Putting ‘Charlie’ and Roy into height perspective.
The argument being sustained is that the relative distances between Charlie, Roy and the camera have both diminished Charlie’s height – him being further away – and increased Roy’s – him being closer, therefore making any height comparisons arbitrary in nature. This became apparent in a recent survey I undertook where most respondents judged Roy as being the taller of the two, including a senior detective I bailed up at the local police station.
However if we were to ask Charlie to please move closer by a couple of inches and Roy to move back an inch or two until he was level with Charlie then ask him to stand up straight for the camera I think we might be in a better position to judge between them with regard to their respective heights. And it’s cautionary to note here that Charlie has his hands on the shoulders of both of the old folks so he’s not standing back any great distance to begin with.
We know Roy was noticeably less than 5’9” from his enlistment photograph (below) so if we were able to shuffle both men around as per above my view is they would both appear to be the same height, meaning ‘Charlie’ at close to Roy’s height of less than 5’9” couldn’t possibly be the Somerton Man as he was measured at 5’11” – more than two inches taller (5.08 cms), a more than noticeable difference, particularly if you use the height gauge below and see the difference between the top of Roy’s head and what would be an inch below the 6’ mark.
It would appear that everybody may have got it wrong …
Mark-up courtesy of GC
The Somerton Man 