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The Ourang Medan Mystery (Derelict Ship / Dead Crew)

MercuryCrest said:
I read about the Ourang Medan in several books back in the '80's. It was up there with the Mary Celeste. Hell, I might still have some of those books.
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I first encountered the story in a compilation of creepy ghost ship stories as a teen.... back in the early 90s I think? the book wasn't published in the 90s though, but I don't remember the name.
 
MercuryCrest said:
I read about the Ourang Medan in several books back in the '80's. It was up there with the Mary Celeste. Hell, I might still have some of those books.
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It is in Ghost Ships by Richard Winer, published in 2000, where it is uncritically regurgitated.
 
SimonBurchell said:
Alas, my copy went missing some years ago...
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I seem to remember it may have, at least, been mentioned in Frank Edwards' "Strange World" although, mine seems to be missing at the moment. I know damned well it's around here somewhere....
 
George is a first rate researcher. He's been a huge help in my Titanic research for decades.
 
marhawkman said:
While interesting, it's not a source of information. It's apparently nothing more than a guy using official channels to discuss a rumor he heard. :/

The fact it's marked TS ("Top Secret") is interesting though.
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Is it, though?

Genuine question, because I may be looking at the wrong bit, so bear with me.

Looking at the top of the sheet, the X could be read as being beside, and therefore indicating, either the 'NO CHANGE IN CLASS' or 'DECLASSIFIED' elements.

None of the initials in the CLASS CHANGED TO: TS S C (which options I take to indicate a multiple choice of TOP SECRET, SECRET and CONFIDENTIAL - presumably to be indicated by the author) have any mark through or under them.

(Am I just missing that its marked Top Secret elsewhere?)
 
Spookdaddy said:
Is it, though?

Genuine question, because I may be looking at the wrong bit, so bear with me.

Looking at the top of the sheet, the X could be read as being beside, and therefore indicating, either the 'NO CHANGE IN CLASS' or 'DECLASSIFIED' elements.

None of the initials in the CLASS CHANGED TO: TS S C (which options I take to indicate a multiple choice of TOP SECRET, SECRET and CONFIDENTIAL - presumably to be indicated by the author) have any mark through or under them.

(Am I just missing that its marked Top Secret elsewhere?)
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I read it that way too. There are no boxes next to the categories in "change class to", implying that they would have to be circled, or as you say underlined.
 
DrPaulLee said:
George says that the facts varied from source to source and the publishers had imposed a page limit, so they decided to focus on ships that they knew more about
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Yeah, that's what i noticed too, there's multiple sources... but while they differ, they aren't fully separate. When you compare them it's glaringly obvious they can't be talking about the same event... but also can't be talking about different events.
DrPaulLee said:
I read it that way too. There are no boxes next to the categories in "change class to", implying that they would have to be circled, or as you say underlined.
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Maybe, but also, why is that date set to 91?
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
The letter to the CIA has been made available thanks to the FOI act, but it's unclear whether this was internal CIA correspondence, as this website suggests, or an interested civvie trying to get answers out of the CIA.
The following looks like a follow-up letter, chasing earlier correspondence from 1956. I can find no evidence whether C.H Marck Jr. ever received a response.
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See the attachments - including a more legible copy of the Marck letter's first page.

C. H. Marck, Jr. wrote the CIA in December 1959 and referred back to a letter he'd sent May 29, 1958. His December 1959 letter merely mentions the earlier one, and there's no indication he was following up on a letter for which he'd failed to receive any answer.

In this follow-up letter he inquired about the Ourang Medan incident based on the later / derivative version of the tale published in the Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council. The death ship incident was covered on page 1 of the letter, which continued on page 2 to discuss weird spheres separately reported in the same region.

It's not clear whether the Ourang Medan incident had ever been mentioned in the May 1958 letter.

The originating address, addressee, and name of the Assistant to the Director to whom the letter was routed have all been redacted.

An assistant had responded to Marck in June 1958, acknowledging the 29 May letter and stating the CIA had no answers to offer.

Marck was not an assistant to Dulles. The name(s) of the assistant(s) who received and handled his letters were redacted.

It appears to me the 1959 letter was subjected to a security review in 1981, and this was the first time it had been evaluated since being originally filed. (There's only the one review stamp on the face of the letter.) The letter hadn't been classified upon its receipt, and the review didn't change that ordinary / unclassified status.
 
