BY JORDAN DOLL THE GOOD SHIP WTF!?!? Are you afraid of boats? First of all, hilarious. Second of all congratulations! other nautical vessels. Now, if you haven’t already heard this, I would like to assure you that this is a completely irrational phobia. How many times do I have to say it? The ocean can’t get you if you just stay away from the ocean! I mean, what do you think is gonna happen? It’s not like a boat is gonna grow a pair of huge tattooed arms, crawl up onto land, break into your house and steal your PlayStation. Oof, could you imagine though? You’re in bed late at night when you hear the ominous call of a distant foghorn. But that’s impossible. You live in Kansas. But then you hear it again, a little closer. And again, closer still. Silence for a while, then a window creaks open in the living room. THUD, THUD, THUD. The sound of enormous boots creeping toward your bedroom. The door flies open, revealing: THE REINFORCED STEEL HULL OF A MAERSK E-CLASS WORLDWIDE SHIPPING VESSEL! Okay, I get it a little. But that almost never happens. And, in all truth, boats are probably just as afraid of you as you are of them. In fact, there is almost no history supporting the idea that a boat will just up and kill you for no good reason whatsoever. Oh, except that one time. The strange tale of the Ourang Medan is a hotly debated topic among ghost ship enthusiasts. Many are rather quick to cry hoax while others believe it to be startling proof of one of the myriad strange tales that wash in from the sea on an upsettingly regular basis. The Ourang Medan was a Dutch freighter operating in the Straits of Malacca between Sumatra and Malaysia in the late 1940s. The name Ourang Medan translates from Indonesian as “Man from Medan,” presumably because “Boat from Medan” was already taken. Sometime in late 1947 or 1948 (remember these are “sea-years” we are dealing with which are as wily and unpredictable as the briny deep herself), numerous ships working these No. 135 same waters received a mysterious SOS signal containing a rather frank and chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” This message was followed by a few more bursts of panicked gibberish and one final, chilling message repeating simply: “I die.” The ships who received the transmission were able to triangulate the most likely origin point of the message, and attributed it to the Ourang Medan, the only vessel in that area at the time. A ship named the Silver Star, whose captain was apparently the last one to touch his nose and shout, “not it!” ventured out to investigate the situation. The Silver Star discovered the Ourang Medan floating motionless in calm waters. Repeated attempts to hail the vessel resulted in only silence and so the decision was made to board. What they found was basically the biggest floating NOPE of all time. The rescuers discovered the deck of the Ourang Medan to be bitterly cold despite the temperature outside being well above 100 degrees, which is spooky, but not shit-out-your-skeleton-and-run-awayacross-the-water-like-a-cartoon-duck spooky. No, that part wouldn’t come until they pressed further into the upper decks and discovered the vessel to be manned entirely by the rigid corpses of the former crew. The captain and deck crew were found dead on the bridge, the ship’s communications decks were entirely populated by dead sailors, all of whom seemed to have been caught completely unaware and struck dead by nothing in particular. But that’s only the tip of this big, spooky yikesberg. According to the rescuers, the Ourang Medan crew seemed almost frozen in place. Many of the corpses sitting bolt upright and some even standing, arms raised as though to shield themselves from whatever it was that flash-killed them in an instant. Even the ship’s dog was allegedly found stone dead in mid-snarl, barking at some unseen assailant. As a final grizzly detail, every crew member above and below deck was said to be
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