On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar during a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people aboard. Its communications systems and transponder were systematically disabled before the Boeing 777 deviated drastically from its intended path, turning west and flying on for several more hours. Subsequent analysis of automated satellite pings indicated the aircraft continued its journey south over the Indian Ocean until its fuel was likely exhausted. Despite one of the most extensive and expensive search operations in history and the discovery of a few confirmed pieces of debris on distant coastlines, the plane’s main wreckage has never been located, leaving the reason for its disappearance and the ultimate fate of its passengers and crew completely unknown.
In December 1948, an unidentified, well-dressed man was found deceased on Somerton Park beach in South Australia, with all labels cut from his clothing. A tiny, rolled-up piece of paper bearing the printed words “Tamám Shud” (Persian for “it is ended”) was discovered in a hidden fob pocket. The paper was traced to a specific copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which contained an unlisted phone number and what appeared to be a complex coded message. While the phone number led to a local nurse who denied knowing the man, an autopsy suggested he died from an untraceable poison. For over seven decades his identity was unknown, until 2022 DNA research proposed he was Carl “Charles” Webb, though this finding has not yet been officially confirmed by authorities, leaving the circumstances of his death an enduring puzzle.
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