Thursday 14 March 2024

CONFIRMATION: 5 Year SCIENTIFIC STUDY CONFIRMS THAT THE RATIO OF HEAD HEIGHT TO FULL HEIGHT IS 1:8, (.14) CARL WEBB CANNOT BE THE SOMERTON MAN...

... VITRUVIAN MAN
&
THE SOMERTON MAN CASE...

THE RATIO's...


;;;Read how this 5 year scientific study of 63375 males and 1375 females proves that the ratio of head height to full height is 1:8 thus proving that Carl Webb cannot be the Somerton Man... (.14:1)

The Vitruvian Man shown above was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci and it was based on the work of Vitruvius 20 BCE, who was the author of De Architectura a 10-volume work with the third volume focusing on body proportions or, as in the case of our recent posts, on ratios.

da Vinci created the Golden Ratio, 1.618 or 'PHI'. Each part of the body in this scheme, the height of the head, for example, is related to the full height of a body in a ratio of 1.618.

A SCIENTIFIC STUDY

A study occurred between 2011 and 2016 at a US Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas and using a 3D body scanner, it measured 63,623 men and 1385 women between the ages of 18 and 21, it was named:

Revisiting Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man Using Contemporary Measurements

The study was created by leading academics and, using a 3D body scanner it compared ideal body proportions represented by Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man with contemporary body proportions of young adult men and women, USAF recruits.

The full results are available by the link below, for this post, we will look at one important find. The study found that the ratio between a man's head height and his full height was 1:8. This is the ratio used on this blog to establish that Carl Webb was 5 feet 8 inches tall. Furthermore, the height of the Somerton Man was similarly calculated and he was found to be 1803.2 mm tall or 5 feet 11 inches. Carl Webb was a full 3 inches shorter than the Somerton Man. 

This find substantiates the claim made by this blog yet another reason why Carl Webb could not be the Somerton Man. 

Here's the link to the NCBI website containing more details:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7284298/

What happens from here now rests with the SA Coroner, SAPOL, and their Forensics team. There are still numerous questions yet to be answered in the Somerton Man case but this find represents compelling evidence to support the claims made here.

* NOTE. Men's growth period normally ends around 18 years of age but some continue into the 21-year age group.


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Sunday 10 March 2024

THE SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY; CALCULATING THE TRUE HEIGHT OF THE SOMERTON MAN....

 

...CALCULATING THE TRUE HEIGHT OF THE SOMERTON MAN...


Those familiar with the Somerton Man case will know that his body was measured on the day it was discovered and it was found that he had a height of 5 feet 11 inches.

In this post, the same technique used to calculate Charlie’s height has been applied to the body of the Somerton Man to verify his height based on the photograph you can see above. The photograph shown is from the 1949 inquest, I have added the information on the photograph for those who would like the detail.

HEIGHT CALCULATIONS 

(based on the Researchgate document)

In the image to the right above, I have added a ruler set to measure the height of the man's head.  In this scaled-down image, you can see that the ruler indicates the man's head measures 7 cm from top to chin. By multiplying the head height by 8,  we arrive at the scaled-down full height of the man 70 X 8 = 560mm

The man's head should measure 1/8th of his full height thus to arrive at the man's actual full height we divide the 5 feet 11 inches (1803.4 mm) known height by 8 giving us a head height of 225.45 mm. which by default gives us our full height of 1803.4 mm (5 feet 11 inches)

To calculate the scale for this image we simply divide the actual full height by the scaled-down photograph height as follows:

1803.4 divided by 560 = 3.22 our scale for this image is therefore 1:3.22

This exercise had two purposes, firstly to verify the height of the Somerton Man and secondly, to prove the validity of the Researchgate technique. Both objectives have been met.

Background

The previous post covered the technique with which we could accurately calculate the height of Carl ‘Charlie Webb. This exercise aimed to prove or disprove the claim made by Professor Abbot that the man named ‘Charlie’ in the 'family group of 4' photograph was the ‘Somerton Man’.  The technique relied upon the known height of Roy Webb, Charlie’s brother, obtained from his military service records clearly showed, both written and in a photograph taken at the time that Roy had a height of 5 feet 8 inches. Subsequently, and based on Roy’s height we calculated Charlie’s height which was also put at 5 feet 8 inches +/- 1 inch. That result disproved Professor Abbot’s claim regarding Charlie as the Somerton Man’s height is known to have been 5 feet 11 inches, approximately 3 inches taller than the man Charlie shown in the family group photograph.

