Case file · High strangeness
Somerton Man (Tamam Shud)
On 1 December 1948 an unidentified man was found dead on Somerton Beach, Adelaide, with a scrap reading 'Tamám Shud' torn from a copy of the Rubáiyát, which held a code never broken.
1948 CE · -35.00, 138.51 · status: explained
The account
Spy theories surrounded the case for decades. In 2022 DNA analysis identified him as Carl 'Charles' Webb, a Melbourne electrical engineer; the cause of death and the code remain unsettled.