Saturday, November 9, 2013
Ourang Medan
Guest post by Alex
Ourang
Medan, November 13, 1939 (or earlier).
Today, for a change, a sea mystery from
outside the Bermuda Triangle, in fact, from the other side of the globe. For
six decades, the ghost ship Ourang Medan has been
regarded among the greatest mysteries of the sea, right up there with the
Mary Celeste and the Carroll A. Deering. Now, I may be able to present you the
solution.
The yarn of the Ourang Medan
is traditionally told thus:
In June 1947 or February 1948, two American
vessels in the Strait of Malacca, the Silver Star and
the City of Baltimore, picked up a distress call from
a Dutch or Indonesian merchant ship by the name of Ourang Medan.
(Indonesia was part of the Dutch Empire.) Ourang Medan
is Indonesian or Malay and translates to Man from Medan,
Medan being the largest city on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
The message was scary enough: "All
officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly
whole crew dead." The radio operator of the Ourang Medan
asked for a doctor and gave her position. Then followed nothing but a
nerve-racking stretch of indecipherable Morse code.
However, the Silver Star
was able to raise the Ourang Medan one last time. Her
radio operator took leave for the happy hunting grounds with a laconic, "I
die."
Then there was only silence. Or, more
probably, static.
The City of Baltimore
was farther away than the Silver Star, so she continued
on her course. But the Silver Star raced all through
the night toward the position of the stricken vessel at full steam, her crew
hoping to find some survivors when they got there.
In the morning, the Silver Star
sighted the Ourang Medan. She was an ancient steamer,
but except for a slight list and a missing lifeboat apparently undamaged. Yet
the decks of the ghost ship were deserted.
The Silver Star
sent over a boat to investigate. When the sailors boarded the ghost ship, they
were greeted by a grisly sight: Her decks were strewn with corpses.
Their faces were contorted as if they had
died in agony — or of horror. Their eyes were staring and their rigid and
twisted bodies seemed to be pointing their arms at something, something in the
sky.
The sun? Some airborne horror that killed
like Medusa, by its mere sight? Like the mother (ship) of all UFOs?
The crew of the Silver Star
could find no injuries on the corpses. Nor could they find any survivors. As he
had promised, the radio operator was dead in the radio shack, collapsed over
his transmitter. Even the ship's dog was dead.
Then and there, fire erupted from one of
the cargo holds of the Ourang Medan. Fearing the
worst, the officer in charge ordered his men back into their boat. As soon as
they were a safe distance away from the ancient steamer, the towering inferno
spreading from her hold exploded into a fireball.
Gutted by fire and explosions, the
Ourang Medan eventually slipped beneath the waves.
Her wreck, if it was ever searched for, has never been found.
So the story usually goes, give or take a
lie or two.
Among believers, one rational explanation
is that the Ourang Medan was smuggling poison gas and
nitroglycerine, which in the leaky rustbucket got mixed with seawater. The
resulting poison gas vapors killed the crew, and the nitroglycerine reacting
with the seawater caused the subsequent explosion. Another, less spectacular,
rational explanation is that carbon monoxide from the smoldering fire may have
been the killer. And, of course, as I said, the true cuckoos believe that the
corpses allegedly staring and pointing were staring and pointing in the
direction of the UFO whose little green pilots murdered them.
Skeptics point out that the only element of
the story that can be verified is the Silver Star.
There are no records at Lloyd's or otherwise that a ship called Ourang
Medan ever existed. Likewise, except for vague magazine articles
giving no sources, there is no evidence that such an incident ever happened.
Of course, according to true believer
logic, that means that the government erased all mention of the Ourang
Medan because she was on a black ops mission smuggling chemical
weapons. That is the same logic like the religionists' that their god hid
dinosaur bones to test their faith.
To a true believer, absence of evidence
proves evidence was destroyed by his theoretical conspirators, and evidence to
the contrary proves evidence was planted by his theoretical conspirators. For
to a true believer, reality is obliged to conform to his pet theory.
On top of the lack of evidence, the story
is bodaciously unlikely in itself. Why would the crew of the Silver
Star be courageous enough to board a ship where for all they knew
they would catch an instantly lethal plague, but cow… uh, cautious enough to
not even try to fight the fire and claim salvage? Even an ancient rustbucket
has some scrap value.
Maybe they were good Samaritans eager to
die saving others, but uninterested in saving property and in profit? Maybe, as
Winer suggests, they had no steam pressure to operate the fire pumps? Or maybe
it was necessary for the story to work?
After all, if the Ourang Medan
had not been boarded, no one would have discovered the corpses pointing at the…
uh… UFO. But if she had not gone down with all evidence, there would have been
a scientific investigation.
So… While the behavior of the Silver
Star crew is rather illogical, it is absolutely necessary for
that sorry story to work as fiction — which it almost certainly is. Want more
evidence for that?
Up to now, the earliest known reference to
the Ourang Medan incident was in the May 1952 issue
of the US Coast Guard's Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council.
("We Sail Together," Proceedings of the Merchant Marine
Council, May 9, 1952, pp. 107–110.) Yes, being featured in a
government publication lent that tale undeserved credence. Yay, government.