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Friday 8 March 2024

THE SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY. CARL WEBB WAS 5 FEET 8 INCHES TALL....THE EVIDENCE... HE CANNOT BE THE SOMERTON MAN...UPDATED 9th MARCH 24




The Carl Webb story has always had a ring of doubt around it, for me at least. 

Something was very wrong about several things including the ear shape not matching that of the Somerton Man and the facial features had the same issue, Carl Webb's face simply does not match the face of the Somerton Man.

Recently I watched a documentary on Aerial reconnaissance from WW2. Specifically, this documentary was about German V2 and V1 rocket sites.  I watched and listened as the movie progressed and the 'mechanics' of the technology were explained.

One aspect was how they calculated the wingspan of a small 'aircraft' on the ground. Via intelligence operatives, they already knew the wingspan of this particular aircraft type, it happened to be a V1 rocket, and that wingspan was 20 feet. The aerial photography showed several objects on the ground and a sharp-eyed WRAF lady picked out a small object, it had an aircraft shape and she was able to calculate the wingspan of 20 feet.

The calculation was made based on the height of the aircraft camera from the ground surface. The term used is 'photogammetry'.

In a way, we are in a similar position with the photograph of the Webb family which includes Roy, Charles, and Grandpa While Grandma is as important as all of them are, we will not include her height details as they're still being determined. However, we do know the height of Roy Webb, 5 feet 8 inches,  and I believe that somewhere we have the height of Grandpa Webb. Carl Webb the man claimed by Professor Abbott to be the Somerton Man, would be, according to the Professor, 5 feet 11 inches tall. This latter measurement applied to Carl Webb which we are about to prove needs to be corrected.

Using Roy Webb's military photograph shown here:


I have actually set for our purposes the datum point as being the top of Roy’s head. This would make Roy closer to 5 feet 8 inches as shown in this photograph. I am using millimeters as the metric.

ROY WEBB METRICS

1. Roy Webb's Height as per this image is 5 feet 8 inches = 1727.2 mm

2. This height was applied to the family image and, as per the photo-reconnaissance example, the height of the object, in this case, Roy's head, was taken and measured on the image, being 52 mm from the top of the head to the point of his chin.

3. The next step is to use the helpful tool found on the Researchgate website that shows how a person's overall height relates to the height of their head which is estimated to be a factor of 8 times head height to full height.:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Body-proportions-the-height-of-a-person-is-about-eight-times-his-her-heads-height-the_fig2_224674276

Obviously, the family photograph at the head of this post is much smaller consequently Roy's head measurement of 52 mm needs to be 'scaled' against the actual height such that the 52 mm on the photograph becomes 215.875 mm in reality which gives us a scale of 4.15:1

So, multiplying the 215.875 mm by eight as described in the Researchgate example, we get our 1727.2 mm, Roy's actual height as explained earlier.

CARL WEBB METRICS

 1. Using the same formulae as we did for Roy Webb, we multiply Carl's family photograph head measurement of 52 mm by 8 which equals 416 mm.

2. Next we need to apply the scale factor of 4.15, thus 416 mm X 4.15 which gives us a total of 1726.2 mm (rounded) or 5 feet 8 inches, this is Carl's height based on the family photograph. 

3. This measurement would make Carl the same height as Roy, as in 5 feet 8 inches. There is a question as to whether Carl and Roy are effectively standing next to each other or whether Carl is a little further back than Roy. This is about the distance between the camera and the subject. An allowance should be made for that factor and I suggest .5 to 1 inch in additional height for Carl. That makes Carl 5 feet 9 inches tall.

I am more than happy to accept input on this technique, all that anyone needs to do is to test it. 

Given that the Researchgate method is correct we have shown that Carl Webb was 5 feet 8 inches tall. The Somerton Man was 5 feet 11 inches tall.

This calls into question the claim that Carl Webb was the Somerton Man.



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Wednesday 6 March 2024

THE TAMAM SHUD CASE: AND SO DETECTIVE, WHAT DO YOU THINK HAS HAPPENED HERE?.... A COMPARISON PHOTOGRAPH & MULTIPLE NEW CLUES? UPDATE 2, 7th March 2024

...Facts are powerful. They can change minds, inform decisions, and lead to progress. So, let's focus on the truth - first impressions and just the facts...

