DiscoverScroll article

SS Ourang Medan was a reported ghost ship and proposed urban legend of the 1940s.

The vessel was supposedly discovered adrift after briefly broadcasting distress messages. 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 the rescue crews 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 waters of the Straits of Malacca, while other versions of the tale place the vessel around the Marshall Islands or Solomon Islands. The story was initially reported in Italy in 1940 and in England later that same year, before similar stories were repeated in 1948 and later again in 1952. 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.

The word Ourang (also written Orang) is Malay or Indonesian for 'man' or 'person', whereas Medan is the largest city on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, giving an approximate translation of 'man of Medan'.

The first received stated "SOS from the steamship Ourang Medan. 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. 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. Soon after, the Ourang Medan was witnessed exploding before finally sinking. 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 Taongi Atoll in the Marshall Islands. According to the story, the Ourang Medan was sailing from an unnamed small Chinese port to Costa Rica, and deliberately avoided the authorities.

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.

The earliest iteration of the story occurs in Il Piccolo, the local newspaper of Trieste, in a series of I drammi del mare ('dramas of the sea') written by Silvio Scherli in October 1940. These initial reports placed the ship in the proximity of the Solomon Islands; they omit the rescue vessels' names; and the SOS messages differ from later reports. The origin of the story is given as the Associated Press, and reported from Trieste in Italy – but attributed to a Merchant Marine Officer. 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; February 28, 1948; and March 13, 1948. The Dutch newspaper concludes with a disclaimer: This is the last part of our story about the mystery of the Ourang Medan. In October 10, 1948, the story was published in The Albany Times of Albany, New York and references its original source as the Dutch newspaper Elsevier's Weekly.

Furthermore, no registration records for a ship by the name of Ourang Medan could be located in various countries, including the Netherlands. An in-depth look at the 75+ Year Old Legend of The SS Ourang Medan

Quick Facts

• As the rescue crews 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 story was initially reported in Italy in 1940 and in England later that same year, before similar stories were repeated in 1948 and later again in 1952.
• The most prominent version of the story places the vessel in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) in the waters of the Straits of Malacca, while other versions of the tale place the vessel around the Marshall Islands or Solomon Islands.
• The word Ourang (also written Orang) is Malay or Indonesian for 'man' or 'person', whereas Medan is the largest city on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, giving an approximate translation of 'man of Medan'.
• 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.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Ourang Medan". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.