like absolute jam it's like fucking tutti frutti flavor chewing gum I'm

like this is delicious I just love anything that is like horrifically sweet and horrifically like fake fruit flavored I'm so gross, but I love it. Just saying that, I don't like the American stuff. I like really don't like Jolly Ranchers or any of that stuff. I just don't think it has a nice fake fruit flavour to it. I know what you mean. No, I'm more like a fruit salad girl, you know? Delicious.

Oh, fruit salad. Fuck, do you remember like getting them for like a penny with like blackjacks in like a bag? Oh my God. See, I never liked blackjacks, but fruit salad, mate. Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. My favorite flavor. Delicious. Anyway, God, I'm gonna have to go get some now.

My mouth is like genuinely salivating. How you don't have a filling is literally beyond me. Not a single filling, ladies and gentlemen. And all she eats. Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub. I don't know how I have teeth. I eat so many sweets. I'm like such a sweet whore.

But floss, brush, mouthwash twice a day. And I've managed to stave it off. But maybe when I'll get to like mid-40s, 14 of my teeth will just fall out. Who knows? We'll see. But anyway, so basically they are like pretty confident that he is looking very American. And finally, the thing that was sort of like the nail, nail in the coffin. I don't know, that's quite a dark term for what we're saying. The final thing that sort of tipped them

off was the fact that his hair was apparently very slicked back. Again, this wasn't particularly like in style in Australia, but was of course very much in style in the US. The other thing was his clothes his clothes were very American tailoring American in design so they were pretty confident they were so confident in fact that the Australian police even reached out to the FBI and asked if they knew who this man was but the FBI simply told them that they didn't have this man's fingerprints on record and they didn't know who he was. So it was an intriguing mystery and therefore of course the media were all over it and the story became a tabloid sensation. But unbeknownst to them they were going to have to wait four months for the autopsy result to become public at the coroner's

inquest and during this time of no information rumours were swirling like mad. Six weeks after Somerton Man was found, the police, acting on a hunch, went to the train station to check and see if he had checked in his suitcase at the Adelaide Railway Station's cloakroom, which I think is very smart because they don't find like a ticket receipt for his check-in or anything like that. They just figure this man is definitely from out of town, he's here, he's got no suitcase with him, he probably left it at the train station, let's go have a look. And bingo, there it was. But again, infuriatingly for police, this suitcase that they found there got them absolutely no closer to discovering this man's identity. It just contained the usual things, a shaving kit, some clothes, including a coat with what they discovered later to be bespoke US tailoring.

So again, further proof for them that he at least came from the US. And also, the police noted that in some of the clothes they found in the suitcase, again, the labels had been cut out, but what had been sewn in were name labels. And oddly, three items of clothing in the suitcase had name labels on it with the name Keen on them. What was weird though, was that each label had Keen spelt differently. So like with an E, without an E, with double E, with an EA, etc. And they also either had no initials or different initials. So it didn't really make much sense and nor did it really help them. If you're sewing name labels into your own clothes you're not spelling your name wrong no

and like is it your gym kit are you at school like i don't really understand why you would label it i don't know the only thing i can think is like do people in the army label their clothes or did they that could be the only thing i could think possibly but not their like plain clothes no why would you and also if you were going to bother to do it why would you spell your name incorrectly i have no idea this is such a weird thing i don't get it the police did try to follow this lead through and put out international calls for missing persons specifically with any known names of keen unsurprisingly nothing came up because i think there are probably about 17 million keens in the world even in 1948 that's outrageous it's

such a common name it's so like just shooting in the dark especially spelt like 15 different ways as well yeah i know i was like how many fucking like combinations and permutations do you have of this with various different initials and with no initial? But one thing I did see on the internet was people saying that possibly back then, because clothes were being like rationed and they were harder to come across, especially if you wanted good clothes, that people used to buy a lot of secondhand clothes. And that maybe that's why the labels were cut out. And that's maybe why they had name labels in them. But then what are the fucking chances, the coincidence,

that this guy just went to the thrift shop, bought three different items of clothing, and they were all from someone named Keane, but three different Keanes because they all spelt their name differently. And also, I don't think they did rationing in America because they joined the war so late. I could see if he'd come from Britain, then maybe, but I don't know if clothes were actually rationed in the States. I don't know.