In December of 1948, a man was found dead on a South Australian beach not far from the sites of Atomic and other weapons development centers and at a time when the world was teetering on the brink of war again. And in Australia, the future of the country itself was under threat of a Communist-inspired insurrection. A civil war was on the cards. 

This man had no means of identification on him and just a few items including two tickets, one train and one bus, a packet of Army Club cigarettes which contained 7 of the Kensitas brand, a part box of matches, two aluminum combs, a part packet of 'Juicy Fruit' chewing gum and sixpence in coins; labels had been removed from his clothing, and an autopsy revealed that he had been poisoned but the type of poison was never clearly identified. The examining doctor who performed the autopsy made a chart of the man's teeth, it recorded the fact that 18 of his teeth were missing.

And now let's add more facts to this picture. A copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is later found not far from that beach. When the book was examined, indentations on its back page were revealed. The indentations formed the shape of handwritten letters arranged in 5 lines, other markings on the page did not appear to have any particular meaning. The letters were believed to be a code of some kind.

Two telephone numbers were also found on the back page of the book which were written in 'really tiny lettering and under the code' according to a Detective who took part in the original investigation. One of those numbers belonged to a nurse who happened to live minutes away from where the man was found. The same nurse when questioned said that she had given a copy of the Rubaiyat to an Australian Army Lieutenant some 3 years earlier whilst she was employed as a trainee nurse in Sydney. This Army lieutenant was later to agree that he had been in Intelligence during his Army service. 

One last clue is that sometime after the autopsy and before the inquest held into the man's death, a mall piece of paper was found tightly rolled up and pushed well down into a secret fob pocket located on the inside of the waistband of the trousers the man was wearing when he was found. The two words typeset onto this slip of paper were TAMAM SHUD. The shape of this slip which had been torn out of its original page of a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. was found to match the shape of a torn section in a copy of a book of that title that was handed to the Police by an unnamed local businessman not long before the inquest was held.

You have just read the core facts of the Somerton Man case. Now imagine that you are a seasoned detective who had the experience of serving through the years of World War 2, (this was a time when State Police through their 'Special Branch operations, worked alongside Australia's intelligence services.) Or perhaps you are a Special Branch officer who was in regular contact with the Intelligence services.

What would be your "First thoughts." about these circumstances and facts? What do you think may have taken place? Your first thoughts are important, they are unpolluted by scenarios and theories, and first impressions really count. Now prepare 5 questions you would ask of those involved...

UPDATE: IMAGE ADDED...
A Result...
In the earlier post, we looked at the core evidence in the case, essentially the core facts. I have received a few responses, and one was quite interesting in that it quoted and attached an image from a 1949 article from the 'TRUTH' newspaper. Sadly it doesn't provide a link or a date and a quick search does not show any results for that headline. I am happy to include that here as the article's date could be significant.

Having said that, all is not lost. I followed the link that led me nowhere but I found an article with an image that might contain two new clues.

1.
Here's the image below, let me know if you can spot them:



In the image marked 2 above, I have 'flipped' the photograph of the man in the Truth article and placed it alongside the Somerton Man post-autopsy image to demonstrate a single fact, the fact is that in the Truth image marked '1' immediately above this image, it seems we are actually looking at the Somerton Man's left ear.

In the image marked '2', I have placed it so that you can see the differences that substantiate the claim that we now may have a photograph of the left ear. For this comparison, I carefully placed each image such that various points on the head of both images were properly aligned, and the nose, the chin, and the eyes were lined up and measured.

We can show differences between the left and right ear as you would expect. Most people would know that our ears are often very similar, they are not perfectly matched, as is the case in these images. The differences are as follows:

1. The right ear shown in the autopsy photo, is slightly lower on the head than in the press photo from Truth newspaper.

2. The width of the right ear on the autopsy photo is approximately 3 mm wider at its widest point compared to the Truth photograph which is of the left ear of the Somerton Man.

