- Many ships are built to be unsinkable.
That is, until they do.
(electricity draining)
Shipwrecks are often associated with
fantasy, pirates and adventure,
but in reality, many of the sunken ships
that have been discovered,
were found to have yielded more questions than answers,
questions that nobody seems to have answers for.
These are 10 mysterious shipwrecks
that remain unexplained.
Number one is the Ourang Medan.
In June of 1947, the Dutch cargo ship,
the SS Ourand Medan,
was sailing through the straight of Malacca,
between Indonesia and Malaysia,
when it mysteriously became shipwrecked.
The ship sent out a terrifying SOS message
that read, "All officers, including the captain,
"dead in chart room, and on the bridge.
"Probably whole of crew dead."
this was followed by a scrambled morse code
and then, "I die," before going silent.
A cargo ship nearby responded to the SOS
And set out on a rescue mission,
but when they found the Medan, everything looked fine.
That was, until they boarded the ship
and found everyone dead.
The bodies were found lying on the decks,
with eyes open, and their faces frozen in horror,
but unbelievably, there were no signs of injury,
and when the rescue crews tried to tow it to a port,
a fire started in the lower decks,
before the ship exploded and sank.
Some think this ghost ship was just a legend,
some believe it was the victim of a poisonous gas attack
from China or Japan,
while others think it was something more paranormal
that killed the crew,
but to this day, nobody knows.
Number two is the Griffon.
When the Griffon set sail in 1679,
it started as a historical journey,
but ended as a mystery that still haunts
the Great Lakes, today.
French explorer, Rene-Robert Cavelier,
built the Griffon on the Niagara River, in Canada,
with the plan to use the ship
to explore the Great Lakes
and find the Northwest Passage to China.
On August seventh, the ship set out
for her maiden voyage across the lakes,
which had only ever been used by canoes.
On September 18th, after landing on,
what is now Green Bay, Michigan,
the six man crew traded fur pelts
with the local tribes and set off to return to Niagara,
but the crew and their valuable cargo were never seen again.
There are several theories as to what happened to the ship,
including it being sunk during a violent storm,
a mutiny by the crew,
or that native tribes may have attacked it.
Many searches, even as recently as 2014,
thought that they had found the shipwreck,
but it's true fate is still a mystery,
as what is called "The Holy Grail of the Great Lakes,"
has never been truly discovered.
Number three is the SS Waratah.
The SS Waratah was a 500 foot passenger steam ship
that first launched in 1908,
and usually traveled from London, England,
to Adelaide, Australia, with a stop in South Africa,
but on July 27th of 1909,
while traveling between Durban and Cape Town, South Africa,
it vanished without a trace.
The journey should have only taken two days,
but that night, strong winds and waves
picked up off the coast,
and there were reports that the Waratah
was trying to send a distress signal,
but the bad weather, and the fact that
there was no radio on board,
meant that their calls for help were never heard.
Another ship, nearby,
spotted the lights of the Waratah in the distance,
but before they even had a chance to see
if it was in trouble,
there was two massive flashes of light
before everything just went dark.
Despite many search attempts,
even as recently as 2004,
the ship, and all of its 211 crew and passangers
have never been seen again.
Number four is the SS Cyprus.
On October 11th 1907, the SS Cyprus
was traveling across Lake Superior,
from Superior Wisconsin, to Buffalo, New York,
to deliver iron ore.
It was only the second journey for the freighter,
when a moderate storm picked up,
but other ships on the lake noted
that it shouldn't have been anything
that the Cyprus couldn't handle.
However, as it turns out, they were dead wrong.
The ship started to take on water
at around 7:45 that night, and it capsized.
By 2:00 a.m., 22 crew members had drowned
trying to swim to shore,
and only Second Mate, Charles G. Pitz, survived.
It seemed straightforward that the storm was to blame,
that was until the shipwreck was discovered in 2007.
The hull was found intact,
which doesn't line up with it being damaged badly enough
to sink it in a storm,
and investigators are still trying to determine
where most of the cargo is.
Number five is The Baltic Ghost Ship.
In 2003, a crew searching for a Swedish,
World War II spy plane
that was shot down over the Baltic Sea,
accidentally found a ghost ship.
A full investigation was launched in 2010,
and it was discovered that the ship was from around 1650.
It was a cargo ship built in a Dutch style
that was common at the time.
It's not known, for sure,
where the 80 foot wooden ship came from,
but despite being submerged in 425 feet of water,
it's in near perfect condition,
including detailed wooden sculptures and carvings.
The Baltic Sea has very low levels of salt
compared to most oceans,
and also, has almost no tidal movements,
which makes it the ideal underwater spot
for preserving ancient mysteries.
However, despite a full deep water archeological expedition,
including some state of the art technology,
robots, and echo sounders,
there is still a lot that researchers simply don't know.
It's still a mystery what this ship was carrying,
where it was going, why is sank,
or even what country it belonged to.