Yet, through a simple search on eBay, I
found a copy of the Vichy French magazine Sept-Jours (#45, September 7, 1941) that had the more or less complete story of the
Ourang Medan in it (p. 9, "Après Vingt Mois — Le Mystère de l' 'Ourang-Medan'
Est Éclairci," i.e., "After Twenty Months,
the Mystery of the Ourang Medan Is Solved"). It
predates the earliest commonly known version by eleven years.
This article, in turn, refers to an earlier
article on the Ourang Medan in an earlier issue of
the same magazine (#13, December 29, 1940). According to Sept-Jours,
the Ourang Medan incident took place on November 13,
1939, predating the earliest traditional date for the incident by about eight
years.
In the 1941 article, the ship that finds
the Ourang Medan is not the Silver Star,
but an unnamed American destroyer (or torpedo boat, torpilleur in the original; the French don't seem to make much of a distinction). That
should come as no surprise, as the Silver Star was
built only in 1942 (as the Santa Cecilia,
6,507 tons; 1946 to United States Maritime Commission, renamed Silver
Star; 1947 reverted to Grace Line, renamed Santa
Juana; scrapped 1971).
According to the article, Ourang
Medan means "black man" in Malay. What's more, the
story is set in mid-Pacific, not in Indonesia.
It claims the Ourang Medan
was notorious in the South Sea for transporting convicts from Australia to
penal islands. When she was too decrepit even for that, the Australian
government sold her to a millionaire pirate, a suspected smuggler, drug dealer,
and white slaver (that's at least what I think négociant de chair humaine means), who had eluded the police forces and navies of
four or five countries.
One day, Sir
Harry Charles Luke, the British governor of Fiji, heard that among a
tribe on the main island of Viti Levu there lived a man who had arrived in a
boat bearing the name Ourang Medan. The governor had
that man dragged into the government offices in Suva and interrogated. The
mysterious stranger told the story of the last voyage of the Ourang
Medan.
Only the captain (cum owner, cum pirate)
and the officers of the Ourang Medan were Europeans.
The sailors were Malays or Polynesians, poor, poorly treated, and almost
rightless.
In October, in Singapore, the Ourang
Medan loaded 2,500 carefully sealed boxes. Then she headed for
Sydney. But after several days at sea, the captain suddenly changed his mind
and announced that they would go to Panama.
That meant a trip all the way across the
Pacific, potentially dangerous, given the state of the ship. The men were
frightened. But the captain stated that he had enough provisions on board and
promised them a big bonus upon arrival.
On November 7, a sailor unscrewed the cover
of a wind scoop. He collapsed, and the others thought he had fainted. But he
was dead.
Shrugging it off as a heart attack, the
captain had the corpse quite unceremoniously dumped overboard. Over the next
couple days, more men died, and the rats jumped overboard, a sure sign the ship
was doomed.
The sailors mutinied, demanding that the
captain take them back to Singapore. That was when the radio operator sent the
distress call. The survivors fled in two lifeboats, but only one boat with our
sole survivor made it to Viti Levu.
The report was wired to Singapore, the
authorities there investigated, and the truth was revealed. The Ourang
Medan had been carrying nitroglycerine, potassium cyanide, and
sulfuric acid, which had not been properly stowed. The containers broke, the
chemicals reacted, and hydrogen cyanide poison gas filled the holds and the
ventilation system. The explosion that destroyed the ship was caused by
overheated nitroglycerin that spontaneously ignited when the ventilation fan
stopped working.
That, lassies and lads, was the
(presumably) original story of the Ourang Medan. It
was on fucking eBay (I paid 3 euros plus shipping from France), and it was too
hard to find for all those triangular researchers of the last six decades,
Gaddis, Edwards, Winer, and the whole bunch of sensationalists.
Right, some of them died before there was
any eBay, but they could have looked in a library. Yet that's the sort that
makes fun of Kusche for doing all his research in the library instead of in the
field.
But enough gloating at defenseless mystics.
Where does that leave us?
First, now that we know that the Ourang
Medan yarn predates the Silver Star,
the last link to reality has been severed. The Silver Star
was the only verifiable fact in the whole Ourang Medan
yarn. With the mystery predating the Silver Star, it
loses any possible claim to veracity.
True, the Sept-Jours article has Harry Luke as a link to a real person, but I think we can recognize
a pattern of name-dropping here. Just like the later versions of the story used
the real Silver Star to lend them credibility, the
original story used Harry Luke. There are enough inconsistencies re the dates,
locations, vessels, and personages in the various versions to be sure that they
all are fiction with a fact or two thrown in for color.
Second, as a simple search on eBay netted
me two earlier articles that no researcher seems to ever have found, there's no
way we can be sure that the stories in Sept-Jours are the earliest incarnation. For all we know, that Ourang Medan
nonsense may have been around in one form or another — minus radio distress
call, poison gas, and UFOs, but still about a ghost ship full of corpses — as a
silly season canard and a sailors' yarn since the beginning of the Age of
Steam, and before that about a sailing ship Ourang Medan
since the European discovery of Sumatra, and before that about a Roman galley
called Man from Mdina (in Latin) since antiquity.
