The two tenets of Intellectual History are that (a) (almost) all evidence is deposited in good faith, and that as a result (b) historians should, as their default position, accept that evidence in good faith too.
Yet for cases such as that of the Somerton Man, the jumbled fragments we have to work with appear oddly paradoxical and often contradictory. Can we fit every one of these resolutely square pegs into the uniformly round holes of a single narrative?
What I’m going to present here is an oddly inferential Somerton Man account, based on various difficult pieces of evidence that rarely get mentioned in Tamam Shud presentations, but which Intellectual Historians would surely advise us not to overlook.
20th November 1948 – Parafield
Gery Feltus reports that he has talked several times with the (even now anonymous) man in whose car the Rubaiyat with the torn end-page was found. The man specifically claimed that it had been left there around the time of the RAAF Air Display at Parafield – 20th November 1948.
However, because this seems ten days too early, Somerton Man researchers tend to dismiss it by asserting that the guy ‘must have’ misremembered that date. But staying with the Intellectual Historian methodology, I say: if that’s what the man said, let’s assume he was telling the truth.
It therefore seems likely to me that the Somerton Man was also in Adelaide ten or so days before he died, because the “Tamam Shud” torn from that copy ended up in one of his pockets.
Around 30th November 1948 – Glenelg
“An amazing coincidence was revealed […] when another Adelaide businessman called at police headquarters with a copy of the “Rubaiyat” which he had found in his motor car at Glenelg about the time the body was found. This book was a different edition.”
If we also take this very specific newspaper article where the above claim appears in good faith, we now have two different Rubaiyats being left in the back of two different cars in Glenelg in the second half of November 1948.
What can we infer from this hugely improbable coincidence? The only explanation I can think of as to why two copies of the same book would have been left in the backs of two strangers’ cars at roughly the same time is as a pre-arranged anonymous signal. Though spies knew this as a “dead drop”, criminals with more than a touch of paranoia used this too.
It therefore seems highly likely to me that this second (but barely ever mentioned) Rubaiyat was also directly involved in the sequence of events that led to the Somerton Man’s death.
30th November 1948 – Adelaide Railway Station
The Somerton Man buys a train ticket for Henley Beach, but does not use it. He then leaves his suitcase at the Left Luggage department at Adelaide Station between 11am and noon; then catches a bus towards Glenelg at around 11.15am, but gets off at Somerton.
When you put these three pieces together, I think the resulting implication is that he originally intended to meet someone in Henley Beach and leave his suitcase with them before going on to Somerton Beach; but that when this proved not possible or not desirable, he left that suitcase at the station and instead went straight to Somerton Beach on a bus instead.
(I originally proposed that this also meant that the person he was intending to meet in Henley Beach must therefore have owned or had access to a car or other vehicle: but Helen Ensikat notes that there may well have been a bus going South along the coast from there to Somerton Beach. If there was, then I agree with her that that coast road bus would be a more likely alternative scenario.)
1st December 1948 – Somerton Beach
The Somerton Man is found dead on Somerton Beach at around 6am. He has no hat, no id, no ration card, no wallet, and no money. His stomach contains traces of blood: yet there is no sign of vomit on his clothes or shoes or anywhere nearby.
The presence of blood implies that he would very probably have experienced convulsions and vomiting not long before his death. However, the absence of vomit implies that where he was found was not where he died.
The man’s body has a strong lividity at the back of his head: yet his body is found propped up.
This mismatch implies either (a) that he died right there on the beach but that his blood was prevented from pooling lower by some kind of blockage caused by the specific way he was laying (the theory espoused by Derek Abbott); or (b) that after he died, his body was left laid on its back for some time with his head tilted slightly backwards (i.e. making it the lowest point of his body) which was then carried to the beach and posed there as if he had died there.
While I concede that Derek’s (a) is conceivable, I contend that the evidence points strongly to (b).
The Rubaiyat does not enter the mystery until June of 1949. “After I found it and put the paper back, it took me a good deal of time to find it the second time, as it was a pocket which could be easily missed.’’
Was this planting of evidence?
