So I seriously had my hands full this week. Turns out that even with oversized tires, it’s hard to drive a VW bus on water. Who knew? I was bummed to have to leave the Mystery Machine behind this week, taking a series of flights and cruise ships instead, but my adventures into Southeast Asia have me considering life, football, and secrets in a whole new way after learning about this strange tale I have here for you!

THE OURANG MEDAN

Location: Strait of Malacca, southeastern Indian Ocean

Date: June 1947

The Story: On a hot summer’s day in the busy waters of the Strait of Malacca, dividing the landmasses of Malaysia and Indonesia, a Dutch freighter named the Ourang Medan put out a series of urgent distress calls, which were received by two American ships nearby. The Silver Star was so alarmed by the series of messages received from the Dutch crew that they altered course right away to aid the troubled vessel… but alas, they were too late, as they found the entire crew dead on board, their faces frozen in terror and agony. The messages received were as follows:

“All officers including captain are dead, lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.”

*Long string of indecipherable Morse code*

“I die.”

To this day, nobody knows what happened to the ship or the crew aboard, and it remains one of the strangest nautical mysteries of all time.

What’s Weird: As the Silver Star approached the Ourang Medan, they attempted to signal to the ship to alert them of their presence and determine their need for assistance. When they received no signal back, they sent a search party on board. What they found was apparently hideous and grotesque; the faces of the men contorted into terror and agony right in the same spots where they died. The radio operator, amongst the bodies, was right at his seat, fingers over the buttons to transmit signals. Even the dog that lived on board shared the same expression as the doomed sailors. According to further accounts, even though it was a sweltering hot day outside – around 110 degrees and oppressively humid as well – when the crew of the Silver Star went below deck on the Ourang Medan, they felt a noticeable chill in the air – inexplicable and very weird.

Looking for further answers, the Silver Star tied herself to the Ourang Medan and attempted to tow her to port; however, when the ghost ship started smoking from the lower decks, they were forced to escape to safety; the Ourang Medan exploded and sank, with questions about its mysterious end never to be answered.

Where the story really takes a twist, though, is that the Ourang Medan may not have actually ever existed. Neither may have the Silver Star. Based on shipping records collected from the US, UK, the Netherlands, and Singapore, there’s no mention anywhere of the Ourang Medan. Same with that of the Silver Star, although evidence has come to light that she may have actually been registered at the time as the Santa Juana, hence the confusion. Further clouding the validity of the story are some conflicting details on when the events actually happened; although the leading research leads June 1947 to be the time in which it happens, some other stories have pinned it in February 1948. A few small stories from British newspapers have described similar events in limited detail as early as 1940. All this to say, researchers are still considering multiple theories of the ship’s demise, even today…

What might have happened? 

A number of fringe theories exist about the Ourang Medan, including aliens, ghosts, and pirates or some combination of all three, but due to the outlandish nature of these ideas, there are two current theories that are most commonly believed about the ship, although they are both not without their flaws.

Some researchers, including Vincent Gaddis (who coined the term “Bermuda Triangle”), place the blame on carbon monoxide poisoning as being responsible for the death of the crew of the Ourang Medan. A malfunctioning boiler onboard the ship would have produced lots of carbon monoxide, which, when inhaled in large quantities, not only inevitably results in death, but also dizziness, vomiting, and seizures beforehand. A malfunctioning boiler also lends credence for the explosion that happened afterwards which caused the ship to sink. However, due the ship not being an enclosed space – and with crew not sealed below decks – this seems unlikely due to carbon monoxide simply just leaking out into the atmosphere, without causing harm to the sailors on board.

The other theory, which seems even more ludicrous at first glance but also somehow more plausible at the same time, is that the Ourang Medan is actually the centerpiece to a gigantic international conspiracy of warfare in clear violation of the protocols established in the Geneva Convention. With biological and chemical warfare being outlawed internationally in 1925, any ship caught transporting dangerous and illegal goods used in this time of fighting would have been a major international scandal. This said, let’s connect the dots:

• In 1932, Japanese bacteriologist Shirō Ishii founded Unit 731, a secret division within the Japanese army dealing in the research, development and production of biological and chemicals for use by Japan in their territorial expansions.
• When the United States defeated Japan and ended the Second World War, Japan was forced to turn over all military assets it possessed to the US as part of the de-escalation process. This included the apparent strongholds they had in China of the raw materials used to create these biological weapons.
• The US was aware of these bio-weapons and wanted to have them destroyed, but also understood that they would find themselves in serious diplomatic trouble if their own ships were used to transport them. Thus, the military made the decision to use an unmarked foreign vessel, the Ourang Medan, to do the Americans’ work on their behalf – thus, the lack of a paper trail to the ship’s existence is a deliberate tactic designed to not draw attention to the existence of this vessel in the first place.
• According to some researchers, the cargo onboard was a possible combination of potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin, or possibly even nerve gas, which even in their raw state, are incredibly volatile; when sea water entered the cargo hold, it reacted with the chemicals to create toxic gases, which suffocated and killed the crew, and later would have expanded and caused the explosion that sank the ship.

The leading research on the Ourang Medan, done by a German professor named Theodor Siersdorfer, was published in a booklet in 1954; the details within were apparently corroborated with a crewman from the Silver Star who verified them, including that the cargo onboard the Ourang Medan was indeed potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin. If this is to be believed as accurate, then this is absolutely insane, because transporting these dangerous goods over rough water is essentially a suicide mission – and would also explain for why a potential employer would not want to have a paper trail for this idiotic decision.

Coach Carroll’s Hypothesis: Absolutely nerve gas. I’m with the Japanese scientist explanation here. JUST DON’T LET BILL PARCELLS KNOW ABOUT THIS CASE, WHATEVER YOU DO.

Information for this article taken from here, here, here and here.

Banner image courtesy of Low Commander of the Super Soldiers.