In December nineteen forty-eight, an unidentified man was found dead on a beach in Adelaide, Australia. Every label had been cut from his clothes. No one recognised him. No one reported him missing. Hidden in a secret pocket in his waistband was a tiny piece of paper torn from a rare edition of a Persian poetry collection. On it were two words: Tamam Shud. It is ended. The investigation led to a coded message that cryptographers have studied for over seventy years and never solved.

In this episode of 5 Minute Strange, we cover the strange details of the Somerton Man case — the missing identity, the concealed note, the uncracked code, and the phone number that led to a woman who denied knowing him but appeared frightened when police came to call. The Somerton Man was exhumed in twenty twenty-one for DNA analysis. A possible identification has been proposed. The code remains unbroken.

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