Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In the last episode, Destination Unknown,
Speaker 1: we followed the tragic disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight H
Speaker 1: three seventy to its strange and unfulfilled conclusion. Sadly for
Speaker 1: all those involved, despite continued efforts to dig into the
Speaker 1: truth of it all, we're unlikely to ever get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of just what exactly took place and where
Speaker 1: indeed the plane ended up. In a modern twist the
Speaker 1: mysterious case, a number of Internet detectives have devoted many
Speaker 1: hours since the plane's disappearance, mostly through the use of
Speaker 1: Google Earth, attempting to track it down. In fact, two brothers,
Speaker 1: Ian and Jack Wilson was so convinced that the found
Speaker 1: it resting just under the tree line of a Cambodian
Speaker 1: jungle that in late twenty nineteen they set out to
Speaker 1: find it. It was Ian who first spotted the image
Speaker 1: of a plain seemingly lying on the slopes of the
Speaker 1: Cardamont Mountains, not far from pronom Oral the country's highest peak.
Speaker 1: The men were forced to abandon their quest, however, having
Speaker 1: underestimated the difficulty of trekking through the jungle's treacherous terrain,
Speaker 1: though the pair have vowed to return to Cambodia to
Speaker 1: complete their search. A spokesperson for the Aviation Safety Network
Speaker 1: has since declared the image spotted by Wilson to be
Speaker 1: nothing more than a plain court in mid flight by
Speaker 1: Google Earth's satellite imagery. Whether or not we learn any
Speaker 1: more about Flight MH three seventy, it is now forever
Speaker 1: fated to join the small but painfully enigmatic list of
Speaker 1: similarly mysterious aviation disappearances, such as the disappearance of Amelia
Speaker 1: Earhart and the haunting tale of Flight nineteen. In December
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, the fourteen airmen and five Gruman TBM
Speaker 1: Avenger torpedo bombers that made up Flight nineteen were undertaking
Speaker 1: a navigation training flight over the Bahamas when they became disorientated.
Speaker 1: Having veered off course, the five plains eventually ran out
Speaker 1: of fuel, forcing their pilots to ditch them somewhere in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean, never to be seen again. Five years later,
Speaker 1: Flight nineteen's disappearance became immortalized when it was listed in
Speaker 1: a Fate magazine article as one of a series of
Speaker 1: strange occurrences alleged to have taken place in the region
Speaker 1: known as the Bermuda Triangle. Some have looked to apply
Speaker 1: the same logic to MS three seventies disappearance, wondering if
Speaker 1: it too had succumbed to some kind of preternaturally hazardous
Speaker 1: space located somewhere off the coast at Malaysia and northwest Indonesia.
Speaker 1: It's an idea that seeks to build on another equally
Speaker 1: haunting and perhaps mythological event said by some to have
Speaker 1: occurred in the Malacca Strait between the Malay Peninsula and
Speaker 1: North Sumatra back in nineteen forty seven, or was it
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight? In fact, was it even the Malacca Strait.
Speaker 1: Sometime in the autumn of nineteen thirty nine, as the
Speaker 1: wider world stood on the brink of global war, a
Speaker 1: British merchant ship was making its way through the Coral Sea,
Speaker 1: roughly two hundred miles to the southwest of the Solomon Islands.
Speaker 1: That afternoon, as the boat moved steadily through the waves,
Speaker 1: a sudden drop in pressure brought an unusual stillness to
Speaker 1: the air. At such times, it was common for crew
Speaker 1: members to take advantage of the momentary calm to enjoy
Speaker 1: a cigarette or gaze wistfully out across the vast, unfathomable ocean.
Speaker 1: And though for many these were times to be savored,
Speaker 1: it was also in these moments that thoughts inevitably turned
Speaker 1: to loved ones back home and whether or not they
Speaker 1: would still be there when they returned. And for some
Speaker 1: it was these moments more than any when the solitude
Speaker 1: and the sheer vastness of the waters stretching out before
Speaker 1: them would threaten to overwhelm them, when all those defenses
Speaker 1: they'd built up to stave off their darkest fears so
Speaker 1: vital for the long haul sailor might suddenly crumble, allowing
Speaker 1: that great, empty, vastness to come rushing in. When suddenly
Speaker 1: the silence was broken by the crackle of static bursting
Speaker 1: out of the bridge, followed immediately by the unmistakable pips
Speaker 1: of Morse code dot dot dot dash dash dash dot
Speaker 1: dot dot s O S. As the dots and dashes continued,
Speaker 1: a flurry of footsteps clattered about the deck, as all
Speaker 1: within earshot raced to the bridge to help decipher the message.
