Ever the provocateur, Pete Bowes’ latest challenge concerns the fact that if you look at each of the four short uncrossed-out lines of mysterious text indented on the back of the Somerton Man’s Rubaiyat, the seventh letter is always A. Well, he says, what are the odds of that, then?
So Let’s Run the Numbers…
For the sake of argument, let’s work with the transcription of the four lines that appears on Wikipedia (simply because it’s somewhere to start):
W R G O A B A B D
W T B I M P A N E T P
M L I A B O A I A Q C
I T T M T S A M S T G A B
OK: it’s dead easy to see the column of four A’s Pete is highlighting, so let’s try to calculate how (un)likely that pattern is.
The four lines contain 2, 1, 3, and 2 As respectively: and no other letter appears on all four lines. So, we might reasonably wonder what the probability of this would be if you randomly anagram each of the four lines. For this to work, all four As would have to fall in the first nine columns.
- Line #2: the probability that its single A falls in any of the matchable 9 columns is 9/11. We’ll use whichever column this falls in for the rest of the calculation.
- Line #1: two As and 9 columns, probability = 2/9
- Line #3: three As and 11 columns, probability = 3/11
- Line #4: two As and 13 columns. Probability = 2/13
Multiply these four individual probabilities together (because they all have to be true simultaneously), and you get (9/11)*(2/9)*(3/11)*(2/13) = (12/1573).
So, if you randomly anagrammed each of the four lines, the odds that you would see a column of four As is roughly 1 in 131. Which I think is good to know, because it seems to rule out the possibility that any heavy-duty ciphers (where any such pattern would be destroyed) was employed here.
In short, this is looking even more like an acrostic than it did before.
All ‘Ands On Deck
The suggestion that we are looking at the first letters of four lines of poetry has been floated countless times before. Let’s face it, given that the four lines were written on the back of a book of quatrains (i.e. four-line poems), that hardly requires a huge stretch of the imagination.
But if we centre the same four odd-length lines a bit more, we can see that four As sit extremely close to the centre of each line:
W R G O A B A B D W T B I M P A N E T P M L I A B O A I A Q C I T T M T S A M S T G A B
Looking at this, I’m wondering if this might suggest that two or more of these very central As might be the first letter of the word AND.
Back in 2015, I discussed Barry Traish’s excellent bacronymic poem that he imaginatively reconstructed from the Rubaiyat message’s initials (note that Barry used a slightly different transcription from the one on Wikipedia):
“My road goes on, and by and by divides,
Now two branches, into morning, past a new evening that provides,
My love is a barren oblivion, and itself alone quite certain,
It’s time to move the soul among magic stars, then gently asleep besides.”
You can see that Barry has replaced the As on line #1 and line #3 with AND, so that after a short first idea (“My road goes on”) and following pause (“,”), he uses AND to link the line on to the second idea (“by and by divides”). This is a natural (if somewhat clichéd) way of constructing a simple poem.
Stress Doesn’t Have To Be Stressful
Rearranged yet another way…
W R G O A B A B D W T B I M P A N E T P M L I A B O A I A Q C I T T M T S A M S T G A B
…I’m wondering whether all the central A-words in this third arrangement are unstressed. I’m pretty sold on Barry’s “And By And By” in line #1, and it’s no surprise that the A-words Barry selected are all unstressed:
and and / a / a and alone / among asleep
Moreover: laid out like this, I’m left wondering whether the first half of the first line might have ended up too short: compared to the other three, [W/M] R G O feels like it has a beat missing. Sure, it might conceivably use words with more syllables, but that doesn’t quite feel right to me.
Errm… You Mentioned Tolkien?
Long-suffering Cipher Mysteries readers surely know that I occasionally like to drop in fairly tangential references to J. R. R. Tolkien. And why not? Tolkien loved runes and old languages, and he even very probably saw a scratchy rotoscope rotograph copy of the Voynich Manuscript that was floating around Oxford in the 1930s, back when he was an academic there.
Of course, the big thing Tolkien did in the 1930s was write The Hobbit (released in September 1937). The first edition of 1500 copies sold out quickly, and a second edition was printed immediately afterwards: despite paper shortages in WW2, it has never been out of print since.
The book was a huge success in Britain and the US: yet if you look for it in Trove, it only appears in 1937 and 1938, and then you’ll find no mention until Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring was published in the 1950s.
Why do I mention all this? Simply because I suspect the first line of the poem penned on the back of the Rubaiyat may have been ripped off from directly inspired by the poem that Bilbo recites in the last chapter of The Hobbit, at the end of his long journey back to the Shire:
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
To be precise, I suspect it wasn’t Tolkien’s scansion or rhyming or Hobbity doggerel that was the inspiration: but rather the way that the entire first line of the poem presents roads as a straightforward poetic metaphor for life’s journey long spent away but now finally back home.
And so I can’t help but suspect that the first line of the poem (with more than a small nod to Tolkien, & reinstating the Bilboesque ‘ever’ he omitted) was:
My road goes (ever) onwards; and by and by [divides?]
The Missing Child?
If you broadly accept this much (however much of a stretch you find it), then I think you also have to consider the possibility that the Somerton Man bought The Hobbit not for himself (for it was most definitely published as a children’s book), but rather to read to his young child(ren) at bedtime. (And if I had to, I’d guess that this was an eight-year-old boy circa 1938.)
(Yes, for my sins, I indeed read The Hobbit and the complete Lord of the Rings trilogy to my own son when he was young. Please therefore feel free to consider me impossibly old-fashioned, I really don’t mind.)
Putting all this together, I can’t help but feel more than a bit swayed by the (romantic and utterly speculative, but entirely plausible-sounding) notion that we might be able to glimpse the sweep of the Somerton Man’s life embedded in this single (reconstructed) first line: a man born in South Australia, living away in America, having a (Hobbit-loving) ten-year-old son in 1938, and – somewhat like Bilbo Baggins, but let’s not get too carried away, eh? – coming full circle back to the Shire South Australia in 1948.
Where he died, alas. The rest you already know.
