The Somerton Man – Australia’s Unknown Dead

This episode investigates the haunting mystery of the Somerton Man, an unidentified man found dead on Somerton Beach, near Adelaide, in 1948. Well-dressed but carrying no identification, with all clothing labels removed, he left behind only one cryptic clue — a scrap of paper hidden in his pocket that read “Tamám Shud,” Persian for “It is finished.”A torn copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was later found in a nearby car, containing a coded message and a local woman’s phone number. She denied knowing the man but reacted with visible fear when shown his face. Autopsy reports revealed signs consistent with poisoning, though no toxin was ever found.Decades of speculation linked the case to Cold War espionage, forbidden love, and suicide, until DNA testing in 2022 identified the man as Carl “Charles” Webb, an electrical engineer from Melbourne. Yet the reasons for his death — and the strange code that led to it — remain unsolved.The Somerton Man’s story endures as one of the world’s most haunting modern mysteries — a tale of secrecy, love, and final words that still whisper across the sands of time: It is finished.