That's a good point, especially because just given his hands were very clean as well as very soft, he was very well groomed. He was in very good physical condition, but he wasn't a labourer. So he clearly worked like a white-collar job, but worked out incessantly to maintain his body in a very good condition. He clearly took care of himself.

I'm like, he seems very well-off to me. Would a well-off person in America at that time have to have been doing rationing and buying secondhand clothes? I don't know. I don't know. Questions. And the other thing that was really weird that kind of points to him again being quite well off, well not necessarily, but it's an interesting point we can talk about, is that you know the pack of cigarettes that he had? He had them in a tin or like in a box or a carton or whatever, but it was like quite an inferior brand like quite

cheap brand but when they tested the cigarettes on the inside they were from a more fancy brand of cigarettes so I could see why someone would do it the other way around where you buy like a nice packet of cigarettes and then you fill them with cheap cigarettes so people think you have nice ones why would you buy a shit pack of cigarettes and then fill them with nicer cigarettes I suppose it depends whether it's a packet or a tin, like a commemorative tin, because the tin might have been given as a present. It might have belonged to a family member,

something like that. But if it's just like, especially a soft pack from the 40s, I don't understand. I think when I read, in different places, they call it different things. But I think the only thing that makes sense

is it was a tin and it was like maybe lucky to him or special to him. And he just put his actual favourite cigarettes in it but just wanted to point it out so nobody says we didn't talk about it the police also published pictures of the summerton man's face still nobody came forward all the things we just talked about are interesting and baffling but they don't bring the case any further on and on the 14th of june 1949 almost seven months after the Somerton man was found, they buried him. But before they put him in the ground, they did make a plaster mould of his head and bust first, just in case. But if anyone thought that it was all over now that they've buried him, it was about to just keep getting stranger. Investigators found a scrap of paper

tucked in the Somerton man's watch pocket of his jacket. On the bit of paper were printed the words, Tamam should, which the pathologist who found it recognized as being Persian Farsi, and it translated to finished, completed, the end, or it is done. Now after some digging and collaboration with the National Library, the police discovered that the scrap of paper had come from a book called the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. It's an 11th century book of Persian poetry. They were able to tell this so conclusively because Tamamshud should have been the last two words of that book. So I guess like in the literal sense of like where it is in this book, it would have been like the end, the last two words of that book. And if that's not weird enough for you,

don't worry, because there's more. The media spread the word about the book. And pretty unbelievably, on the 22nd of July 1949, so about like six weeks after they've buried him, another man, who to this day remains anonymous, came forward to police and handed in a copy of the Rubaiyat. He said that he had parked his car in the area near Somerton Beach around the time that the mystery man had been discovered all those months ago. The window at the back of the car had been left open, and when he came back to his car, he had found the book had been tossed in the back.

Yeah, right. This book, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, is pretty popular. But this particular version that the anonymous car man brought in was exceedingly rare. It was a first edition. And according to most reports,

to this day, no other matching copy has ever been found. And pretty quickly, with the help of paper analysis, investigators were able to confirm that the scrap of paper in the Somerton man's pocket had indeed been torn from this exact book. And also, you know, paper analysts, top of their field. I think I could have opened a book and seen there was a page missing. Yeah, and there's not even a page missing. There's like, the page is still there.

They've just torn out the specific last two words where it would have said the end. And you're like, it fits in there. Good. It's like a puzzle. You know, big up the paper analysis for keeping it 100. But the book wasn't done with its giving of the clues. On the back page, the police found four lines of code that had been written by hand. And also two phone numbers.

The code was an absolute mystery apart from the students of the University of Adelaide being able to say that given the structure of the words they seemed to be English but no one could say much more. The code was published in papers, expert code crackers were called in but nothing happened. And I did see a lot of people on the internet while I was doing the research for this case being like how is it that we could crack the Enigma code but we couldn't crack this? Well the thing is I don't think that it's necessarily to do with skill i think it may have been that possibly in order to crack that code or whatever it is or understand it or decipher it maybe another document or another part of the code or another book or something else is needed