Hopefully one day we’ll know if this was indeed how the Somerton Man’s life played out – whether we can see his world in (this) grain of sand. Or if we are – not for the first time – just kidding ourselves like hell. Who can tell?
And finally, the 1930 US Census…
As always, the Somerton Man researchers among us might now be itching to head over to the 1930 US census to look for a J. Kean[e] born around 1900 who had a child born around 1925-1930.
To save you the effort, I dropped by there myself. Here’s who I found:
- John Kean, born in Scotland in 1901, immigrated in 1922, machinist, living in Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut with wife Jessie Kean (28, also from Scotland), daughter Mary Kean (age 1).
- John Kean, born 1897, a tile setter living in Queens, New York City with wife Florence Kean (25) and children Daniel (5), Anna (3), and Florence (1).
- John Kean, born in Scotland in 1900, immigrated in 1923, carpenter, living in Queens, New York City, with wife Isabel (26, also from Scotland) and son John Kean Jr (2).
- Joseph J Kean, born 1898, storeroom clerk in a chemical factory, living in Niagara Falls, with wife Ruth (35) and daughter Virginia (7).
- Joseph J Kean, born 1902, digger operator living in Michigan, with wife Mary (23) and children Mary (6), Joseph (5), William (3), Edward (1).
- Joseph Kean, born 1900 in England to Lithuanian parents, immigrated 1922, a carter on the elevators, living in Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio with wife Frances (34, also born in England to Lithuanian parents), son John (6).
- Joseph Keane, born 1900 in Ireland, immigrated in 1923, plasterer living in New Rochelle, Westchester, New York with wife Helen (28), daughter Ritta (2), and son Joseph (0).
- John Keane, born to Irish parents, a salesman living in Yonkers, Westchester with wife Helen (26) and children Nancy (1) and Betty (3).
- John Keane, born in 1898, a manager in an asbestos factory, living in Jersey City with wife Anna (25) and daughter Doris (3).
- John Keane, born in Missouri in 1897, a confectionery proprietor, living in St. Louis Township MN with wife Edith (25) and son John (2).
- John Keane, born in New York in 1896 to Irish parents, a counterman in a restaurant, living in Manhattan with wife Bernice (35) and sons John (2) and James (1).
- John Keane, born in Ireland in 1895, immigrated in 1913, a letter carrier living in the Bronx with wife Catherine (26), and children John (1) and Margaret (0).
- John Keane, born in Illinois to Irish parents in 1895, an electrical contractor living in Chicago with wife Margret (32), and daughters Mary (7) and Betty (1).
- John Keane, born in Ireland in 1895, immigrated in 1916, a labourer living in Jersey City with wife Anna (32, also born in Ireland) and daughter Mary (5).
- James Keane, born in Ireland in 1899, immigrated in 1923, a labourer living in Chicago with wife Mary (32) and son James (0).
- James Keane, born in 1900 to Irish parents, a sugar truck chauffeur living in Brooklyn with wife Anna (26) and children Donald (6), Leonard (3) and Anna (0).
- James Keane, born in Ireland in 1898 to Irish parents, a butcher living in Newark with wife Bertha (26), and children James (3) and Betty (1)
Doubtless there are (many) others in the 1930 census who fit this (extremely speculative) pattern, but that’s the point where my will to go on gave way.
Anyone a-hunting haplogroup H4a1a1a (hi Byron!) will of course be heartened by the presence of British (but Lithuanian-parented) Joseph Kean in Cleveland OH in this list. Make of it all what you will!
Love it Nick! Long ago I searched many poems, many popular songs, so you can put me down as a true believer. We can narrow your list of Kean(e)s down quite a bit because DA’s team found that SM is about half British (they say that in an indirect way). They don’t say what the other 50% is, although they must know. One Scottish parent with a Lithuanian partner would fit quite well.
Byron: be very careful with what DA’s team releases, because we – out in the real world – are not starting from the position (or trying to prove) that the Somerton Man was necessarily Robin Thomson’s birth father. And so we only have the hair follicle to work with, and can’t necessarily say much about the other half of the DNA. So any Baltic maternal line is still in play for me. 🙂
Nick: Remember getting caught up in the Glenelg overnight cafe, Sunday morn tipple scam involving Joseph Kean and a mate, which extended over several SM deficient thread lines. It seems that you may have gotten over the related Royal Gem fixation but not the class nag’s forgotten main admirer/carer and former lightweight hoop Jimmy Keane. Seems from there on T. Keane as in Tom, Ted or Theo has been dropped in favour of J. Keane without reason given for such shift to your readers. You still seem to have the hots for John or Joseph as above revealed, but sans Jim this time so perhaps you might explain… PS: Any remote possibility of some Tolkein pliagarist for the ROK four liner, as in T. (Tol) Kein.
All of those Keanes and not a ballet dancer amongst them.
The four A’s are a curious coincidence that might be explained by “the letters being initials”, but calculating the chance of four A’s in the 7th column, under the restriction of anagraming individual lines, makes no sense. Any other column would also be curious, raising the probability. And interpreted as “about halfway” can also mean an A in 4th-8th position depending on the line it’s in. And why not anagraming the whole text? And what about the chance that the B’s might line up? Or any other “curious pattern”? Or not anagraming but using an initials distribution?
The problem is that of formulating the hypothesis after the outcome of a supposedly random process. A common error. For example I could argue that the fourth line contains SAMSTGA. Which is almost the German word for Saturday: SAMSTAG. Adding the popular assumption that the writer must have made an error. And I then would want to claim its significance by calculating the chance of it occurring when anagramming the text. Or even in a random line of 13 letters.
This process is very popular in claims using numbers about the works of e.g. Shakespeare, Bach and others.
A rotoscope copy?
A rotoscope is used to make animated film version of a live action film sequence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping.
Is this a malapropism or is there an alternative meaning?
My apologies, I thought I typed (the correct word) “rotograph”, perhaps this got silently autocorrected. I’ll fix it this afternoon, thanks for pointing it out. 🙂
What might be an alternative is that each line contains a six word text followed by a two (or more) word text response, the response beginning with the letter following the A.
