Editing Final Report 2010 (section)

====Pattern Selection====

As shown in the following table the letters of the mystery code were spread out in order to single out the patterns that actually occur.   The different pattern combinations can be seen highlighted in yellow and are broken down further in the next table.

As shown, patterns that occur both horizontally and vertically were used for the testing.  It has since been decided that the vertical patterns are unlikely to be of any interest as a simple inspection of the actual mystery code shows very little structure or consistency in a vertical manner compared to the horizontal. 



<center>
{| class="wikitable" border = "1" cellpadding="2" style="text-align"
|+ Apparent patterns in the Somerton Man Code
|-
|bgcolor="yellow"|M
|R
|G
|O
|bgcolor="yellow"|A
|bgcolor="yellow"|B
|bgcolor="yellow"|A
|bgcolor="yellow"|B
|D
|
|
|
|
|-
|bgcolor="yellow"|M
|bgcolor="yellow"|T
|B
|I
|M
|P
|bgcolor="yellow"|A
|N
|E
|bgcolor="yellow"|T
|P
|
|
|-
|bgcolor="yellow"|M
|bgcolor="yellow"|L
|I
|A
|B
|O
|bgcolor="yellow"|A
|bgcolor="yellow"|I
|bgcolor="yellow"|A
|bgcolor="yellow"|Q
|C
|
|
|-
|bgcolor="yellow"|I
|bgcolor="yellow"|T
|bgcolor="yellow"|T
|bgcolor="yellow"|M
|bgcolor="yellow"|T
|S
|bgcolor="yellow"|A
|M
|S
|bgcolor="yellow"|T
|G
|A
|B
|}
</center>

The highlighted letters are all, in some form, part of a two symbol pattern of length 3 or 4. As shown below, patterns occurring both forwards (left to right) and backwards (right to left) were used for the testing.  This assumes that there is a possibility that the code was written backwards.

From these patterns the individual wildcard code is derived, giving the patterns of interest that were used on the different English texts.  For example where ABAB occurs in the mystery code, a pattern of @#@# was searched to reveal any combination of letters that match the ‘pattern’ of ABAB.

A full breakdown of the patterns of interest and their associated combination can be seen in the following table.



<center>
{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|+ Interesting Pattern Symbol Breakdown
|-
! scope="col" | Interesting 4 Symbol Sequences
! scope="col" | Interesting 3 Symbol Sequences
|-
! scope="col" colspan = "2"| Horizontal
|-
| ABAB - @#@# || ABA - @#@ 
|-
| TTMT - @@#@ || AIA - @#@ 
|-
| TMTT - @#@@ || ITT  - @##
|-
| || TTI - @@#
|-
| || TTM - @@#
|-
| || MTT - @##
|-
| || TMT - @#@
|-
| || BAB - @#@
|-
! scope="col" colspan = "2"| Vertical
|-
| MMMI - @@@# || TLT - @#@
|-
| IMMM - @### || MMM - @@@
|-
| AAAA - @@@@ || AAA = @@@
|-
|  || TQT - @#@
|-
|  || MMI - @@#
|-
|  || IMM - @##
|-
! scope="col" colspan = "2"| Patterns of Interest
|-
| @#@# || @#@
|-
| @@#@ || @##
|-
| @#@@ || @@#
|-
| @@@# || @@@
|-
| @### || 
|-
| @@@@ || 
|-
|}
</center>



Each of the pattern combinations found in the mystery code was then used to search through different types of text so that any differences between the initial letters used in the different text types would be clear.  The result of these tests would then hopefully suggest the most likely origin of the mystery code if it is in fact initialism.


The types of texts used were:
*Poems (a variety of long and short poems from a large variety of poets/archives)
*Novels 
*Science texts (a selection of textbooks - chemistry, maths and physics)
*Shakespeare (entire collection)
*The Bible (separately tested the King James and Revised Standard Versions)
*Rubaiyat (book of poems associated with the murder itself)