Open Water

in the water with no land in sight. Sailors who are dehydrated or sleep deprived have been known to hallucinate, seeing ships, islands, and even people that aren't really there, and history is riddled with tales of vessels turning up with their crews missing or a lone survivor who can't remember what happened next. Ships have ways of signaling for help, of course, from flares to radios and even satellite phones nowadays.

But back in the nineteen forties, one ship in distress didn't have a radio or a telephone, and it didn't shoot a flare into the sky either. It sent a harrowing, cryptic message in a last ditch effort for help that came too late. What followed could not be explained it started well, No one is quite sure about that. The event was said to have occurred in seven with a cargo ship named the S. S. Orange Madon sent out a distress call. It was a forty year old steamer

whose name in Malaysian translated to Man of Madon. Much of the twenty three man crew was made up of native Indonesians, but whether they had just set out or were returning home is not known. The ship was traveling through the Strait of Malacca, a narrow passage separating the Malay Peninsula and the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. On a faithful day in June. A message was sent from the Orange Madon in Morse code that scots and dashes

translated to we float. All officers including the captain dead in chart room and on the bridge, probably whole of crew dead, followed by the words I die. No other details followed. That was the last thing transmitted by the radio operator on board the ship to other ships in the area. One called City of Baltimore and one named Silver Star received the message, but it was the Silver Star that reached the Madan first. They attempted to communicate

using their loudspeaker, but there was no response. No damage was detected on the ship's hull either. With all other options exhausted, Silver Stars crew boarded the vessel to investigate. What they found stopped them in their tracks. The entire crew was dead, their faces frozen in terror, as though

something had scared them to death. Their bodies were twisted in unnatural positions as well, though they bore no visible injuries, and there were other signs of strangeness play, possibly even supernatural. For one, the outside temperature was around one hundred degrees fahrenheit, but the Silver Star crew felt a haunting chill as they stood on the ship. There was also just a single lifeboat missing, and the bodies were in a bad

state of decay, despite having died only hours earlier. The search party had planned on taking a closer look at the bodies, but were forced to leave in a hurry when one of the Maddon's smokestacks caught fire. Instead, they decided to tow the ghostly ship back to shore and salvage it for parts. Almost as soon as the men left the Madon, an explosion went off somewhere below deck,

then another. In total, four explosions rang out before the Orange Madon's smoking hull slip below the waves, taking its cruise remains with it. After the story got out, it was believed that the ship had been part of a smuggling operation involved in transporting harmful nerve agents and other toxic chemicals. It was possible that ocean water had breached the cargo hold and cause as to chemical reaction with the toxins inside. The ensuing cloud of gas would have

poisoned everyone on board. Another theory suggested that it was carbon monoxide gas that had killed captain and crew, caused by an undetected fire in the ship's boiler. The mystery of the Orange Madon is one that has stumped sailors and researchers for decades, namely because on paper, the ship never existed. It could not be found on any register, and the first mentions of it were in the news

stories coming out of Indonesia. They were based on an account told by an Italian officer from the Silver Star who had seen the bodies for himself. A photograph was allegedly taken to but when a newspaper editor tried to get in touch with him, the officer had vanished. But Once the story was out, there was no stopping it. Papers in England and the United States republished it without checking its veracity. There are people today who don't believe

that the Orange Madon even existed at all. Then again, perhaps the key was in the missing lifeboats. Maybe some who really knew what happened had gotten away before he could be caught. The world may never know the truth for sure, but the story of the Oranguemdon lives on as a terrifying reminder that the ocean can be unforgiving and that dead men really do tell no tales. When someone is incredibly skilled at something, they can make it

look easy. What we don't see, however, are the hours of training and rehearsals that got them there, the flooded lyrics in a song, or the foul balls they hit into the stands, or the wrong notes on the sheet music. But sometimes someone is so good it can seem like there are supernatural forces at play. Robert Johnson, for example, died in at the age of seven, but was said to have been so proficient as a blues guitarist that he must have gotten his talent from the devil himself.

According to a legend, Johnson took his guitar to a crossroad near a plantation in rural Mississippi at the stroke of midnight one night. A man appeared before him and tuned the guitar before strumming a few tunes and handing it back to him. The deal was done. Johnson had just become a blues master. And there's a reason these myths persist where expert artists are concerned. It's hard to imagine how someone can possess so much talent on their own,

especially while they're still so young. But Robert Johnson wasn't the first person to have reputedly sold his soul for fame and fortune. Before the blues guitar, there was the classical violin and the man who made it sing like no other. Niccolo Paganini. Paganini was born in seventeen eighty two in Genoa, Italy. His father played the mandolin as a side business, an instrument. He began teaching his son when Niccolo was only five, but when the boy turned seven,

his attention turned to the violin. Paganini was something of a prodigy. His talents earned him scholarships and opportunities to study with some of best violinists of his time, but his teachers quickly realized that they were no match for his growing skills. He was a force to be reckoned with. When Paganini turned eighteen, his plane earned him a top spot as first violin of the Republic of Luca, a now defunct state in Italy that was annexed by Napoleon

in eighteen o five. Control of Luca was handed to Napoleon's sister Alyssa, and Paganini served as violinist in her court until eighteen o nine, when he began touring again. It wasn't until eighteen thirteen when the virtuoso started making a name for himself as a violinist. After a successful concert in Milan, Paganini skyrocketed to success, traveling all over Europe and giving concerts to large audiences. Even the Pope was a fan. But Paganini's talents also earned him ire

from rival violinists who were jealous of his abilities. For one, he didn't perform with sheet music, he memorized his pieces prior to playing them. Paganini was so blazingly fast too. His long, thin fingers were able to play twelve notes per second, a difficult nearly impossible feat for most violinists. It wasn't long before rumors surrounding the origins of his abilities started to emerge. An audience member in Vienna claimed to have witnessed the devil himself assisting Paganini on stage.

Another person said that they once saw the devil caused lightning to strike his bow during a performance. It eventually got to the point where audiences stopped attending his shows for fear of getting too close to evil. To remedy the situation, Paganini was forced to prove something he never thought he would have to, that he was human. To do this, he had a newspaper publish a personal letter his mother had written him. Clearly, if he had a regular human mother, then there was no way he could

be a product of the devil. The letter was enough to quell the rumors and audiences started coming back. So why did Niccolo Paganini excel in a way no other violinist could well? That answer ties him to the other famous musician I mentioned earlier, Robert Johnson. It was believed that both men had something called Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that affected how their limbs and appendages grew. Those with Marfan syndrome were often tall, with long fingers and toes.

Both Johnson and Paganini boasted elongated fingers that allowed them to move about their instruments with great speed and agility. Sadly, Paganini died of cancer in eighteen forty. A priest tried to give him his last rites just before his death, but Paganini refused. He didn't think that it was yet his time. For those who had accused him of being in league with Satan, this was just one more reason

to be suspicious. But Paganini did die then, regardless of what people thought of him, they had to give the devil his due, because that man left behind an impressive body of work, one that's still performed today. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities, so scribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with

how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of lore dot com and until next time, stay curious. Yeah,