Speaker 1: S from the steamship urrang Medan beg ships with short
Speaker 1: wave wireless get touch doctor urgent. Not having a doctor
Speaker 1: on board themselves, the captain had the message relayed to
Speaker 1: medical stations in Germany, Italy and France, then instructed his
Speaker 1: radio officer to ask if they had any further requests.
Speaker 1: A reply followed soon after, probable second officer dead, other
Speaker 1: members crew also killed. Disregard medical consultation, urgent assistance. They
Speaker 1: responded again with their location, followed by a flurry of
Speaker 1: final blips. Crew has but there the message abruptly ended.
Speaker 1: Realizing they were the nearest vessel by far, and with
Speaker 1: time evidently running out, the captain made up his mind
Speaker 1: to help and ordered his crew to plot a course
Speaker 1: for the urrang Medan without delay. This year, I'm refocusing
Speaker 1: on what it means to take care of myself, and
Speaker 1: it couldn't be easier than with Daily Harvest. Daily Harvest
Speaker 1: delivers delicious food or built on organic fruits and vegetables
Speaker 1: right to your door. It takes literally minutes to prepare,
Speaker 1: and I never have to think twice of the food
Speaker 1: I'm eating is good for me. Daily Harvest works directly
Speaker 1: with organic farms to freeze their ingredients right on the
Speaker 1: farm at peak ripeness to lock in nutrients and taste.
Speaker 1: They never use preservatives, added sugar, or artificial anything. Personally,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the tartcherry and raspberry smoothies,
Speaker 1: which are the perfect start to the day. With Daily Harvest,
Speaker 1: there's something for any time, smoothies for breakfast, crisp flatbreads
Speaker 1: for lunch or dinner, and food that's perfect for cooler
Speaker 1: weather too, like they're perfectly roasted harvest bowls and soups.
Speaker 1: With Daily Harvest, I'm enjoying undeniably delicious, clean food without
Speaker 1: any of the breath. And whether you're looking to have
Speaker 1: your daily dose of fruits and veggies or just want
Speaker 1: to have a little more time back on your hands,
Speaker 1: you can too. Get started today. Go to Daily Harvest
Speaker 1: and enter promo code unexplained to get twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: off your first box. That's promo code unexplained for twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars off your first box at daily harvest dot com.
Speaker 1: That's daily harvest dot com. As the merchant vessel raced
Speaker 1: valiantly through the night, the ship's crew speculated uneasily about
Speaker 1: what an earth could have happened. Some suspected mutiny or piracy,
Speaker 1: while others wandered gravely if perhaps it had been some
Speaker 1: kind of prisoner revolt and their distress call merely a
Speaker 1: ruse to lure in another hapless vessel to commandeer. And then,
Speaker 1: almost sixteen hours after they set off, a cry rang
Speaker 1: out from the crow's nest. There shouted the lookout, pointing
Speaker 1: toward a large smudge on the horizon. Drawing in closer,
Speaker 1: they saw finally a large ship listing slightly to starboard,
Speaker 1: while its lifeless propeller could be seen just peeking out
Speaker 1: above the waterline. Through his binoculars, the captain was unnerved
Speaker 1: to see the ship had no flag, extremely unusual for
Speaker 1: any maritime vessel. But more worrying still was the distinct
Speaker 1: lack of any signs of life on board. When attempts
Speaker 1: to hail the crew through a megaphone met with no response,
Speaker 1: sixteen men took to the lifeboats and duly made their
Speaker 1: way across the water to investigate the stricken vessel. Stepping
Speaker 1: on board moments later, the men found a scene of
Speaker 1: abject horror. All over. The deck was littered with the
Speaker 1: bodies of men, their faces frozen in horrific contorted ways.
