The Strait of Malacca, located between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, is considered to be very favorable for navigation. For several centuries, the routes of many cargo ships run through the strait. For the most part, they all arrive safely at the ports of destination. However, there is still one mysterious story in the history of the strait.
In June 1947, an SOS signal was received from the Dutch ship Ourang Medan ("Man from Medan"). Dutch and English radio stations localized the signal and determined that the ship from which it came was in the Mallack Strait.
Along with the signal came a message: “All the officers, including the captain, lie dead in the navigator's room and on the bridge. The entire crew is probably dead. " It was followed by a disorderly, indecipherable series of dots and dashes. Immediately after it - another short message: "I'm dying." There were no more signals.
A few hours later, the American ship Silver Star approached Ourang Medan. As there was no activity on the Ourang Medan and no one responded to signals from the Silver Star, several crew members boarded the Dutch ship.
It turned out that the message transmitted earlier described the situation very accurately: the entire crew of the ship was dead, including the dog. No visible injuries were found on the bodies of the victims, although it was obvious from the expressions on their faces that they were dying in horror and severe torment. The frozen faces of the dead were turned to the sun, and their eyes and mouths were wide open.
The vessel itself was also intact, but the Silver Star rescue team noted an unusual cold deep in the hold. Soon after the inspection began, suspicious smoke began to appear from the hold of Ourang Medan, and rescuers had to hastily return to the Silver Star. Some time after this, Ourang Medan exploded and sank.
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What actually happened that day is still a mystery. There is speculation that Ourang Medan transported nitroglycerin and potassium cyanide. Both substances can be dangerous in contact with sea water, so it is possible that the team was poisoned with hydrogen cyanide, and nitroglycerin caused the explosion. It cannot be ruled out that other chemical weapons could have been on board the Ourang Medan.
A similar, but simpler theory states that a fire started on the ship, as a result of which the crew was poisoned by carbon monoxide. However, this can hardly explain the death of the crew members who were on deck and the fact that the ship itself sank.
Another version of what happened - the crew was exposed to infrasound, which negatively affects the human body, can cause a state of panic, anxiety or terror, and also cause sudden cardiac arrest. Some believe the ship was attacked by a UFO that "scared them to death."
According to the historian Roy Bainton, who researches the mystery, searches of the ship's records in the archives of Amsterdam only increased the number of questions: it turned out that Ourang Medan was not registered in any of the Dutch ports. In turn, requests for information in Singapore remained unanswered.
Perhaps the reason for the lack of any official information about Ourang Medan is the time of the incident (shortly after the end of World War II) and the likelihood of the presence of chemical weapons on board the vessel. The death of Ourang Medan is still a mystery.