3. Interestingly, the facial detail of the post-autopsy photograph is noticeably different. That could be the result of the 'reconstructed' image created by Police photographer Jimmy Durham mentioned in the press on December 4th, 1948

4. The bump on the forehead of the post-autopsy photograph is not seen in the press photograph. That could be the result of either, the reconstruction work done by Jimmy Durham or alternatively, it may have been done by the staff at Truth. I noticed that they had given the subject a decent hairstyle.

Once again, here is the photograph I believe to be of the Somerton man taken from the left, showing his left ear. This is the first time this has been shown. It was always there waiting to be found.


The question is, Why is all of this important?

It's important because we can now better compare the Somerton Man's left ear with Carl Webb's.

I need to qualify the claim made here. We are dealing with an old press photograph and, apart from the fact it was published by the Truth newspaper which has something of a chequered history it is a little hazy, I was careful in doing the alignment of the two images to ensure that the sizing and positioning is correct as I could make it.

It is reasonable to assume that there were other photographs taken of the man before Jimmy Durham's reconstruction work and that the photographs shown in the press at the time were the unaltered ones.

I will organise a video showing various ratios and comparisons and post it here when time permits.

Another interesting aspect of this latest research relates to the height of the Somerton Man. Studies suggest that there is a ratio of 1:8 between the head height of a subject and their full height. In the case of the 'Somerton Man' we know that his height on the slab was 5 feet 11 inches. His head height would therefore be 71 inches divided by 8 which would make his head height approximately 8.875 inches. Here is a link to a site with more information on the subject:


https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Body-proportions-the-height-of-a-person-is-about-eight-times-his-her-heads-height-the_fig2_224674276

When it comes to Carl Webb and family photographs, there are some heights known, including Roy Webb and Carl's father. Perhaps someone could take on the task of assessing Carl's height based on his imputed face height?

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Friday 1 March 2024

THE SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY: THE BOXALL RUBAIYAT WAS A SPECIAL PURPOSE BOOK....


.... A SPECIAL PURPOSE BOOK....


Just what is a 'Special Purpose Book'? The simple answer is that this book, widely known as the Boxall Rubaiyat, was made specifically for its purpose and its purpose in this case was to be used as a training aid for those engaged in the business of espionage.

A big statement? Yes, you could say that. But is there any evidence to back it up? And again the answer is 'yes' and you're actually looking at it.

Before the Stuart Littlemore interview, an image of this page from the book showed that the name 'JESTYN' was covered over with a piece of paper and some sticky taoe to hold that paper in place.

At some time after the interview, Alf or someone else removed that paper, and in the process, they tore away a layer from the paper of that page. You can see it quite clearly as outlined in orange.

That can only mean that the paper of the pages in the book was coated, in fact, the core paper had a minute pattern printed on it, if you look closely you will see markings inside the marked area. That pattern got there from special rollers over which the paper was processed and which left those marks. The next step in the process is to apply the coating. This was made from either a wax or an adhesive of some kind. It provided a degree of water resistance and added strength/ toughness to the pages. 

The paper was in fact what is known today as a 'security' paper. In the war years, it was used extensively for in-the-field message pads, carrier pigeon notes, etc. It had an added benefit in that the background 'water markings' served to obscure to an extent any hidden writings or indentations on the paper.

As far as I can ascertain, security paper was not used for normal book production during WW2. As it happens, I have a copy of the same edition of the Rubaiyat, and the paper is definitely not coated. Coated paper is smoother and less porous, not necessarily glossy, my copy is quite rough due I think to the significant paper shortages in the war years.

Here's an unmarked version of the Jestyn signature shown at the head of this post:


I have darkened this image to provide some contrast and make viewing the torn area and the markings within it that much easier.


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Wednesday 28 February 2024

SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY TAMAM SHUDL VENONA, ENORMOZ (MANHATTAN PROJECT) AND PAVEL FEDOSIMOV

 ...FEDOSIMOV (MAJ) NAMED IN HIGH LEVEL
CONTACT WITH ATOM SPIES...




Reviewing the posts that covered the man PAVEL IVANOVICH FEDOSIMOV a New York-based Soviet Diplomat who was to disappear in August 1948, I came across this VENONA cable dated 12th November 1944. This casts Fedosimov in an entirely different light, here he is in discussions regarding THEODORE HALL  the young spy who is regarded as the key figure in the ATOM SPYstory even though he was just 19 years of age.