and without that i just don't think you have enough there because like with the enigma code and stuff you're getting constant messages you're getting constant more information to be able to try and decipher something here they've just got four lines and also one of the lines is crossed out like totally I think like I mean my understanding of the cracking of enigma is completely confined to the imitation game but my understanding is that the way they cracked Enigma is realizing that at the end of every message was closed with Heil Hitler. So they knew that those two words were in every message. So that meant they had a starting point. But you know, there are some codes

where like maybe the cipher is like a passage in the Bible or whatever. And you don't necessarily have that you have to find what that is. So I don't think it it's impossible but i do think you're completely right with the like they've only have four lines so comparing it to enigma is not really the same because it was you know floods of information every day rather than just four lines exactly they don't have enough to go on so i don't think it's to do with like them not trying hard enough or they're not being enough skill i think there just wasn't enough information for them to crack it. And also some people also posture that maybe it wasn't even code. It could have been some type of shorthand that the Somerton man was maybe writing notes to himself. Like we said, he most likely had a desk job. He could have been a clerk or some sort of person who writes in shorthand.

I don't know. And it could have just been his own methodology for keeping notes or something. We just don't know if it's even code it just looks like code when you look at it because it's just random rows of letters and some people also suggest that maybe it's not even anything maybe it's just doodling but like I don't know who just doodles rows of random letters like I don't know that doesn't really make much sense to me have you ever seen those things on the internet where it's like what your doodling says about you? And it's like a personality.

And I'm like, maybe he was just so straight laced that he just doodled rows of random letters. I don't know. Maybe he was a calligrapher in practice. Maybe. It's quite scruffy though. I will post a link where you guys can go check it out. That's why he needs to practice. That's why he needs to practice.

That's why one of the lines is crossed out because he's like that's just fucking atrocious even for me i'm really pushing it but whatever these rows of letters were about whatever the case was with them to this day they have never been made sense of and despite or perhaps because of the lack of code cracking that happened the prevailing theory in the media at the time became that the Somerton man was a spy they basically they're like either he's an American spy or he's a Russian spy don't know I don't know I know it seems a bit wild it seems like a bit crazy that they jumped to that immediately and I was gonna say you do have to understand that at the time so in 1948 this wasn't the wildest idea but to be honest now with Russia doing what it's doing maybe it's not the wildest idea. But to be honest now, with Russia doing what it's doing, maybe

it's not the wildest theory if that's the case today anymore. Look at the Salisbury poisonings. That poor woman. Honestly, like I'm convinced that like at least two of my housemates are Russian spies. I think the guy that works at Tesco is a Russian spy. I've like clearly got some paranoia issues just like surfacing. I think in lockdown it's just getting to me. Anyway, as with other Western countries at the time, Australia's relations with the USSR deteriorated massively in the late 1940s as the Iron Curtain went up. And if you don't know what the Iron Curtain is, read a book. And just like much of the West at the time, Australia was gripped by a red scare. And there was also a secret rocket testing facility not far from Somerton Beach. So it's not unbelievable

that a spy would have been lurking about. So you can see why the Australians thought someone with no ID, no traceable fingerprints or the clothes tags from his clothes cut out with an odd foreign phrase in his pocket and a crazy book of poetry might have been a mystery spy. And we are off track a bit. So let's get back to the case itself and to the book. To the last page in particular. Alongside the code were scribbled two phone numbers. First was for a local bank, and the second was the unlisted number of a local woman, a nurse named Jessica Thompson.

And she lived on Moseley Street in Glenelg, just 400 metres away from where the Somerton man was found. I mean, this is when things start to really hot up. He's got the number of a woman who lives just 400 metres away from where he's found dead, so it's not an accident. It doesn't seem like now that it's just like a random place that he popped along to and just passed away. Everything starts to feel very intentional from here on out.

And it was the first real lead and connection that the police had found between Somerton man and the area they'd found him in. Because apart from that, remember, like, they don't even know where he's come from. Maybe America. Like, what's he doing here? So on the 26th of July, 1949, so seven months after the mystery man was first found on the beach, the police went to see Jessica Thompson. But she was very quick to deny any knowledge of the case at all. When they asked her about the book, so the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and asked her why her

number might have been in there, she claimed to have no idea. She did, however, say that it was her favourite book of poems. Like, if you're trying to distance yourself from this, Jess. Just don't say anything. Just put a sock in it. Pack it in. And she also admitted to once having owned a copy of this book. But Jessica claimed that she had given away her copy of this book four years before to a man that she had met in the military. His name was Alf Boxall.

