It was a sunny day in the Malaka Strait in February 1948. The seawas calmwhen a sudden distress signal went outtoa dozen ships sailing nearby. Two of them were the City of Baltimore and the Silver Star.
On the radio, they heard, All of the officers including the captain are dead, lying in the chartroom and bridge. Possibly the whole crew died!
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The message was from SS Ourang Medan, a cargo ship.
The Silver Star was the only vessel that managed to track down the location of the sender. Silver Star's crew tried to respond, but before they reached to the coordinates of the ship, another messagearrived; I die.
From afar, the Silver Star spotted SS Ourang Medan. The vessel looked normal, but its crew did not respond to any signals sent by Silver Star. After a while, the captain ordered his crew to sail closer and as they approached, a strange sight began to appear. Sharks flocked the vessel and no signs of life could be seen on deck.
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A team of Silver Star crew pulled down a lifeboat and went to board the ship, where they witnessed a scene they would never forget.
Dead bodies were everywhere.
But the fact that they all were dead was nothing compared to how they looked. Fear was etched intotheir lifeless faces, their eyes staring up and their bodies rigid. Some bodies were found with a hand "pointing" towards the sky.
Their teeth tightly clenched, their faces upturned to the sun, with terror on their faces, a memberof the Silver Star crew later said.
The SS Ourang Medan's captain and officers were found dead in the map room with the same shape and condition. Even their dog was found dead with a snarlingmouth, showing its fangs. On the bodies, they found no wounds or other signs of violence.
Silver Star crew tried to tow the vessel, but they saw a flamespring up from the cargo before it started to burn. Within minutes, the team fled to their boat and rowed awayas fast as they could.
The SS Ourang Medan exploded into a huge fireball, the force so intenseit killed some nearby sharks.
The story of SS Ourang Medan and the lingering mystery were first told to the public through a series of article in the Dutch-Indonesian newspaper De Locomotive in February and March 1948. In the second and third publication, a survivor of the SS Ourang Medan was mentioned to be a German. He managed to reach Toangi atoll in the Marshall islands and was found by a missionary and native people.
The unnamed survivor told the missionary that the ship was carrying a badly stowed cargo of sulphuric acid and the crew died due to a broken container thatreleased poisonous steam. He also mentioned that SS Ourang Medan was sailing from an unnamed Chinese port to Costa Rica to avoid the authorities. The man died soon after, but the missionary passedthe story to an Italian, Silvio Scherli.
The story was also published in the Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council by the US National Coast Guard in 1953. But strangely, in addition to the publication, no one could find furtherdata about the cargo ship.
No one knew who was the manufacturerof the vessel, and no official documents nor other supporting documents was ever found.
(Photo via Xfile Enigma)
SS Ourang Medan story was coveredon theIndonesian prominent mystery blog and Brilio partner, Xfile Enigma. One of the readers, claiming to bea sailor, cast doubt onthe theory of gas poisoning.
Poisonous gas inside the ship, that is said to have killed all of the living beings on board, wouldnt have neutralized bythe time when the Silver Star crew came on board. They should have been killed as well, especially the person who checked the machine in the boiler room. But he was still alive to report that the temperature in the engine room was 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The engine room was also secured with a submersible door (so the gas wouldnt easily escape the room), he wrote.
The tragedy ofSS Ourang Medan crew remains a mystery and has becomean urban legend among Indonesian sailors. People have comeout with various speculations, such as carbon monoxide poisoning, leaked hazardous materials in the cargo and even paranormal phenomena. But no one has ever found an answer.
Theories range from ghosts to escaping Nazis after World War II ... but noone knows.