If you follow on from the Fedosimov mention, you will see a cover name BEK. This is a man known as Sergey Kurnakov aka Sergei N. Kournakoff. A one-time Tsarist Cavalry officer, Kurnakof relocated to the USA and became a prominent figure in the American Communist Party, at one time working for GOLOS Publishing. For those who have read on the subject, GOLOS was known as a 'shoemaker' that is someone who had great expertise in forging identity documents. Golos supposedly died in 1943 but there is a question mark over that event. His name appears in one of the partial decrypts of the Somerton Man code page,


You can read more details here: 


The Fedosimov story has been covered at length on this blog, he disappeared in August 1948 never to be seen again although his name cropped up numerous times after that date, there have been no photographs found of this man after the 1947 image I was able to locate and purchase.

For the record, renowned US author and historian James Earle Haynes believed that FEDOSIMOV may be a Pseudonym. 


Given the serious doubts about the Carl Webb claim, Fedosimov is still a candidate but there are other reasons for posting this article at this time.

This link will take you to more posts about Pavel Fedosimov:



The image of the VENONA cable comes from this YouTube video:



Some wise and very informed words from UK Author NIGEL WEST in the video...

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Sunday 25 February 2024

SOMERTON MAN: A 'PRECIOUS TRUTH'?

 


..Apart from this famous gesture (which he apparently made by mistake when this photo was taken), Churchill was renowned for his sharp wit and great quotes. The quote in question today is regarding Truth..

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

For those who believe that Australia and other countries were not at 'war' in 1948, perhaps you would do well to rethink that position.

The war was very much a Cold War, a full-on arms race coupled with an intelligence war without parallel in those years and, in Australia at least, rumblings of an insurrection organised, coordinated, and paid for by the Soviets in league with the Communist Party Of Australia.

There were casualties, many died in this war, mostly discretely and without fanfare, a Spy Versus Spy affair that went on for some years.

Those who have spent any time reading through the Milliers Hat, the story that it is said gave Ian Flen=ming the idea for Operation Mincemeat, could draw some but not that many parallels with that operation and the case of the Somerton Man. The relatively recently released files by UK Archives provide quite some detail but sadly it is not a digitised offering.

Amongst things that we may learn from it include the comparative ease in which a Coroner and a pathologist were drawn in to 'help' with the provision of a body and all that that entailed, the meticulous attention to detail in setting up the documentation that was to accompany Glyndwr on his final journey was astounding, the work was so good that the case didn't have a hint of being an organised 'litter' job. 


In common were the two bus tickets, the matches, the cigarettes, and small change we can tick off. No watch for our Somerton Man nor a Love Letter from a lady named Pam. But the essentials were there except the missing soap and a flannel.

A comment was made about the condition of the body after it had been kept on ice for around 3 months, apparently, there were several power cuts and thus there would have been defrosting and refreezing that would have had an effect on the condition of the body which was meant to have been so bad that rumours spread amongst those in the know that the body was swapped at the last minute. That raises the question brought up in an earlier post as to whether or not there were power cuts that would have affected the condition of the body of the Somerton Man during its stay at the morgue.

One story is that Glyndwr's sister turned up to claim the body, her story was that Glyndwr had been mentally ill for some time. Shades of Paul Lawson's thoughts on the Kangaroo Island connection and the SS Warrawee, the Captain of that ship was a certain Captain Harkness I understand,

What can we get from this example? The involvement of officialdom during the war years, the clever and well-thought-out creation of the cover story including the pocket and suitcase litter. An unknown/undetectable cause of death, in Glyndwr's case he had taken rat poison which, according to accounts would be hard to detect in the body after death.

Having spent some years studying the SM case and having read widely on the subject added to my own earlier Police experience, whatever actions the Police may or may not have taken were planned actions. They had a job to do and they did it without question. Bear in mind that these men who were involved in the case had just come through WW2 and their job was to be the front line for Intelligence services who were well truly stretched in those years. It's well and good for the armchair gurus to make their rather unpleasant and often nasty comments about these men, but these same gurus were not there at the time and do not speak from experience. Relatives and descendants of these men read the blogs and we all should respect their feelings.

A last thought, Cholmondeley, a senior member of the XX team, remained in SOE until retirement in 1962. No doubt his expertise would have been called on whenever a body was to be used.



