Is the mystery ofย SS Ourang Medan really true?
The existence of the ship has been widely debated. Is it a legendary ghost ship or just a phantom? Regardless of which is true, the Mystery of The SS Ourang Medan is nonetheless a fascinating and terrifying one.
Many ships have sailed the open seas, but regrettably, some never reach their destinations. The open water is full of mysteries and has sucked in several man-made vessels and the passengers on board, leaving many to wonder and speculate about their destiny while others look into and wonder if they even existed.
The story of the SS Ourang Medan is so bizarre that it falls somewhere in between being a legendary ghost ship and perhaps a story that was never meant to be heard. Naturally, as curiosities are aroused, so is the emergence of conspiracies. There are various speculations about this alleged ghost shipโs mission and ultimate fate. It was speculated that there could have been a role played by an unknown entity in the shipโs sudden destruction.
1. Where Did The Story Go Wrong?
Before diving into the mystery of The SS Ourang Medan, letโs make a note that there are conflicting years in which this incident supposedly took place, one being in and around 1939 or 1940, and the other being around 1948. Whichever year it was, itโs also unclear as to where the Ourang Medan was traveling to and from, and why no record of the ship appeared in maritime logs.
As one version of the story goes, on one cold morning, an SOS call was received by several British and Dutch vessel outposts near the coast of Indonesia. The radio operatorโs call was disjointed and reportedly conveyed a message which summarised that All officers including the captain were dead and were lying in the chartroom and bridge and that there was a possibility that the entire crew was dead. This was followed by a distress call which carried a string of incoherent Morse code before a final message from the shipโs radio operator signed off which said โI dieโ. Nothing followed after this transmission.
With the aid of Dutch and British merchant ship listening posts the coordinates of the vessel were triangulated and a course was set. The identity of the stricken vessel was also ascertained by the Dutch crew members as being the Dutch freighter S.S. Ourang Medan. Nearby ships, an American ship, the Silver Star crew members found that something was wrong with the Ourang Medan ship, and Theย Silver Starโs captain agreedย to send a rescue crew to the Ourang Medan.
The American ship, the Silver Star, accepted the rescue mission and set sail to investigate the call, Several hours after the chilling distress call message was received, the Silver Star successfully located the Ourang Medan ship about 50 miles out from the position given, somewhere in the Strait of Malacca. A more recent and notable incident involving that particular body of water, the strait of Malacca, occurred in 2014 when Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 vanished without a trace.
The ship was discovered to be a timber drifting aimlessly with no power to the motors and no visible crew, though there appeared to be no damage to the vessel. Pulling alongside it, the crew of the Silver Star called out to the Medan but received no response. Radio contact was attempted with the same eerily silent response. Forming a boarding party, the Captain of the Silver Star prepared to board the vessel. The search party boarded the Ourang Medan and what greeted the sailors upon boarding the Medan was like a scene from a horror movie and proved the Morse code message to be very accurate.
2. Deadly Air
They witnessed a horrific scene, the captain dead, the crew dead, the whole crew dead, and even the shipโs dog was found dead. Everyone on the ship was dead. Dead bodies were lying everywhere, with their eyes wide open and muscles locked in frightened positions.
After discovering the strange and haunting scene, the Silver Star decided to tow the ship back to port, and just as theyโd finished joining the two by a line, the whole crew noticed smoke billowing from the hull of the Ourang Medan. Taking no risks, they immediately sprang into action, quickly abandoning ship and severing the line theyโd just connected. They did so just in the nick of time, as moments later, A massive fire broke out and the Ourang Medan exploded and was engulfed in flames.
The entire ship began to sink, taking its mystery, its crew, and any evidence of its existence beneath the surface of the ocean, never to be seen again. The fire broke and theย subsequent explosionย out of nowhere destroyed any chance of finding out what had happened.
Theย Ourang Medan rescue attempt by the Silver star crew ended a tragic tale with them finding the crewโs bodies lying all over the ship.
