Ourang Medan
The SS Ourang Medan was a supposed
The mystery of the SS Ourang Medan
One English reference to the ship and the incident was published in the May 1952 issue of the Proceedings of the
The story's first appearance was a series of three articles in the Dutch-Indonesian newspaper De locomotief: Samarangsch handels- en advertentie-blad (February 3, 1948, with two photographs, "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."[9] Silvio Scherli is said to have produced a report on Trieste "Export Trade" on September 28, 1959.[10]
New evidence found by The Skittish Library shows there were 1940 newspaper reports of the incident taken from the Associated Press in British newspapers the Daily Mirror and the Yorkshire Evening Post. Again, there were differences in the story: the location being the Solomon Islands, and the SOS messages different from later reports. The story still appears to originate with Silvio Scherli in Trieste.[11]
Circumstances
According to the story, at some point of time in or around June 1947
Theories
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 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 poisoning. Later, the sea water would have reacted with the nitroglycerin, causing the reported fire and explosion.[3]
Another theory is that the ship was transporting nerve gas which the Japanese military had been storing in China during the war, and which was handed over to the 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.
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.[12]
Skepticism
Several authors note their inability to find any mention of the case in Lloyd's Shipping Register.[3][14][15] 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 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.[3]
One British researcher has found the story of the Ourang Medan, transposed to the
References
- ^ "Crew Dies In S.O.S. Mystery". Daily Mirror. November 22, 1940. p. 11.
- ^ a b Estelle (December 29, 2015). "The Myth of the Ourang Medan Ghost Ship, 1940". The Skittish Library. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
- ^ a b c d e f g Bainton, Roy (September 1999). "A Cargo of Death". Fortean Times. p. 28. Archived from the original on 2007-02-05.
- ^ a b c "We Sail together". Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council. 9 (5). U.S. Coast Guard: 107. May 1952.
- ^ "Secrets of the Sea" (PDF). October 10, 1948. Retrieved November 22, 2016. and page 25
- ^ "alphaDictionary: orangutan". Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Een Mysterie van de Zee". De locomotief : Samarangsch handels- en advertentie-blad. February 3, 1948.
- ^ "Ondergang der "Ourang Medan"". De locomotief : Samarangsch handels- en advertentie-blad. February 28, 1948. Archived from the original on December 21, 2013. Retrieved December 19, 2013.
- ^ a b "Mysterie der "Ourang Medan"". De locomotief : Samarangsch handels- en advertentie-blad. March 13, 1948.
- ^ Readings in policy and practice for international business, Edwin F. Wigglesworth, T. Ashwell, 1959
- ^ Estelle (December 29, 2015). "The Myth of the Ourang Medan Ghost Ship, 1940". The Skittish Library. Retrieved 2017-05-08.
- ^ ISBN 0-441-37177-9.
- ^ a b Edwards, Frank (June 1953). "Strangest of All". Fate Magazine.
- ^ ISBN 0-8125-9427-4.
- ^ ISBN 0-425-17548-0.
- ^ "MYSTERY S O S FROM DEATH SHIP". Yorkshire Evening Post. No. 15634. 21 November 1940. p. 5. Retrieved 21 February 2021 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ "CREW DIES IN SOS MYSTERY". Daily Mirror. No. 11531. 22 November 1940. p. 11. Retrieved 21 February 2021 – via British Newspaper Archive.
External links
- An in-depth look at the 75+ Year Old Legend of The SS Ourang Medan
- An episode of the Thinking Sideways podcast about the ghost ship, featuring an interview with Roy Bainton.
- The Death Ship SS Ourang Medan. Modern research shows the story is almost certainly fictional.
- PRAMUKA4D.