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Monday 19 February 2024

THE SOMERTON MAN TAMAM SHUD : THE MICROCODE BREAKTHROUGH, AS SIMPLE AS IT CAN BE...UPDATED…

 

...CONCEALED MICROCODE REVEALED
SIMPLY AND EFFECTIVELY...
READ ON...




Believe it or not, the microcode is hidden in the above image...

This year marks 14 years of involvement in the Somerton Man case. The first 2 years plus were spent on the original Adelaide University Facebook page. It was during that time that the whole microcode issue came to the surface and I spent much time attempting to convince Professor Abbot and others of its existence, which was a pointless exercise based on the level of ignorance and inability to see past their preconceived ideas on the nature of the case. In other words, what I had found would upset the applecart and their agenda would be undermined. Welcome to the real world.

Don't get me wrong here this post is not about calling the detractors and nay-sayers stupid or ignorant, I really don't have time for that. The purpose today is to show everyone just how simple it now is to uncover concealed microcode from beneath printer ink. In fact, all that is needed is to be found at the foot of this post...

In the image at the head of this page, there are 5 listed instances where the microcode may be hidden, if it's there it will be beneath one or more of the blue lines that you can see. the question is, is it there?

Yes, it is there and here it is for you to view at your leisure:



The image above is the negative of the image in the header at the top of this page. Four of the numbered instances have short descriptions alongside them, the line numbered 2. is the one with the question mark, it does not give a description for a specific reason.

Here's the negative of the result from one of the other printers in which I used a yellow coloured mark over:




here are the individual images shown as black'white and also black yellow to make it easier to see the darker written characters:

1.  This image below shows the microcode as 'INK OVER PENCIL'. The code was handwritten in pencil and then covered with a layer of ink. you can see the code in a grey colour within the marked area. It is confusing at first but once you see it as grey it is easy to see, you can't unsee it. The numbers are 123419 :





2. The trap! There is a question mark alongside this marked-over area because there is no code beneath it. This was done to demonstrate that whilst you might see darker patches, you need clear definable shapes as in letters and/or numbers to confirm the presence of code and those characters need to follow the shape of the mark over:




3. In this image the example is of an inked-over area with the code written in pencil on top of the ink, hence 'PENCIL ON INK'. Once again the characters that you're looking for are those in a light grey against the white background being X 12365:




4. In marked area 4, you can see that we have created typical INK H concealment, a sandwich if you like. First, a layer of ink is applied then the code is added in pencil and then, to minimise the risk of detection from a bright light for example. another layer of ink is added to complete the concealment hence the label INK/PENCIL/INK.  Interestingly, the additional layer of ink gives the code letters and numbers a 3D appearance, 123 XCA:




5. In this final example the format is INK ON INK. A little more difficult to find but it can be detected with more effort, in this case, we at least can see some discernible shapes that tell us that there is something there but just what it is, is the issue. I know what it is simply because I put it there but you will have to try and guess it at least for now. In practice, another recovery method is used. A clue for you, the previous examples are of pencil on ink whereas in this example we have INK ON INK...





To carry out and complete this test, I used inkjet printers, 3 of them in fact. two were loaded with pigment-based inks whilst one had a black pigment ink and then dye-based colours. All three are Epson models with one, an XP970, being used for quality photographs and the other two used for office and business tasks. In other words, these are standard inkjet printers. The other components needed are a decent camera and bright sunlight. And that's it. Couldn't be simpler. Over the years camera and printer technologies have leapt ahead and that has made this task so much easier that even a child could do it.

To test the example for yourself, you could download the image at the head of this post and then turn it negative. If you don't have the facility to do that then several online tools will turn an image negative for you and for free.

Here's one:

When you get there, scroll down the column to the left and choose 'invert colours' you can download the result from that page.

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Thursday 15 February 2024

MICROCODE:THE EVIDENCE, PROCESS AND PHOTOGRAPHS...

 

...Jestyn Signature from the Boxall Rubaiyat...

Originally posted February 8th. 2016

This post, slightly modified and updated from the original, shows the test and results of recovering microcode details from a photograph of a photograph that was then scanned, and still, we can recover the code hidden by ink just as occurred in 1949 when the letters of the original code page were inked over.

By way of background, the original Police photograph of the code page was taken using Glass Plate photography, this method is known for its very fine detail.