But couldn't the Sept-Jours tale be true, after all? Couldn't the Ourang Medan
have been on a black ops mission for the Allies, who then covered up that
embarrassing incident? Well, then the Allied governments must have gone to
great lengths to have it buried, so thoroughly that it was forgotten after
World War II and that no one before me ever found a trace of it.
Then the US government must have destroyed
the whole crew of the destroyer that found the Ourang Medan,
for so many men could not have kept a secret for decades. That would be a
dastardly crime, but not impossible. The US government could simply have said
the destroyer was destroyed by a U-boat.
Then the British government must have
coopted or murdered everyone who knew the results of the investigations in Fiji
and Singapore. If the knowledge was limited to government officials, that might
be possible. Yet the article sounds like the results were public knowledge in
Singapore. ("The truth was revealed.") If that's so, a cover-up would
have been impossible.
But the cincher is, the story claims that
the Ourang Medan was a notorious convict transport in
Australia and Oceania, and that the Australian government once owned her. Of
course, the Australian government could have destroyed all records on her. But
it would be impossible to coopt or murder all the residents of coastal
Australia and Oceania that must have known a "notorious" vessel.
As no such mass murder is known, there
cannot have been any cover-up. As the Sept-Jours version is not widely known and there was no cover-up, the story is nonsense.
What's more, I found me a copy of the December 29,
1940, issue of Sept-Jours with the original account of the Ourang Medan
yarn (p. 6, "Le Premier
Récit d'un Grand Mystère de la Mer," i.e.,
"The First Account of a Great Sea Mystery"). (Now, can we trust the
hoaxer that wrote it that this canard is indeed the origin of the Ourang
Medan nonsense, because he says so, or did he recycle an even
older sailors' yarn?) The article gives the classic version of the discovery of
the Ourang Medan plus several additional details,
most of which corroborate that the story is fiction.
The article features a blurry, grainy
photo of a man in a naval uniform, allegedly the second officer of the
Ourang Medan, lying on the floor, a pair of
binoculars at his fingertips. It is probably posed. And why is there no photo
of the ship herself? Because you cannot stage that in a newsroom.
The position is given as 200 miles
southeast of the Solomon Islands.
The article implies that the story was big
news internationally and only not reported in France before because France was
preoccupied with World War II. If that is true, why are there no records of the
Ourang Medan incident being reported in the
international press at that time?
The hoaxer claims that the distress call of
the Ourang Medan was relayed as far away as
Australia, Panama, Italy, France, and Germany. If that is true, why are there
no records of that?
He (or she, by the way) also claims that
the radio operators remembered the Ourang Medan as a
ship that had recently transported convicts from Britain to Australia. If she
was that well-known before the war, why did no one remember her when the story
resurfaced after the war? If she picked up convicts in Britain, why are there
no records of her there?
The Australian Broadcasting Company
allegedly relayed the SOS as coming from the Sea of Micronesia. Yet both
articles place the Ourang Medan in Melanesia (between
the Solomon Islands and Fiji or off Fiji, respectively). A mistake by the
Australian Broadcasting Company, or more sloppy writing courtesy of the hoaxer?
Unlike in the second article, the American
torpedo boat or destroyer arrives only when the Ourang Medan
is already on fire. She is discovered by an unnamed merchantman instead.
The American warship is identified as
"torpilleur
américain No. 716." That doesn't
seem to make sense. The US Navy never had so many torpedo
boats that one would be numbered 716. The destroyer
DD-716, the USS
Wiltsie, wasn't laid down before 1945. The
USS
Balduck was briefly classified as DE-716,
but even she wasn't laid down before 1944. There was a submarine chaser USS
SC-716, but the boats of her
class were built between 1941 and 1944, again far too late to be
afloat and cruising in 1939. Unless there's another Navy numbering scheme I'm
unaware of, this ship appears to be pure fiction.
What's more, referring to a destroyer only
by her number instead of by her name strikes me as rather un-American. It is,
however, a typically German thing to do. The Germans never built many destroyers,
and those they had often had no names, only numbers, and even those that had
names were frequently referred to by their numbers only. This would appear to
support my theory below that the hoaxer was a German.
The home port painted on the Ourang
Medan's stern was "Sidney" [sic].
Another example of someone's stellar research.
The fire started in hold #2. That for a
change is one claim that's not obvious nonsense.
When the first article was printed, the
investigation into the incident had allegedly been going on for twelve months.
If there was such a long investigation, why are there no records of that?
So we have nonsense, nonsense, and more
nonsense. What, then, is the origin of the tale of the Ourang Medan?
Nazi propaganda, that's what.
Just like the nazis' 1943 version of the
Titanic
movie. Both tales depict Western, capitalist, Allied society as breeding
grounds for evil, capitalist pirates who sacrifice their crews on their coffin
ships.
While obviously less costly to produce than
a movie, the Ourang Medan article series goes even
further propagandistically: The nameless captain (Nemo, huh?) of the Ourang
Medan is a drug dealer and a white slaver. Thus, the story
appeals to primeval fears among the stupid, the cowardly, and the weak, fears
of drugs and rape, fears any authoritarian, fascist government exploits, fears
only a strong, fascist government can supposedly protect you from.
