More than seventy years have passed and the mystery of Somerton Man has gone around the world.
In 2022, DNA testing gave him a name: Carl Webb, revealed to be an engineer from Melbourne. But we still do not know how or why he died.
Perhaps it is simple: an ordinary man, suffering life's unsplendid maladies, brought poison to his own lips on the beach at Somerton Park. And the unexplained threads of his life simply looked like clues.
Somerton Man's story became a mystery. But he was not a mystery to himself. And yet, people remain captivated and disturbed by his death. Was he a spy? Was it a romance gone wrong? Why did no one come forward to say they knew him? These questions say more about us than him.
A man died in public in 1948, taking his secrets with him. A man whose life, it turned out, was unknowable. Perhaps what makes this story so famous and disturbing is the fear that we too could be Somerton Man.
