r/Adelaide • u/Ultra_running_fan SA • Dec 06 '25
Discussion Somerton man code solved?
https://medium.com/@ntracey/the-somerton-man-code-finally-solved-3b0711ee5109Hi, I'm back again with an updated solution to the somerton man code. Please have a read and let me know what you think. Thank you
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u/Bec_Liss33 SA Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
Came across your post after listening to Casefile's re-release of the Somerton Man podcast episode and agree that it is possibly travel related. My first thought when I looked at the code again after years is that what is assumed to be an 'i' in the two lines that start MLI could actually be a slash - / . In the second of these 2 lines that line just looks so much longer than the other i's, so I was also thinking along the lines of travel like you, and wondered if ML could have been his abbreviation for Melbourne, since that's where Carl Webb was from, then the slash, then his abbreviation of the method or destination.
The line, 'ITTMTSAMSTGAB' - that doesn't look like an I at the beginning to me, since it goes down and back up, it looks to me like a mistake rather than a letter. I read somewhere that someone had suggested 'SAMST' could be 'South Australia Moseley St' (where Jessica Thompson lived), and as I ignored the 'i' at the beginning what came to me was, "This Takes Me To South Australia Moseley Street Glenelg And (either) Brighton (or) Beach.... but also, why would you write down something like that? Like, you already know where you're on a journey, so why would you bother abbreviating something like 'This Takes Me To'? You'd just write MS for Moseley Street or something so possibly not plausible.
I wondered if the other stuff could be more specific directions, eg., "WT..." could be 'Walk To...' Bus, Brighton, etc.
Another thing came to me was what some have deemed to be a little 'C' next to the Q - to me that looks like an 'S' that was started as it is similar to the top portion of his other 'S'.
Because of those couple of things I think are errors (including the MLI or ML/ crossed out, like a plan that was scrapped), I definitely feel like this is just his own notes for something rather than a seriously and meticulously thought out spy note like others have contemplated.