WRGOAB (an acrostic for a 6 word text) A (separator) BD (an acrostic for a two word text)
Peteb: If you’ve now settled on an acrositic solution, as opposed to your pop-a-top Crameresque spy deal of yesterday, you’ll now need to work on the overlooked line two blooper to get you back in the game. Stands to reason that it’s being the predescessor of line four, it would be the obvious key to work with in determining the most logical means of a substitute word translation…Sad in a way to see Boris go though I tend to concur that his efforts were not in keeping with the rigid high standards of loyalty insisted upon.
Irrespective of whether it makes any sense with respect to the code, or what else the text might stand for, I was curious to know the chance of a column of four of the same letters in this layout, I ran 10,000,000 simulations using the frequency count of the 44 letters as its probability distribution. One in 62.9 (standard error 0.2) showed such a column.
So the chance is roughly half the chance of throwing double six. Considering all those other patterns one might have considered after(!) seeing a randomly given text in the given layout, e.g. diagonals, words in some language, sequences, blocks of four,… you name it, I think it’s clear that this column of four A’s is nowhere near significant.
I’m not so Keane on all of this…..(oops) however when Tom (I mean PB) first highlighted the ‘A’, the thoughts about ‘and’ was the first thing that occured to me (it would be more impressive if it was almost any other letter).
The ‘missing’ beat on the first line might suggest something like ‘Who(m)ever/Whatever/Whenever/Whichever/Wherever’ rather than ‘Who(m)/What/When/Which/Where’
Or a different angle on the ‘W’ (as I think NP has talked about before), maybe these are questions and answers (maybe even the 7th ‘A’ delimits the answer)
Maybe it is just by chance, but I see this pattern:
(6 – 2) A (4)
(6) A (4)
(6) A (4)
(6) A (4 + 2)
But maybe the letters are incorrect and this is just a pointless discussion.
To finalize my “reductio ad absurdum” another 10 million simulations were run to see how “significant” the “SAMSTAG” observation is. After 1,344,456 tries it came up with a hit:
WQTAAAAGC
TBEAPITRBBA
BSAMSTAGMGL
PTBABITRQTMAT
And amazingly it also had four A’s in a row! No cheating!
In all it found four times SAMSTAG and four times SAMSTGA out of ten million tries. The “conclusion” must be that opposed to the 1 in 63 chance of a column of identical letters this is so extremely rare that it must be significant (beware of irony).
To wrap things up: the first simulation with the equally rare SAMSTGA came up after 3825618 tries:
AABBIIBOC
MICSAMSTGAM
AMTSAATOAAB
TAOIRPTSMDMGB
And yes, AABBII… is a completely accidental start, like the decimals of e=2.718281828… which after all display the phenomenon of four hits in a row too. Even twice considering the 8’s.
Ger: it’s quite obvious that SAMSTAG or SAMSTGA are more unlikely than an A (or B) column, since it is 7 letters in a fixed position (SAMSTAG or SAMSTGA) against 4, and on top of that, given the brevity of the lines, those 7 letters require a very particular placement which is not a constraint for the A column. There is no need to run simulations for that, I could compute it by hand.
However SAMSTGA is just a random quasi-word in a random language, which is not particularly meaningful. The A column, on the other hand, looks like a pattern: there is an A at the centre of each line. The letter A is the most common letter in the SM cipher, which is not overly improbable, but a bit odd nonetheless if that cipher is an English acronym. That column is certainly responsible for that little oddity.
Got lost somewhere in the Ether…..
@Stefano: Interesting observation. In fact if we remove the flourished ‘AB’ at the end then every row has an ‘A’ 7 char from the left and 5 char from the right…..
May not mean anything, but certainly interesting….
All this sudden resurgence of code definitions, well intended of course; yet still no hints at all on likely relevance of the so often neglected MLIAOI – Maralinga Ordinance Itinerary’s likely connection with MLIAB (0x) – Maralinga Bomb (drop zone) eg.
….and by the way four ‘M’ letters to start each of the first four lines of a poem must be a rare occurrence indeed, whereas a same number of letters ‘A’ center placed, along with others conveniently overlooked by Mr. Champers would seem not to be so imo.
John: what four M letters? It is an address, so Maralinga (MLIA) in the Woomera Range (WRG) or Test Range (WTB pro WTR). It lacks the house number, though.
I would prefer it, Johnno, if you allowed me a few days to bathe in the fragrance of four victories and the soothing effervescence of a bath of vintage Moet.
@PB: Didn’t know the Cordner connection. As a dees supporter, maybe my respect for you has increased ever so slightly….
TBH I stereotyped you as a Sydneysider who thought the only ‘Football’ was League…..my bad, and I apologise.
Milongal … you caress with one hand and slap with the other.
Stefano Guidoni, you must have overlooked the “reductio ad absurdum” and certainly the “beware of irony”.
🙂
I’m not sure why this would be a poem, to begin with. Suppose this is rather a memento of a (let’s say) steganographic message that is to be conveyed verbatim.
E.g. something like this (arbitrary stuff coming to my mind)
Wearing red gown over a black and blue dress
With the bill/book in my pocket and nothing else to present/provide
…. and I am quite certain
In the…..
NickP: in all the years you’ve spent trying to nut out codes whether they be the Vm or the Zodiac Killer, have you ever come across a code that has a character, or set of characters that identify the writer?
Peteb: ‘And I’m A Queer Chap’ (A I A Q C) if true, Identifies the writer as being gay or else peculiar; surely not some car thieve’s sheilah with an ankle biter in tow.
@PB (or re PB’s latest) The high frequency of ‘A’ vs ‘E’ might be explained by initials (while ‘E’ is very common in English, it’s not common at the beginning of words) – and ‘A’ is common AF as an initial eg ‘a’, ‘and’, ‘as’, ‘at’ etc.
That said, what do you think of the shape of the ‘A’? Pretty sure I’ve harped on about it before, but they are all different – not not just a little bit different, but different shapes and styles.