The poor treatment of the native sailors?
To put into perspective the poor treatment by the German occupiers.
The hydrogen cyanide gas? Maybe to distract
from any rumors already spreading that the nazis were using it for mass murder?
Of course, aimed at the Western Allies,
this propaganda would have been pointless. Anyone in the free world could have
called or written to Australia, Singapore (not yet occupied by the Japanese),
or Fiji, asked if anything about the Ourang Medan was
known there, and upon being told no, concluded that the story was bogus.
But the people the propaganda was aimed at,
the people of occupied and Vichy France, didn't have that luxury. They couldn't
freely communicate with Allied countries and thus couldn't check the story.
It is of course not likely that this silly
story was a major propaganda operation like Titanic.
Hitler and Goebbels probably never heard of any Ourang Medan.
More likely, it was the homegrown product
of Sept-Jours, in the spirit of collaboration. Just like Belgian
cartoonist Hergé drew the anti-Semitic, anti-American Tintin comic book The
Shooting Star to ingratiate himself with the nazi
occupiers. Those collaborators told themselves, "This is just what is
demanded now, and if we do it, hopefully the nazis will leave us alone."
Or was it homegrown? Or maybe rather
heimgewachsen?
The Sept-Jours article matches almost blow by blow the account in the 1954 German pamphlet
Dampfer "Ourang Medan" — Das Totenschiff in der Südsee
(Steamer "Ourang Medan" — The Death Ship in the South Sea)
by one Otto
Mielke. This pamphlet was in fact the first issue of Anker Hefte
(Anchor Pamphlets), a pulp magazine featuring
fictionalized accounts of true sea adventures. Both versions are set in the
South Sea instead of in Indonesia, both share some details like the rats
abandoning the ship, and both have the poison gas solution related by a sole
survivor, although the German version is set in 1947 and stars the Silver
Star.
What's more, the Mielke account gives the
position of the Ourang Medan as 20°S 179°W — which is
consistent with the Sept-Jours version, but inconsistent
with the Mielke account itself! This position is near Fiji, where Sept-Jours
has the survivor land. Yet Mielke has his survivor make landfall at Taongi
in the Marshall Islands, much farther north. If you look at a map,
you'll see it's almost impossible to get from that position to the Marshall Islands without hitting Fiji first. So Mielke must have known the Sept-Jours
version and rewritten it, but forgotten to change the position of the wreck
when he changed the alleged landfall of the survivor.
What Mielke did during the war is not
certain, but apparently he was a war correspondent with the nazi navy, the Kriegsmarine. So maybe the
tale of the Ourang Medan originated with Mielke? Maybe
as a war correspondent he wrote propaganda to be fed to papers in occupied
countries as international news?
Maybe Mielke happened to read the
scuttlebutt version of his own propaganda tale in the Coast Guard magazine
after the war? Maybe he decided to kick off his pulp magazine with a
fictionalized version of a fictional sea adventure, because it was more
sensational? After all, it had been legitimized by the Coast Guard. Maybe he
rewrote his own old canard with a postwar setting and the real-life Silver
Star?
As Churchill allegedly had it, "A lie
gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants
on." And a silly bit of Vichy or nazi propaganda may resurface like a
U-boat to become the greatest postwar sea mystery.
RIP, Ourang Medan.
You belong to the realm of Tales of the Gold Monkey,
not to reality.
As the article was getting long, I turned
my complete findings into a book. If you want to read the full story of the Ourang
Medan, get yourself a copy of The
Ourang Medan — Conjuring a Ghost Ship.
Labels:
Feature
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Hewitt
Hewitt, January 20,
1921.
The steamer Hewitt sailed from Sabine, Texas, for Boston,
Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine, on January 20, 1921. She was carrying
sulfur. After passing through the Straits of Florida, she was heard from for
one last time from near Jupiter Inlet, Florida. (Group, p. 36.)
According to Spencer, her final reported
position was about 250 miles north of Jupiter Inlet. (Spencer, p. 108.) Not
exactly near, given the distances involved. Depending on whether they're
nautical, 250 miles is somewhere off Jacksonville, at the northern end of
Florida.
Berlitz claims the Hewitt was sailing from New
York to Europe via the Bermuda Triangle. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 24.) This
again reflects more on the quality of Berlitz' "work" than on the course
of the Hewitt.
The 5,399 GRT Hewitt was built in 1914 as the Pacific by Fore
River for the Emery Steamship Company. She had a sister Atlantic, which was renamed
Wilmore,
torpedoed, and lost in 1917.
It has been suggested that the Hewitt was the mystery steamer
that the crew of the Lookout Shoals Lightship observed on Saturday, January 29,
allegedly tailing the schooner Carroll
A. Deering just before the crew of the latter vanished. That
mystery steamer ignored the lightship's signals and had a tarp draped over her
side to obscure her name. The steamer may have picked up the schooner's crew
after they abandoned her, or she may have hijacked her outright. (Kusche,
Bermuda Triangle Mystery, pp. 68.) But as the
Hewitt was
northbound while the mystery steamer was southbound, that doesn't seem to make
a lot of sense. (Simpson, p. 111.)
