We think the main takeaway of this article might be that you shouldn't go to Australia. As if the disappearances of Frederick Valentich and the three Beaumont children weren't enough, there was the appearance of a middle-aged man on the shores of Somerton beach (near Adelaide again! So especially don't go there to sunbathe) at 6:30 am, 1 December 1948, who have still yet to be identified. Over fifty years later, and with some serious police investigation, and we're still no closer to finding out who this poor unfortunate was. What makes this one all the stranger is the clues that were found about his person, like the puzzle pieces at the start of a crime novel: the body had an unlit cigarette behind his left ear, a half-smoked ciggy stuck in the right collar of his coat, a used bus ticket from the city to St Leonards in Glenelg, an unused second-class rail ticket from the city to Henley Beach, a comb, a half-empty packet of chewing gum,a box of matches and - most enigmatically - a scrap torn from the a collection of Persian poetry featuring the phrase taman shud, which roughly translates as "ended" or "finished". There were sightings of a man similar looking to the body from days leading up to his death and discovery, but none of them much helped in figuring out who the heck he was, or what the heck happened to him. Even the discovery of a suitcase belonging to the man, found at Adelaide train station, failed to produce any serious leads. The mysterious scrap of paper also featured the symbols seen above, a code that's also yet to be cracked. The Taman Shud case is just mystery upon mystery, with no answers or conclusions. Scuttelbutt at the time was that it was simply a suicide, whilst others bought into the Cold War tensions of the area and insisted he was a spy. Even recent attempts at DNA testing, having exhumed the body, have come up with nothing. It seems the mystery man will remain ever so.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
