Somerton Man Code
A man found dead on an Adelaide beach in 1948, later identified as Carl Webb by independent researchers in 2022 — and letter groups whose meaning remains unconfirmed.
Unresolved inscription; a 2022 genealogical identification proposal is separate from deciphering these letters.
Interactive Exhibit
Try a substitution: type a single letter A–Z and a candidate plaintext letter to substitute throughout the inscription. The widget redraws the four letter-groups with your guess in place. Track B — exploration only.
MRGOABABD
MTBIMPANETP
MLIABOAIAQC
ITTMTSAMSTGAB
Why This Matters
On 1 December 1948 an unidentified man was found dead on Somerton beach near Adelaide. In a fob pocket was the printed scrap 'Tamám Shud' ('it is ended'), torn from the last page of a copy of Edward FitzGerald's translation of Omar Khayyám's Rubáiyát. The book itself was later found, and inside its back cover, faintly pencilled, was a sequence of letters: MRGOABABD · MTBIMPANETP · MLIABOAIAQC · ITTMTSAMSTGAB. The letters have never been deciphered.
In July 2022 Colleen Fitzpatrick and Derek Abbott announced a genealogical identification as Carl “Charles” Webb using DNA from hair preserved in the death mask. That research announcement should be distinguished from an official police or coronial finding. It does not establish what the associated letters mean, or even that they form a cipher.
The transcription is uncertain and the sample is short. Its frequency profile alone cannot establish its language, a one-time pad, a book cipher or an acrostic. A proposed interpretation needs independent evidence, not merely a phrase that can be made to fit.
The case illustrates the distinction between identifying a person and interpreting an inscription. The 2022 researchers’ identification is a separate claim from any alleged solution to these letters.
| Hall | Hall XII · Unsolved |
| Region | Adelaide, South Australia |
| Era | Post-WWII Australia · 1948 |
| Discipline | Unexplained inscription; cipher status uncertain |
| Track | B (substitution playground) |
| Modern echo | DNA forensics + cryptanalysis · unsolved cold cases |