But I was a bit more interested in your comments about a non-English speaker and Farsi. A long time ago, I was involved with identity resolution – specifically name matching. In particular we used to attempt to match names in many different languages, but one of the populations was Arabic. Obviously, the Arabic world has a totally different alphabet and writing style, but rather than names being translated, they are ‘Romanized’ (this is true of other lnaguages in different scripts too – like Chinese). There are multiple different “standards” in romanizing, and as a aresult there is a LOT of variation in how one name might be translated (I think I’ve mentioned before there are at least** 32 different English spellings for Mohamad – which shouldn’t be confused with a similarly variable Mahmoud). There’s a slight side I should note that some (a lot even) of the variation is a product of the language it’s translated into or derived from rather than romanization – so a Bangladeshi (Muhammad) might spell/translate it different to a Somali (Mahamed) who translates it different to a Pole (Mahomet)….but we digress as ever.
It seems (read: according to me) the most common differences when romanizing is using the wrong vowel sound (especially ‘E’ vs ‘A’) and whether sounds should be double letters (like ‘LL’ and ‘SS’) and/or what are separate words and what run together.
Without getting into specifics, some of the (problematic) differences I remember:
AL vs EL (and whether this is separate from a longer name) eg Eloura vs Al Oura
AS vs ES vs (Es Sayed vs Assaid)
BEN vs BIN
DAOD vs DAID vs DOWD vs other variants
etc….
point is, romanizing is not an entirely exact science, and ‘A’ instead of ‘E’ would be a plausible frequent inconsistency
**at least = convenient number that is in my head, and might not be quite accurate (sorry about that). Feel free to substitute for your favourite number in a similar scale. (Actually, I remember it being a ‘happy Computer Scientist’ number, but it might have been 16 not 32)
Milongal, tell me you’re game enough to try asking your wife, or brother .. whoever, to write four lines of capital letters .. rows of 9,11, 9 and 13. Letters in any old order.
How long do you reckon that might take?
Give us room, Dusty, I’m the one doing the fishing.
Then, Milongal, give us a look at the result.
If I remember I’ll do that……
I’d imagine it wouldn’t take very long to write 4 lines (other than I have to be near someone who’s willing to do it and remember to ask them, so at least a day from that perspective).
Does the age of the person matter (in particular, adult vs high school kid vs younger kid)?
Do I have to insist on 9,11,13,9, or can I say “4 lines with between 10 and 15 chars each”)?
I’m tempted to make some predictions (most obviously that I think there will be an unrealistically high proportion of less common letters – XJQK types……but I think if I predict too much on a test I’m facilitating there’s a risk I’ll inadvertently influence the test).
Are you asking about the likelihood of that occurring from random doodling as opposed to being an acrostic? Or do you mean more to see how consistently the write a particular letter a particular way? (I can see some sort of purpose to either of them).
You could do it purely as an exercise to determine the A and E frequencies .. or rather, the obliging soul you’ve asked to do the exercise. All they need to be asked is to write the letters. Explain everything later.
milongal: Why not try using scrabble pieces for Peteb’s test, the letter frequencies having been pre established over time and fair enough to get satisfactory results with it’s unbiased random selection format?
Personally I’m not too concerned about minor variations in ‘A’ forms feeling that they are just a trait of the writer’s sloppiness. Other parts of the code formation more worrying for me would be the three strange ‘M’ or ‘W’ forms, the similarly mishappen and out of place final letter ‘C’ on the ‘Q’ line, along with an equally mysterious first letter of the last line which has earned an ‘I’ value for uncertain reasons. Seeing as most folks are happy to dump the interesting second line, I’d take a couple more bold steps and also toss that nasty little ‘C’, the dicky ‘I’ and finally the ‘AB’ sign off, which would even out the line counts and help Alf Boxall to gain some undeserved credability.
I like a pattern, you like chaos … each to his own.
@PB: Sorry, forgot…..will try to remember to hassle someone today
@JS: The variations in A are more than minor – they lean different, shape different, have different angles on the crossbars and lots more (It’s sort of interesting that the letters in the crossed out line are formed similar to the MLIABO – and although the A is much wider and symmetrical in the latter, has an overhanging crossbar in both of them – and infact the overhang at every occurrence has a hint of intent). Couple that with shape and loop differences on other letters (including the W/M and the “incomplete letter described as ‘C’ that you mention), and I think the variation of the writing itself is noteworthy.
That said, having someone write down random letters on an unlined piece of paper and observing the consistency of any repeated letters might change my mind if I saw that they were all over the shop as well.
Or perhaps it indicates someone still learning the formation of the Latin alphabet.
Or something else…..in any event, I think it’s odd enough to try to explain – even if the ultimate conclusion is “sloppiness” as you suggest.
The flourished letters at the end are difficult to dismiss too (As is the fact that line happens to be longer than the others) – but I’m not convinced it’s AB – could be AR or GAB or GAR……
NB: Of course, flourished might indicate emphasis rather than signature (“AR” ~ “At Rest” or something)
And the more I stare at it, the more I think it’s an ‘R’ not a ‘B’. Look at the formation of the other ‘B’ compare to ‘D’/’P’ – the top loop on the last is much more similar to ‘P’/’D’. It also seems to be disjoint on the bottom “loop”, and the bottom of the downstrke has a flourish to the legt as well. In fact, staring at it now, there’s a reasonable chance that the ‘G’ ahead of it is a ‘C’ and the crossbar turning it into a G is simply the flourished crossbar of the ‘A’
So my claim for today is that the last line is:
(I) T T M T S A M S T C – A R
(Noting observations I’ve made in the past that the ‘S’ have extra bits in different places and the ‘A’ is a strange one.