Number six is The Carroll A. Deering.
On January 31st, 1921,
the five mast commercial schooner, the Carroll A. Deering,
ran aground near Diamond Shoals,
off the coast of North Carolina.
Now, this wasn't considered too unusual,
since the area is one of the most dangerous
on the Atlantic Seaboard,
but things got weird when search teams
boarded the ship and found no one.
It was as if the entire crew had disappeared into thin air.
Food was literally left mid-preparation,
and navigation equipment, captain's logs
and two lifeboats were all missing.
The Deering had been returning from delivering cargo to Rio
when the ship last made contact to report
that it had lost its anchors.
The ship's captain, W. B. Wormell,
was known to have a strong dislike for his crew,
leading some to believe that their disappearance
was some kind of a mutiny.
However, the disappearance of other ships in the area,
which happens to be near the Bermuda Triangle,
led to an investigation by the U.S. Government,
but they were unable to come up with any conclusions
and no sign of the Deering crew
has ever been discovered.
Number seven is the USS Cyclops.
In March of 1918, the U.S. Navy suffered its largest
loss of life outside of battle.
The USS Cyclops was sailing from Rio,
loaded with 10,800 tons
of Manganese ore,
which was used for making munitions,
but it never reached its destination in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Navy investigated for years,
but they were never able to find any answers.
There were reports that the ship may have been overloaded
or had a faulty engine that could've caused it to sink.
There were also rumors that the ship's captain,
George Worley, may have been responsible.
During the Navy's investigation,
they discovered that Worley
had actually been born Johan Frederick Wichmann,
in Sandstedt, Hanover, Germany,
and may have been a German sympathizer during World War I,
and sank the ship on purpose.
A german submarine was also blamed,
but Germany always denied it.
To add to the mystery, the Cyclops would have been
passing through the Bermuda Triangle when it vanished.
Whatever the truth is, neither the ship,
nor its 306 man crew had ever been found.
Number eight is the Monterrey A mystery shipwreck.
In 2011, a survey crew, with the Shell oil company,
discovered a 19th century shipwreck
at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
The wreck was nicknamed, "The Monterrey A,"
and a full investigation was launched in July of 2013.
The ship was over 4,300 feet below the surface,
which makes it the deepest wreck
to ever be searched in the Gulf or North America.
Because of the extreme depth,
it was unsafe for divers to actually go down there,
so researchers used remotely controlled submersibles
to explore the site.
However, while down there,
they also discovered two more similar ships nearby.
It's still not known where the ships came from
since they were carrying items from all over the world,
including China, Britain, Mexican ceramics,
and a musket from Canada.
There was a lot of warring going on at that time,
which could have led to the mystery ship's demise.
It's believed that all of the ships sunk at the same time
and were only uncovered after 200 years
because changes in the tides
cleared the sand away.
As of today, the true identity
of all of these ships remain a mystery.
Number nine is the MV Joyita.
On October sixth, 1955,
a search and rescue mission was launched
to try to find the unsinkable, MV Joyita.
This, after it failed to arrive
at the Tokelau Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
The wooden ship was originally built as a yacht in 1931,
but was later used by thee U.S. Navy, during World War II.
Nearly a month later, on November 10th,
the ship was spotted partially submerged
600 miles off of course.
Three lifeboats in the ship's cargo were all missing
and the radio was sent to
the international maritime distress signal,
but it never sent a signal.
The only sign of the 25 passengers and the crew
were blood stained bandages that were left behind.
Investigators didn't think it made sense
for Captain Thomas Miller to abandon ship
since he knew it was unsinkable
and it was only the lower levels
that were flooded and the hull was fine.
This story remains one of the biggest shipwreck mysteries
of all time.
And, number 10 is The Sarah Joe.
On February 11th 1979, five friends,
Peter Hanchett, Benjamin Kalama, Ralph Malaiakini,
Scott Moorman and Patrick Woesner,
set out from Hana Bay, Hawaii,
for a day of fishing in a 17 foot whaler
named, The Sarah Joe.
When a storm blew in and they didn't return that night,
the Coat Guard launched a search mission
that covered 73,000 square miles of ocean,
but the men and their boat were never found.
That is, until September 10th, 1988,
when marine biologist, John Naughton,
who had actually helped during the original search
was on an expedition to search sea turtles,
found a damaged boat with a Hawaii registration number.
Unbelievably, it was The Sarah Joe,
over 2,000 miles
from Maui,
on the uninhabited island, Taongi.
He also discovered a wooden cross, and a jawbone
buried with small stacks of paper
with slips of tin foil between the pages,
which is a Chinese burial ritual.
Dental records proved the bone belonged to Scott Moorman,
but no signs of any of the other men
had ever been found.
So, those were 10 mysterious shipwrecks
that remain unexplained.
Do you think someone out there knows the truth?
Thank you all for coming by, today.
Remember to come back tomorrow,
and every weekday, at exactly 3:00 p.m.,
eastern standard time,
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