Editing Ourang Medan

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Ourang Medan''}}
{{short description|Unconfirmed ghost ship of the 1940s}}

The '''SS ''Ourang Medan''''' was a reported [[ghost ship]] and proposed [[urban legend]] of the 1940s. The vessel was supposedly discovered adrift after briefly broadcasting an [[SOS]]. The ships that responded to the SOS were reported to have discovered all the crew dead with their eyes open  and their faces frozen in shock, as if they were witnessing a horrific scene. As they subsequently prepared to tow the ''Ourang Medan'' to port, a fire reportedly broke out in the hold resulting in its eventual sinking, hiding it and its mysteries forever.

The most prominent version of the story places the vessel in the [[Dutch East Indies]] (modern [[Indonesia]]) in the [[Straits of Malacca]] waters, while other versions of the tale place the vessel around the [[Marshall Islands]] or [[Solomon Islands]].<ref name="DailyMirror">{{cite news |title=Crew Dies In S.O.S. Mystery |date=November 22, 1940 |work=[[Daily Mirror]] |page=11 |url=https://archive.org/details/daily-mirror-fri-nov-22-1940 }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite web|author=Estelle|title=The Myth of the Ourang Medan Ghost Ship, 1940|url=http://skittishlibrary.co.uk/the-myth-of-the-ourang-medan-ghost-ship-1940/|publisher=The Skittish Library|date=December 29, 2015|access-date=2019-04-02}}</ref><ref name="bainton">{{cite magazine | title=A Cargo of Death | magazine=Fortean Times | author=Bainton, Roy | date=September 1999 | pages=28 | url=http://www.neswa.org.au/Library/Articles/A+cargo+of+death.htm  |archive-url =  https://web.archive.org/web/20070205223141/http://www.neswa.org.au/Library/Articles/A%20cargo%20of%20death.htm |archive-date = 2007-02-05}}</ref> The story was initially reported in Italy in 1940 and the UK in 1940, before similar stories were repeated in 1948 and later again in 1952.<ref name="Il Piccolo">{{cite news |title=Il Mistero Dell "Ourang Medan" |date=16 October 1940 |work=[[Il Piccolo]] |page=4 |author=Silvio Scherli |url=https://archivio.ilpiccolo.it/sfoglio/aviator/aviator.php?newspaper=TO00208776&edition=piccolo&issue=19401016&startpage=3&keywords=Mare}}</ref><ref name=":0"/> The inability of researchers to identify the vessel in any official records, along with the inconsistent reporting of the location, and other details that change from version to version, has led to speculative coverage in mystery publications such as the ''[[Fortean Times]]''.<ref name="bainton"/><ref name=":0"/><ref name="LiverpoolEcho">{{cite news |title=Kidnapped Into Space |date=30 August 1955 |work=[[Liverpool Echo]] |page=4 |author=W. K. Jessop }}</ref>

==The SS ''Ourang Medan''==
The word ''Ourang'' (also written ''Orang'') is [[Malay language|Malay]] or [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] for "man" or "person",<ref>{{cite web | title=alphaDictionary: orangutan | url=http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/orangutan | access-date=2007-04-20 }}</ref> whereas [[Medan]] is the largest city on the Indonesian island of [[Sumatra]], giving an approximate translation of ''"Man of Medan"''. Accounts of the ship's accident have appeared in various books and magazines, mainly on [[Forteana]]. Their factual accuracy and even the ship's existence, however, are unconfirmed, and details of the vessel's construction and history remain unknown. Searches for any official registration or accident investigation recorded have proven unsuccessful.<ref name="bainton" /><ref name="DailyMirror"/>

==The story==
The 1940 version of the story told of a distress signal being sent out in an area south of the Solomon Islands. The first received stated “[[SOS]] from the steamship Ourang Medan. Beg ships with shortwave wireless get touch doctor. Urgent.” This was followed by “Probable second officer dead. Other members crew also killed. Disregard medical consultation. SOS urgent assistance warship.” After giving her position, the final message received was an incomplete phrase “crew has…”. Vessels responding to the Ourang Medan received no reply. The 1940 version of the story describes rescue vessels approaching the ship listing in the water, and upon boarding locating multiple crew dead at their posts. As they investigated further into the ship explosions were reportedly heard and so the rescuers abandoned the ship, and watched it subsequently go ablaze and sink into the Pacific.<ref name=":0"/>

By 1948, the story was embellished with further details. According to one version of the story, at some point of time in or around June 1947, two American vessels navigating the [[Straits of Malacca]], the ''City of Baltimore'' and the ''Silver Star'', among others passing by, picked up several distress messages from the nearby Dutch merchant ship ''Ourang Medan''.<ref name="bainton" /> ([[Vincent Gaddis]] and other sources list the approximate date as early February 1948).<ref name="gaddis">{{cite book | author=Gaddis, Vincent | title=Invisible Horizons | publisher=Ace Books, Inc., New York | year=1965 | isbn=0-441-37177-9 | pages=125–126}}</ref><ref name="edwards">{{cite news | title=Strangest of All | publisher=Fate Magazine | author=Edwards, Frank | date=June 1953 }}</ref><ref name="bainton" /><ref name="emert">{{cite book | author=Raybin Emert, Phyllis | title=Mysteries of Ships and Planes | publisher=Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., New York | year=1990 | isbn=0-8125-9427-4 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/mysteriesofships00emer }}</ref>