The letters found as indentations on the original photograph of the code page was not inked over. It would have been a negative image in the first instance as was the case with 'Glass Plate' photographs. Thus it was that having inked over the indentations, another photograph was taken 

 An original image would have been kept on file and a black and white photograph was kept with copies being sent to the press including the Adelaide Advertiser who kept that copy until 1997 when they digitized all their photographs including the Somerton Man code page image. It was scanned and set to 400 DPI for printing purposes, 300 DPI is regarded as the norm for a quality photograph. 

It is a copy of that file from the Adelaide Advertiser which was given to me by ex-Detective Sergeant Gerry Feltus that I have used in other posts to show the presence of micro-written codes. In this post, you will see the process I used to recover the hidden codes.


A SIMPLE METHOD OF REVEALING HIDDEN WRITING



This demonstration shows just how the details of hidden writing be recovered from a photograph To be more precise,

You will see that whoever it was that inked over the original photograph would have seen what was really there before it was released for the public to see. 

The methods I have used are based on the exact methods used by SOE and other agents to hide and then later retrieve concealed messages, the one difference being that they were working with the originals whilst here, we are working with photographs. This particular method is that which was described in a 1943 SOE manual, it was called INK H. This method involved the use of cursive written words which had very small penciled code added to the individual letters of a word or words and which were then inked over

At the risk of boring the many who have read this here before, the process was devastatingly simple, write normal-sized letters in ink, add microcode in pencil in some or all of those letters, and add another layer of ink to all of the letters to properly conceal the microcode and that's stage 1. The reason the second layer of ink is added is that if you did not do that and a sharp-eyed enemy used oblique lighting on the page containing your letters/code, they would pick up the tell-tale glint from the pencil marks. 

The additional layer of ink prevents that. The final step in this clandestine method of communication was for the recipient to 'develop' the message which they did by immersing the page containing the letters and code into a strong, 14%, solution of Sodium Hypochlorite, bleach in other words. In those days a 14% solution was normal, today the norm is considered 10% for less for household use, and 14% is known as industrial strength. This immersion had the effect of gradually removing the ink but leaving the tiny penciled code visible. 

Step 1. Penciled code inked over, this is a photograph of  a photograph of
the original demonstration image:





Step 2. Immersed in bleach for about 15 seconds, code began to show.

















Step 3. 1-minute immersion. You can see how the ink is breaking away and dissolving leaving the penciled code coming into view. Notice how dark it is?






















Step 4. 3 minutes immersed, the code is now clearly visible and this is the photograph:



Step 5. Using the photographic image above, the code is again inked over, the nib on this pen is around .7 mm in width. Having made an extensive study of the page for some time now, I think that the actual marking of the larger letters on the original code page photograph was done with a brush, a very skilled job:



Step 6. The image is of the revealed code after it had been inked over in the picture below. You can see the ruled edge showing sub 1 mm for most of the coded letters/numbers. It is this picture, the photo of the photo, that we will use to develop the code and make it visible again:



Step 7. Image from step 6 is immersed in bleach, the image shows the effects of 2 minutes after immersion:



Step 8. The image is developed and the code once again becomes visible. Please bear in mind that, even though the code page was written many years ago, the tools and techniques used by Police and Intelligence services were extremely good. Glass plate photographs were capable of producing extraordinarily fine details and the use of various chemicals, including Iodine vapour,  would reveal every single fibre in a document and if it had been modified in any way.






This image is a little hazy but legible, and with more time I would have improved the quality but I think you can get the picture.

What this post did  8 years ago and has done again today is to clearly demonstrate that by using a digital image of another image in fact the final image above was a scan taken at 400 DPI, you are indeed able to recover concealed code/messages or signatures. And the Somerton Man documents contain such concealments.

This is exactly what I have been able to do with the Somerton Man code page as well as the torn piece and Verse 70 from Jestyn's book inscription to Alf Boxall.

this demonstration underscores the claim that the Somerton Man was involved in clandestine communications and espionage.


NOTE: The printer used for this demonstration was a Canon Pixma model, an inkjet printer and it was set to fine-quality printing. Bleedproff paper was the stock used. A Laser printer will not produce these results. Dye-based inks produce a better quality outcome. I have since used Epson and Brother inkjet printers for the same demonstration with similar results.


I would like to acknowledge the impetus for writing this post received from JP who commented in a very constructive manner back in 2016.


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