In June 1947, multiple ships travelling trade routes in the Strait of Malacca, off the coast of Malaysia, received a terrifying SOS message that read: “All officers including captain are dead lying in chart room and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” After a short period of time, one final message was received, that read simply ... “I die.”
Nearby ships identified the source of the signal as coming from a Dutch freighter, the SS Ourang Medan.
The nearest merchant ship, The Silver Star, travelled as fast as they could to the source of the distress signal. But upon boarding the Ourang Medan, they were horrified by what they found: Every member of the crew lay dead, their corpses scattered on the decks.
The eyes of the men were still open and expressions of sheer terror were frozen on their faces. The Silver Star’s party found the deceased radio operator as well, his hand still on the Morse Code-sending key, and eyes wide open.
But strangely, there were no signs of wounds or injuries on any of the bodies. The Silver Star’s crew decided to tow the ship back to port, but before they could get underway, smoke began emanating from the decks below.
The boarding party quickly returned to their ship and barely had time to escape before the SS Ourang Medan exploded and swiftly sank. Some theorised that clouds of noxious natural gases bubbled up from fissures in the seabed and engulfed the ship, and others have even blamed the occurrence on the supernatural, but to this day, the exact fate of the ships crew remains a mystery.