The Hewitt was one of a number of ships claimed by the
Bermuda Triangle in late 1920 and early 1921. The record number of vanishing
ships aroused suspicions that Russian reds were hijacking ships and sailing
them to soviet ports. When government investigators realized how severe the
storms had been, investigations ceased.
While most or all of those ships were
probably really storm victims, it is of course not impossible that some ships
were hijacked by communists. A correspondent of The Washington Post
saw several ships with their names painted out in Vladivostok. (Group, p. 36.)
However, I tend to think those may very well have been Russian ships that had
their tsarist names painted out, pending renaming with, uh, "good
socialist/communist" names.
The Hewitt may have sunk in one of the two Atlantic storms
from February 6 to 9 and from February 15. However, Group points out that then
the question remains why nothing was heard from her in the meantime. (Group, p.
36.)
Apparently, Group failed to make the
connection with another bit of his own research. On the next page, in the
context of the Carroll A.
Deering, he mentions a gale that raged at Cape Lookout for two
days before it abated on January 29. (Group, p. 37.)
That's a time and place where the Hewitt was expected to be, for
she was suspected of being the mystery steamer seen from the Lookout Shoals
Lightship on January 29. Thus, it is possible that the Hewitt went down in this
earlier storm without one having to assume she spent time in limbo somehow.
Spencer, to his credit, makes that
connection, if reluctantly. (Spencer, p. 108.) So does Simpson. (Simpson, pp.
110.) And if she was last seen or heard from off Jacksonville, she was well on
her way to Cape Lookout.
Then again, her sulfur cargo may have
exploded. On February 1 at 2 AM, Coast Guardsmen at Absecon Light in Atlantic
City, New Jersey, noticed "a vivid flash of light at sea, followed by an
explosion." Powerboats found no wreckage or distress signals. At dawn, a
seaplane joined the search, but didn't find anything, either. (Simpson, p. 17.)
As
a postscript, during the Deering
investigation, a crewmember of the Hewitt,
one B.O. Rainey, cropped up. However, he claimed he left the ship
before she sailed from Texas.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
The Oklahoma Triangle
Here's a Vile Vortex you never heard of:
The Oklahoma Triangle is a mythical geographic area located in the South
Central region of the United States. It is noted for an apparent high incidence
of unexplained losses of houses, small boats on trailers, light trucks, and
automobiles.
Many a homeowner in the Oklahoma Triangle
has come home to find empty foundations where their house used to sit. Skeptics
and debunkers point out that at the times of most all of those weird
disappearances, a tornado (or several) was observed in the vicinity.
However, open-minded psychic investigators
know that you can never be sure it was the tornadoes, just like you can never
be sure there's no invisible, odorless miniature elephant hiding in your
refrigerator. It would be unlikely for so many houses to be lifted by tornadoes,
so it's much more rational to assume that the Martians got them.
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
Let the sunshine in.
Labels:
Feature
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Svartskog
Svartskog, 1921.
The Norwegian bark Svartskog vanished in or near the Bermuda Triangle in the first three months of 1921. (Winer, Devil's Triangle, p. 79.) Gaddis misspells the name Svartskag. (Gaddis, Invisible Horizons, p. 140.) However, Svartskog is a village in Norway, so that would appear to be the correct spelling.
The winter of 1920–21 was one of the worst on record in the North Atlantic. Winds at times reached hurricane force. There were two particularly furious storms that lasted three days each, from February 6, 1921, and from February 15, 1921.
A number of ships made port only after sustaining serious damage, so it is reasonable to expect other, less lucky ones to have sunken. (The mystics of course always turn this argument on its head and ask why not all ships survive a storm if some did. Surely, it must have been the Martians…)
Winer describes how hurricane-force winds from the Arctic would coat superstructures with ice until ships became so top-heavy they were capsized by the towering waves, with lifeboats and rafts frozen to them so they could not be launched or float free and any survivors in the water freezing to death in mere minutes. (Winer, Devil's Triangle, pp. 79.)
The Svartskog was one of a number of ships claimed by the Bermuda Triangle in late 1920 and early 1921. The record number of vanishing ships aroused suspicions that Russian reds were hijacking ships and sailing them to soviet ports. When government investigators realized how severe the storms had been, investigations ceased.
While most or all of those ships were probably really storm victims, it is of course not impossible that some ships were hijacked by communists. A correspondent of The Washington Post saw several ships with their names painted out in Vladivostok. (Group, p. 36.) However, I tend to think those may very well have been Russian ships that had their tsarist names painted out, pending renaming with, uh, "good socialist/communist" names.
Finally, those ships not sunk by storms may
be victims of insurance fraud.
"The commercial morality of the world seems to have been markedly lowered as a result of the war," said one underwriter today, when asked for an explanation of the situation. "The demand for bottoms after the armistice raised shipping to unprecedented values. Insurance valuations increased correspondingly. Then the slump came and values were lowered and owners faced tremendous losses, but insurance policies continued at an artificially high mark. What we term 'moral risk' naturally increased and sinkings began. That is our notion how it all came about." ("Suggests Storms Sank Lost Mystery Ships," The New York Times, June 24, 1921.)
