Ourang Medan | Did This Legendary Ghost Ship Actually Exist?

It was a calm night at sea when a cluster of sailors received disturbing distress signals. After locating the ship, they found a haunting scene. Every single crew member was already dead. Their faces frozen in horror. Just moments later, the ship erupted in flames sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor along with any evidence of what might have occurred. Today we're investigating the fact and fiction behind one of the most famous ghost ships, the O'Range Madonna. This is Redweb. Welcome back Task Force to another episode of Redweb, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries, true crime, and a sprinkling of the unknown. I'm your resident mystery enthusiast Trevor Collins, and joining me hearing this case for the very first time Alfredo Diaz. Okay. We're talking ghost ships. Yes, sir. Cue the movie. Cue the scene and the wire cuts everyone dance another dance floor. No joke. I saw that about two weeks ago. Why did you see that movie? I was at a friend's bachelor party, and they pulled that up just to watch the wire scene and then we cut it off. And then we watched something else. I didn't choose it. It just happened to me, you know what I mean? I don't think we've done too many ghost ships. No. So always exciting. I mean, it's an exciting topic. It's an intriguing one. You know, cinema has made shows, movies out of it. This I'm very much looking forward to it. I want to know the intricacies, the lore, what's it going on? We've been on a ghost ship, so we did a ghost hunt on a naval ship. So you can go watch that, too, we've got some weird stuff happening with flashlights. Yeah, man. That was honestly the beginning of your deeper and increasingly deep experiences with seemingly the paranormal where more things are happening around you that we can't explain. It's a fascinating one. Yeah. I do feel like that's what it started for sure. That's where it was inconsistent enough, but it was definitely something. Yeah. And then you fast forward to, you know, the latest ghost hunt where I don't like it. That's it. And then we know we had the anniversary stream. And so people, you know, supported enough to raise up another ghost hunt. And so it's just, it's my career now. It's, it's wild. They'll be like, what do you do for work? I hunt ghosts. I hunt ghosts, you know, here and there, but mostly here, yeah. And on the docket, where, you know, no spoilers here, but one of the locations we talked about was another ship. We got to figure all the logistics out. It's still happening here in real time. But yeah, I'm very excited about doing another Halloween special, taking you through the throws of the paranormal. But yeah, if you want to look at that ghost hunt, it is the USS Hornet. That is where we explored over in San Francisco, over in Oakland. And then also if you want another ghost ship after you're done with this episode and you're hungry for more, we covered probably the most famous ghost ship, the Mary Celeste, a ship genuinely found with no people on it. What happened? A lot of really cool task force theories from you guys as to what might have gone on, but a very interesting story nonetheless. And speaking of the task force, this one was submitted by multiple people. We have Raven and slippery, slappy Abe, who both submitted this topic. So I'm very excited to dive in. And before we dive in today's episode, we've got a lot going on at redwebpot.com. The number one way to support us, it's our Patreon page. And with that comes a few things like this Wednesday, we have break room live. This will once again be at 1 p.m. central time. We like to move that around for a global audience that way different people get to join us live. And then of course this Friday, we have our monthly gameplay and we are playing a game called Invoker. It's just like Jumanji. It's a survival horror game. You play a board game and things come to life, you gotta escape this house once you beat the game. It is really good. It has proximity chat so we get lost in the mansion and a lot of chaotic goodness happens. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. And if you like our gameplays, drum roll please. Because next week begins our weekly Friends Sloptenber series where we're going to put out free weekly collaborations with our friends over at redwebpot.com. That's right. No matter who you are, you can go to the website and you can watch these gameplays for free every single week. We'll be playing with friends like Tails from the stinky dragon midnight snack, Michael Jones and Fouya and of course regulation podcast just a name of few of our old friends from Rooster Teeth. So come hang out with us each and every Thursday of September. All right. With that back to the famous go ship. All right. So let me take you back, Fredo, to the 1940s. The SS O'Range Madonna was reportedly a Dutch merchant ship that sailed throughout the 1940s. And while that may be the origin, many know it as one of the most famous ghost ships in history. Now this is where I want to be a little pedantic because immediately I'm feeling the vibes of like the definition of ghost ship is actually pretty interesting. Of course, you have a ship that is discovered like the Mary Celeste with no people on it. So the ship itself is kind of ghostly in that way. But the term also refers to an entire category of supernatural ships from urban legends to folklore and everything in between kind of like the flying Dutchman and SpongeBob. Yeah. You know, but also as you kind of refer to it as a ship that is kind of haunted that you might experience paranormal events on. So it kind of touches on all of these cornerstones. So again, touching into the definition because this one has a little bit of both, shall I say. I mean, the crew is there, but they're all dead, right? Right. Because, you know, we know where the crew is. So there's no, I don't know, these mysteries are just intriguing overall, right? Because the crew is there, then it's a whole different perspective. Let's investigate. You know what I mean? If they're not there, let's speculate. Let's speculate and try to fill in the gaps. What happened to them? Where did they go? etc. But now it's like, let's try and take the evidence that we do have to extrapolate what happened to them. And so that's where my mind is at right now, but it's interesting to see the different abilities you can go down. Yeah, absolutely. So the story of the SS O'Ring Medon has changed over time and there are a few different iterations of what happened to the ship. Again, you're going to see the similarities, but the speculation is kind of, it's interesting. So we're going to break down some of the key versions