What Happened
On December 1st 1948, a man was found on Somerton Beach just south of Adelaide, Australia. He was found in a suit and polished shoes with his head leaning against the wall. The police suspected that he was poisoned, but when they did the autopsy, there was no trace of poison in his system. The man had no ID, no wallet and had all the tags cut off his clothing. When they tried to fingerprint him to identify the man, his fingerprints came back as unidentifiable. The police then put his picture out for everyone to see, hoping that someone would be able to identify him but no one could.
4 Months Later
The police found a sewn in pocket in the waistband of the Somerton man's trousers. Inside the pocket, they found a rolled up piece of paper from a book called the “Rubaiyat”. On the paper were the printed words “Taman Shud” which in english translates to “it is ended”.
8 Months Later
A man walked into the police station with his copy of the “Rubaiyat” and had a bizarre story. Just after the Somerton man was found, a man found a copy of the “Rubaiyat” in the back of his car. He simply moved on with the day and thought nothing about the book until he saw an article in the newspaper about the police looking for the book. The book has part of the back page torn out and when the police held the rolled up piece of paper from the somerton man's pocket to it, it matched perfectly. In the back of the book, there was a phone number and a code. When the police called the phone number, a woman named Jessica Thompson picked up the phone. She lived nearby and knew the area, but she denied knowing the Somerton man. This was odd considering when the police interviewed her she couldn’t stop crying. She also almost fainted when she was shown a plaster cast of the somerton man's body. During the interview, Jessica did tell the police that she gave her copy of the “Rubaiyat'' to a man named Alf Boxall, but when the police had asked him about it, he still had the book.
It was later discovered that Jessica had a son. Even though she denied knowing the Somerton man, her son looked exactly like him. This made police think that she was lying and did know the Somerton man and that they were possibly married. They also believed the Somerton man was the father to her son.
My Theory
I believe that the Somerton man was a government agent of some sort. I think that Jessica was his wife and I think that she was informed to act like she didn’t know him in case something ever happened to him. I think she was told to do that because it was the Somerton man’s way of protecting his wife and his son. I believe the Somerton man was killed by a rival of some sort.