So police were like, okay, great. Is this Alf character our Somerton man? But they neededica to come and identify their man so that they could know so they took jessica down to the station and showed her the plaster cast but once jessica laid her eyes on the mold she apparently looked as if she was about to faint and then after that she spent the rest of the interview just staring at the floor not chill not super cash not super casual I'm going to say because then she's just like, I don't know him.

She's like, oh my God! And then just spends the rest of the time looking at the floor and she's like, no, I don't know him. The police discovered after this that Alf Boxall was actually still very much alive and well living in Sydney and he still had the book that Jessica had given him with a message that Jessica had written in there. And also this copy wasn't a rare first edition like the one that had been found in the car so it definitely wasn't the

same one. Also in a lot of places you may see Jessica called Jestyn, J-E-S-T-Y-N and this is just because for years after the case she managed to keep her identity a secret. And it was interesting because I was like where did that name Jestyn from? And apparently it was because in the copy of the book that she had given Alf Boxall, she had written a note to him in that book and signed it off Justin. And so that's why everybody called her that. Very suspicious. She's so suspicious. I've never heard that name before.

Jessica had years before been living in Sydney where she'd met Alf and then she'd moved to Melbourne and then to Adelaide where she settled down. And when the police knocked on her door, she had a one-year-old son called Robin and was engaged to be married. Robin was from a previous relationship and her new partner was not his biological father. Jessica never told anyone who Robin's real dad was. But she got married in 1950 and she and her new husband went on to have a daughter together whose name was Kate. Jessica didn't want any of the attention this case would definitely bring. She had asked the police to keep her name a secret and Justin was how she is referred to in all of

the reports. And just like we all know the police at the time knew that Jessica knew a lot more than she was letting on. They also discovered from neighbours that she had a mysterious visitor the night before the Somerton man was found. But they thought Jessica wasn't home when he called. They suspected that it may have been their John Doe, but there was just no way of knowing and not enough to go on. And so for the rest of her life, Jessica remained silent about the whole thing until she died in 2007. And while you might be thinking, oh no, she's dead, and she was probably the last likely connection to our man, well, think again.

This is a case that has attracted its fair share of obsessies over the decades. And one such man is Professor Derek Abbott, a physicist at the University of Adelaide. He heard about the story, and like any good spooky bitch, it intrigued him. And in 2011, he actually discovered Professor Cleland, so the original pathologist's preparatory notes for the coronial inquest back in 1949. Professor Abbott also tracked down Robin,

Jessica's son. Remember, Robin had been one years old when Somerton Manor died. And Robin wasn't too hard to find, actually, because he had in fact gone on to become a very well-known ballet dancer in New Zealand. Unfortunately, by the time Professor Abbott was on the case, Robin had already died. But there were plenty of photos of him. And when Professor Abbott had a look at these photos of Robin, he was surprised to notice Robin's ears. They looked incredibly familiar to

something that he had seen in the pathologist's notes. He had the same unusual ears as the Somerton man. And guess what else? In photos of Robin smiling, he had the same teeth as the Somerton man too. That's the best bit. So good. good and come on the chances of that being a coincidence because both of these things the ear thing and the teeth thing i'm gonna guess because i couldn't get a definitive answer on this but logically it feels to me like they are unrelated genetic abnormalities that it doesn't feel to me like if you have that tooth thing you also have the ear thing they seem like two quirks that the samaritan man just happened to have at the same time what are the chances that the samaritan man had these two unrelated genetic abnormalities and robin also

had them and they were not related i just can't believe it apparently like we said only one or two percent of the population have the ear thing. I couldn't find the teeth thing, like the population percentage. But if you put those two things together, the likelihood just seems astronomically tiny to me that they weren't related. They have to be recessive genes. They just have to be. I'm with you on that one. I don't think there's a fucking chance in hell.

