The corpse of an unknown man on the beach: Australia's oldest mystery

Almost 70 years ago, the body of a man washed up on Australian beaches but no one knew who at that time.

The question haunted investigators for nearly a decade: who is that man, time traveler or spy?

One morning in December 1948, a corpse of a man was discovered on the coast of Somerton, Australia, dressed in suits, ties and some items. Nobody knows who the man is; investigators did not find any missing or refugees who died.The story of Somerton becomes one of Australia's oldest mysteries.

Now, after nearly seven decades, something has been discovered in the DNA of the corpse. Investigators hope that, at least they can give him a name.

"DNA will help find out who this mysterious man is , " said Fitzpatrick, an identification expert in California. "We are getting closer to the answer."

A secret man.

Story 70 years ago.

The man on the coast with his legs crossed, there was no sign of pulling or beating. The people on the beach at the time thought it was a drunk guy. People collected the labels on his shirt with his wallet. There is a chewing gum and unused train ticket in the wallet.

However, the experts at the time did not find the cause of death. The investigator believed that the man was poisoned or killed himself, although no evidence was found for his reasoning. The age of this man is determined to be around 40.

Investigators also found a strange clue: a piece of paper in a man's wallet printed with the words "Tamám Shud" , meaning "finished" in Persian. The piece of paper is taken from the last words in the last page of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a collection of poems in the 20th century.

Police later consulted with specialists from the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover to investigate fingerprints but could not find any fingerprints compatible with that man.

During that cold war, many people believed that the Somerton man might be an American or Soviet spy. Many stories are also woven around this man's death.

The piece of paper is torn from the book The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

The mystery of 70 years of mystery

Derek Abbott, a biomedical engineer at the University of Adelaide, said DNA would be the key to finding a solution to this near-century mystery story.

"I don't care how much he died. But anyway, I want to return the name to this bad man."

After a hard search with lots of clues and evidence, the police found a phone number behind the book The Rubaiya, found in a car that was not far away but believed to be a piece. The paper in his wallet was torn from that book.

At 1948, the phone number belonged to a 27-year-old woman named Jo Thomson. However, she denied the relationship with the man on the beach. It was not until she died in 2007 that the clues about this woman were discovered.

Abbott began investigating the woman's family. She has a son named Robin, born in 1946. From facial features and body parts that are somewhat similar to that of the Somerton man, Abbott suspects that Robin may be the son of a dead man on the beach. That mysterious sea.

Items found in a bag near the corpse of Somteron man.

But it seems that the story has not ended here when ironically, Robin Thomson died in 2009. He has an ex-wife, Roma Egan and daughter Rachel. When Abbott wrote to Roma asking if she knew who it was like to describe the Somerton man, she received the answer: her ex-husband.

After studying and investigating Rachel's DNA, they found more clues about the other man and knew that if it was Rachel, the granddaughter of the Somerton man, he was originally from the United States, not Australia.

"We tracked the man and saw the DNA details related to Thomas Jefferson. Certainly, he came from the east coast of the United States."

However, excavations and examinations will be needed to determine if Rachel is the granddaughter of a man on the Somerton coast. And if that's the case, who is he and why will he die will be the follow-up questions that need to be addressed.

Until now, the mystery of that 70 years has not been fully solved.