Labels:
Case File,
Probable Solution,
Sinkings,
Storm Victims,
Vanishings,
Victims
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Steinsund
Steinsund, 1921.
The Norwegian bark Steinsund vanished in or near
the Bermuda Triangle in the first three months of 1921. (Winer, Devil's
Triangle, p. 79.)
The winter of 1920–21 was one of the worst on
record in the North Atlantic. Winds at times reached hurricane force. There
were two particularly furious storms that lasted three days each, from February
6, 1921, and from February 15, 1921.
A number of ships made port only after
sustaining serious damage, so it is reasonable to expect other, less lucky ones
to have sunken. (The mystics of course always turn this argument on its head
and ask why not all ships survive a storm if some did. Surely, it must have
been the Martians…)
Winer describes how hurricane-force winds
from the Arctic would coat superstructures with ice until ships became so
top-heavy they were capsized by the towering waves, with lifeboats and rafts
frozen to them so they could not be launched or float free and any survivors in
the water freezing to death in mere minutes. (Winer, Devil's
Triangle, pp. 79.)
The Steinsund was one of a number of ships claimed by the
Bermuda Triangle in late 1920 and early 1921. The record number of vanishing
ships aroused suspicions that Russian reds were hijacking ships and sailing
them to soviet ports. When government investigators realized how severe the
storms had been, investigations ceased.
While most or all of those ships were
probably really storm victims, it is of course not impossible that some ships
were hijacked by communists. A correspondent of The Washington Post
saw several ships with their names painted out in Vladivostok. (Group, p. 36.)
However, I tend to think those may very well have been Russian ships that had
their tsarist names painted out, pending renaming with, uh, "good
socialist/communist" names.
Finally, those ships not sunk by storms may
be victims of insurance fraud.
"The commercial morality of the world seems to have been markedly lowered as a result of the war," said one underwriter today, when asked for an explanation of the situation. "The demand for bottoms after the armistice raised shipping to unprecedented values. Insurance valuations increased correspondingly. Then the slump came and values were lowered and owners faced tremendous losses, but insurance policies continued at an artificially high mark. What we term 'moral risk' naturally increased and sinkings began. That is our notion how it all came about." ("Suggests Storms Sank Lost Mystery Ships," The New York Times, June 24, 1921.)
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Florino
Florino, 1921.
The Norwegian bark Florino vanished in or near the Bermuda Triangle in the first three months of 1921. (Winer, Devil's Triangle, p. 79.) Given the same ship type and nationality and the similar names, she may be the same ship as the one that entered the triangular rolls under the name Flonine or Fionine.
What's more, Gaddis mentions a ship by the name of Entine Florina as a Bermuda Triangle victim of the 1920–21 flap of vanishings, which sounds similar enough to Florino to likely be one and the same. (Gaddis, Invisible Horizons, p. 140.) Others even split that name into two ships. Thus, we cannot ignore the possible worst case scenario, however unlikely, that we're dealing with five distinct triangular victims: Fionine, Flonine, Florino, Florina, and Entine. At the other end of the complexity spectrum, they may all be spelling variations of the same ship.
The winter of 1920–21 was one of the worst on record in the North Atlantic. Winds at times reached hurricane force. There were two particularly furious storms that lasted three days each, from February 6, 1921, and from February 15, 1921.
A number of ships made port only after sustaining serious damage, so it is reasonable to expect other, less lucky ones to have sunken. (The mystics of course always turn this argument on its head and ask why not all ships survive a storm if some did. Surely, it must have been the Martians…)
Winer describes how hurricane-force winds from the Arctic would coat superstructures with ice until ships became so top-heavy they were capsized by the towering waves, with lifeboats and rafts frozen to them so they could not be launched or float free and any survivors in the water freezing to death in mere minutes. (Winer, Devil's Triangle, pp. 79.)
The Florino was one of a number of ships claimed by the Bermuda Triangle in late 1920 and early 1921. The record number of vanishing ships aroused suspicions that Russian reds were hijacking ships and sailing them to soviet ports. When government investigators realized how severe the storms had been, investigations ceased.
While most or all of those ships were probably really storm victims, it is of course not impossible that some ships were hijacked by communists. A correspondent of The Washington Post saw several ships with their names painted out in Vladivostok. (Group, p. 36.) However, I tend to think those may very well have been Russian ships that had their tsarist names painted out, pending renaming with, uh, "good socialist/communist" names.
Finally, those ships not sunk by storms may
be victims of insurance fraud.
"The commercial morality of the world seems to have been markedly lowered as a result of the war," said one underwriter today, when asked for an explanation of the situation. "The demand for bottoms after the armistice raised shipping to unprecedented values. Insurance valuations increased correspondingly. Then the slump came and values were lowered and owners faced tremendous losses, but insurance policies continued at an artificially high mark. What we term 'moral risk' naturally increased and sinkings began. That is our notion how it all came about." ("Suggests Storms Sank Lost Mystery Ships," The New York Times, June 24, 1921.)