of this story before then diving into the theories that attempt to explain everything, looking at all the evidence that we know from the stories before the ship sank and attempting to answer for what went down. Though I'll say this right now, we have a very likely answer. It's one of those episodes where at the end of this, most people kind of agree on one answer, though. Of course, there's always speculation and believers to other theories. It's an interesting one. So let's start at the very beginning. The first appearance of this story in publications begins throughout Italy and England. The year is 1940 and in that version of the story, the SS O'Ring Medon was sailing south of the Solomon Islands when things first went wrong. This would be somewhere roughly northeast off the coast of Australia. Once we talk about all the different iterations of this, I'll give you a map so you can kind of visualize where we really are at. But the ship sent out a distress signal stating this, quote, "SOS, from the steam ship O'Ring Medon, beg ships with shortwave wireless get-touch doctor urgent," end quote. Shortly after that, they sent out another distress signal saying this, quote, "probable second officer dead, other members of crew also killed, disregard medical consultation, SOS, urgent assistance, warship," end quote. Like another ship is involved? It's hard to say because it's a little broken, right? Right. But it's interesting that they mention a doctor kind of in broken phrasing there and then say, never mind, ignore that part. But I'm picking up on interesting that the second officer is dead, but then essentially the rest of the crew is dead or killed. Killed is the operative word that stands out to me. Yeah, like, I don't know why I'm latching onto warship, you know? Yes. So, is there another ship that's involved? Great observation. Like, did they come across another one and they're battling at sea? And this is like the distress signal, like, what's- what's happening here? Yeah, dude. Cause I mean, maybe that's, you know, we'll get to that towards the end, but maybe that's just the simple answer is that they had a battle at sea. But then again, there would be evidence of that, that you would, you would see the remnants of battle on the ship itself. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Here we go. Chips in the wood from swords and cemetars, mullet holes. Yeah. I'm seeing, I'm seeing the rabbit hole and I'm capturing down it. Mm-hmm. Yes. I do. I love that you pulled out warship. It's going to be a key detail going forward because I will say that the SSO ring, Madonna is not itself a warship. And so it's almost, I assumed that, because I feel like you would have, you would have came in with that. So, I mean, why would you say warship then? Right. What are you trying to convey with that? Excellent point. That's what you're just, look, if you're frantically saying stuff, then get off the comms, okay? Or he's like, warship disregard that death disregard that like get this man off the comms. saying random stuff right look but I know how to spell in more yeah You got somebody else go it. They just respond back comms clear the comms. This is what I learned in naval school Stop it. Stop it. People are gonna think something's actually happening. Oh, this is my favorite one That says warship Steve. Why are you sending that out? We have an SOS Okay, so these are very disturbing messages for anybody to receive because their panic it's broken English But it only gets otter right so the final one comes through and this is all it Says crew has and then there's a long pause and after that nothing else was ever received from this ship Whoever is receiving these distress signals. So this chilling unfinished final dispatch would be the last anyone would Hear from the SS Arangmadan and nearby boats then of course responded to this distress call and They they wanted to figure out how they could help. I mean, this is a gruesome Message to get and it's an equally gruesome scene when the ships arrive at this boat because reportedly, you know they arrive everything seems okay But upon boarding the ship they noticed several dead crew members at their posts They tried to venture further into the ship, but as they did so This is when they all heard a sudden explosion or a series of explosions somewhere on the ship we couldn't figure out any further details of what they felt or where they heard it They just know that explosions were happening and quickly in a panic they returned to their vessels and then watch as the SS Arangmadan kind of sinks down into the ocean aflame now almost like Like a bomb was set off or like it responded to them arriving or or maybe to hide some sort of evidence We don't really know. It's very interesting timing because at that point It's just like Coincident. It's perfect timing. Yeah, that everyone got there and then it happened To go off before really anyone got on board. Yeah. Yeah, like that's spectacular timing I'm also interested to see what set it off was I don't know like was there a fire below deck that a cake catch on fire But then that's such a Perfectly timed scenario. Yeah and frustratingly This is the end of that version of the tale and so really with the ship going down You have nothing but speculation as you pointed out at the beginning nothing of speculation to figure out what's going on but I I'm very interested in your thoughts now because you're talking about a warship the idea of a battle and maybe Like someone lit a fuse and then fled We don't know of any sightings of a ship leaving this direction or coming from the opposite way So maybe they were lucky they dodged any sort of rescue vessels and then maybe they had a bomb or some sort of explosive go off behind them to hide the evidence But who knows right? That's all pure speculation Yeah, and you think that like they got into battle It would be with a whole nother crew a whole nother ship Mm-hmm not necessarily with an individual I see yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but what was the point of the ship? What were they holding was anyone there with valuables or valuable information was this a type of Sabotage situation or someone was a plant that was on board and then they achieved their goal of sabotaging the ship who they went rogue Damn, I don't know because if it's just one if it was to be one person that like that destroyed the ship and then fled You'd have to think they were on board the ship the whole time it wasn't this scenario where They caught the ship got on board were able to finagle their way around the ship with a whole entire crew Yeah, right they would have to have been there already Yeah, because the SOS went out as kind of like a response