Published in Issue 135, March 2025
Best of Birdy, Originally Published in Issue 043, July 2017
Are you afraid of boats? First of all, hilarious. Second of all congratulations!
You can officially count yourself among the fifteen or so people worldwide who suffer from naviphobia; The extreme fear or dislike of boats, ships and 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 same waters received a mysterious SOS signal containing a rather frank and terrifying message reading: “All officers, including captain are dead. Lying in 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-away-across-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 officer dead at his telegraph, and upon further inspection, even the lower 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 wearing the same look of astonished fear, heads tilted ever so slightly upward, as though staring down the barrel of a death they simply could not believe.
According to legend, the crew of the Silver Star attempted to tow the floating horror show a few hundred miles back to shore but were spared the experience when smoke began to billow from one of the lower decks of the Medan. Within a few minutes, the Medan literally exploded and was swallowed up by the jealous sea! As though Poseidon himself were saying, “You didn’t see nothing.” The Silver Star burned rudder the hell out of there, and the Ourang Medan sank deep into nautical legend.
Sailors are pretty great at pretending things didn’t happen. Whether it’s the horrible thing you all did to Allan in order to survive that month in a life boat, or that magical summer you spent as the bearded concubine of a vicious pirate warlord, about 40 percent of being a sailor is just reminding oneself that it’s probably “best not to think about it.” (The other 60 percent is a saucy blend of shivering timbers and learning to sing while drinking.
Like a ventriloquist does. But with rum.) But a thing like the Ourang Medan incident? That one don’t scrub out quite so easily. That’s the type of thing that feeds nightmares, internet conspiracy forums and blossoming cases of naviphobia for years to come.
What happened out there? Was the crew of the Ourang Medan overcome by some unknown weather phenomenon? Some freezing storm cell that sucked the wind right out of their lungs? Was it something in their cargo that took their lives? Some mysterious and deadly agent? An illegal shipment of gas, or weapons that killed them all in mere seconds. Or could it all be exactly as simple as it seems? That on that hot summer day all those years ago, these sailors found themselves in the presence of something strange out there in the middle of the ocean. Something so powerful, so alien, so mind-shatteringly inconceivable that to even gaze upon it meant their very undoing. Some ultimate truth, known only now to them, from which they could not, would not, look away.
Thankfully, most of us will never need to know the answers to these things. For many the most upsetting maritime disaster we will ever be forced to look at will be the endless deluge of Pirates of the Caribbean sequels they keep squeezing from the drying pulp that was once Johnny Depp (Just let him die!) Because that’s the thing about the ocean. It can’t get you if you just, say it with me now, STAY AWAY FROM THE OCEAN!
Good. Good. So once again, from all of us here at Werewolf Radar – hold up, someone is at the door.
*Sound of door opening*
*DEAFENING FOGHORN BLAST*
*SCREAMS*
*Silence*
Have questions about the paranormal?
Send them to werewolfradarpod@gmail.com or on Twitter.
It’s a big, weird world. Don’t be scared. Be Prepared.
Jordan Doll is a standup comedian, illustrator and actor from Denver, CO currently living in Los Angeles. If he looks familiar it may be because you saw him in a couple of commercials or maybe even doing comedy on Viceland’s Flophouse. Or maybe you saw him performing at Just For Laugh’s Montreal, or the High Plains Comedy Festival, or San Francisco Sketch Fest? Or maybe you saw some of his art someplace and want to get some of your own! That’s not it either? No worries, go ahead and follow his ever depending social media addictions by clicking the little buttons at the end of this bio. Still NOT ENOUGH!?!?!?! Well sorry … That really about it … Website | Instagram | Twitch
Check out Jordan’s last Werewolf Radar Birdy install, Ningen, or head to our Explore section to see more of his past published work.