The SS Ourang Medan was a reported ghost ship and a story that some people believe happened in the 1940s. The ship was said to be found floating without moving after sending out short messages asking for help. Ships that came to rescue it were reported to find all the crew members dead, with their eyes open and their faces showing fear, as if they had seen something very frightening. When rescue teams tried to pull the Ourang Medan to a port, a fire reportedly started in the ship's lower part, causing it to sink and hiding its secrets forever.
The most well-known version of the story says the ship was near the Dutch East Indies (now part of Indonesia) in the waters of the Straits of Malacca. Other versions of the story place the ship near the Marshall Islands or the Solomon Islands. The story was first reported in Italy in 1940 and later that same year in England. Similar stories were shared again in 1948 and 1952. Because researchers have not found the ship in any official records, and because the details about where it was and what happened differ in different versions of the story, it has been written about in mystery publications like the Fortean Times.
SSOurang Medan
The word "Ourang" (also spelled "Orang") means "man" or "person" in Malay or Indonesian. "Medan" is the largest city on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, so "Ourang Medan" roughly translates to "man of Medan." Stories about the ship's accident have been written about in some books and magazines, especially in Forteana. However, it is not clear if these stories are true, and there is no proof that the ship ever existed. Information about how the ship was built or its history has not been officially recorded. Attempts to find official documents about the ship's registration or any accident investigations have not been successful.
Story
In 1940, a story described a distress signal sent from an area south of the Solomon Islands. The first message read, "SOS from the steamship Ourang Medan. Please contact a doctor using shortwave radio. Urgent." This was followed by, "Probable second officer dead. Other crew members also killed. Disregard medical advice. SOS urgent assistance from a warship." After sharing the ship's location, the final message received was an incomplete phrase: "crew has … ." Vessels that responded to the Ourang Medan received no reply. The 1940 version of the story described rescue vessels approaching the ship, which was leaning to one side in the water. Upon boarding, rescuers found multiple crew members dead at their posts. As they moved deeper into the ship, explosions were reported, forcing the rescuers to leave the vessel. The ship then caught fire and sank into the Pacific.
By 1948, the story included more details. One version stated that in or around June 1947, two American ships, the City of Baltimore and the Silver Star, received distress messages from the nearby Dutch merchant ship Ourang Medan. Some accounts mention the event occurred around 1947, while others, like those by Vincent Gaddis, suggest it happened in early February 1948.
A radio operator on the Ourang Medan reportedly sent a message in Morse code: "S.O.S. from Ourang Medan. We float. All officers, including the captain, are dead in the chartroom and on the bridge. Probably the whole crew is dead." After additional unclear signals, the message "I die" was received. No further communication was received. When the Silver Star crew located the seemingly undamaged Ourang Medan to attempt a rescue, they found the ship filled with corpses, including a dog. The bodies were sprawled on their backs, with frozen faces turned upward, mouths open, and eyes staring forward. The dead appeared to be in a state of fear. No survivors were found, and no injuries were visible on the bodies. As the Silver Star prepared to tow the ship to a nearby port, a fire broke out in the ship's No. 4 cargo-hold, forcing the crew to evacuate. This prevented further investigation. Soon after, the Ourang Medan exploded and sank.
Some versions of the story mention a sole survivor, an unnamed German crew member, who swam to safety and was later found by an Italian missionary and local people on Taongi Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Before dying, the man told the missionary that the ship carried oil of vitriol, a dangerous chemical, stored improperly. He claimed most of the crew died from toxic fumes released by broken containers. According to the story, the Ourang Medan was traveling from an unnamed small Chinese port to Costa Rica and intentionally avoided authorities.
Hypotheses
Bainton and others suggest that Ourang Medan may have been used to secretly move harmful chemicals, such as a mix of potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin or wartime supplies of nerve agents. These ideas explain that seawater entered the ship's storage area, mixing with the cargo to create dangerous gases that caused the crew to suffocate or be poisoned. Later, the seawater reacted with the nitroglycerin, leading to a fire and explosion.
Another idea is that the ship carried tabun, a nerve gas stored by the Japanese military in China during the war. After the war, this gas was given to the U.S. military. However, no U.S. ship could transport it without leaving a record, so it was placed on a ship without official registration for delivery to the U.S. or a Pacific island.
Gaddis proposes that a hidden, slow-burning fire or a problem with the ship's boiler system might have caused the disaster. Poisonous carbon monoxide gas released from the fire could have killed everyone on board. The fire would have spread uncontrollably, eventually destroying the ship.
Contemporaneous coverage
The first version of the story appeared in Il Piccolo, the local newspaper of Trieste, in a series called I drammi del mare ("dramas of the sea") written by Silvio Scherli in October 1940. Scherli was a maritime radio operator and freelance journalist.
A month later, news about the event was reported in British newspapers, including The Daily Mirror and the Yorkshire Evening Post. These reports used information from the Associated Press. They described the ship as being near the Solomon Islands, did not mention the names of the rescue vessels, and included SOS messages that differed from later accounts. The source of the story was listed as the Associated Press, with the information reported from Trieste, Italy, but attributed to a Merchant Marine Officer.
In 1948, three articles about the story appeared in the Dutch-Indonesian newspaper De locomotief: Samarangsch handels – en advertentie-blad. The first article was published on February 3, 1948, and included two photographs copied from the Il Piccolo article. The other articles were published on February 28 and March 13, 1948. These stories credited Silvio Scherli of Trieste as the source. They added new details not mentioned in earlier reports, such as changed SOS messages and the inclusion of a surviving sailor who, while dying, told a missionary about the events. The missionary later shared this story with Scherli. The Dutch newspaper included a statement:
"This is the final part of our story about the mystery of the Ourang Medan. We must say again that we have no other information about this 'mystery of the sea.' We cannot answer the many unanswered questions in the story. It may seem clear that the story is fictional, a thrilling tale of the sea. However, the author, Silvio Scherli, claims the story is true."
On October 10, 1948, the story was published in The Albany Times of Albany, New York, and cited the Dutch newspaper Elsevier's Weekly as its original source. The story was later repeated in the May 1952 issue of the Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council, published by the United States Coast Guard.
Silvio Scherli is said to have written a report about Trieste's "Export Trade" on September 28, 1959.
Skepticism
Many writers say they could not find any information about the case in Lloyd's Register of American and Foreign Shipping. Also, no records showing a ship named Ourang Medan were found in several countries, such as the Netherlands. Author Roy Bainton says that the identity of the Silver Star, which was reported to be part of a failed rescue effort, is likely correct. However, the lack of information about the sunken ship has led to doubts about where the story came from and whether it is true. The ship's logs for the Silver Star do not mention any rescue attempt. Bainton and others suggest that details like the date, location, names of the ships, and how the accident happened might be incorrect or exaggerated, or that the story could be entirely made up.