I've probably got far too much time on my hands, but thought that I would check out the archive of Lloyds Register of Ships online to satisfy myself that there was no Ourang Medan ever registered.
There wasn't. The nearest I did find though was a Dutch-registered merchant steamer simply called Medan in 1923:

lloyds.png


That's some 17 years before the first account of the Ourang Medan mystery.
I found a few other Medans and a couple of Orangs in subsequent years, but this was the only Dutch one.
OK, so clutching at straws I know, but if the (Indonesian?) radio operator was desperate to call for help before his final words "I die" and referred to the number of people (Orang in Indonesian) on the Medan, could it have become conflated with the ship's name?

orang.png

Or was it all just a made-up story anyway?
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
I've probably got far too much time on my hands, but thought that I would check out the archive of Lloyds Register of Ships online to satisfy myself that there was no Ourang Medan ever registered.
There wasn't. The nearest I did find though was a Dutch-registered merchant steamer simply called Medan in 1923:

View attachment 64663

That's some 17 years before the first account of the Ourang Medan mystery.
I found a few other Medans and a couple of Orangs in subsequent years, but this was the only Dutch one.
OK, so clutching at straws I know, but if the (Indonesian?) radio operator was desperate to call for help before his final words "I die" and referred to the number of people (Orang in Indonesian) on the Medan, could it have become conflated with the ship's name?

View attachment 64666
Or was it all just a made-up story anyway?
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l thought that “orang” might have been the recipient’s version of what the operator sent, which in turn might have been the number of crew needing rescue, e.g. “Twelve Medan” or “23 Medan”, but l’m not seeing anything here that could be misheard as orang.

maximus otter
 
Coming back to reading this old thread with interest and I was struck with a musing...

It's often reported that corpses are found 'with a look of terror' or 'having died of fright', but how true is this, really? I know that some poisons can cause the body rictus, but apart from these cases, does death not cause a relaxing of muscles prior to rigor mortis setting in? And would rigor not cause some stretching or contortion of the face and body in any case?

I'm not well up on the behaviour of dead human bodies, so it may be an obvious thing, but is it possible for a corpse to keep a facial expression post-mortem? In cases that aren't caused by muscle-acting influences like poisons etc?
 
catseye said:
Coming back to reading this old thread with interest and I was struck with a musing...

It's often reported that corpses are found 'with a look of terror' or 'having died of fright', but how true is this, really? I know that some poisons can cause the body rictus, but apart from these cases, does death not cause a relaxing of muscles prior to rigor mortis setting in? And would rigor not cause some stretching or contortion of the face and body in any case?

I'm not well up on the behaviour of dead human bodies, so it may be an obvious thing, but is it possible for a corpse to keep a facial expression post-mortem? In cases that aren't caused by muscle-acting influences like poisons etc?
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l’ve seen a few bodies, but none with a remarkable expression.

After decomposition / mummification / desiccation / burning, bodies can have that toothy “grin”, but that’s just the skin drawing back or being lost to decay.

maximus otter
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
I've probably got far too much time on my hands, but thought that I would check out the archive of Lloyds Register of Ships online to satisfy myself that there was no Ourang Medan ever registered.
There wasn't. The nearest I did find though was a Dutch-registered merchant steamer simply called Medan in 1923:

View attachment 64663

That's some 17 years before the first account of the Ourang Medan mystery.
I found a few other Medans and a couple of Orangs in subsequent years, but this was the only Dutch one.
OK, so clutching at straws I know, but if the (Indonesian?) radio operator was desperate to call for help before his final words "I die" and referred to the number of people (Orang in Indonesian) on the Medan, could it have become conflated with the ship's name?

View attachment 64666
Or was it all just a made-up story anyway?
Click to expand...
Well, difficulty of finding the ship was not the biggest indication it's fake. The biggest is that there was more than one report of the incident.... and they have different YEARS.... These aren't repeats from years afterwards, but reported as recent events.
 
maximus otter said:
l’ve seen a few bodies, but none with a remarkable expression.

After decomposition / mummification / desiccation / burning, bodies can have that toothy “grin”, but that’s just the skin drawing back or being lost to decay.

maximus otter
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That's what makes me wonder. Were people finding bodies that were in a fairly advanced state of decay and taking the 'staring eyes and exposed teeth' to mean 'died of fright' rather than just 'died quite a long time ago'?
 
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