LETTER OF C. H. MARCK, JR. TO A. AUSTIN BRICKER, JR., ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, dated December 5, 1959.
CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room: document CIA-RDP80R01731R000300010043-5 ("LETTER TO (Sanitized) FROM C.H. MARCK, JR.", approved for release 2003/05/23; https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01731R000300010043-5.pdf) and the 2021 re-release C02103509 ("LETTER TO MR. A. AUSTIN BRICKER, JR. FROM C.H. MARCK, JR.", approved for release 2021/09/23), which un-redacts the addressee. Mirrored on archive.org as cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r000300010043-5 and cia-readingroom-document-02103509 (OCR files in this folder). Two typed pages; the writer's address is redacted (b)(6); the CIA's reply, if any, is not in the file.

Text (OCR, lightly corrected):

December 5, 1959

Dear Mr. Bricker:

On May 29, 1958 I sent you a letter concerning crews disappearing from ships on the high seas, or ships which have disappeared without trace, well, I have just read a weird story concerning the Dutch vessel S.S. Ourang Medan. I will be indeed grateful for your opinion of this story. Also, do you think "something from the unknown" is involved?

In early February, 1948, an SOS came from the S.S. Ourang Medan. Dutch and British listening posts located the vessel as proceeding through Malacca Strait, the sea was calm, the weather clear.

SOS, SOS, again came the frenzied call. After a short silence, ". . . all officers, including Captain dead, lying in chartroom and on Bridge . . . probably whole crew dead . . ."

There followed a series of indecipherable dots and dashes and then came quite clearly: "I die."

Rescue ships from Dutch Sumatra and British Malaya rushed to the indicated location of the vessel in distress. They found her only fifty miles from the position given. Boats were put over the sides to investigate.

When boarding parties reached the Ourang Medan they found an eerie sight. There wasn't a living creature on the ship. The captain lay dead on the bridge. The bodies of the other officers sprawled in the wheelhouse, chartroom and wardroom. The faithful "sparks" was slumped in a chair in the radio shack, his hand still on the sending key. The bodies of the crew lay everywhere: in their rooms, in the passageways, on the decks. And on all the dead faces was a look of convulsive horror. As a report of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE MERCHANT MARINE COUNCIL put it: "their frozen faces were upturned to the sun, the mouths were gaping open and the eyes staring . . ." Everyone was dead. Even the ship's dog, a small terrier, was lifeless, its teeth bared in anger or agony.

But strangely there was no sign of wounds or injuries on any of the bodies.

After a quick conference, the boarding parties decided to put a tow line onto the vessel and take her into port. But at that very "moment" smoke and flames belched forth from No. 4 hold. The fire was immediately so hot and so widespread that it was impossible to subdue.

The boarding parties hurriedly abandoned the vessel and returned to safety of their own ships. Moments later there was a terrific "explosion" on the Ourang Medan and then the vessel sank with all her "dead" crew.

[page 2]

I feel sure that the S.S. Ourang Medan tragedy holds the answer to many of these airplane accidents, and unsolved mysteries of the sea. Also, I have often thought about the many sightings of huge fiery spheres rising from the "sea," or disappearing into the "sea," by ships captains and crews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

There are alarming passages in old English chronicles, written in medieval Latin, and in Latin incunabula, or books printed before the year 1500 A.D., which suggest that these "fiery spheres" cause destruction, and that they come from "within our planet." For instance: In 216 B.C., "things like ships were seen in the sky, over Italy . . ." In Sardinia, a knight was making his rounds, inspecting the posts guarding the rampart, when a stick in his hands "burst into flames." The same thing happened to Roman soldiers in Sicily who saw their javelins flame and burn in their hands. At Arpi, "a round shield was seen in the sky."

Also, in A.D. 1067 people saw a fire that flamed and burned fiercely in the sky. It came near the earth, and for a little time brilliantly lit it up. Afterwards, it revolved, ascended on high, then descended into the sea. In several places it "burned" woods and plains.

Yes, the enchanting sea, what terrifying "secret" does it hold? I feel sure that the S.S. Ourang Medan tragedy also holds the answer to this "secret."

Sincerely yours,
C. H. Marck, Jr.

Mr. A. Austin Bricker, Jr.
Assistant to the Director
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Washington, D. C.

[Notes: Marck's narrative is not his own: it is copied almost word for word (with the "Dutch and British listening posts", "faithful sparks", "small terrier", "No. 4 hold", "teeth bared in anger or agony" wording) from the text that M. K. Jessup printed in The Case for the UFO (1955), pp. 88-89, which Jessup in turn attributes to Fate magazine ("as reported in Fate Magazine, June 1954" — actually Robert V. Hulse, "Death at Sea", Fate, June 1953, pp. 73-74). Paijmans (Fortean Times 402) says Marck "had just read the story ... in the magazine of the US Coast Guard", but the wording shows he was reading Jessup or Fate/Hulse, which quote the Proceedings. The 216 B.C. and A.D. 1067 prodigies are also lifted from Jessup's book, which reprints them from Livy and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.]