In the interests of inferential intellectualism:
Professor Cleland obtains some items from the police and tries on the unknown man’s coat. James Cowan tries on his slippers, a tight fit. Cleland finds the Tamam Shud slip in the fob pocket of the trousers the unknown man was wearing. The small slip of paper was so tightly rolled he had trouble finding it again at the inquest. (Inquest papers) (GF 64,79)
Not sure if this is relevant, considering all of the other items that might have been found on the body or in the luggage, but were not … but he had no return ticket on the bus to Adelaide and no return ticket on the train to Sydney or Melbourne, or to wherever he theoretically might have come from. Does this mean he was intending to stay, or does it mean that he was leaving by another means, or does it mean that he simply ran out of money and was waiting to get some more. Or maybe borrow it from Jestyn.
He left his bag at the station, you might take that to mean he wasn’t coming back that night, before someone made sure of it.
Return Ticket – It seems as though he was robbed of most items that would identify him. If he bought return tickets, they were most likely disposed of as well???
misca, I get the feeling that tickets, return or otherwise, may only have been good for the day they were issued.
Return Ticket: the question of return tickets is a bit of a thorny one, I’ll try to come back to that in a later post because a blog comment is a bit of a small space to cover it properly. 😐
The only real clue to the book is in Anglicized Farsi from the first edition. I sum it up with this passage from the Fifth edition.
‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.
Professor of Ancient History Donald Kagan calls this “The Higher Naiveté” he introduced a(t least one) lecture with “T]here is this critical school that says, “I won’t believe anything unless it is proven to me.” At the other extreme, there’s me, the most gullible historian imaginable. My principle is this. I believe anything written in ancient Latin or Greek unless I can’t.
Now, things that prevent me from believing what I read are that they are internally contradictory, or what they say is impossible, or different ones contradict each other and they can’t both be right. So, in those cases I abandon the ancient evidence. Otherwise, you’ve got to convince me that they’re not true.
Now, you might think of this as, indeed, gullible. A former colleague of mine put the thing very, very well. He spoke about, and I like to claim this approach, the position of scholarship to which we call the higher naiveté.
The way this works is, you start out, you don’t know anything, and you’re naïve. You believe everything. Next, you get a college education and you don’t believe anything, and then you reach the level of wisdom, the higher naiveté, and you know what to believe even though you can’t prove it. Okay, be warned; I’m a practitioner of the higher naiveté.”
T Anderson: I’d argue that Intellectual Historians attempt to go further than Kagan’s higher naiveté, insofar as their overall methodology tries to combine it with close reading and sharp inference. So, rather than just simply ‘believe’ what they read, they see language itself as a fractured mirror that tends to corrupt, tangle and dissipate the writer’s (almost always) original good faith meaning: and they use sharp inference to try to get at what was originally intended.
Not always successfully, it has to be said: but it’s not an outright bad way of proceeding, in my opinion. 😉
I’m with T.Anderson.
Historically, and especially with regard to European history, the readiness to disbelieve without suitable reason or evidence has proven – over and over – so embarrassing in hindsight.
Also, the “new skeptic” is too often just intellectually lazy. A couch-potato who can’t be bothered making an effort to apprehend anything for himself. Sits back munching a sandwich, saying “Uh-huh?”
A classical sceptic would be horrified.
This is what happens when the conversation turns to the validity of return bus tickets in Adelaide in 1948 … everyone gets a glassy look in their eyes and starts to talk about existentialism.
“The only explanation I can think of as to why two copies of the same book would have been left in the backs of two strangers’ cars at roughly the same time is as a pre-arranged anonymous signal. Though spies knew this as a “dead drop”, criminals with more than a touch of paranoia used this too.”
This is arguable, Nick, as a dead drop is used as a means of passing a message between two operatives in such a manner so they don’t have to meet. I don’t see how you can fit 2 rubaiyats and two cars into this procedure. Over to you.
I think it’s unfortunate that the most knowledgeable investigator in this case thinks it’s ok to help people he thinks are involved (“involved” = knowing; he clearly states that he thinks Jessica knows more) remain anonymous and “untouched”.
This has nothing to do with one book or two but really, how could someone professional, so invested in the case, give such a “pass” to someone who he truly believes knows SM’s identity?
Something doesn’t add up.
Generally all this looks like trying to shake off the pursuers.
The man arrives in Adelaide and gets rid of his beard. Leaves a trunk at the station, but never requests it afterwards. Buys a railway ticket but uses another kind of transport. Takes a bus to one point but gets off at another. All this to cover up the traces, but the guys were also no fools, and they found him.
