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  • - [Voiceover] Did you ever hear the story about the man

  • on Somerton Beach?

  • - [Voiceover] No.

  • - [Voiceover] It's one of the most mysterious

  • and creepy cold cases of all time pretty much.

  • - [Voiceover] OK.

  • - [Voiceover] So, so the time is December, 1948

  • in Adelaide, Australia.

  • - [Voiceover] All right.

  • - [Voiceover] A body is found on Somerton Beach

  • dressed immaculately in a suit with polished shoes,

  • and his head leaning against a wall.

  • The suspected cause of death was heart failure,

  • but more likely poisoning.

  • However, the autopsy showed no trace of poison.

  • The last thing he had eaten was a pasty,

  • which I'm assuming is Australian speak for a pastry.

  • - [Voiceover] You mean, he didn't eat the little thing

  • that comes on like women's nipples?

  • - [Voiceover] What the fuck are you--

  • - [Voiceover] That's what a pasty is.

  • - [Voiceover] There was no wallet, no ID.

  • All the name tags on any of his clothes

  • had been snipped off--

  • - [Voiceover] Oh, that's weird.

  • So far I've been like, OK, this dude is just like

  • not that crazy.

  • - [Voiceover] Pretty much the story is

  • guy found dead on the beach,

  • and hold on, it gets fucking weird.

  • Oh yeah, and then the fingerprints

  • that they took from him, unidentifiable.

  • The guy was off the grid.

  • Nobody could identify the body.

  • They put an ad in the newspapers.

  • - [Voiceover] Well I mean, are your

  • fingerprints in a database?

  • - [Voiceover] Don't they do it when you're born?

  • - [Voiceover] No!

  • - [Voiceover] Are you sure?

  • - [Voiceover] They do not fingerprint you when you're born.

  • - [Voiceover] Either way,

  • his fingerprints were unidentifiable.

  • - [Voiceover] OK.

  • - [Voiceover] And the weird thing is, it was on the news

  • of just people saying, "Do you know who this is?"

  • And people came, lots of people from around the world

  • came to look at the body.

  • And they couldn't identify it.

  • So they just didn't know who he was.

  • - [Voiceover] (laughing) How many is lots of people?

  • People are taking selfies with the body.

  • - [Voiceover] Yeah, this is 1948, so uh--

  • - [Voiceover] Oh, you didn't, left out that part.

  • - [Voiceover] Oh, I said that at the very beginning.

  • - [Voiceover] Does it get weirder,

  • 'cause it doesn't seem that weird.

  • - [Voiceover] All right, fast forward to

  • about four months later.

  • They find in his trousers a sewn in pocket

  • in his waistband.

  • It's like a secret pocket.

  • And inside the pocket they found a rolled up

  • little piece of paper that they believed to be

  • from a rare book called the Rubaiyat.

  • The piece of paper had the printed words,

  • "Tamam Shud" on it,

  • which translates to it is ended.

  • So, maybe they thought, OK,

  • this could be a suicide, but who would--

  • - [Voiceover] No.

  • - [Voiceover] Who would kill themselves

  • with an untraceable poison?

  • - [Voiceover] Most people don't put their suicide notes

  • in secret pockets.

  • You want people to find it, right?

  • - [Voiceover] Anyway, so now they're searching

  • for this book, the Rubaiyat,

  • to match up to the piece of paper found

  • on the Somerton Man,

  • but they can't find it,

  • so they just bury the guy.

  • His body is taken a cast of,

  • so they could look at it later.

  • He's embalmed just, you know, to preserve him.

  • OK, so now we're eight months later

  • from when the body is found.

  • A man walks into the police station

  • with a copy of the Rubaiyat.

  • His story, by the way, is fucking bananas.

  • He claims that just after the body was found,

  • he found a book in his car

  • that he kept parked by Somerton Beach,

  • but at the time, he thought nothing of it

  • until he heard about the search in a newspaper article.

  • The book has part of the final page torn out,

  • and, sure enough, it fits the piece of paper

  • found on the Somerton Man.

  • That paper came from this book.

  • - [Voiceover] From that specific book?

  • - [Voiceover] From that specific book.

  • - [Voiceover] Like, that doesn't check out.

  • - [Voiceover] He goes, "Hey, I think I have that book

  • "you're looking for," eight months later.

  • - [Voiceover] Yeah, no.

  • - [Voiceover] So, they look at the book,

  • and there's a phone number in it

  • and some kind of strange code.

  • So we'll talk about the phone number first.

  • So the number leads them to this woman, Jessica Thompson.

  • - [Voiceover] OK.

  • - [Voiceover] Who, by the way, is nearby this area.

  • And when they interview her,

  • she's very evasive.

  • And apparently she was reportedly going to faint

  • when shown the bust of the man.

  • The whole interview she's just crying,

  • but she denies knowing him.

  • She did say that she gave the book,

  • the Rubaiyat, to a man named Alfred Boxall.

  • So they thought, oh Alfred Boxall,

  • maybe that's the name of the Somerton Man.

  • And unfortunately, Alfred Boxall

  • is actually still alive.

  • And he, not only that,

  • but he does have a copy of the Rubaiyat.

  • Later it was found that Jessica had a son.

  • They don't know who the father is,

  • but this son shares very similar

  • dental and ear similarities to the Somerton Man.

  • Now going to the code,

  • the code that was written in the book.

  • The code is even less helpful.

  • Today is still yet to be cracked--

  • - [Voiceover] How do we know it's a code?

  • - [Voiceover] Because it looks like a fucking code.

  • So, I mean, and that's pretty much the fucking

  • end of the story.

  • Like, and now there's just all these questions.

  • Like, who was the man?

  • They think maybe he may have been a spy.

  • - [Voiceover] If he's a spy,

  • I don't think it could be murder.

  • I don't think it'd be murder anyways

  • because you don't kill a person,

  • and then just leave them there.

  • Like, that's just the worst murder job ever.

  • - [Voiceover] Or the greatest.

  • I mean, technically it would be the greatest

  • 'cause we still don't know who did it,

  • or if he actually was murdered.

  • That sounds like a good murder.

  • A murder that's so good

  • that you don't even know he was murdered or not,

  • is to me a perfect murder.

  • - [Voiceover] Then we're done,

  • you know, we're done. - [Voiceover] (laughs)

  • - [Voiceover] We're done.

  • Great for making me mad.

  • You basically just told me a story with no ending,

  • a really good story, and then--

  • - [Voiceover] Well, I mean it has an ending,

  • it's just not the one you wanted to hear.

  • ("Desolate")

- [Voiceover] Did you ever hear the story about the man

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