people were dying Here's the thing that stands out to me though people are dying at their posts You know, that's where they're found in this iteration of the story So I feel like it have to be someone Trustworthy someone familiar some sort of stealth action here maybe that would be Wild play. Yeah, how big is this boat? Oh, that's a great question I actually didn't look into that Christian if you don't mind. I'll produce your Christian beautiful guy in the chair You don't mind looking into that. I'm actually very curious. Are we thinking aval ship? Are we more Captain Jack Sparrow black pearl size ship? It could be a black pearl scenario. That's what I'm thinking and in that situation That's the greatest stealth man on earth right right people have to know you by face it What are you hiding in a barrel? It have to be an inside job at that point. Yeah Well, I'm glad where like while Christian looks it up I I love dancing in this realm because I'm gonna I'm gonna spill some beans and pop the bubble Okay, the next version of the story is gonna take this little further into a different direction and we won't be coming back to this theory Which is why I'm so interested in your initial take here I want to let it breathe because it's like that it is an interesting theory that it was an inside job of some kind at least in this iteration I like playing in this theory because I'm sure we'll get into like the supernatural at some point and it could be Again, was there any type of you know Yeah, do we know if there was anything of importance? It's a very good question We will get into the cargo in the next iteration of this story that comes years later But before we dive into that Christian Do you have any details on the purported size of this vessel or at least maybe the crew size this might not be out there Unfortunately, not really it's very very big There's enough to say that you know it carried a sizable amount of cargo and that it was crewed by a decent amount of people It's but nothing specific enough like prescribing numbers or measurements or weights or anything like that just making it sound like it's a Presumably for the time fairly run-of-the-mill Merchant vessel or or cargo ship yeah Well another nugget of truth to hold on to then huh yeah Well, I really like that there that's very very interesting and honestly it's it's nice because I've Miyagi you in the way of conspiracy. I love like where your head is at pulling from different threads and seeing what's possible because Sony the stories we've covered in these almost 300 episodes now Take wild unpredictable twists This one might be more predictable than you think really okay. Yeah This episode of red web is sponsored by rocket money Task force if you're thinking about finances and setting a budget You know it can be stressful and this is the last thing that someone like you should ever have to think about when you're trying to just relax during your Weekend okay, you get home from work You don't want to be stressing about this and that's where rocket money comes in. I use it Alfredo uses it I think Christian uses it and I really do swear by it even if you use the free account like I do It is a tremendous tool for tracking everything you've got I love that it combines every source of income and credit card. I'm using so that way I'm seeing all of my spending and it categorizes it So I always know my savings is growing if you're interested rocket money dot com slash red web will get you there But if you want to know more rocket money can track subscriptions and it has the ability to cancel unwanted ones within the app with just a few taps It gives users an easy way to stop paying for things that they don't even use You know like those free subscriptions that convert to paid and you forgot about them The app also consolidates checking savings loans and investments into a single dashboard to give you all clear views of your financial picture Rocket money is a personal finance app that helps finding cancel unwanted subscriptions Monitors you're spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings Let rocket money help you reach your financial goals faster Join at rocket money dot com slash red web that's rocket money dot com slash red web One more time rocket money dot com slash red web So the version of the story that was published years later in 1948 is largely the same but it includes quite a few updated details So in this version the SS ring Madonna was sailing in the Straits of Malacca in 1947 sometime in June or so This would be between Malaysia and Sumatra and it's roughly 4,000 miles or 6400 kilometers away from the original location still in the general near Indonesia area but quite a distance away The radio operator on board reportedly sent out an SOS signal in Morse code and it's a little different than the last time Quote SOS from Arang Madonna we float all officers including the captain dead in chart room and on the bridge Probably whole of crew dead end quote the distress signal was followed by a much shorter more harrowing message Quote I die end quote now this would be the final message in this iteration of the tale that the person who was buzzing away Panicked trying to send out an SOS seemingly is now conveying their own death from whatever is going on before then the ship itself going silent Now the subjects receiving these two messages we have more details in this iteration You have two American ships also navigating the very same Straits of Malacca You have the ship called the city of Baltimore and then another ship called the Silver Star When the Silver Star was finally able to locate the Rang Madonna they reportedly had initially appeared undamaged on approach right the ship appeared fine however Once they boarded the vessel, they found that every crew member on board was indeed dead. Some versions of this story detailed that the corpses of pets were involved, that there was maybe a dog on board found on the ship, and that their bodies were littering the floorboards, and their faces were again, by all accounts, frozen in horrified looks of terror. Their mouths were reportedly gaping wide open, and their eyes staring straight, or at least into the far distance. Yes, some of you see in a movie, right? Right. Unless this entire ship watched the cursed VHS, and then all got a phone call that said seven days, and then that girl crawled about on the well and scared them all to death, like that's the only time I've seen that, like, I would be unfortunate. It's like the crew's movie night, and that was the movie, and they all got caught at the same time, that's where, like, the entity is just like, oh, come on, you all watched it at the same time. