The Legend Of The SS Ourang Medan, The Ghost Ship Whose Entire Crew Died With Faces Frozen In Terror

The SS Ourang Medan reportedly exploded in the Strait of Malacca someday in the 1940s following its crew died beneath mysterious circumstances — but is it all just an eerie legend?

In the 1940s, a weird tale started circulating in newspapers around the globe. A ship called the SS Ourang Medan had reportedly exploded in the vicinity of Indonesia following its total crew died under mysterious circumstances.

Different variations of the tale assorted a little, with 1 even proclaiming that a lone survivor had washed up on the shore of the Marshall Islands. And with each individual model of the tale came new theories about what had definitely transpired to the ship.

Some claimed the vessel was attacked by pirates. Others claimed it was smuggling hazardous chemical substances that suffocated the crew and induced the ship to explode. And a number of conspiracy theorists even thought the incident had supernatural leads to.

Considering that it very first appeared, the legend of the Ourang Medan has been recurring all over again and all over again — but did the ship ever actually exist? And if so, why are there no documents of it?

The Eerie Legend Of The SS Ourang Medan

The story of the SS Ourang Medan differs dependent on the supply, but one of the most popular variations of the tale states that the ship was touring by means of the Strait of Malacca at some position in the course of the 1940s, according to Ripley’s.

Yet another ship that was close by picked up a odd message coming from the Ourang Medan: “We float. All officers, such as the captain, lifeless in chartroom and on the bridge. Possibly entire of crew dead… I die.”

An American vessel known as the Silver Star established out to examine. When the ship came across the Ourang Medan, a team of gentlemen boarded it to discover a grisly sight awaiting them.

The complete crew was lifeless, “teeth bared, with their upturned faces to the solar, staring, as if in fear…” Even the ship’s puppy experienced died mid-snarl. Unusually, however, none of the bodies confirmed any indications of physical accidents.

The crew of the Silver Star was about to tow the SS Ourang Medan to port when they observed smoke billowing from the vessel. The rescuers manufactured it to protection just prior to the ship exploded. The Ourang Medan then sank to the bottom of the sea, never to be noticed once again.

A lot of versions of the legend close there. On the other hand, a single report claimed there was a lone survivor who delivered extra aspects about the ship’s destiny.

A Survivor Of The SS Ourang Medan Tells His Story

As documented by The Shipyard Blog, one account of the SS Ourang Medan spoke of a gentleman named Jerry Rabbit.

Rabbit reportedly washed up on the shore of the Marshall Islands in a lifeboat with six dead crew associates ten times immediately after the Ourang Medan exploded. He designed make contact with with a missionary and informed him a peculiar tale of survival.

Rabbit claimed that he experienced joined the crew of the Ourang Medan in Shanghai. He claimed that 15,000 crates of unknown cargo were loaded onto the vessel right before it set off for Costa Rica. It was only then that Rabbit understood he had joined a smuggling operation.

When Rabbit listened to his fellow crewmen complaining of stomach cramps, he grew suspicious. And when a crew member died, he realized he had to find out what the ship was carrying. He peeked at the vessel’s logbook and discovered that the crates from China held sulfuric acid, potassium cyanide, and nitroglycerin. Rabbit suspected that the sulfuric acid was leaking, building a gasoline that was slowly but surely suffocating the crew.

As more males commenced dropping lifeless, Rabbit and 6 other folks sneaked away in a lifeboat. None of his crewmates experienced survived the journey, and Rabbit himself died before long following repeating his odd tale.

Apart from one particular tale printed in a 1940s newspaper, there is no report of Jerry Rabbit’s existence. In point, there is no report of a ship by the name of SS Ourang Medan at all.

Did The SS Ourang Medan At any time Exist?

According to Lloyd’s Sign-up of Ships, which has retained a history of each merchant ship because 1764, for each Encyclopedia Britannica, no ship by the identify of SS Ourang Medan was at any time documented. And there are no official incident studies about the ship’s sinking.

What is a lot more, no evidence of the wreck was at any time discovered in the Strait of Malacca or elsewhere.

According to Ripley’s, a German researcher named Professor Theodor Siersdorfer once uncovered a 1953 publication titled The Death Ship in the South Seas that presented proof about the incident.

The e-book proposed that the Ourang Medan was indeed carrying potassium cyanide and nitroglycerine, which brought about it to explode. If the ship sank possibly in the course of or straight right after Planet War II, the secrecy encompassing the vessel would make perception. People resources were sensitive items to be transporting at the time.

Nevertheless, a person described account of the ship does not imply that it genuinely existed.

As Michael East, a historical past and legitimate criminal offense writer, advised How Stuff Functions, “There is no shipping record of a vessel beneath that identify. No person at any time came forward to say they understood the ship or experienced served on her. Equally, the inconsistent dates continuously stand out, as does the altering locale.”

In fact, the point that so a lot of variations of the tale of the SS Ourang Medan have appeared in excess of the years factors to the tale becoming a lot more fictional than truthful.

The initially newspaper account reportedly appeared in 1940 in Britain. Nonetheless, it didn’t make its way to the U.S. right until all-around 1948, when news of the Ourang Medan was printed in reliable publications this sort of as The San Francisco Examiner. Why did the stories emerge 8 many years aside? And what brought on numerous of the facts in them to vary so dramatically?

Nowadays, there are nevertheless quite a few thoughts that continue to be unanswered about the mystery of the SS Ourang Medan — so several, in actuality, that the ship’s tale has been relegated almost completely to the realm of legend.

---

Just after learning about the SS Ourang Medan, read about the notorious ghost ship Mary Celeste. Then, go inside the secret of the Traveling Dutchman .