Previously I expressed an idea that the strangely “incomplete” contents of the trunk may be explained by the fact that the journey was not intended to be a long one, but actually a plainer explanation is just that the trunk was not intended to be picked up at all.
These “Tamam Shud”s may have been like a black mark, or like “five orange pips”, you know. And the books left in the transport may have served as the sign that the job has been done. However, to receive these signs, the intended recipient should have specifically dedicated himself to searching for lost books in different vehicles, full-time. So probably those books were just disposed of.
I’m not following the story in detail, so my apologies in advance if I’m not to the point.
Hi Nick, Re: Henley Beach railway ticket-reason for him buying a railway ticket is the possibility that he mixed it up with Jetty Road at Glenelg. Apparently, there were two railway stations at Henley Beach, Henley Beach itself and Jetty Road Henley Beach, this is despite the fact that Jetty Road at Henley Beach does not exist! In fact, this station was a stone’s throw from where Prosper/ (Jessie?) lived in 1947-Main St.
Clive: have you checked 1948 railway maps to confirm this claim? I don’t remember seeing that on any of the maps of the time I’ve looked at, e.g. the tram map here (which seems to come up on every Google search): http://www.weekendnotes.com/im/005/07/tram-adelaide-st-kilda-tram-museum-trolley-bus-con11.jpg
There’s also a nice description of the buses here: http://www.busaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=55720
Hi Nick, Info. from: http://jc.people.vee.net/rail/henley/
1) Parafield is quite a ways from Glenelg, so I’m not sure about “two different Rubaiyats being left in the back of two different cars in Glenelg”
2) There was for a while a service that included the stretch Henley to Glenelg (the route varied at different times, at it’s longest I think it was 340 Port Adelaide to Marino (via West Lakes, Henley Square, HarbourTown (once it was built), Glenelg, and Marion) and a 345 Port Adleaide to Flinders Uni (but that would be a long time after SM – 80’s or so) – and as you seem to have found busaustralia.com has people who know far more about such things than is healthy
3) There is a Jetty Rd in Grange (next suburb from Henley, which I think wouldn’t have been Grange back then – I thought it was Kircaldy. I don’t know how the train routes were then (the map you link to suggests that they went up Henley Beach Rd, then North toward Grange,whereas I’d always assumed they followed the current Grange Line and continued South to Henley (stopping at the corner of Grange Rd (which may have had another name back then), and then at Main St))
4) Adelaide currently (can’t comment too far into the past) uses a time-based system (with a limited section-based component) and pre-1990s used to have a zone-based and time-based one). Basically to purchase a ticket there’s 3 options (which used to be a little more complicated but fundamentally the same under the zoned system0:
– a Section ticket allows you travel on a single service for a distance not exceeding 2 Sections (the sections are typically less than 1.5km I think)
– a Transfer ticket allows you travel on unlimited services for a period of 2 hours from the time you purchase the ticket to the time you board the last service
– a Day Pass ticket allows you travel on all services from the time you purchase it until 4:30am the following morning (not that buses run that late into the night)
The Transfer ticket can be a source of confusion, but is not a “return ticket” per se’
Is it possible that the state of play might have been similar in late 1940’s Adelaide (we tend to be a stubborn lot that can’t handle change)? The absence of a return doesn’t to me seem overly significant – especially since he bought the ticket on board (I thought they worked out where he boarded based on his ticket sequence number)
Milongal: reading this again, I think you’re absolutely right – the article considers the Boxall Rubaiyat as the main event and then compares it with the “Jetty Road” Rubaiyat: it treats the latter as an amazing coincidence. So I shall fix this shortly. 😐
I’m pleased to have at last picked up on my long lost Jetty Rd. which for me puts poor young Fred Pruszinky back in the SM picture, whence he never should have been expunged. In brief Fred, a well respected youth from Broken Hill, steals a moter bike one night, makes a mad 24 hour dash to Adelaide’s Somerton beach arriving 29th November ’48, dumps a suitcase with gents clothing and a gun, walks 30 kms to Noaralunga, steals a car belonging to an ex BH indiginous man and is apprehended by police soon after. His court appearance gives rise to suspicion about his likely connection to the beach body seen two days later at Somerton but doesn’t provide anything more to go on. I’m looking at the possibility that his first stop was consequence of getting directions ie, Jetty Road Glenelg and/or Brighton confused which led to his then dumping tye wheels and legging it further south along the beach, perhaps after calling from the handy Whyte St. booth. Just along the coast beyond Noarlunga lies the the old port of Willunga/Aldinga, the only roads serving it in 1948 being Esplinade and Jetty Rd. ala Brighton and Glenelg. Wish we could have obtained the children’s court records and also confirm that Fred was identical to Richard Frederick Pruszinky who drowned at Broken Hill in 1953.