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. I got to put in a lot of paranormal energy on this one. Everybody looking here at the same time, please, and thank you. What is this? Crew movie night. Steve Huck, you brought your family video, right? Yes, and let's share with you my favorite video, and it's a cursed tape of a well in a lighthouse and a woman brushing her hair. Yeah, I think that's such an interesting detail, but also if I'm honest, it almost feels unreal, right? It's so like, it's so exaggerative. I can't help but flag it. But aside from these horrifying faces, the horrifying imagery that they portray, there's no evidence of foul play, there's no injuries on these bodies, and of course we have the silver star crew members who are walking across this vessel, trying to figure out what went on, and when they return to their boat, they're preparing now to tug the Arang-Madon to a nearby port, obviously to investigate, but also just like, you know, out of respect to the bodies here, like, let's just tug this to a nearby port and figure out what's going on. So they begin to do so, but as they're doing it, they're towing it now, and almost immediately a fire breaks out in the cargo hold of the Arang-Madon, and very quickly the ship subsequently explodes and then sinks down to the bottom of the ocean. So ultimately the fate is the same, but we have a few more details. It's just such a paranormal take on it. Initially, I mean, again, the fate is still the same, but we still end up in the same spot. Everyone's dead. Don't know what hit him. No one's there. There's no evidence of what that could have been. And it's kind of similar. I mean, the Mary Celeste was interesting, when it was found, nobody was there, right? There's like a, like a stab wound in one of the sails that looks like it might be blood, looks like it could be rust, but otherwise we're like, well then why, why did everyone disappear? Where do they all go? How did they all die? And so like, it's just so, it's so like the movie Lighthouse. Lighthouse attempts to fill in the gaps of these mysteries like, maybe this is the insanity that was witnessed, but what happened on this boat that ended in this, this result? Yeah. It's wild. I feel like the death of the crew is where people are going to take liberty upon themselves to kind of create their own narrative, but it does seem like we're all still ending up at the ship, imploding, imploding and going down, and going down, which is very, very interesting. Also, I mean, doesn't necessarily have to be someone killed them or assassinated them or something paranormal. They could have turned on each other, but then why wasn't that expressed in the SOS? Right. Right. Huck went mad and he started strangling everybody with his Hulk strength, you know, yeah. We don't know where in the timeline that SOS was sent in regards to how rampant the madness was. Yeah. Yeah. So it could have been just someone's killing, it's like, it could have been very early on, and someone's killing someone, and we don't know who it is. And it's just them killing each other. It's interesting. I mean, it's a lot to speculate on. And I love like, as always, every single week, I love living these mysteries through your lens, because this is one that I've known for quite some time. So it's hard to not layer in my knowledge at this juncture yet until we get to the theories, but what does stand out to me objectively, like trying to remember back when I first heard about this? Why do we have a 1940 version and a 1947 version that then is published in 48? And so why are the timelines and locations so different, but the cornerstones so similar? And so my mind starts to wonder what else might be ticking under the surface. That's kind of where I'm at right now. That's a good point. It seems like we would have that nailed down. Maybe yeah, but this is where things, of course, get interesting because, despite being very similar, or at least like I said, hitting similar narrative beats while disagreeing on location and time and odds and ends and what have you. Some versions of the story claim the details instead didn't come from a rescue ship, but rather a mysterious survivor from the crew itself, an unnamed German man who kind of washed on shore to tell this tale. So as this story goes, it's kind of an iteration now, but a third version. As the story goes, the man swam to safety after the ship exploded and was then found by the Italian missionary and native people of Tawangi, a tall in the Marshall Islands. This would mean that the boat likely did not sink in the Strait of Malaka as it is about 4700 miles away, roughly 7,500 kilometers from the Marshall Islands. And this now is where I want to bring up the map for you, Frado, before we continue to give you an idea of where the three tales are taking place. First is the Solomon Islands, second, the Strait of Malaka. And now third, the survivor is washing up in Tawangi, a tall, kind of way off in the ocean there. This is a big. these are big distances between these points. Yeah. How the heck do you find up in Tawangi? Yeah, especially if you're swimming. So unless you were already there, you know, in the Marshall Islands up there? Yeah, that's so far into the North Pacific Ocean. Yeah. Dang, I don't even know, man. Those are big distances. Very big distances. I highlight the main lead to give you one idea of where we're at with each of these iterations and two, paving the road of where we're going, but yeah, it's a very interesting detail. Now he washes up. In this iteration, he swims to safety. And before dying, the man tells the missionary about what he had just escaped. This is how the details made it to people who then spread the story. Now he claims the ship was carrying what's called oil of vitriol that had been badly stowed. So this is a historic name for sulfuric acid, which is a highly corrosive agent that will destroy essentially any organic tissues that it comes into contact with, but also most metals. So assuming maybe that this sulfuric acid is stored in like metal cans of some kind or barrels, drums rather, you know, it could, it could have dissolved its way through, but ultimately it's also important to know that if sulfuric acid meets with water, it creates an enormously exothermic reaction. And maybe this is where an explosion or fire could have come from if this is stowed badly. So apparently per his story here, the containers were holding the sulfuric acid and they were broken in some way. We couldn't figure out if they were leaking or if they were just the wrong storage, but in some way they just had gone bad and broken. And this then caused as his story eludes to poisonous fumes to escape and infect the crew. Now of course sulfuric acid when it's respirated