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Also chuck in the fact, apart from the genetic stuff, that Somerton man was at least at some point in possession of Jessica's number the only way that he wasn't was that he was definitely in possession of that book because he has the piece of paper in his pocket from the back of that book and the book turns up apparently in that anonymous man's car did the anonymous man write down Jessica's number in there and the code in there and it actually had nothing to do with the Somerton man I don't know probably not so he's got Jessica's number he dies 400 meters from where she is her fucking kids got the same two genetic like quirks that he's got and also if you hadn't already noticed Robin grew up to become a ballet dancer and when investigators had inspected

Somerton man all those years ago the pathologist had commented that the mystery man had sturdy and well-defined calves, possibly that of a dancer. He's fucking Robin's dad. There's just no way he's anything else. That's just what I think. I think we've cracked it wide open. Oh my god. It's like so perfect. I love it. I love it it when the summerton man had turned up and died in glenelg robin was only a year old so he was most likely conceived about two years before and like we said during this time jessica had been living in melbourne before she moved to adelaide and all of the information the police had on summerton man did make it seem like he had arrived in Glenelg

where he died from Melbourne because he had arrived in town the day before his body was found. He'd come by train, most likely from Melbourne. And they deduced this because his suitcase had been checked in at the train station at 11am and the only train that had come in had come from Melbourne. And everything about the Somerton Man's behaviour just seems to have been so intentional. After arriving at Glenelg, he had then bought a one-way ticket to go to Henley Beach. There were two departures to Henley Beach after this, but he didn't get on either. And we know this because his ticket was found unused. Instead, the Somerton man went to the bus station and bought a bus ticket to Glenelg. The bus left at 11.15 and dropped him off about a 20-minute walk away from where he was found dead. Some people on the internet say that he bought these multiple tickets

because he was being followed and he was trying to throw that person off. But I don't know. Both Henley and Glenelg are on the same coast. Henley is just a little bit more to the north. I kind of buy the theories that he was trying to get to Glenelg and he just bought the ticket to Henley because he didn't know that getting the bus would get him to where he was going faster and more directly. And if you're in a situation where from the sound of it

there's like one fucking train a day, you're just going to hedge your bets and buy tickets for all of them, aren't you? And he's not from the area. He's most likely an American who was at least probably living temporarily or permanently in Melbourne. But he most definitely didn't know this part of the area. He's most likely an American who was at least probably living temporarily or permanently in Melbourne. But he most definitely didn't know this part of the country. So I think he just turns up. He knows he's going to Glenelg, but he just doesn't know what the best way to get there is. And so he ends up accidentally wasting money buying multiple tickets. I know how that

feels. After that date last week, I was so drunk on the way home. I was trying to buy my return ticket and I pressed it and it dispensed the ticket, but the plastic bit of the ticket dispenser was jammed. So it got stuck. Like it didn't drop into the train. And I was like, oh, for fuck's sake, what happened? Did I pay for that? And I bought another one. Didn't drop down, put my hand under, they both fell out. And I was like, oh, great. So I've just bought two train tickets to go to the exact same fucking place. And it's like three in the morning. so I can't even ask anybody to refund me. Anyway. So it's what you've all been waiting for. Theories. Theory time. Let's talk theories. And I think when we're talking about these theories, there are some key questions that we need to discuss. Who was Somerton Man? Why was he in Glenelg? And how did

he die? And there are two main theories that people discuss. And then I've also got a bonus one at the end, which I want to say I didn't find on the internet, but I also didn't look that hard because I didn't want to see it on the internet because I love it so much that I just want it to be like an original thing that I'm saying. Though I didn't come up with it, my friend did. Anyway, so the first theory is the idea that Somerton Man was a spy and he was in Glenelg just doing some fucking spy shit.

And for this theory to make sense, you kind of have to think that Jessica Thompson was also a spy and she and or some other spy or anti-spy character killed Somerton Man. And yes, there's the weird code and all of that, but there isn't really much else to back up this spy theory, in my opinion. The only thing that has come up recently that even sort of slightly, like, pushes us in the direction of it being a spy case is Kate. So you remember that after Robin, Jessica had another baby. It was a little girl she called Kate.