A [[radio operator]] aboard the troubled vessel is reported to have sent the following message in [[Morse code]]: "S.O.S. from ''Ourang Medan'' * * * We float. All officers including the captain, dead in chartroom and on the bridge. Probably whole of crew dead * * *." After a few more incoherent dots and dashes, the words "I die." were received. No further communications were received.<ref name="Proceedings"/> When the ''Silver Star'' crew eventually located and boarded the apparently undamaged ''Ourang Medan'' in an attempt at a rescue, the ship was found littered with corpses (including the carcass of a dog) everywhere, with the dead bodies found sprawled on their backs, the frozen (and allegedly badly-frightened) faces of the deceased upturned to the sun above with mouths gaping open and eyes staring straight ahead, with the corpses resembling horrible [[caricatures]].<ref name="Proceedings"/> No survivors were located and no visible signs of injuries on the dead bodies were observed.<ref name="gaddis" /><ref name="edwards" /> Just as the ship was to be prepared for a tow by the ''Silver Star'' to a nearby port, a fire then suddenly broke out in the ship's No. 4 cargo-hold, forcing the boarding party to hastily evacuate the doomed Dutch freighter, thus preventing any further investigations to be carried out. Soon after, the ''Ourang Medan'' was witnessed exploding before finally sinking.<ref name="gaddis" /><ref name="winer">{{cite book | author=Winer, Richard | title=Ghost Ships | publisher=Berkley | year=2000| isbn=0-425-17548-0 }}</ref>

Some versions of the story attribute further details to the sole survivor, an unnamed German, of the ''Ourang Medan'' crew, who swam to safety, and was subsequently found by an Italian missionary and natives on [[Bokak Atoll|Taongi Atoll]] in the Marshall Islands. The man, before perishing, tells the missionary that the ship was carrying a badly stowed cargo of [[Sulphuric acid|oil of vitriol]], and that most of the crew perished because of the poisonous fumes escaping from broken containers. According to the story, the ''Ourang Medan'' was sailing from an unnamed small Chinese port to [[Costa Rica]], and deliberately avoided the authorities.

==Hypotheses==
===Unsecured hazardous materials cargo===
Bainton and others hypothesize that ''Ourang Medan'' might have been involved in smuggling operations of chemical substances such as a combination of [[potassium cyanide]] and [[nitroglycerin]] or even wartime stocks of [[nerve agent|nerve agents]]. According to these theories, sea water would have entered the ship's hold, reacting with the cargo to release toxic gases, which then caused the crew to succumb to [[asphyxia]] and/or [[poison|poisoning]]. Later, the sea water would have reacted with the nitroglycerin, causing the reported fire and explosion.<ref name="bainton" />

Another theory is that the ship was transporting [[tabun (nerve agent)|nerve gas]] which the Japanese military had been storing in [[China]] during the war, and which was handed over to the [[United States Armed Forces|U.S. military]] at the end of the war. No U.S. ship could transport it as it would leave a paper trail. It was therefore loaded onto a non-registered ship for transport to the U.S. or an island in the Pacific.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

===Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning===
Gaddis puts forward the theory that an undetected smouldering fire or malfunction in the ship's boiler system might have been responsible for the shipwreck. Escaping [[carbon monoxide]] would have caused the deaths of all aboard, with the fire slowly spreading out of control, leading to the vessel's ultimate destruction.<ref name="gaddis" />

==Contemporaneous coverage==
One of the earliest incarnations of the story is first recounted in ''[[Il Piccolo]]'', the local paper of [[Trieste]], in a series of “I drammi del mare” (Dramas of the Sea) authored by Silvio Scherli from 1940.<ref name="Il Piccolo"/>

Reporting by The Skittish Library shows that in 1940 there were contemporaneous newspaper reports of the incident taken from the Associated Press in British newspapers the ''[[Daily Mirror]]'' and the ''[[Yorkshire Evening Post]]''. These initial reports placed the ship in proximity of the [[Solomon Islands]], omit the rescue vessels names, and the SOS messages are different from later reports.<ref name=":0"/><ref name="DailyMirror"/> The origin of the story is described as the Associated Press, and reported from Trieste in Italy but attributed to a Merchant Marine Officer.<ref name="Archive YEP">{{Cite news|date=21 November 1940|title=MYSTERY S O S FROM DEATH SHIP|page=5|work=Yorkshire Evening Post|issue=15634|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000273/19401121/132/0005|url-access=subscription|access-date=21 February 2021|via=[[British Newspaper Archive]]}}</ref><ref name="Archive DailyMirror">{{Cite news|date=22 November 1940|title=CREW DIES IN SOS MYSTERY|page=11|work=Daily Mirror|issue=11531|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000560/19401122/119/0011|url-access=subscription|access-date=21 February 2021|via=British Newspaper Archive}}</ref>