I put the ‘I’ in brackets because while I’m not convinced people who claim it’s a different letter, I find it hard to explain why you would write an ‘I’ in 2 strokes (if the original was pen not pencil, I’d almost dismiss it as a mark used to check whether the pen was working) – especially when the other ‘i’ are single strokes. I do wonder whether some of the strange characters at the start of the line are simply re-traces (ie a result of highlighting, not original pencil)
As many times before, I’m suddenly wondering how faint the pencil lines were, and how much might have been misinterpreted. There’s also some marks that might be shadow or might be accidental (or deliberate) points included in the tracing – a spot left of AIAQ, another above the first S final line, and one inside the ‘A’ on WTBIMPA.
And last of all, there is plenty nice spacing on line 1, but line 2 (I simply ignore the strikeout) is cramped.
First half of line 3 is a bit squeezed, not so much the 2nd – but there is a clear split between them.
And then line 4 is squeezy to the max.
milongal: Biggest problem with the terminal ‘R’ is that the sharp reverse tail angle defies the convention of cursive continuity. As a word of caution, be reminded that the ‘R’ for ‘B’ substitution theory is by now registered in CGB’s name and it’s use without express consent deemed a breech of copyright. PS. Pleased that you have described in more detail my thoughts on the ‘I/V’ non letter to which I concur.
I would not read too much into those letters, because, if I recall correctly, those are not the letters traced by the SM, but the letters traced by a newspaper editor on top of those traced by the SM.
Ger: I’m sorry, but engineers never kid about numbers! :-p
@Pete: Conveniently haven’t got the piecce of paper on hand, but had someone write 4 lines of 10-15 “Random” (actually, I didn’t stipulate random, I said “Whatever you want”) characters.
They started out random enough, but by line 3 we had BANANA at the beginning, and line 4 was simply REQUIREMENTS.
Suffice it to say, there wasn’t a pattern of ‘A’ (which I think is why you wanted me to do that exercise – to show that would be the case), but I think everyone agrees the “code” is NOT random – so it’s sort of a moot point comparing it to random.
What I did find more interesting was the inconsistent spacing on the page……but even that wasn’t all THAT interesting
Milongal ..
Why would the writer stop after the sixth character on line 2?
Peteb: Nice correction from Nick to the corrected line which has been deleted from the thread. I’m thinking that perhaps our code writer said what was necessary for the intended recipient’s purpose, the rest including it’s extended substitute being a false flag ruse to throw off the SA plod and navy experts called upon to assist with deciphering the meaningless text.
@PB: I think I’ve always maintained that’s a mistake, that’s why he stopped. I vaguely remember reading a suggestion that perhaps the lines beginning with W are questions, and the 2 bottom lines are answers. So perhaps originally he meant to write Question, Annswer, Question, Answer – and then changed his mind and wrote Question1, Question2 (then a clear strike to delimit the Answers) then the Answers.
Notice although the shape of the letters differ a bit between the strike out and the MLIABO, the first ‘A’ in both of them has a lot of overhang to the right (in the crossed out one it looks particularly unnatural).
I’d agree with the mistake.
Looks like I’m out numbered but each to their own imo. I’ll stand with line two being if anything, a stand out ‘take note’ which was deliberately recalibrated in line four to appear as a corrected version of the same. Any mug could easily change the offending ‘O’ to a ‘B’ and the following short stroke to an ‘O’. And by the way the offending short line two ‘possible’ message was last to be posted if the line spacing means anything.
Perhaps mere coincidence, I’ll stand corrected of course, but it seems that all the code letters have a musical signature equivilent, even the crossed ‘O’, and the slashed ‘S’ and they can all be found in the Tamam Shud passage. The letters that have no such values are ‘F’ ‘H’ ‘J’ ‘K’ ‘L’ ‘N’ ‘R’ ‘U’ ‘W’ ‘X’ ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ all being ostensibly absent. This anomaly may suggest that good old Somerton Man was a novice musician who was studying for some sort of upcoming examination…PS: The ‘L’ and ‘W’ are somewhat debatable, perhaps being confused with ‘I’ and ‘M’.
…..And if I’m correct, which I certainly have some doubts about, it would be that the repeated letters, ie., ‘M’ and the double ‘T’ have multiple values which they apparently do have.
SM was probably not into opera, otherwise ‘L’ for libretto would have a place.
It’s a shame Hitchcock made Dial M For Murder as late as 1954, or else that would be next.
It’s probable that Fred Knot behind the plot, had his first chiller thriller just about ready to go by 1948. He came from a wealthy family and wasn’t in any hurry to get into the money like most struggling playwrights of his day, so hung onto to his ‘Dial M’ thriller until ‘Auntie’ took it off his hands in ’52, before off loading it to MGM and Hitchcock, as you say in ’54. What I find more interesting in Somerton Man Code terms, is that during WW2, as Major ‘Chinese’ Knot, he did his best to avoid the sharp end by pleading claims to conciensous objection (Quaker) and spent the war teaching advanced ciphers to key Royal Signals Corps personell.
Mention of the passing parade, if anyone gives a rat’s arse for sentimetal eulogies. My old mate Howie or just ‘H’ to his ex service mates in the service, passed away complaining like buggery til the bitter end which occurred on Monday last in Perth. A unapologetic boozer, womaniser, philanderer and a Yorkshire bred Papist to boot, but with the courage of a Trojan which must ciunt for something. Generous to a fault not surprisingly, never did any goo for himself and the best bloke to have holding the fort when the bad guys were on the wire. So long you good old Pommy bastard, yer blood’s worth bottling and you can shout at the devil if you miss the cut….Now it’s time to get back onto the SM code theme variations for those of us not quite ready for West Terrace.
In a non threadline C19 advice to ardent BS/TS fans, courtesy of it’s front man and the self proclaimed leader in the SM category, behold flowery platitudes intention being to suggest a warm hearted caring side to the old con man. In a subsequently posted blame game farce, totally baseless allegations of disrespect shown towards a cherished family member sadly exemplifies the extent some will go to for spite.
Needless to say my sincere condolences go out to Keith’s wife Hazel, family and others including CGC who will mourn his loss.
Meanwhile, why would someone go to so much trouble to hide something that should be easily seen?