So Kate came forward and did a 60 Minute Australia interview a few years ago. And in that, she described her mum as having a very strong dark side. And she also accused her mum of being a Russian spy. And she said that when she was younger, she had heard her mum speaking on the phone in Russian. Now, I don't know. It's all so unverified. Is it impossible that Jessica Thompson was a spy? No. Can we just take Kate's word for it? I don't know. I feel like if Somerton Mann was a spy, why was he there doing all this weird shit with the book and the fucking bit of paper? And I don't know. I'm like, aren't spies supposed to be super boring? He like stands out so much he's not very under the radar and i also think that if jessica was a spy if she was a soviet sleeper agent she wouldn't have been like

oh no i don't know how i'm just gonna look at the floor come on i know you're right you're right they're shit spies if they were spies because like they do not hold it together at all at any point and also they've drawn so much attention to themselves and become like the obsession of like hundreds of thousands of people over decades. Like I just don't believe it. I don't believe it. I guess the other thing about the spy could have been. Let's go with the idea that they're both spies for the second. They're both spies.

What's the reason that he's there if he's not there on sort of professional work? Could it have been that Robin was his son, like we said, and Somerton Man and Jessica had met in Melbourne, hit it off, and they hit it off so hard that little Robin was conceived. Things between the couple didn't work out. So Jessica left and moved to Adelaide. Later down the line, Somerton Man discovers, you know, that he's the dad, that she's had a baby, and he knows the baby's his, and he comes down to see the baby. And maybe she took the baby away from him because they were both spies and she thought that the baby would be in danger. And that's why she fled to Adelaide and never told him about it.

Maybe. I don't know. Or your theory. I think the whole thing just screams of unrequited love. He's come all the way down there. He's brought her her favorite book of poetry. And then she goes to the house and she's like, get away from me. And then he goes to the beach and kills himself with his favorite book, like tearing out the it's over of her favorite. Come on. And putting it into his pocket watch next to the time. Oh, come on. Literally. I just

can't help the fact that maybe he was just a bit intense. And she was just like, I need to get away from you. Please leave me alone. And then he's like, oh, oh, you thought that was intense. Watch this. Maybe he was love bombing her. I can believe that. Okay, so let's explore the romance angle. Let's look at the enlarged spleen.

The Somerton man did come across to be someone who did take care of himself. Yes, he was a prolific smoker, but in the 40s and 50s, so was everybody. Like camels were like advertised on TV, but like doctors recommend everyone was smoking. I was watching Mad Men with my mom the other day. And she was like, they're all smoking all the time. Like everyone's houses must have smelled disgusting. I'm like, yeah, they did.

But no one could smell shit because everyone smoked. So like nobody would have been able to smell it because if you smoke, you can't smell it to the same extent as a non-smoker yeah because you've fucked all of your senses oh my god so i'm doing this juice cleanse right and i can smell food from like my bedroom is at the top of my house at the other side of the house from the kitchen if someone makes something in the kitchen i know what it is from my bedroom like i've turned into a wolf. Oh my god, the pain, the pain. It's actually fine because like I'm a bit of a like all or nothing kind of person. So I find it easy to not eat. I don't find it easy to just eat a little bit. Yeah, no, I know what you mean. I'm kind of

the same. And also at least you know with your voracious sense of smell that you don't have COVID because you can smell everything. Very true. I can over smell. There you go. They'll say that that's a symptom next though. Oh, fantastic. You could take my 30th birthday, but you can't take my sense of smell. Right, sorry. It's possible then that maybe he just wanted to go out on his own terms rather than die from something that he knew he already had. So did he make the journey from Melbourne to Glenelg to see Jessica and his son one last time because he knew he was on the way out anyway? Yeah, because that enlarged spleen could have been the sign of something pretty serious. And he could have been told it was incurable. Yeah, it's totally possible that he's gone to the doctor and they've been like,

you've got two weeks and he goes, okay, I'm going to go and see my son then and the woman who got away. Exactly. So possibly that's the reason for the local bank number in his little book, because maybe he was there to make a cash deposit for Robin. And it was 1948. He couldn have just like paypaled it exactly he would have literally have to come there go to a local bank and like i don't know how the banks work then but i'm guessing they did very limited things like you could just deposit money and withdraw money they probably didn't do anything more than that so did he then deposit the money then take the poison head down to the beach and try and smoke one last cigarette before it's all over it is a pretty dramatic way to go out but this is the man who tore out tame and

from a first edition copy of a rare book and put it in his watch pocket i'm not convinced that he chucked the book into the man's car you know he could have just dropped it someone picks it up and chucks it whatever i don't think that's a particularly pertinent part of the story why would he want it to throw away? It's part of his dramatic exit. That's what I mean. Why wouldn't he leave it on Jessica's like front step? Unless he did. And then she like was trying to hastily get rid of it when she chucks it into that guy's car. But then why would she do that? Why wouldn't she chuck it in the bin? I don't know. I don't know why the book ends up in that man's car. That's the bit of the story that doesn't make any sense.