Has as anyone spotted Gordon Cramer’s blooper in the latest ‘Somaerian Man’ thread covering SM’s supposed bus journey from the city to St. Leonards. For our benefit the post included a mock up Adelaide MTT 40’s ticket stub of that era for a journey to an undisclosed destination. To his credit GC does admit that his is not an exact copy of the original ticket as described by Hall at the inquest, referring instead to one of similar marking of which he had cleverly altered denomination to 7d for effect. What poor Gordon should have picked up from the stub and didn’t, having been on the buses himself (post detective) is that said ticket is clearly designated as being for a tram journey as distinct to an omni bus trip, as per the ticket found in the dead man’s person.
John Sanders: if he merely confused buses with trams, that’s pretty much as good as it gets.
@JS: I’ll admit I haven’t seen his article (I might have a look at it today), but not certain on that. I don’t know if you remember there was some confusion about tram vs bus in all the SM stuff about a decade ago. I’m not sure when the Government took over the buses in Adelaide (I sort of thought it was later, but would have to check) it was a gradual process, and the Government organisation responsible was the MTT – the Municipal Tramways Trust. A tram ticket on a bus is not impossible in that context.
Back to your earlier Pruzinski post of September last (which I don’t remember reading before) – what if the ‘Code’ is some sort of shorthand for directions that Pruzinski needed to get MSTG (Mosely St Terminus, Glenelg). Having got to Glenelg, he no longer needs his directions and discards his Rubaiyat in a nearby car. Something that is probably worth mentioning (and it’s been considered to some degree before) is that just because the Rubaiyat was found in a car parked in Jetty Rd, doesn’t mean the car was in Jetty Rd when the book arrived at that location (if it’s in the back seat of a car where the back seat is rarely used and found when there’s a need to use the back seat, it’s possible that books already been there for some time). If the ‘code’ is some sort of directions, it might explain some of the random lines and the ‘X’.
Of course if it were directions we might expect more L (Left), R (Right), NESW (north East Soth West), T (Toward/To/Turn) and maybe F/H (Freeway/Highway) etc…but equally it could be naming towns or landmarks or something. It might also have some reminders about how to behave en-route (given you have a stolen bike). If we take the C after Q to be an incomplete S we might have “And Is A Quiet Street” (Court/Cul de sac/Crescent/??)….
Probably a stretch, but I’ve always liked something about the Pruzinski angle….
And the problem with any shorthand is they’re almost impossible to reliably decipher – somethings might be represented by a letter, some things just shortened (is ST 2 distinct words or Street/Saint/….; is MT 2 distinct words or Mount….; etc). Especially if you’re jotting down someone else’s instructions, you’re stuck between a shorthand you will understand and capturing reminders of the directions they’re giving you….
(stretching it as far as it will go (ok, further than it should go)):
MRGOABABD
Morrisseys Resthouse GO Along Beryl st And Barrier highway (D? – Duration? (as in the whole length – no likey))
MTBIMPANETP
Main north road To Burra, In Middle Past Ampol (service station) to Arrive North (of adelaide), Elizabeth (Edinburgh?), (signs) Toward Port (adelaide).
MLIABO AIAQC
Middle Lane In Adelaide [ie in suburbs along main notrh road – this makes sure you stay on main north road at gepps cross], By O’connel st (north adelaide) And Into Adelaide – Quite Confusing (i wanted to link this q to the statue of queen victoria in victoria square)
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
In Town along Tramway, Make Turn South terrace, Anzac Highway, Moseley St Terminus, Glenelg. (signed AB).
@JS re the latest post. I assume it’s been sent him (or lifted) from elsewhere.
“It’s been many years since I drove a bus in Adelaide….” – I’m assuming that’s not him writing, but whoever sent that in (could be wrong, but I’d be a bit surprised if Chris ever worked on the buses).
Although it is interesting in the comment he claims it as his work (it looks like the 7 has been cut out from a black and white newspaper or similar), so perhaps it’s only the last 2 paragraphs that are from elsewhere.