Labels:
Case File,
Probable Solution,
Sinkings,
Storm Victims,
Vanishings,
Victims
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Flonine
Flonine, November 25, 1920.
The Norwegian bark Flonine sailed from Hampton
Roads on November 25, 1920, and vanished in or near the Bermuda Triangle.
(Spencer, p. 108.) She was bound for Copenhagen. According to The New York Times, the name
is spelled Fionine,
which sounds more like a name than Flonine.
("Divided as to Theory about Missing Ships," The New York Times, June 22,
1921.)
I mean, Flonine sounds more like some competition for Drano. The
Flow Seven and Flow Eight formulas failed, but Flow Nine gets the drain
cleaned. Fionine
is probably some diminutive of Fiona. Or her name was really Flonine, and the reporter
changed it as he thought the same as I.
Given the same ship type and nationality
and the similar names, she may be the same ship as the one that entered the
triangular rolls under the name Florino.
The winter of 1920–21 was one of the worst
on record in the North Atlantic. Winds at times reached hurricane force. There
were two particularly furious storms that lasted three days each, from February
6, 1921, and from February 15, 1921.
A number of ships made port only after
sustaining serious damage, so it is reasonable to expect other, less lucky ones
to have sunken. (The mystics of course always turn this argument on its head
and ask why not all ships survive a storm if some did. Surely, it must have
been the Martians…)
Winer describes how hurricane-force winds
from the Arctic would coat superstructures with ice until ships became so
top-heavy they were capsized by the towering waves, with lifeboats and rafts
frozen to them so they could not be launched or float free and any survivors in
the water freezing to death in mere minutes. (Winer, Devil's
Triangle, pp. 79.)
The Flonine was one of a number of ships claimed by the Bermuda
Triangle in late 1920 and early 1921. The record number of vanishing ships
aroused suspicions that Russian reds were hijacking ships and sailing them to
soviet ports. When government investigators realized how severe the storms had
been, investigations ceased.
While most or all of those ships were
probably really storm victims, it is of course not impossible that some ships
were hijacked by communists. A correspondent of The Washington Post
saw several ships with their names painted out in Vladivostok. (Group, p. 36.)
However, I tend to think those may very well have been Russian ships that had
their tsarist names painted out, pending renaming with, uh, "good
socialist/communist" names.
Finally, those ships not sunk by storms may
be victims of insurance fraud.
"The commercial morality of the world seems to have been markedly lowered as a result of the war," said one underwriter today, when asked for an explanation of the situation. "The demand for bottoms after the armistice raised shipping to unprecedented values. Insurance valuations increased correspondingly. Then the slump came and values were lowered and owners faced tremendous losses, but insurance policies continued at an artificially high mark. What we term 'moral risk' naturally increased and sinkings began. That is our notion how it all came about." ("Suggests Storms Sank Lost Mystery Ships," The New York Times, June 24, 1921.)
Monday, October 1, 2012
Yute
Yute, November 17, 1920.
The Spanish 2,974-ton steamer Yute sailed from Baltimore on
November 14, 1920. On November 17, she radioed for help, giving her position as
240 miles off the New Jersey coast, southeast of Cape May. Rescue vessels found
no trace of her. (Spencer, p. 108.) She was bound for Dunkirk. ("More
Ships Added to Mystery List," The
New York Times, June 22, 1921.)
The winter of 1920–21 was one of the worst
on record in the North Atlantic. (Winer, Devil's Triangle,
pp. 79.)
More details from the time it happened:
The sixty-mile gale yesterday, accompanied during a part of the day by rain, caused a number of minor accidents on land and sea, and delayed the shipping entering and leaving the harbor, but did not do any serious damage. The United States Weather Bureau records showed that the wind was blowing at fifty-six miles an hour by 10 o'clock yesterday morning, and dropped to forty miles at noon, and reached its maximum of sixty miles velocity at 4 o'clock. Toward night the wind shifted to the northwest and dropped to thirty miles before 8 o'clock. The prospect for today is diminishing northwest winds and fair weather.
During the forenoon four appeals for aid from ships in distress were received at the Naval Radio Station. The first came from the Spanish freighter Yute, Baltimore to Dunkirk, disabled 240 miles east-southeast of Cape May, NJ. The United Sates Coast Guard cutter Seneca was sent to her assistance finally and towed the Yute into port. ("Storm Winds Blow on Land and on Sea," The New York Times, November 18, 1920.)
Now, that towed into port thing would be a
zinger if it was true. But probably the reporter was just rash in assuming that
she had been successfully salvaged. After all, the Yute wasn't added to the
triangular rolls by Bermuda Triangle writers, but by further newspaper articles
and government investigators, which would be less likely to make mistakes than
our sensationalist friends.
I'll have to check that with other papers
and Lloyd's if I get around to it. Either way, the mystery is solved, as the
Yute was damaged
or lost, whichever it was, in a storm.
The Yute was one of a number of ships claimed by the Bermuda
Triangle in late 1920 and early 1921. The record number of vanishing ships
aroused suspicions that Russian reds were hijacking ships and sailing them to
soviet ports. When government investigators realized how severe the storms had
been, investigations ceased.