In 1948, a series of three articles appeared in the Dutch-Indonesian newspaper ''De locomotief: Samarangsch handels- en advertentie-blad'' (February 3, 1948, with two photographs duplicated from the Il Piccolo article,<ref name="locomotief1">{{cite news | title=Een Mysterie van de Zee|newspaper=De locomotief : Samarangsch handels- en advertentie-blad|date=February 3, 1948|url=https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010862872:mpeg21:a0050 }}</ref> February 28, 1948,<ref name="locomotief2">{{cite news|title=Ondergang der "Ourang Medan"|newspaper=De locomotief : Samarangsch handels- en advertentie-blad|date=February 28, 1948|url=http://kranten.kb.nl/view/article/id/ddd%3A010862918%3Ampeg21%3Ap002%3Aa0033|access-date=December 19, 2013|archive-date=December 21, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131221083735/http://kranten.kb.nl/view/article/id/ddd%3A010862918%3Ampeg21%3Ap002%3Aa0033|url-status=dead}}</ref> and March 13, 1948).<ref name="locomotief3">{{cite news | title=Mysterie der "Ourang Medan"|newspaper=De locomotief : Samarangsch handels- en advertentie-blad|date=March 13, 1948|url=http://kranten.kb.nl/view/article/id/ddd%3A010862945%3Ampeg21%3Ap002%3Aa0038 }}</ref> The source for these stories are given as Silvio Scherli of Trieste and introduce new details about the incident not previously included in 1940s reporting including the significantly altered SOS and the addition of the surviving sailor who (on his deathbed) tells a missionary about the events, who subsequently recounted them to Scherli. The Dutch newspaper concludes with a disclaimer: <blockquote>"This is the last part of our story about the mystery of the ''Ourang Medan''. We must repeat that we don't have any other data on this 'mystery of the sea'. Nor can we answer the many unanswered questions in the story. It may seem obvious that the entire story is a fantasy, a thrilling romance of the sea. On the other hand, the author, Silvio Scherli, assures us of the authenticity of the story."<ref name="locomotief3" /></blockquote>  

In October 10, 1948, the story was published in ''[[Times Union (Albany)|The Albany Times]]'' of [[Albany, New York]] and references its original source as the Dutch newspaper ''[[Elsevier Weekblad|Elsevier's Weekly]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2018/Albany%20NY%20Times%20Union/Albany%20NY%20Times%20Union%201948/Albany%20NY%20Times%20Union%201948%20a%20-%203308.pdf|title=Secrets of the Sea|date=October 10, 1948|access-date=November 22, 2016}} [https://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2018/Albany%20NY%20Times%20Union/Albany%20NY%20Times%20Union%201948/Albany%20NY%20Times%20Union%201948%20a%20-%203309.pdf and page 25]</ref> The story was repeated in the May 1952 issue of the ''Proceedings of the [[United States Merchant Marine|Merchant Marine]] Council'', published by the [[United States Coast Guard]].<ref name="Proceedings">{{cite journal | title=We Sail together|journal=Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council|volume=9|issue=5| page=107|publisher=U.S. Coast Guard | date=May 1952}}</ref> 

Silvio Scherli is said to have produced a report on Trieste "Export Trade" on September 28, 1959.<ref name="silviobook">[https://books.google.com/books?id=3CYUAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Silvio+Scherli%22 Readings in policy and practice for international business, Edwin F. Wigglesworth, T. Ashwell, 1959]</ref>

==Skepticism==
Several authors note their inability to find any mention of the case in [[Lloyd's Register|Lloyd's Shipping Register]].<ref name="bainton" /><ref name="emert" /><ref name="winer" /> Furthermore, no registration records for a ship by the name of ''Ourang Medan'' could be located in various countries, including the [[Netherlands]]. While author Roy Bainton states that the identity of the ''Silver Star'', reported to have been involved in the failed rescue attempt, has been established with a high probability, the complete lack of information on the sunken ship itself has given rise to suspicion about the origins and credibility of the account. Ships logs for the ''Silver Star'' did not show a record of any such rescue attempt. Bainton and others have put forward the possibility that accounts of, among others, the date, location, names of the ships involved, and circumstances of the accident might have been inaccurate or exaggerated, or that the story might be completely fictitious.<ref name="bainton" />

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.de173.com/the-ss-ourang-medan/ An in-depth look at the 75+ Year Old Legend of The SS Ourang Medan]
* [http://thinkingsidewayspodcast.com/the-ourang-medan/ An episode of the ''Thinking Sideways'' podcast] about the ghost ship, featuring an interview with Roy Bainton.
* [https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4756 The Death Ship SS Ourang Medan.] Modern research shows the story is almost certainly fictional. 

{{Urban legends}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1940 introductions]]
[[Category:Legendary ghost ships]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory]]
[[Category:British urban legends]]