Seems that Peteb’s smart shuffle with letters & numbers don’t pass muster. Well, that’s according to the smart money spy-fi team mob at BS/TS. A thread comment with a comparison choice analogy explains, vis., A soldier in a fix in a foxhole deciding who he’d prefer to replace his dead brother in arms, a battered piss head or a fresh graduate…Something about that reminds me of our John Freeman and the coded ROK which he voluntarily gave to Det. R.L. Leane Jnr. and claiming it to have been found by a non existent brother-in law. He did happen to have a older brother who had married an only child, so no spare brother-in-law there, but he got away with the lie..Story sounds oh so familiar; puting that aside, brother Colin spent most of his later life domiciled at 2a Bickford Tce on the corner of Sth. Esplinade and no need to tell punters how close to XMTS that address is.
john sanders: well, the probability (as calculated above) that randomly anagramming each of the four lines yields a column of four A’s is 1 in 131, which I think is a pretty significant figure, and about 10x higher than I would have guessed. I don’t know about the rest of anybody’s “smart shuffle” but 1:131 is what I tried to pursue in this post.
I’m pursuing the probability of a deliberate action rather than settling for the outside chance of an improbable one.
Nick: So can we assume therfore that the four additional A’s were installed as a diversion or else are merely a circumstantial aberation, having no part in your 1:131 chance calculations ?….
john sanders: if each of the four lines contained only a single A, the probability of a column of 4 A’s appearing would be (9/11)x(1/11)x(1/11)x(1/13) = 1 in 1922. So the other A’s do in fact play a big part in the probability calculation.
I’d like to see more evidence about this alledged early viewing of the VMs by Tolkien. And Alan Turing as well. I think it would be *very* interesting indeed, if so.
If he did, he probably said something to someone. Sometimes people wave these names around like they are “all access passes” to things, and they aren’t.
Matt
Matt Lewis: the stuff with Alan Turing (that has mysteriously popped up in the Internet over the last couple of years) is almost certainly somebody’s pie-in-the-sky made-up connection of the sort you’re talking about. However, it was Francis Maddison who in 1994 donated his photocopy of the Voynich to the Bodleian (MS. Facs. d. 306), which I always believed to have been one of Voynich’s rare-as-hen’s-teeth rotographs from the
1930s1920s.https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/2425
“A love of languages and a delight in the bizarre, allied to careful and accurate scholarship, were the characteristics that led Mr Maddison from his undergraduate studies in modern languages and history to the direction of world-class collection of scientific and technical artefacts in Oxford.”
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/893435.mr-francis-maddison-arabist-historian-became-curator-oxfords-museum-history-science/
I have always believed that Maddison’s return to Oxford as Assistant Curator at the Whipple overlapped with Tolkien’s time as a Professor at Oxford, but please feel free to correct me if this is wrong.
Also, Voynich commenter “Anthony” posted this in 2002, make of it what you will: http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2002/11/msg00040.html
Hmm…interesting. Although my knowledge of the old list is fairly good I did not remember this or what it said at all. So do you think LOTR and its “one” ring may be inspired by the Voynich possibly? You had the recent article by Marco Ponzi talking about ancient rings, and in my own research on documents mentioned by Andew Watson as relating specifically to the foliation, there is a drawing of this (not documented in the preview) ring that John Dee believed necessary to be created to carry out his operations. Solomon was reputed to have a grand ring,as you probably know, that could exhibit control on spirits and animals and things. I am curious if such a ring was ever crafted by Dee. What do you think about any/all of this? Watson kind of clammed up it seemed after his ideas about Dees foliation of the Ms were criticized, though had a long time to respond before he passed away, in it apears 2017, if he so chose it seems,
Matt: it’s all possible, though all I’m saying is that I would be unsurprised if Tolkien was passed a photocopy of a page or two of Voynichese at some point. If that came from Maddison, it would probably have been after LOTR.
Now that Christopher Tolkien has sadly died (Jan 2020), perhaps the place to look would be in Tolkien’s letters? Though I just quickly searched Carpenter’s selection online and found nothing, the full set may be much more extensive.
Nick, pretty darn interesting. I didn’t know Christopher Tolkien passed. Condolences to his family and friends. I really took to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings like everyone of course. When I first played D&D back in the days before widespread computer usage, I was asked by my team if I had read it, and I said “no, should I?”; and they were like “you must!!” The movies that put the emphasis on that sentiment clearly for everyone to see with a lot of moolah being created for the studios, had not been made, so I dived in. I remember I liked the books so much that I didn’t want to die before finishing Fellowship of the Ring. That is devotion.
I read at some point something about Tolkien and British intelligence,so the idea there are links we have not seen yet does not suprise me. I still wonder about potental authorial connections I think might exist between the VMs, and Joseph Conrad, and HP Lovecraft as well. I will add JRR Tolkien to the list.
NickP: could we be looking at three deliberate actions by the writer? One is to deliberately insert a column of four A’s in the code and another to disguise it with the random insertion of as many again together with the judicious use of blank spaces in order to break up the A’s columnar aspect?
Peteb: that’s like going down three rabbit holes in succession, where I’m not really comfortable with any one of the three, sorry. 🙁
Three rabbit holes, one rabbit … simpler to look at it that way.
Does your response mean you don’t regard the 4A’s as changing anything with regard to making sense of the code?
Peteb: in my opinion, it now looks even more like an acrostic poem, with a strong tendency for unstressed words (like ‘and’) in the middle of lines.
Do you think, just for a moment, that the writer disguised his poetic intent?
Looks like a toss up between our Nick the well schooled de-coder, The CPA trained precision numbers man in Peteb, along with Gordon our modest leading authority on Somerton Man matters to come up with a letter ‘A’ four on the floor solution. For all that, I still reckon that a trio of standout ‘AB’ connections could get across the line for a more meaningful interpretation of what thoughts may have inspired the unknown author’s acrostic ROK code.
Nothing changes in the Somerton Man World. Despite the newly found feature in the code everybody remains dug into their positions.
It’s dispiriting.
peteb: from where I’m sitting, the 4xA observation would seem to rule out almost all cipher systems (bar the simplest), while also adding weight to the theory that what we are looking at is an acrostic poem.
