The Curse of the Ourang Medan

In 1947, a ship was found drifting in the middle of the Indian Ocean. All crew aboard were found dead, yet the ship was undamaged and their bodies showed no signs of injury.

Story
The Strait of Malacca, situated between Malaysia and the island of Sumatra, is one of the busiest and most important shipping lanes in the world, linking major world economies such as China, India and Japan. Around 260 ships pass through the strait each day carrying approximately one quarter of the world's traded goods. Its significance as a major logistical highway of the seas is matched only by its notoriety, not least because, for centuries, it was completely at the mercy of pirates, but because it is also one of the most congested shipping lanes in the world. It narrows to just 1.5 miles wide at the Phillips Channel, making it impassable for some of the largest vessels.

And perhaps this is to their benefit. Because there is, of course, another reason for the strait's unwelcome reputation. Over the last century, it has committed to the deep more then 30 ships, roughly one every three to four years. And one such vessel, the SS Ourang Medan, would meet with such a strange and violent end, that it would unsettle seafarers for decades and ultimately pass into legend.

In June 1947, so the story goes, ships navigating the Strait of Malacca received a peculiar SOS communication from a then unknown source.

Transmitted in Morse code, the message came in two parts, which did not identify the ship or its location, but gave a chilling insight into its situation. It read:

''"All officers, including the captain are dead. Lying in chart room and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead." ''

This was followed only minutes later by a rather distressing conclusion, which simply said:

''"I die..." ''

Nothing else was transmitted after this point and authorities found themselves in a race against time to try and locate the ship in question. All other ships in the area were alerted and asked to stay on the lookout for anything unusual, although nothing was found during the initial stages of the search. Eventually, with the help of British and Dutch listening posts, they were able to triangulate the source of the signal, and the location was found to be far out to sea in the midst of the Indian Ocean some way off well-established shipping lanes.

An American merchant vessel, the Silver Star, happened to be closest to the source of the signal at that time and was sent the coordinates. The captain of the Silver Star, knowing the contents of the SOS, wasted no time in settling a new course and within a few hours, sighted a ship upon the horizon, which would turn out to be the SS Ourang Medan.

She did not appear to be under steam or any form of control and, by all accounts, was said to be drifting aimlessly across the open ocean. Upon approach, several attempts were made to contact her crew, all of which resulted in failure. There were no signs of life to be seen anywhere and it was becoming ominously apparent that something had befallen the ship and all those aboard. A deafening silence descended over the scene as the rescue vessel pulled in on her starboard side.

The two ships were tethered and a rescue party hastily assembled, and the crew of the Silver Star began to prepare themselves under a thickening air of trepidation. Their worst fears were confirmed as soon as they stepped aboard and saw that the decks were littered with the corpses of the Dutch crew. Each one was found staring in wide-eyed fear, mouths gaping, their faces twisted in horror and their limbs frozen in positions which suggested that they had been trying to fight something off of them. Even the ship's dog was found dead alongside them, its teeth exposed and lips peeled back in a vicious snarl.

Searching the rest of the ship, they found the captain's body on the bridge and the rest of the officers in the wheelhouse and chart room. The engineering crew were found at their stations and the radio operator, the man who had sent the SOS signal, was found at his post, his body sprawled over the communications equipment. All had expressions of fear on their faces with arms and legs contorted in the same way. It was obvious that everyone aboard had died in some degree of pain. However, the cause of their deaths could not be determined.

The ship was undamaged and although it looked as if the crew had been terrified at the time of their passing, they had suffered no injuries to speak of. Their bodies would have otherwise been perfectly healthy if not for another bizarre factor which was becoming more apparent to the rescue party with each passing minute... The corpses were already beginning to decompose, much quicker then would naturally be expected.

And this wasn't the only strange thing happening aboard the stricken vessel. The Silver Star crew also noticed that, although it was a clear Summer day, with temperatures in excess of 37 degrees Celsius (or 100 degrees Fahrenheit) there was a notable chill in the air. Measurements taken aboard the Ourang Medan put temperatures as low as 4 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit) in some places.

Despite these facts, the captain of the Silver Star made the decision to tow the ship back to port for salvage. However, shortly after the ships had been tethered together from bow to stern, smoke began to billow from below decks, particularly the number 4 cargo hold. The rescue ship managed to cut the tow ropes just in time, and within seconds of doing so, the Ourang Medan exploded with such force that her hull was lifted completely out of the water. She quickly broke apart and sank into the dark depths of the Indian Ocean, never to be seen again.