could cause anything from just basic lung irritation and coughing to chest tightness and and strong enough concentrations. This could kind of destroy the tissues enough that your lungs start to what is it called pulmonary edema where your lungs start to fill up with fluids and you essentially drown because of the irritation going on. And so that's kind of where people are kind of thinking, okay well maybe that's the mysterious illness that struck everybody. Now this is where the lone survivor story starts to take many different forms and our researcher cat did her best to organize the various rabbit holes. She had no idea how many rabbit holes were surrounding the story nor did I, but tried to organize this story in the best way she could. There are some differing details, but I want to give you a second to process and think on this before I kind of start to shift the ground underneath the lone survivor iteration of the story. Got it. I wonder if like with that type of like poisoning we could put that as to we could link that to the cause of, you know, the potential theory that they were dead on the ship looking horrified. Yeah. Right. I don't know what kind of like quickness that would kill you with, but I do think this next iteration starts to bring in some other details that attempt to do that exact thing like maybe some of what caused these people to die, cause them to die so quickly that yeah their faces were frozen in this kind of like maybe coughing or choking or apparently horrified visage. Now changing the details a little bit, some sources state that the ship was sailing from a small, unnamed Chinese port on its way to Costa Rica. The route was designed specifically, as the story goes, to evade authorities and avoid detection. Other sources go on to say that the unnamed man actually did have a name. That his name was Jerry Rabbit. The iteration of this story says that it was 10 days after the Orangma Dan exploded and sank that rabbit washed up on shore in the Marshall Islands. This time, he was in a lifeboat, and with him were six deceased colleagues. Other crew members that also managed to escape, but in these 10 days succumbed to their conditions and passed away. Now according to Rabbit's account, he had joined the Orangma Dan in Shanghai. He said that there were about 15,000 crates of unknown cargo aboard the ship on route for Costa Rica. This is kind of the only real angle we have on the size of this vessel. 15,000 crates is pretty healthy and volume. Yeah. That's a good amount. I mean, we're mentioning cargo ship, so it'll have to be a decent size. So as this new iteration goes, Rabbit soon realized that he had, in Shanghai, unbeknownst to him, he was just looking for a job, but when he gets on this ship, he realizes, oh, this is a smuggling operation. And when he notices that many of the men start to fall ill, they're complaining of stomach cramps. He starts to become suspicious about what they are smuggling. What is this mysterious cargo that we're not allowed to know what it is? And this is when he decides to peek into the ship's logbook. And he found that the crates were from China and that they contained more than just sulfuric acid, but also potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin. Potassium cyanide being the so-called suicide capsule that you see in spy movies where they crunch on their tooth and then, you know, they die. Nitroglycerin, I kind of only know it from looney tunes or crash bandicoot, but it's like a, or what was that movie up on the mountains where they're carrying glycerin for some reason? Basically, it's a very volatile compound that, as far as I'm aware, if it's struck or if it faces a kinetic blow of any kind, it can set it off and make it explode. That's my understanding of nitroglycerin, but it is an explosive compound. It does explain the explosion and stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I guess if you have all the different chemicals and then that stored properly or correctly, it could be a silent killer to the crew. And, you know, people were dying. I wouldn't know that that would be the, you know, the reason why, right? No. Especially if not everyone knows what the cargo is. It's got a lot of ground to stand on. Yeah. I mean, especially at face value, I do want to say this too. I think nitroglycerin is a part of dynamite or like TNT or something like that, but ultimately this is what he's seeing in the logbook and this is what he goes, oh, this is answering for why I think a lot of the crew is going ill. And reportedly, per this iteration of the tale, one of the crew members did in fact die. And because of his understanding of the logbook, rabbit starts to suspect that sulfuric acid was leaking and slowly poisoning the crew. This is why they're all kind of feeling unwell. And maybe this is why this one crew member died. And when more of the crew began to fall ill and die, rabbit then said, alright, I'm, I've got no loyalty to a smuggling crew, a temporary job. I'm going to grab six of these guys and we're going to sneak away on a lifeboat. And that's reportedly what he did. And while none of the crewmates survived the sale, rabbit made it to shore before dying shortly afterwards from a delayed onset of the very same poisoning that killed the rest of the crew. Maybe it still succumbed to some injuries, but yet least after 10 days made it to shore, shared this tale, it kind of goes old school viral and that's how we know about it. But while this definitely provides more detail to the story, it should also be noted that there's no records of a man named Jerry Rabbit ever existing. In fact, there's no records of an SS Arang Medon at all. And that will be our starting point as we dive into this story's theories. "Well, eyewitnesses of the ship and everything, don't we?" "Reportedly." "Oh, people be lying sometimes." "Hey, now we just don't even know the ship actually was real. I didn't know. I didn't see that half being a thing." So that's the thing is like, you know, we were, I think we were complaining about it last week is sometimes people just drop evidence. It's fine to speculate, but when you're dropping evidence that you're just making up, that's when things get messed up. That's when things are just, what are we doing? You're just getting bucked wild out here. And we've harped on this so many times, just stay out of it. Right, don't go make it up evidence, theorize, recognize that it's speculation. Yes. But don't say, I think a ship saw them and this is what that ship said. Yep. Okay. So like I said, we don't have any record of this man Jerry Rabbit. We don't have any record of the ship that we're talking about. And that leads us to our first theory because while there's no