And the other thing about the book is like, it's very themed and it's very like carpe diem and like the transient nature of life itself and like how nothing's actually that important it feels like a book to contemplate to and it was of course as jessica gave away her favorite book of poems yep so i can believe this this is probably like my favorite theory is the idea that he knows he's going to die. He comes down. He tries to see Jessica and Robin the night before because remember the neighbors say that they thought she had a mysterious visitor the night before the Somerton man was found. He sees them. He makes the cash deposit and then he goes and kills himself. But with this theory, then you have to ask why all the secrecy?

Why no ID? Why were they never able to figure out who he was? That's the thing that I'm like, I don't know. And perhaps, like, maybe he didn't have anyone else. And that's why no one came forward when they published pictures of his face. And maybe that's just why. Maybe he just didn't have anybody to connect to. And that would also explain maybe why he was so dramatic and romantic about robin and jessica if he had nobody else like they were it for him possibly or maybe you could say

perhaps he went to great lengths to hide who he was and his connection to robin and jessica perhaps to save her from more like scandals because we have to remember it was barely the 50s it was 1948 at this point and she was a single unwed mother after all maybe he knew i'm gonna die i don't want to turn up and cause all the scandal and reveal myself as the baby's dad and just cause more problems because he knew she was engaged and gonna get married to somebody else possibly i don't know the only issue left then is that the cause of death is still a mystery if it was poison or an OD or something like that, because a needle mark could easily have been missed, why didn't he vomit? And if it wasn't poison, how did he die? The coroner ruled out all natural causes after all. So that bit is unfortunately a part of the case that is still unsolved as of today. But we have a couple more

gasps to induce for you. Professor Derek Abbott remains as obsessed with the case as ever. And in an another... And in an another... And in an other... Fuck's sake. Language centre of my brain is like just falling apart. We're all fading. Lack of conversation with people.

I'm like, when was the last time I had a conversation with somebody outside the house or a builder? I can't remember. Have I ever existed? Is any of it real? No. Okay, fantastic. Thanks for clearing that up. We'd better get you a Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam to reach Halingana. Great, I'm going to cut all the labels out of my clothes, BRB. So in another romantic twist to this case, when Abbott discovered that Robin had died,

he tracked down his daughter Rachel to see if she would do a DNA test to find out if she was the granddaughter of the mysterious Somerton man. The two met, they fell in love, they got married, and now they have three children together. I want to look at their teeth. Isn't that crazy, though? Abbott's just, like, gonna go find Robin's kid. Like, she's not a kid.

She's, like, a fully grown woman. They're very, like, age-appropriate, whatever. Like, it's not gross. But, like, they fall in love and get married. I was like, this case, man, is wild. Maybe that's what we need to do. We just need to threaten to exhume bodies and demand DNA tests. I'm ready to try anything at this point.

So, yeah, Abbott has been busy submitting multiple requests to get the Somerton body exhumed. And after many failed attempts, finally, at the end of 2019, his request was accepted. But we don't know what's happening with that yet. But of course, we will update you when we find out and when we all know more. This has been an obsession for true crime people for years, and it's crazy to think that it might be over. I mean, honestly, and I do get people like, why did the Australian government keep denying his request to like exhume the body?

And like people like say that as if it's a conspiracy or a cover up. But like their reasoning is very sound. They're like, there's no evidence that a crime was committed, firstly, because like it most likely could have been a suicide because there's no proof that it was a homicide. And secondly, there is no family that are like hounding the Australian government to get justice. So they're like, we can't just do it because it's a mystery and people are interested in it. Like there has to be an actual reason we're exhuming someone's body. So that's all we've really got at the moment, because all of the evidence, including the Ruby app book, were destroyed by the Adelaide Police Department. And when that happens, everyone screams conspiracy. But like, police buildings are finite things. Like there is only