In November 1940, a merchant marine officer who claimed to have been an eyewitness to the incident published another narrative in Trieste, Italy. On November 21st, 1940, The Yorkshire Post then published a fresh report about Ourang Medan from The Associated Press. The narratives of the Ourang Medan differ in several ways as most stories do. However, it appears, the versions align for the most part. The Merchant Marine officer, who remained unnamed in the original article, was supposedly a part of the rescue crew for the Ourang Medan rescue mission.
The man claimed that the initial distress call was for medical aid, followed by a request for a warship. The steamship Ourang Medan made the SOS call, as shown- Beg ships with the short-wave wireless get-touched doctor. Urgent.
The officer ship relayed the Ourang Medanโs message to medical stations and received a new request from the troubled vessel which said- Probable second officer dead. Other members crew were killed. Disregard medical consultation. S.O.S. urgent assistance warship.
Following this transmission, the Ourang Medan managed to provide its location, just before its messages became unintelligible. The officer claimed that after 16 hours, they found the stagnant ship leaning a bit on its starboard side off the coast of the Solomon Islands. They were able to confirm the name of the ship as indeed the Ourang Medan and tried to make contact via megaphone.
After receiving no response from the Ourang Medan crew, the rescue crew launched two lifeboats with eight men on each boat, rode over, and boarded the ship, where they quickly realized the gravity of the situation. The Associated Press story published in The Yorkshire Post stated that 12 bodies were found onboard the Ourang. However, the officer also expressed that they reckoned the Ourang Medan should have a crew of about 40. But in the years after the initial publication is where the timeline gets sketchy.
On December 5th, 1959, a letter from C. H. Mark Jr. was sent to the CIA, asking their opinion on the Ourang Medan incident, and whether something from the unknown could be involved in the case. In it, Mark claims to have previously sent a letter on May 29th, 1958, regarding crews and/or ships who had disappeared while at sea.
The earlier letter was replied to in June by the assistant to the then Director of the CIA, Allen Dulles. The letter simply thanked Mark for his very interesting letter and concern but stated that they were unable to answer his questions. Later in his December 1959 letter, Mark stated that he had just read the story of the Ourang Medan and outlined it in his letter, where he stated that the incident took place in February of 1948.
He told the story as it is commonly told and quoted a report from the proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council that said, โtheir frozen faces were upturned to the sun, the mouths were gaping open and the eyes staring.โ They were frozen in terror and faced up with a look of fierce horror on their faces as if theyโd been scared to death. The deck was littered with the dead bodies of the sailors and the entire crew.
They appeared to have dropped dead at their post, and none had any apparent wounds or injuries. The captain died on the bridge, and dead officers were found in the wardroom, chartroom, and wheelhouse. Sailors sprawled about the deck, passageways, and their rooms. Even theย shipโs resident dogย was found dead. In his version of the event, the faithful Sparks, who sent out the SOS, was also found dead with his hands still on the telegraph key.
He also believed that the Ourang Medan tragedy holds the answer to many of the airplane accidents and mysteries of the sea. He ended his letter with a final sentiment that read,
โYes, the enchanting sea.
What terrifying secret does it hold?
Iโm sure that the SS Ourang Medan tragedy
also holds the answer to this secret.โ
3. And The Speculations Continued
Some accounts have claimed that the Ourang Medan was on an unauthorized journey, hence the shipโs lack of trace. According to Lloydโs List, one of the worldโs oldest continuously running journals, which provided maritime shipping information and news as early as 1734, there are no records showing that a ship called the SS Ourang Medan ever existed in nautical history.
In addition, there has never been an official record of whatever discoveries were found onboard. Those who believe the Ourang Medan existed have theorized that the shipโs registry was never found because it could have been registered in Sumatra. Medan is a Sumatran Island, and the shipโs name translates to Man from Medan. Believers also theorize that the Ourang Medan might have been carryingย unknown cargo,ย illegal and lethal substances in its fourth hold, and possibly highly deadly biological weapons.
It is also speculated that potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin could have been stored in the ships, and those volatile substances could have become reactive for several reasons. Moreover, if the ship was carrying the substances, it may also explain why there werenโt official recordings of the ship or the incident, as the world was still on political eggshells post World War II, and transporting sensitive materials could have been relatively controversial.