On the contrary Peteb I’d say inspiring; Nick and Eric Naive say acrostic poem and no argument there. But what kind of poetry would give a line or stanza variation between nine words and thirteen; perhaps a rhyme would fit the bill nicely.
I’d agree … The 4xA insertion is unlike anything I’ve seen or read … however the TS slip and book it was torn from appears to be from a very old family of identification methods.
To my eye one begets the other. And the simplicity of the 4XA you refer to is admirably described in some circles as being something hidden in plain sight. Hidden for over 70 years.
Yep..Sure looks like GC has SCOOORED again and Peteb et al are set to become confirmed believers once more; as if we were’nt fooled for a New York minute.
Out of twenty most used words in the English language ‘A’ gets four mentions with and, a, at and am from memory. In the case of the code we might include some local words which is only fair. Words such as Alvington, Adelaide, Australia come to mind and Atomic Bomb (AB – AB – AB) would achieve a triple blast for colleagues in unison over t’other side.
What’s the fist and finger signal for bugging out, Johnno?
Fist open, peter pointer extended forward along the trigger guard with thumb on safety to show good intent and skid marks on my cammo underwear is what I can recall from my time as conciencous deserter on the run.
In the past we’ve had some discussion about what certain letters were (the M/W probably being the most notable).
In some papers at the time, the code is typed out – and seems to always** represent the letter as an ‘M’. So question to the masses is: If the police genuinely wanted the public to help solve the mystery, would they try to make sure such reproductions were consistent with how they interpreted them?
I think it’s possible they didn’t notice/care and that perhaps they preferred a picture to be presented. It’s also possible that they advised relevant media outlets if they thought differently (or if they thought it was potentially causing confusion). It’s also possible they didn’t really care – getting it out to the masses was more important than monitoring journalistic accuracy.
There might be other possibilities too – but I’m interested how likely it is that the police would allow MRGO (etc) to propagate if they didn’t themselves agree that that’s what it was?
Changing direction, slightly. In the past I have poo-pooed the idea of multiple Rubaiyats. In particular I think I’ve dismissed it as misreporting and confusion caused by over-eager journalists trying to break new facts on a slowing story. This was compounded by the fact that both copies had apparently been found in cars – which for me was too much of a coincidence.
I might walk that back a couple of steps. The Advertiser 27/07/1949 reports (in an even longer sentence than I use):
An Amazing coincidence was revealed yesterday 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*.
It also talks about other people ringing up with copies of the Rubaiyat, noting:
In many instances the copies were not identical with that of the book linked with the case. Four or five were of the same publication.
While it doesn’t specifically talk about editions, it does hint that several might have been the same – which is interesting given the challenges people more recently have found tracing that edition.
It also mentions (which I might have ranted about before) that JH went to identify the bust thinking it was Boxall. Is it possible her reaction is not because of who she thought it was, but who she realised it wasn’t?
** in the 4 or 5 I’ve seen
Milongal, I think her reaction was due to the fact that he was the man who had her phone number.
Peteb: What did former WW2 German Generals Hans Kroh, Erwin Rauch and Hermann-Bernhard Ramke got in common with former Australian Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann?
What has Flashman Cramer’s ‘Wangara’ locality in S.A. got to do with the number 7 on the code page and related histerical claims of uranium ore deposits in the near locality as indicated by Somerton Man within….I haven’t got a clue but it can have little to do with long exploited Mt. Painter and Radium Hill deposits far far away. The number seven could involve the ‘7 KEANIC’ tie that our man registered as his property some time back.
I don’t do research. When was Boxall interviewed?
Boxall, Alfred was interviewed by police at Rahdwick bus service depot Wednesday July 27th 1949..I don’t do to much research meself, no need!
Peteb: You’re the numbers man. Considering that Errol Canney didn’t catch up with Jessica until the day before Alf’s interview early Wednesday morning and her dizzy spell occurred at the bust viewing that same Tuesday afternoon, things all came together in far off Sydney uncommonly prompt one could say. Perhaps even a little too prompt wouldn’t you agree?…
She was missing in action from December to July … then her personal shit hit the fan. Hard to get the head around that.
I take that all back, having just paced out the distance from 90A Moseley St. to X marks the spot which converts to seven hundred meters give or take a centimetre. I’d implore anyone with a yen for truth in numbers who has taken for granted distances ranging from Stuey Codswallop’s four hundred yards to Peteb’s latest two hundred meter stone throw, to do the hard yards themselves for the good oil. Mind, our mistaken actuary and the ‘once was an ambo chaser’ would have some catching up to do with CGC who’s numero uno BS/TS blog header information still confirms Somerton Beach as being nextdoor to Maralinga AB test site and the Woomera rocket range.
Not so much missing in action. More likely busy emptying chamber pots as she once alluded to; but only realists would try getting their heads around that.
Fairmiles, remember them? Lived on one in Gibraltar for a while, BIG engines.
Clive: Nobody ever referred to Alf Boxall’s missus as anything but Susie; that is accept for you, Peteb of late and Gordon’s man PeteDavo who unsurprisingly has full title to her MyHeritage genealogy records vis., Isobel Boxall nee Smith 1910-91.
…first name Dulcie which goes without saying. It is one of those old bush names that only a country mother would dare saddle her darling baby girl with in 1910.
Peteb: We also had a Fairlane, a ’59 two tone blue 500 with a whopping great donk to be sure and I learned to drive in the bastard. Probably about the time you had yours in Malta and yair they were big enough to live in; sure hope you had a blast.
Johnno ..The Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence School were encamped above Boxall’s former place of work on Sid Harb … but from when?
Hoping this finds you well.
Got me there Peteb, but those three post WW2 stitched together words Nuclear, Biological & Chemical along with the Defence School designator, hint of some new fangled doings long after Alf’s rather brief stint instructing and ship counting? at George Head before heading north in August ’45.