documentation of the SS Lorraine Medon in Lloyd's register of ships, which is a registry that keeps record of all merchant ships ever since 1764. So it's kind of a Bible in that world. Some believe that the omission might have been intentional. And this is a theory I actually didn't know much about going into this, but basically that maybe this ship was scrubbed from the record. But why? Because of the cargo? It's possible. There's a German professor and a researcher named Theodore Searsdorfer. And they pointed to a 1953 publication called The Death Ship in the South Seas. So the German book that was written by a man named Otto Milka. And it suggests that the ship did in fact explode after carrying potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin. But the book places the timeline of events as happening during or directly after World War II, which could explain the sense of secrecy surrounding the ship. Those sensitive materials would require extra covert nature, right? You're kind of like flying under the radar as part of the war effort, so to speak. In fact, this actually feeds a larger theory that these toxic materials might have been part of the direct war effort or some sort of war activity. And this theory states that Japan had a large supply of nerve gas that they were going to use during World War II. But due to a shift in the tide of the war, it kind of ended before they could ever use this. And so then they smuggled this gas to China, who then gave it to America after the war. Kind of an interesting line of events, but we'll stay with it for now. However, upon receiving this, the American military couldn't really risk these chemicals on a military ship, you know, they might have been attacked or captured or seen. So instead, this theory purports that they hired mercenary shippers to transport the chemicals to a nearby military base, maybe somewhere in the Pacific. And this was because typically mercenary ships use their own security. This would eliminate the potential of capture or attack. And ideally, that anyone wouldn't even know what's in the cargo. So they could kind of smuggle this then out of China and then back into American hands, I think. Okay, I mean, from there, that opens the floodgates to someone being a spy on board, different political views, all the kind of things, right? So it goes less from being something that is paranormal to more of a political type of play. Absolutely possible. And ultimately, under the guise of this theory, right? Okay, you know, covert war efforts, we have this nerve gas, we don't want to use it anymore because the timing has gone, the tide has shifted, trying to give this to America, off it goes. Now, the end result would be the same, poisonous gases would end the life of the crew and the crew would perish. And then people might have heard about it. And when they got there, you know, we want to sweep this under the rug. Yep. In terms of the fire, if the gas was corrosive, it could have had a reaction with the salt water once it had eaten through the hull. This would have caused the fire that led to the explosion of the ship's boilers. Specifically, you know, I talked about sulfuric acid, but potassium cyanide and nitric glycerin were also both dangerous, extremely dangerous, once combined with salt water. So there's so many things, by the way, that react violently with water. There's an entire vertical group of the periodic table that will explode once tossed into water. Potassium is one of those, I think sodium might be the like one of the others. And they're like way up at the top, so they're like less volatile. But once you go to, I think it's the second group of the periodic table, once you go all the way down, those things go bang. So if this is what's going on, you know, maybe a nerve gas was created or being shipped or what have you, it would explain as you were kind of looking for the strange faces seen on the crew because nerve gas results in seizures, uncontrollable muscle twitching, and then of course a swift death. So if any of this is happening, especially in the face, you know, rigor mortis could set in and maybe create an even further, I mean, to see a dead person on a ship that just sent of wild SOS is already area enough, right? And so like if their face is even slightly away from a peaceful sleeping look, that's probably enough for someone to go, oh, they're horrified or their face is frozen in terror, right? Oh, I would definitely say so. But I mean, again, you have all these different chemicals that affect the bodies in different ways or just are very sensitive and explosive, so it all really pulls everything that happened together. Yeah, a perfect little storm. So ultimately, you know, I explored a few nooks and crannies here, but ultimately this theory claims that the story of the Orang Madonna remains unproven and undocumented largely do to military secrecy, right, that maybe this was a military or government cover-up. This part I genuinely did not know much about until we started doing research on this story, and now I understand why there are still a lot of people who deny, I think, the final theory that we're going to talk about. But before we dive into that, which is the other conclusion for why this ship has a lack of documentation, I want to talk about a similar theory, because there's a theory that the ship fell victim to carbon monoxide poisoning, something pretty innocuous, but deadly. So carbon monoxide, if you don't have detectors in your house, you should get them because it is odorless, it's colorless, it's tasteless, and it makes it very hard to detect it and once it builds up, it's heavy, it sits at the low point, you know. But this is the byproduct of burning natural gases, the things we use for heaters and water heaters, stoves, what have you. Once it builds up in high enough concentrations, it can be very dangerous, if not deadly. So this theory states that it was actually not the chemicals on board in transit that caused the explosion, but rather the ship's malfunctioning boilers for whatever reason caused carbon monoxide to build up, back up into the hull of the ship, as they're burning and churning, moving the ship along, this carbon monoxide starts to build up until eventually people are breathing enough of the concentration and ultimately the crew is being poisoned. The carbon monoxide could have built up enough that it was then ignited because, unfortunately, it's another flammable, if not explosive gas that we're talking about here. And if that happened, boom goes the dynamite and down goes the ship. And so again, it kinda works out. It does, it does piece everything together. Yeah. While the logic of this seems sound, and it does give closure in an