Nevertheless, neither could account for the crew, which is where some suspect that things become more nefarious and that the ship may have been covertly transporting supplies for the Japanese military Unit 731. Unit 731 was notorious for conducting horrible chemical and biological tests on live American and Chinese POWs during the second world war. One such test involved tying prisoners to stakes in concentric circles around a live grenade that was later detonated. The Japanese improved their medical techniques and discovered new ways to create stronger anti-personnel bombs by researching the wounds they sustained.
It is possible that the precise story became so convoluted due to the sensational newspaper reports about the incident, which varied tremendously, adding various embellishments over time, making it difficult to determine what happened, or if the event as we know it happened at all.
4. Are The Conspiracy Theories True?
4.1. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning:
If you were to believe the theories, the boilers in theย shipโs hold malfunctioned, and all officers including the captain dead as there were nowhere to run and only dead ends.
4.2. Alien Attack Theory:
There was a very popular theory that the Ourang Medan was said to be under alien attack which resulted in the mass demise of the officers including the captainโs death.
4.3. The Ship Never Existed:
There were theories that the SS Ourang Medan never existed. This was a ghost ship, a hoax. As there is no proof of the existence of this ship.
4.4. Pirate Attack:
They could have been precious cargo on the ship which grabbed the attention of Pirates who came to loot but ended with all the crew members and captain dead on the Ourang Medan.
4.5. Ghosts:
The bodies of the Ourang Medan members were said to be at 110 degrees Fahrenheitย and everyone expressed a ghastly expression and had locked muscles. One cannot stop their mind from wandering into thoughts that there could have been the play of ghosts or the unknown in whatever happened on the ship. Hence, giving it the name ghost ship.
Like most brow-raising stories, the legend of the Ourang Medan ghost ship inspired the video game โMan of Medan,โ released on August 30th, 2019 by Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe and Supermassive Games. Their interpretation of the story was supposedly highly inspired by the writings of Silvio Scherli, who was rumoured to have gotten testimony from a survivor of the incident. The alleged survivor, a German sailor, told his tale of the shipโs tragic end to a missionary while on his deathbed.
The missionary later described the incident to Scherli, whose writings made the incident even more infamous. With the ocean making up a majority of the earthโs surface, It is no surprise that abandoned ships, or ghost ships, would have their fair share of mysteries, and theories about what happened to them can range from foul play to explosions to natural disasters and even the supernatural.
Some examples of the most common theories about the abandoned ship or ghost ship are mutiny, crews overtaking the captain for their gain in some way, dangerous chemical weapons, pirate attacks, ocean spirit, outside invaders causing harm to the ship, insurance fraud, abandoning a ship to claim the insurance money for the loss, or stealing a ship and disappearing the to claim the insurance money and/or a reward for it, referred to as a salvage reward, human error, miscalculating directions, equipment malfunction, cargo malfunction, and so on. The discovery of the Ourang Medan ship with probably the whole crew and captain dead in their own ship.
Seaquakes, which are earthquakes at sea, that could potentially damage the ship or its cargo, releasing explosive vapors and such, water spouts, which are tornadoes at sea, are more common in warmer water climates, but occasionally they can occur in colder water, some speculated that darker forces involved in the Ourang Medan story, just to name a few.
5. Did The S.S. Ourang Medan Ever Sail?
The Silver Star was not listed on any known registers, according to skeptics, however, this is false because the ship was actually at the time sailing under a different registration, The Santa Juana when The Grace Line shipping firm acquired the shipโs rights and changed its name.
The vastness of the ocean is, without a doubt, remarkable, and that vastness is still mostly unexplored. And being just a speck in the middle of the ocean, it is no wonder things could easily vanish from history before history even knew it existed. What lies beneath the surface down at the ocean floor are likely more questions than answers to the many, many mysteries at sea, perhaps including that of the SS Ourang Medan.
Is the SS Ourang Medan a ghost ship mystery, or is it simply just a myth?
Itโs left for you to decide.
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Last Updated on by Arnab
