24 – The Particle Brush and J. Robert Oppenheimer.
You could call this post number 2 in the series, first post being number 23 and which concerned the finding of the Tamam Shud* slip when Professor Cleland and James Cowan were searching the clothing found on the body together with the items in the suitcase, one of which was a small brush (pic).
By the look of the handle the brush hadn’t seen a lot of work however it had been used for something as either Cleland or Cowan shook out a black powder from its bristles.
Perhaps it was paint as “chalking occurs due to UV radiation from sunlight interacting with constituents within the paint film. Over time UV degradation of the binder or resin within the paint film will allow the exposed pigment particles to become more loosely bound to the surface. A powdery surface is the result.” https://www.dulux.com.au/applicator/technical-advice/performance/chalking/
Perhaps it was lead if the owner of the article was engaged “in the gas and oil industry. Lead powder can be used as a shielding agent for certain types of electromagnetic radiation. Alloyed to certain brass powders to improve machinability.” royalmetalpowders.com
Perhaps the owner of the article was a low level technician engaged in the very early researching of “Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP). Non-nuclear EMPs can also come in the form of flux compression generator bombs (FCGs), which date back to the 1950s.” https://science.howstuffworks.com/
Perhaps it was gunpowder
Radiation. Weapons Development. Explosives.
James Cowan was “Director of Chemistry, Government Analyst, Chief Inspector of Explosives, and Chief Gas Examiner in South Australia. He was also Deputy Government Analyst from 1947 and Government Analyst from 1950 for the South Australian Government Department of Chemistry.” https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P002860b.htm
Yet he was unable to identify the black powder shaken from the brush in Carl Webb’s suitcase.
Carl Webb: the skilled electrical fitter / instrument maker who disappeared in 1946 only to reappear dead in Adelaide in late 1948. His death possibly due to workplace poisoning *suicide or murder.
Three choices.
James Cowan was invited to the US in 1940 and spent time at the University of California at Berkley with the scientists who were heavily involved in the Manhattan Project. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Places/Other/berkeley.html
Berkeley was also home to J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Cowan’s travel ticket
The Somerton Man .. 
What does yellowcake look like after it’s been fired (in a furnace)?
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Google it mate …
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Wouldn’t you have thought that Cowan, out of curiosity alone, would have gone further to identify the substance? This strikes me that he knew all along what this substance was and, didn’t want anybody else taking a look at it. And if someone like Cowan couldn’t determine what the substance was, then it would be highly unlikely that anybody else would challenge Cowan’s findings.
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I think if he was involved with something really big they could have made him disappear easier than him ending up on a beach with all the newspaper coverage. They could have made it look like a robbery or a confirmed suicide, pill bottle, note etc. I think the black powder was a charcoal mix used to treat wounds in horses. You can buy them prepared now but home remedies were crushed charcoal with other stuff added, also stopped the bleeding so if Carl was ringing horses , trimming ears, plucking hairs, injecting etc black charcoal powder would be in his bag.
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Cowan would have picked it if was charcoal based .. he was a bio-chemist after all with extensive facilities
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Unless they didn’t want to point the finger at who was responsible? I’ve just finished watching ” The Blackhand Gang” I’d read a bit about them and visited some of the graves here in Innisfail, basically Italian Mafia working here in FNQ in the early days, shootings in main street, crowds, folks getting shot at close range but no one saw a thing. I wonder if it was similar? They seem to have not identified much at all that would lead the investigation to an arrest or conclusion. I read the report on the fella who killed his boy and the police detail all his movements, what he ate etc yet the same time Somerton Man dies and they don’t seem to agree on what was on the body, when he died, how he died, where he died, seems to be a lot of smoke and mirrors. The autopsy says about his big hands and the photo of Carl from Swinburne shows his oversized hands yet no news report from the day mention them. I would have thought that would have been a clue to help with identification. I think he was shut up but I’m still leaning toward horse race fixing. The day Carl caught the bus right past Morphettville Race track the governor of South Australia had his horse running there. Not a huge stretch to have corrupt government officials involved in race fixing?
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On the other hand, if he were involved in something big and had somehow overstepped the mark in some way, he could have been used as a warning to others.
It certainly seems that he was left to be found.
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I wonder if when he was killed he was left as a warning, but if robbed after death , taking his wallet, ration book etc, that’s where the plan went wrong and he became a mystery man splashed all over the papers? Maybe if he had his ID they could have said, ” heart attack” and buried him quietly in Melbourne and that would have been the end of the story? Reading the police notes the missing ID and name tags on the clothing he was wearing were the main two clues that lead to the suicide claim but murder, robbery and wearing second hand clothing is also a possibility.
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The Freeman Rubaiyat .. why no photo of it?
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The whole connection to the book seems odd to me, a tiny rolled up piece of paper only found days later after how many people had poked around with the body and the clothes, a red herring to suggest a spy connection? Or was the book his and stolen along with his wallet then chucked into a car? I can’t believe the police were that sloppy unless it was on purpose? Missed the rolled up paper , no photos of book, all trying on his jacket and slippers, forgetting to mention his weird hands when trying to identify him, even the code being traced over instead of photographed as it originally was, throwing out the suitcase, not fingerprinting the suitcase, either they were complete Wallys or they did it on purpose?
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If the book didn’t exist then how do we account for Harkness’ phone number said to be written on the back cover?
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That’s true, I found her partner advertising his taxi service saying he did long distance and race meetings and he advertised to buy a gun the same week the Somerton Man inquest was on. I wonder if that’s why Jessica looked like she was going to faint when she recognised her husbands customer? Maybe that’s why one of the police said she was brave? She must have known he was up to dodgy stuff cause he’d already had the court case then the stranger that her boyfriend had some sort of dealings with turns up dead?
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Shabs, let’s move back to about 1945. Would you think it unusual for a single young woman, a trainee nurse, to frequent a harbour side hotel that catered for allied servicemen?
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I would, but hearing my Nan talk about her war days it was often a time of living in the moment so maybe she was on the hunt for war time information or maybe she was on the hunt for a fella? Shouldn’t stero type but back in my day I saw more drugs and risky behaviour partying with nurses and doctors than I did hanging out with roadies and hotel workers so maybe she was as my Nan would say ” a hussy” on the lookout for a good time?
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The two great temptations for some young Australian women in the years after WW2 were to join the Americans in their cocaine and booze fuelled celebrations in the cities or join the communist party as a response to the uncountable death toll of innocent women and children who died in the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
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