Sep 2
The bloke was just a bloody suburban electrical fitter, an instrument maker plus he had an addiction to phenobarbital with ether on the side which is not unlike someone liking hashish with a straight malt whisky chaser.
'The writer may very well serve a moment of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.'
It's about time somebody put it all together, again ...
3 of 3.
Robert James Cowan’s travel manifest (below) shows he was sponsored to America in 1940/41* by Paul Leland Kirk, a key participant in the Manhattan Project who was working at the university of California at Berkeley. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s work in the same University and on the same project came to fruition in 1945 and Cowan was given 10 months in their lab to get onboard with the American nuclear developments … yet here he is in 1949 trying on a random dead man’s old slippers at the same time Professor Cleland found what looked to be a suicide note in the unfortunate fellow’s fob pocket.
*J Sanders for the correction
But that's not the end of it because when the Professor Cleland found the slip he was in the company of James Cowan.
If nothing else this beats trying to convince the few remaining Somerton Man punters that Carl Webb looks to be the same height as his much shorter brother.
The smell of ether was so strong that other tenants complained. I found empty bottles and after a struggle got him to tell me what else he had taken, namely 40 Phenobarbitel tablets.
As Professor Derek Abbott and the drop dead gorgeous Fiona of the Antiques Roadshow insist - provenance is everything.
Jul 10
… Two siblings carefully seperate two pages of a photograph album that has been stuck together for what, nearly seventy years? More? Ninety?
And here, almost pristine in appearance is an ancient ink-labelled photo that has defied both the deterioration of time and the unsticking of itself from the page it has been joined to for longer than anyone reading this, bar me.
Never mind that Roy Webb on the right appears to be about the same height as Charlie Webb standing between the grandparents, forget that the height difference between the two is officially about three inches, take no notice that both of them are standing within close touching distance of said grandparents, heed not that Roy, supposedly the shorter of the two might appear even taller if he stood up straight. Instead, let’s take a look at the old folk.
My guess is that Richard is about three inches taller than his wife Eliza, give or take.
Many argue the reason Charlie appears to be the same height as Roy is that he is further away from the camera and this distance has subsequently reduced his height in comparison to the shorter Roy. Well, there is a rule of thumb guide that can be used to refute such an argument.
How far back from the camera would Richard have stand to appear to be the same height as Eliza?
A metre? Two metres?
Is Charlie standing that far back from Roy?
Of course the assumption here is that the photographer, being an old-fashioned type would have been sure to stand both old folks on a level surface for the pic, not wanting either of them to stumble over uneven ground.
Roy Webb’s enlistment file
You know it makes sense.
Jul 5
Carl Webb Aged about 25
Carl Webb Aged 43
… and still no SAPOL DNA result, 2 years and 2 months on.
Inexplicable delays in presenting evidence and the apparent loss of same.
The Somerton Man .. 