While most or all of those ships were
probably really storm victims, it is of course not impossible that some ships
were hijacked by communists. A correspondent of The Washington Post
saw several ships with their names painted out in Vladivostok. (Group, p. 36.)
However, I tend to think those may very well have been Russian ships that had
their tsarist names painted out, pending renaming with, uh, "good
socialist/communist" names.
Finally, those ships not sunk by storms may
be victims of insurance fraud.
"The commercial morality of the world seems to have been markedly lowered as a result of the war," said one underwriter today, when asked for an explanation of the situation. "The demand for bottoms after the armistice raised shipping to unprecedented values. Insurance valuations increased correspondingly. Then the slump came and values were lowered and owners faced tremendous losses, but insurance policies continued at an artificially high mark. What we term 'moral risk' naturally increased and sinkings began. That is our notion how it all came about." ("Suggests Storms Sank Lost Mystery Ships," The New York Times, June 24, 1921.)
Labels:
Case File,
Sinkings,
Solved,
Storm Victims,
Vanishings,
Victims
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
General Morne
General Morne, October 19, 1920.
The British schooner General Morne sailed from
Lisbon, Portugal, for Newfoundland on October 19, 1920, and vanished. (Spencer,
p. 108.)
The winter of 1920–21 was one of the worst
on record in the North Atlantic. (Winer, Devil's Triangle,
pp. 79.) That, however, is quite irrelevant in this case, as
her course was not even close to the Bermuda Triangle. If you include
the General Morne
among the triangular victims, you have to include every ship that ever vanished
in the North Atlantic. Thus, whether a storm got her or not, the case is solved
for our purposes.
The General Morne was one of a number of ships claimed by the
Bermuda Triangle in late 1920 and early 1921. The record number of vanishing
ships aroused suspicions that Russian reds were hijacking ships and sailing
them to soviet ports. When government investigators realized how severe the
storms had been, investigations ceased.
While most or all of those ships were
probably really storm victims, it is of course not impossible that some ships
were hijacked by communists. A correspondent of The Washington Post
saw several ships with their names painted out in Vladivostok. (Group, p. 36.)
However, I tend to think those may very well have been Russian ships that had
their tsarist names painted out, pending renaming with, uh, "good
socialist/communist" names.
Finally, those ships not sunk by storms may
be victims of insurance fraud.
"The commercial morality of the world seems to have been markedly lowered as a result of the war," said one underwriter today, when asked for an explanation of the situation. "The demand for bottoms after the armistice raised shipping to unprecedented values. Insurance valuations increased correspondingly. Then the slump came and values were lowered and owners faced tremendous losses, but insurance policies continued at an artificially high mark. What we term 'moral risk' naturally increased and sinkings began. That is our notion how it all came about." ("Suggests Storms Sank Lost Mystery Ships," The New York Times, June 24, 1921.)
Labels:
Case File,
Sinkings,
Solved,
Storm Victims,
Vanishings,
Victims
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Albyan
Albyan, October 1, 1920.
The Russian bark Albyan sailed from Norfolk on
October 1, 1920, and vanished in or near the Bermuda Triangle. (Spencer, p.
108.) She was bound for Gothenberg (Gothenburg, Sweden?). ("More Ships
Added to Mystery List," The
New York Times, June 22, 1921.) Simpson calls her the Albyn and asserts that while
she was claimed to be a free Russian ship that refused to recognize the soviet
government, she was in fact a Finnish four-masted bark from Nystad, and indeed
bound for Gothenburg, Sweden. (Simpson, p. 113.)
The winter of 1920–21 was one of the worst
on record in the North Atlantic. (Winer, Devil's Triangle,
p. 79.) From the weather maps: A southern storm passed over the Eastern
Seaboard through October 1, the day the Albyan sailed. It looks like she sailed after the worst
was over in Norfolk, but she may have found that it was worse than expected at
sea. If she made it through the ass end of that one, Horta in the Azores
reported a strong gale (force 9) on October 17.
The Albyan was one of a number of ships claimed by the
Bermuda Triangle in late 1920 and early 1921. The record number of vanishing
ships aroused suspicions that Russian reds were hijacking ships and sailing
them to soviet ports. When government investigators realized how severe the
storms had been, investigations ceased.
While most or all of those ships were
probably really storm victims, it is of course not impossible that some ships
were hijacked by communists. A correspondent of The Washington Post
saw several ships with their names painted out in Vladivostok. (Group, p. 36.)
However, I tend to think those may very well have been Russian ships that had
their tsarist names painted out, pending renaming with, uh, "good
socialist/communist" names.
Finally, those ships not sunk by storms may
be victims of insurance fraud.
"The commercial morality of the world seems to have been markedly lowered as a result of the war," said one underwriter today, when asked for an explanation of the situation. "The demand for bottoms after the armistice raised shipping to unprecedented values. Insurance valuations increased correspondingly. Then the slump came and values were lowered and owners faced tremendous losses, but insurance policies continued at an artificially high mark. What we term 'moral risk' naturally increased and sinkings began. That is our notion how it all came about." ("Suggests Storms Sank Lost Mystery Ships," The New York Times, June 24, 1921.)
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