Theories
Fortunately, nobody aboard the Silver Star was harmed in the blast. And thankfully no one had been on the doomed vessel when she had exploded either as none of the crew had been willing to stay aboard and accompany her back to port, for obvious reasons. It was also lucky that the explosion had not occurred whilst the two ships were sitting side by side, and it was down to the crew's vigilance that we have any insight into the incident at all.

With that in mind, the story was first officially reported in May 1952, by the United States Coast Guard, and since then people have questioned exactly what happened to the crew of the ill-fated ship. And as always, there has been no shortage of wild speculation.

Inevitably, comparisons have been drawn to the Philadelphia Experiment, with some theorists going as far to suggest that the Ourang Medan had been part of some clandestine government experiment, which had gone awry. Others have said that the ship had been attacked by forces of a supernatural or paranormal nature, for how could one rationally explain the strange deaths of all those aboard?

And of course there are the doubters, who question whether the ship even existed at all. An interesting fact arose when investigators researched the story and found that the name Ourang Medan did not appear in any maritime records and it had not been registered in any known port. But there could be a logical explanation for this...

A German author, by the name of Otto Mielke, published his research on the case in 1954, which was apparently authenticated by members of the Silver Star's crew, who had been present at the time of the incident. Mielke's work cited a number of previously unpublished details, which included the ship's last known location as well as its intended route. More importantly, it made mention of the ship's cargo, a point which seemed to suggest that the Ourang Medan had been carrying unsecured lethal substances such as potassium cyanide and nitroglycerine.

If true, then this would have been seen by authorities as the height of negligence and a ship carrying such a cargo would never have been allowed to leave port.

It is for this reason that some believe Ourang Medan was involved in a smuggling operation and was in fact another ship altogether, hastily renamed whilst at sea in order to disguise her identity, hence not being registered anywhere. This could also explain why she had been so far off established shipping routes, in order to avoid detection. It is theorized that sea water had entered the cargo hold and reacted with the potassium cyanide, which in turn released toxic gasses, which then poisoned the crew. As the day wore on, the salt water somehow reached the nitroglycerine, sparking a fire and ultimately causing the violent explosion.

But if this was the case, then why had none of the members of the rescue party also succumb to the lethal effects of the cyanide gas, which would have been highly concentrated by the time they arrived?

Another problem with this theory is that, whilst cyanide kills quickly, it does not result in a painful death. Why, then, had the bodies of the crew been contorted in both terror and pain. Other researchers have suggested that the ship was not carrying Potassium cyanide at all, but another substance known as Tabun.

Tabun is an extremely toxic nerve agent, which had been mass produced by the Germans in World War 2 and had been shared in large quantites with their Japanese allies. During the post-war years, following the defeat of Axis forces, the western allies were busy persuading German scientists to defect and procuring all sorts of enemy war assets, of which Tabun would have been one.

The U.S. was heavily involved in chemical weapon research at this time and elements of the U.S. military could well have commandeered large quantites of the Japanese supplies. It is feasible that in order to avoid the inevitable paper trail, they commissioned a nondescript freighter to transport the goods and employed a foreign crew to further distance themselves from the operation.

It is also worth mentioning that Tabun has a very low persistence level, meaning that it would have completely dispersed by the time the rescue crew arrived. It also blocks the neurotransmitter responsible for signaling the muscles to relax, hence the contorted appearance of the bodies.

The story of the Ourang Medan can neither be proved nor disproved. It is entirely possible that it is nothing more then another tall tale of the sea, but the official mention by the U.S. Coast Guard seems to counter this. Not only that, but some researchers have dedicated more then 50 years of their lives to studying the case so there must be something more to it then mere fabrication.

It is not beyond all likelihood that something more clandestine was taking place, whether officially or unofficially, and this would also explain the lack of recorded evidence, as is often the case in such matters.

The bottom line is this story is more then half a century old, and enthusiasm for researching it any further has long since dried up.

If the Ourang Medan did indeed exist, nobody is looking for her and unless someone discovers, by chances or otherwise, her final resting place, we'll never know the truth of the matter. We are, once again, left to wonder...