Somerton Man: He May Have Died on 30th November But When Was He Poisoned?

It's an intriguing question. From the outset it does seem that everyone, myself included, simply assumed that the Somerton Man had been poisoned during his short stay in Adelaide.

But what if that wasn't the case? What if he had in fact been poisoned before he arrived in Adelaide on that train? There is reason to think that this may well have been the case.

Let me relate to you how this option came about. It was a discussion regarding an aspect of the Autopsy, in the report mention is made of the enlarged spleen, almost 3 times its proper size and it also spoke of how other organs were engorged. It was these issues that caused Cleland to reach the conclusion that SM had been poisoned and that he thought it was Digitalis.

One of the particpants in the discussion on this matter made mention of the fact that it can take 3 days and more for a spleen to reach the size that SMSs had. Consider that very carefully, the enlarged spleen was associated with digitalis poisoning and the Somerton Man was found to have died around Midnight on the 30th November, if this is true then he had been poisoned between 1 and 3 days before he arrived in Adelaide.

The question is this, would a man carefully pack his bags and hop on a train to Adelaide and then on the way decide to take his own life? It doesn't seem likely, especially when you add to this the information on the likelihood of a male of SMs age ending his life with Poison which calculated out as more than 150000 to 1.

For me this information now makes it all but 100% positive that the Somerton Man did not take his own life and that he was probably poisoned sometime before he arrived in Adelaide.

When you take all of the circumstances into account including the most recent posts made here about the number of incidents were evidence was 'overlooked' and the nature of the code page, the book and the torn piece in his pocket, the balance of probability is clear, the man was murdered and he was involved in Espionage.