interesting way, again, the main wrinkle here is the lack of documentation for this ship. Yeah, but if they were carrying stuff that they weren't supposed to know that they were carrying, then there goes the lack of documentation and- Right. Yes. You know, if it's exchanging of government hands or what not. I mean, it's an interesting theory, right? But we'll never know if this was a ship that was erased due to exactly that. But let's think about the other conclusion. We like to talk about Occam's razor. What takes fewer assumptions? And I also want to go back to the thing that stood out to me. We have different timelines. We have different iterations of the stories where the SOS signal is a little different, different arrivals stories, different survivor stories, a name of a man that doesn't exist. How did that come to be? The German man on a Dutch ship, it's all very interesting. Now this leads us to the final and leading theory. Because it is widely believed that the SS Rengmadan is nothing but an urban legend, a tall tale of a ship that never actually existed. Many attribute the first written origins of this story to three articles published by the Dutch Indonesian newspaper, "Day Locomotief" in 1948. This is where on a point to our first image here, finally, of an article. You want to go ahead and attempt that in non-English. You can go for it. In "Missery von der Zee" "Pastige" "Proudin" "Beradodin" Excellent, excellent. But you see there just below that, a Rengmadan. This is a very early publication of this tale and in this article, I'll save you the translation issues. The information is sourced from a man named Silvio Skirley, who's an Italian man who heard the story from an Italian missionary, so that part seems to be cornerstone here. And he says he heard it from the Italian missionary who is the one who found Jerry Rabbit or the unnamed German man when he washed on shore. It was then from here widely published in whether it be reputable or otherwise just influential newspapers throughout Britain in the 1940s and the early 1950s. So you might have seen it in the Associated Press, the Daily Mirror, and the Yorkshire Evening Press if you were alive at the time. And while some sources point to this 1947 timeframe for the story, others have actually found articles going back to the 1940, spoiler alert, I already talked about the 1940 iteration, but there are articles from November 21, 1940, discussing the very same ship with very similar details. I'll go ahead and show you those three images now, all thanks to the skittish library for sourcing these, but I'll let you click through them and point out what you see for a time. And so I will say since I didn't quote these before, I'm just going to read this article here, but it quotes the SOS that I mentioned before where we talked about the warship, but then an officer of the ship receiving this is saying that the ship gave her a position and went on and then talks about the other SOS that was sent. And it kind of just gives the perspective of the ship that found her, that found the Arang Medon. And so if you're interested, we'll kind of have those on the screen or those are available throughout online. We also post these on social media at RedwebPod, if you want to go check those out. And ultimately, those kind of detail, the very story we've talked about here. And so now we have multiple sources saying one, it originated in 1948, no, it originated in 1940, and we have publications to back up either. But what's interesting is that these accounts in 1940 reportedly came from a marine officer that was on an unnamed rescue ship, which would make sense for the 1940 tail. Now the US Coast Guard even published their own account in 1952 in the journal Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council. In this, it was under an article titled We Sail Together that discussed several different mysteries at sea. So it was kind of just bundled up as a collage of mysteries. However, as previously noted, there are no records of any SS Arang Medon ever existing. The Silver Star on the other hand was in fact a real ship that sailed. And so this might be our way into this mystery, but their logs also never note running into hearing from or approaching a vessel called the SS Arang Medon. They have no reports of an SOS call a fire, an explosion, a sinking a rescue attempt. Now the question is, does this lack of documentation kind of affirm that this is folklore, an urban legend, or even like a hoax where someone's maliciously just trying to sell newspapers or a story would have you? Or is it, again, part of some sort of cover-up that like something a part of the war effort was going on and that either China, Japan, or America just didn't want this to be found? Who knows, that's where we might not ever really know. I can go so many places it's less paranormal than I thought it would be. Yeah, I know. I think with the cargo is, we know it's cargo ship, and then we know there is that big explosion. So I do feel like there were chemicals on board and the crew just wasn't aware of what they were carrying. It was killing them in various ways, slowly, and then eventually the actual, I mean, with people dying, I'm sure the ship wasn't being banded very well. Yeah. Yeah, dude, it's really hard to say. It's such a gripping, terrifying tale. And what's interesting is because we've covered some urban legends before, and in those stories, you know, when you start to look deeper, it doesn't stand to the microscope, right? You start to see, and there's a few elements here that you could argue to, but the fact that there's some details, at least built into the story that then reverse answer, it's like, it isn't just like a horrifying tale of men found it, see, dead with terrifying faces. Like that is a gripping headline, but it goes deeper as to say, like, oh, well, they're either smuggling some sort of chemical or they're shipping some sort of chemical. And maybe that's what it was. Why would a, what's interesting is like an urban legend doesn't normally diffuse its own intrigue, normally it leans into it further. And so for an urban legend to include details that rob it of its own intrigue, that's interesting to me. I don't know if I believe in the cover up theory. I think it's fascinating, to be honest, but ultimately, it's unclear if we've ever attempted to look for the wreckage of the SSR, but historians, I'll say this, historians widely believe this story to be fictitious. And as such, believers may have a hard time ever getting that solid evidence to demonstrate the veracity of the tale and the truth of a cover up. But man, is it an interesting story? The legacy will live on for a long time as one of the most famous ghost