so much room. This happened in the 40s give them a break yeah i'm just like i just don't think with all the other cases that this was a priority for the police as much as it was for fucking like web sleuths and us it's just not that's the thing like would you rather if your fucking sister was stabbed would you rather that the police had room in 2020 for the murder weapon or a fucking book of farsi poetry from the 40s that like doesn't really matter anymore precisely and you could say well they could have just taken photos and like you know compiled all that there are photos of it like that is there but they destroyed this evidence years and years and years ago like a few years after the case

actually happened so yeah they're just not going to keep it in storage. So anyway, finally, let's talk quickly about the book, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The Kasamatan Man isn't the only death linked to this particular book. There are a couple out there that are listed. Some of them I'm like, is that really connected? I don't think so. But this one is particularly interesting because it is probably the most eyebrow scrunching of all of them. And it is the death of a man named Joseph Saul Haim Marshall. Joseph died on the 3rd of June 1945, so three years before Somerton Man, in Ashton Park in Sydney. And guess who happened to be living not very far at all from Ashton Park in Sydney in 1945? Jessica Thompson. And when Mr. Joseph Marshall was found dead in the park, he had a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam open and laying on his chest. And the book had

been marked by a very specific paragraph by hand with a pencil. So most likely it was Joseph who had marked it up. And this was the passage that was there. I'll make the most of what we may spend before we too into the dust descend, dust into dust and under dust to lie, sans wine, sans song, sans singer and sans end. And given this, given the circumstances of how he was found and given the fact that he had made attempts on his life previously, it was believed to be a suicide. So was this linked to the Somerton Man and to Jessica? I think it is undeniable to say, you know, Jessica, it's her favourite book. She's also living in the same area. Then she moved to Adelaide, the same thing happens again,

very close to where she lives. It's a bit weird, it is. I don't know. It is strange. But if this happened after Somerton Man, I'd be like, that could have been the copycat. But because this happened first, could the Somerton Man's death have been a copycat suicide I don't know but my question about the copycat

suicide theory would be if that book and what it stood for and what it meant and your relationship with Jessica probably most likely most definitely didn't have a strong enough feeling for you that you weren't doing it as a copycat but just of your own volition why would you go and source like an incredibly rare and probably very expensive book to use as a prop in your suicide good point yeah if it was just a copycat i don't know that is an interesting twist to this i thought so okay you ready for one last theory yeah yeah yeah so this case i think the spy theory or the romance theory or a combination of the both are the most prevalent that are out there. Haven't seen this one. Probably maybe it is out there. But I was telling my best

friend Esther this story in a bar in Brighton when we had gone away for a weekend together years and years ago. And she's a bit of a sci-fi nut. And I told her the story and almost immediately, she didn't even think about it. She just goes, it's time travel. Robin and the Somerton man are the same person. And I was like, oh shit. Cause she was like, he came to see his mum from the future to warn her about something. And then he had to go to the beach and return to his own time and just left his body behind. And that's why no one can explain how he died. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Wow. Esther Green, ladies and gentlemen. Fucking coming in with the hard facts. I mean, you know what?

Stranger things have fucking happened, Jay. No, I'm like, he's got the same teeth. He's got the same calves. He's got the same career, whatever. He's got the same ears. Maybe it was just him coming back to tell his mum something. Something about the book. I don't know.

He puts a message. Maybe the code is to tell her whatever it is. And she freaks out when she sees him. She doesn't believe him because that's what happens in the movies, obviously. He'd be like, you're not my son from the future. And so he leaves her the message in the book and dies on the beach.

I don't know. There are lots of holes in the theory, but there you go. Worth bringing up. Definitely that one. Definitely aliens. In summary, aliens. Aliens.

I agree. Let's leave it at that. So yeah, if you guys have got theories let us know i bet you have we'd be really interested to read them and maybe if you've got any good ones we will talk about them in and under the duvet in the future because that would be quite fun yeah so thanks for listening and thanks again so much for getting us into the listener's choice it was a fucking ball we'll talk to you about it again next year yeah tick tock probably about six months away from when we start you about it again next year. Yeah, TikTok.

Probably about six months away from when we start asking for it again. Precisely. So yeah, you guys know the drill. Go follow us on all the social medias if you don't already do that.

Get your tickets to the podcast festival if they're going ahead. If they're not, we'll probably cut this bit out so don't worry about it. Oh, and also Americans and non-British people

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Bye. Bye. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part,

Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe regime, and there's much more to come.