Speaker 1: But when the merchant shipmen inspected them, they found no
Speaker 1: wounds or anything else to explain their deaths. It was
Speaker 1: as if they had all simply died of fright. The
Speaker 1: ship's second officer was found on the captain's bridge, dead
Speaker 1: like the rest of them. Twelve bodies were discovered in total,
Speaker 1: although it was speculated that as many as twenty eight
Speaker 1: could be unaccounted for considering the size of the ship.
Speaker 1: But before the men could investigate further, an explosion rang
Speaker 1: out from inside the ship's hold, forcing them to evacuate immediately.
Speaker 1: Smoke was already belching from the ship's second hatchway as
Speaker 1: the men jumped back into the lifeboats and began furiously
Speaker 1: rowing to safety. As more explosions rang out, they could
Speaker 1: only look on helplessly as the urang Medan, now completely ablaze,
Speaker 1: rose up for a moment before crashing back down heavily
Speaker 1: into the water and then, bit by bit slowly sunk
Speaker 1: under the waves. Or so the story goes. This haunting
Speaker 1: tail of the supposed ss urang Meda, his first thought
Speaker 1: to have been reported in the British press in November
Speaker 1: nineteen forty, appearing in both the Daily Mirror and Yorkshire
Speaker 1: Evening Post, among other newspapers of the time. Curiously, despite
Speaker 1: the stories many harrowing details, a number of crucial details
Speaker 1: were strangely missing, in particular the name of the apparent
Speaker 1: British merchant ship that located the mysterious vessel and the
Speaker 1: name of the supposed officer, who, it was said, rather
Speaker 1: vaguely at the beginning of the articles, had first brought
Speaker 1: the tale to the city of Trieste in Italy. In
Speaker 1: any case, with many equally dramatic and harrowing tales of
Speaker 1: war beginning to flood newspaper columns on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: it appears this story quickly sunk among them. But then
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty eight, the story miraculously appeared again, this
Speaker 1: time in the Dutch Indonesian newspaper to Locomotif, with many
Speaker 1: of the details somewhat altered. This time, the ss Urang
Speaker 1: Medan was said to have sunk in June nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: not November nineteen thirty nine as it had before. Neither
Speaker 1: was it found close to the Solomon Islands. But rather
Speaker 1: five thousand kilometers away in the Malacca Strait between Malaysia
Speaker 1: and Indonesia. A dog had also been added found wandering
Speaker 1: the deck alone, as well as a new SOS message.
Speaker 1: Instead of ending abruptly on Crewe has now. The final
Speaker 1: words of the message was said to be I die.
Speaker 1: The ship that found that Urang Medan had also changed,
Speaker 1: with it no longer being a British merchant vessel, but
Speaker 1: an American steamboat called the Silver Star, while another boat
Speaker 1: called the City of Baltimore was also said to have
Speaker 1: intercepted the frantic SOS signal. Over time, the story grew
Speaker 1: to include the added element of one of the ship
Speaker 1: survivors being found in a lifeboat that washed up on
Speaker 1: the shore of one of the Marshall Islands. The survivor,
Speaker 1: a sailor by the name of Jerry Rabbit, was said
Speaker 1: to have relayed the whole story to a missionary who
Speaker 1: rescued him and attempted to nurse him back to health.
Speaker 1: Rabbit is said to have told the missionary that the
Speaker 1: boat stopped off in Shanghai to collect a secretive and
Speaker 1: volatile cargo of sulfuric acid, cyanide and nitroglycerine that was
Speaker 1: being taken to Costa Rica before something caused the storage
Speaker 1: containers to leak and killed the rest of the crew.
Speaker 1: Only Rabbit and six others were said to have escaped
Speaker 1: the ship, with only Rabbit making it to land. Not
Speaker 1: long after relaying his story to the missionary, however, Jerry
Speaker 1: Rabbit succumbed to his injuries, also the story goes. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you
Speaker 1: can now do so via patroon. To receive access to
Speaker 1: add three episodes, just go to patron dot com, forward
Speaker 1: Slash Unexplained Pod to sign up, or if you'd like
Speaker 1: to make a one time donation, you can go to
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com forward Slash Support. All donations, no
Speaker 1: matter how large or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained, The
Speaker 1: book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before
Speaker 1: been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones,
Speaker 1: among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music,
Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
Speaker 1: rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward slash Unexplained Podcast. I went to att