ships. Just the overarching sea in general is very vast in terms of what it could provide with mystery. If you look at humans, right, you could just be the vastness and the depth of the sea. There's mysteries in that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Then you can have the mystery above water, below water. It could be a city below water, it'd be a lanterns, you know, so it's very vast. We're talking about Poseidon's? Don't. I don't even know why we were doing that. - I don't remember why we did that. - I remember the exact room we were in, but I don't remember, and I had my socks and flops on. - That's a very early Redweb shenanigans. - Yeah, muscled up, Poseidon going. - Yep, just buffed up, yup. - But yeah, you're right. I mean, it's the perfect locale for terrifying horror. I mean, our own Christian guy in the chair has that thalasophobia to him. And with great reason, the ocean's scary. The ocean is gnarly, dude. - It really is, and this is a tale on it and its own, but I do kind of feel like it is the conclusion of chemicals on board, and it fits nicely with everything that happened. Well, we truly know, I don't know, right? And then we get to the point where like, what did this ship really exist? - Well, what are you saying? Do you think it did? Do you think it did? How do you feel? - I feel like it did. - Okay. - I'm not like it existed. - Yeah, I mean, it's very possible. It all sounds possible, which is not common for urban legends. - Right, and also why will there be so many potential reportings? - And I lean towards it being something. - Well, you know what they say. A lie will make itself around the world several times before the truth is gotten up to put its shoes on. - Dang, that's true. - And so I will say, I don't know if this ship ever existed. Maybe it's the fourth kind of a ghost ship. The one that doesn't exist. (laughing) I don't know, but I'm in love with this story because it's terrifying, it's interesting, it's got a hook, but it also resolves itself. It's sound, it's logically sound. And so I don't know how to feel, but of course. Of course, the government conspiracy coverup had to come to play and murky the water and make it possible that maybe the ship did exist and you'll never know. - There's a ton of things that exist or have happened that will never know because the government's like, nah. - And that people don't believe in either, you know? - Oh, for sure. And they, you know, the government will just bang off of that where they're just gonna believe them. They could have as much as they want, but no one's truly gonna believe them. And then the whole like, well, we have to debunk all this classified information after so many years. I'm like, you think they're really, you think there's not a filter before that happens, you know, or it's like, right, right. - You know what, and the rules don't apply to this one, we need to just keep this one secret. - There's a beyond secret, you know? The bed bath and beyond secret where it never gets exposed. I don't, they like a freedom of information act. I don't know her. - And they just don't tell you or they give it to you and it's redacted to hell. So again, there's always that little sliver of possibility, little sliver. And within that redacted sliver is where we thrive, is where we plant our roots and we start to get wild about thicked up aliens and Atlanteans and ghouls and goblins. - Ghouls and goblins. - But it's all just a good time, it's all a good time. But as we come to an end, Fredo, this has been the SS Aureng Medon. You might have found a lot of familiar energy here because it was in fact a game, the Dark Pictures Anthology Man of Medon. Whereas I think I was calling it at the time, Man of Medan. - Man of Medan. - But yeah, a very interesting game, almost like a choose your own adventure kind of thing where yeah, you're navigating this ship and there's like a ghostly green gas. And everyone's dead and you're having visions and things which all plays into carbon monoxide poisoning. - The ship did seem more modern of a ship. - Yeah, I mean, that would make sense. In 1940s, you know, my G-Post kicking around. So, you know, I'd like to think of it as relatively modern. But yeah, yeah, I don't know why my brain kept thinking like, you know, 1,800, 1,700 some sort of like wooden vessel like the black pearl, like you were saying. But it's very, it's a very compelling story to which we turn it to you, Task Force. What do you think? Let us know your theories over on the Discord channel @redwebpod. And again, thank you, Raven and Slippery Slapy Abe for submitting this one. We have a post @redwebpod.com available to anybody free and members alike that you can go see and there is a submission format. There's ever a movie, a game or a topic for red web that you want us to cover. You can submit those there. We review those periodically and pull out some of our favorite ones that have a lot of interesting depth and good conversations. So thank you all so much and some shout outs. Newest member of the Task Force, Fredo, elite member, Fury. - Oh, great name. - Fury, Brad Pitt. Welcome. Also, above scientists of the week, long name. I'm going to try to do my best to pronounce it properly. Vigard Iverson, Andreson. That's a name that commands a kingdom. - Welcome and thank you. And then of course, our squonks for the week. We have James Hill, wall squonk and Evan Guilin. I'm not sure which actually I should ask you, Evan. But thank you all so much for supporting us. And man, we are, we are coming to the end of August here. And if you're still listening, thank you very much. I'm going to tease out that Friendsloptenber begins next Thursday. This is our first stretch goal is hitting the presses. You guys earn this back at our six year anniversary. And so now in September, every Thursday in September, we have a new collaboration with friends of ours that you might have known from way back in the Rooster Teeth days we're putting out collaborations every single week with our good friends available to everybody. We want to make sure that they're accessible there for free over at redwebpod.com. So come hang out and then also see what other offerings we and our friends have on their Patreon. But Fredo, with that said, maybe Poseidons will tell us what happened. - Maybe? - But I do. Some point we'll have to cover the Odyssey for movie club. - Oh, don't get me started. You want to have an Odyssey length episode? We're gonna have to get into it. - Oh, probably a two-parter. - What an amazing story and a bravo to the entire film cast and crew 'cause I had a great time with that one. All right, with that said, Fredo, I'll see you right back here next Monday for yet another mystery. (upbeat music)