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