Peteb: Gonna make sure the punters don’t forget your part in the straight A’s coupe eh? Would I be out of order to remind folks of the four other A’s that didn’t make the final cut? Or should we ignore them, they having tendency to confuse the issue of Gordon’s seven count A’s key, cracked through his creatively conceived Denetta decoding concept….Well done GC…and you Peteb for sharing the bare bones of it with us.
It’s a shame to see such envy in someone so young .. the A’s are mine baby. More champagne, anyone?
NickP, I’ve been talking to a bookmaker and he suggests your odds are slightly underdone. He says that you should have included the two spaces (nulls) as characters.
@peteb…Not sure about Bruce Lehrmann the ex staffer, but I do know that the German generals were all hanging out in Britany….Hang about, if the bookmaker’s (null) spaces represent characters, where does that leave your seven count system.
@JS .. You misinterpret the challenge. What we are looking for are the odds that the 2 null spaces were deliberately inserted to hide the visual aspect of ‘the confirmation code.’
There, I’ve said it. And there’s more.
Peteb: The rules and by-laws of the National Trust of S.A. act of 1955, lay out amongst other things, provision to enable prosecution of offences against the act ie., Any person who, not being so authorised, does attempt to pass themselves off as a designated officer acting in behalf of said National Trust of SA, with intention to deceive and/or obtain some benefit, in contravention of such by-laws, shall be guilty of an offence…Guess you would have assessed your legal position before posting. Right?
@JS .. They’ve been in touch. My Great-Uncle Jacob Fotheringham de Souza has influence in such matters. Thank you for your concern.
@Peteb: I’ll need to consult with a more knowledgeable numbers man on this one. Perhaps there’s another with similar credentials to our certified [sick] Tamam Shud blog leader whose spam wall rejects gmail accounts. What’s Gerry’s contact, he’ll know the score; he and Gordon used to be thick like thieves when they had their in house sanctimonious club going.
@Peteb: OK. I’ve checked with my go to man Bob Forest from London. If you can follow these simple guidelines, you’ll find a trail to the ROK code solution, it being more likely than the aimless direction you and Clive are on now. Your four ROK code lines 1 3 4 5 represent AAAA rhymed quatrains of Fitzgerald’s 1st Edition, that is to say each line ending letter ryhmes with the others, ie. D P C B. What you might not be aware of, which may put you on the true path to Omar’s Paradise, is that this particular ryhme frequency can only be found in Quatrains 10, 26, 32 & 49, the other 71 relying on a synchronised AABA rhyme pattern. Hope it helps, it did me!
Thanks Bob, lovely. I’ll be in touch.
Re my last on Bob, the possible code lead in seems only applicable to the first addition which inludes all the many Courage and Friendship printings irrespective of their different layouts, also Methuen so called 7th edition and Hamilton’s dual language 1st & 2nd which are both 1859 1sts and identified by the Tamam Shud ending. Bob is a mathematician and recognised authority on everything ROK; his extensive online information on the three Hamilton and numerous Whitcombe & Toombs printings along with a summation on the Somerton Man case was most enlightening for me.
Nick Pelling: OK on that score, much obliged.
Peteb: Well sourced and pleased that you backgrounded Bob Forest’s input. You’ll be surprised that GC reneged on a promise made some years back to give all due credit when provided with similarly sourced information on the A.W. Hamilton & W.G. Stirling collaboration on ROK. Did you know that that old Bill the illustrator was into forensic investigation of Chinese Triad secret societies and the like; also dabbling in the dark art of hidden messaging techniques through his interest in handwriting. His uninspiring ROK opium theme sketches from pre WW1 through to his last ‘wine women and song’ version of 1932 were thought to have contained concealed messages just for fun. Of course that’s where GC got some of his own inspiration from.
Trouble is that Bob doesn’t concede that the 4XAs were hidden in the code text despite being in full view. And neither does our host.
One of His Eminences oft used little pieces of wisdom, “Hidden from sight by virtue of being in full view” could get a well intentioned chap fizzed on multiple charges of plagiaristic online conduct. Trouble with Bob is that sadly his intellectually based objectives don’t take in the importance of achieving solution to an unlikely code text. One with the impertinance of having been placed in a Fitzgerald 1st Edition 1859, 1941 W & T Courage & Friendship pocket ROK.
NickP. It looks like you were right about the code being an acrostic.
C is for Cookie, that’s good enough for me.
D is the drunkard what gives it a kiss, that’s good enough for Rolly.
Benjo: Many Aust/NZ VN veterans including the ine you’re researching also get a mention @thecasualtylist.com though it can be frustrating at times. Thanks for the tip and my best as always to Trina and Sasha.
Peteb: In all fainess, Pelling isn’t Robinson Crusoe. Eric Neave thought it was acrostic, same with other Naval and Military cryptologists if memory serves me correctly and most others including the press and Leane also took it as a given apparently. Not to be outdone ‘good on you Gordon’ digressed somewhat with his ground breaking Tibor Kaldor ‘Danetta code’ solution of which we’re still awaiting a translation. Where were you when this all went down?
It’s one thing to say it might be an acrostic, another to find it proved.
Peteb: Not much point in the press giving it’s fussy readers two pictures of the ROK containing only W & C publishing details on the left face page and last page with quatrain 75, the tear hole and the code lines beneath. Sans pics of tantalising topless saki wine wenches, there be insufficient interest to make for good copy, simple economics at play. Man with your talents should have twigged immediately.
Peteb: seems like your original ‘FSA’ post has been deleted fromsTom’s for reasons unclear. Any possibility of your putting it up again in order that our latter day FB Webb weavers can check it out and offer opinions on merits thereof.
How we laugh, reading Nick Pelling’s comment that it is ‘dead easy’ to see the column of A’s in the code.
How we laugh that over the how many years this fellow who has trumpeted his cryptologist skills has let it be announced by a no-name surfer dude that something he seems to have missed may well be the substance of understanding the Somerton Man code, if only by bookmaker’s odds.
How we laugh as he covers his incomplete understanding of the code by ascribing it to happenstance..
Zodiac hurts Nick, don’t it?