KnownUnknowns's video: Most Scary Maritime Enigmas of The 20th Century - Mystery of The Sea

Thanks for watching... The SS Ourang Medan was a ghost ship which, according to various sources, became a shipwreck in Dutch East Indies waters after its entire crew had died under suspicious circumstances. Skepticism exists about the truthfulness of the story, suggesting that the ship may have never actually existed, but has become something of a legend. Ship ------------------------------------------------------------------- The earliest known English reference to the ship and the incident is in the May 1952 issue of the Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council, published by the United States Coast Guard. 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 from 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, if any, remain unknown. Searches for any official registration or accident investigation recorded have proven unsuccessful. 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, February 28, 1948, and March 13, 1948). The story is mostly the same as the later versions, but with significant differences. The name of the ship that found the Ourang Medan is never mentioned, but the location of the encounter is described as 400 nautical miles (740 km; 460 mi) southeast of the Marshall Islands. The second and third articles describe the experiences of the sole survivor of the Ourang Medan crew, who was found by a missionary and natives on Toangi (sic) atoll in the Marshall islands. The man, before perishing, tells the missionary that the ship was carrying a badly stowed cargo of sulphuric acid, 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. The survivor, an unnamed German, died after telling his story to the missionary, who told the story to the author, Silvio Scherli of Trieste, Italy. The Dutch newspaper concludes with a disclaimer: "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 this is a thrilling romance of the sea. On the other hand, the author, Silvio Scherli, assures us of the authenticity of the story." Silvio Scherli is said to have produced a report on Trieste "Export Trade" on September 28, 1959. 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. There were significant 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 Scherzi in Trieste. Possible accident ---------------------------------------------- According to the story, at some point in or around June 1947 (Gaddis and others list the approximate date as early February 1948), two American vessels navigating the Strait of Malacca, City of Baltimore and Silver Star, among others, picked up distress messages from Dutch merchant ship Ourang Medan. A radio operator aboard the troubled vessel sent the following Morse code message: "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 * * *." A few confused dots and dashes later two words came through clearly. They were "I'm dying." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ourang_Medan http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/11/death-ship-the-ourang-medan-mystery/ http://listverse.com/2011/01/02/top-10-ghost-ships/ http://flavorwire.com/435374/10-incredibly-haunting-tales-of-real-life-ghost-ships http://www.mandatory.com/2014/05/28/10-logical-explanations-for-biza Music : Title: SOS morse code.ogg, Author: Hydrargyrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOS Chaos, Gunnar Olsen; YouTube Audio Library