The Mystery of the Lake Michigan Triangle

Almost everyone has heard of the Bermuda Triangle, a small region of the North Atlantic said to have sent countless boats and aircraft to a watery grave. But you probably haven't heard of the Lake Michigan Triangle. With sunken ships, vanishing aircraft, and UFO sightings, this allegedly haunted area of the Great Lakes has earned a reputation for the frightening and unexplainable. So today we're talking about the mysterious Lake Michigan Triangle. But before we dive in, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel, and leave a comment and let us know what other terrifying places you would like to hear about. OK, time to set sail into the uncharted waters of Weird History. On the Wisconsin side, there's Manitowoc. On the Michigan side, there's Ludington to the north and Benton Harbor to the south. Unexplained phenomena and frightening legends related to the region date all the way back to the late 17th century, when a French vessel disappeared with the tide, never to be seen again. The French explorer, René-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, started working on a massive ship designed for animal fur hauling and decided to name it Le Griffon. In August of 1679, his wood was finally ship shape, and they set sail, traveling from Niagara to Michelin Mackinac. Some historians say the ship had larger ambitions beyond the outpost to discover a Northwest passage to China and Japan, which would have been a pretty long trip. But that's why they call it exploring. Unfortunately, Le Griffon vanished while traversing the Lake Michigan Triangle. La Salle had already deported for the mainland, and his remaining six crew members met the same fate as his ship. In 2001, a researcher named Steve Libere found what he claimed to be Le Griffon's bowsprit at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Libere's findings have yet to be verified, but the spar did include sculptures of griffins, the ship's namesake, which would be a strange coincidence. Sadly, the rest of the ship has never been recovered. 200 years later, the deadliest open water sinking on the Great Lakes would propel the Lake Michigan Triangle into infamy. In the wee hours of September 8, 1860, the wooden-hulled sidewheel steamship PS Lady Elgin collided with the much smaller schooner Augusta, which was loaded down with lumber and headed for Chicago. You really need to be extra alert during lumber season. Those boats don't exactly stop on a dime. Strangely, the smaller ship seemed untouched after the collision. The Augusta continued on for Chicago like nothing happened, as the Lady Elgin took on more and more water. Hundreds of sleeping passengers who had been partying all night received a rude awakening when the ship's crew began their evacuation efforts. Witnesses said shipmates did everything possible to cover the hole, including trying to plug it with mattresses, but nothing worked. The lake seemed determined to swallow the ship. 300 people perished as a result of the crash, including the Lady Elgin's captain, Jack Wilson, who spent his final hours saving as many passengers as possible. Built in 1870, the 132-foot-long three-masted schooner Thomas Hume was part of a fleet of ships that belonged to lumber baron and general old-timey rich guy Charles Hackey when it disappeared within the Lake Michigan Triangle in 1891. Sailing alongside one of its sister ships, the Rouse Simmons, the Thomas Hume embarked from Muskegon to Chicago with a large shipment of lumber. After delivering the wood, both ships turned around to venture back toward Muskegon. Seeing ominous storm clouds gathering in the distance, the crew of the Rouse Simmons decided to turn back and stay in Chicago until the weather improved, which, considering it was Chicago, must have really said something about the weather. But the Thomas Hume kept on toward home, never to be seen again. When the Rouse Simmons returned to Muskegon two days later, there was no sign of its sister ship in the harbor. Hackey and his business partner put up a $300 reward for information on the Hume's whereabouts, but the ship and its seven crew members were nowhere to be found. Multiple search operations also resulted in failure. Fast forward to 2005, when professional recovery diver Taras Lysenko found the intact remains of the Thomas Hume in the southeastern portion of Lake Michigan. Shipwreck experts have since shared their theories about what likely happened to the ship. A prevailing theory is that the storm produced turbulent seas, which caused the vessel to capsize. Should have waited out the storm on a Cubs game. And even though it had avoided disaster in 1891, the Rouse Simmons later succumbed to the Lake Michigan Triangle on November 22, 1912. Apparently, the triangle operates under the same rules as the Final Destination films. The ship and its 16 crew members, including Captain Hermann Schoonemann, decided to sail from Thompson, Michigan to Chicago, all to deliver a load of at least 5,000 Christmas trees. But the boat never made it. On November 23, the ship was seen flying a distress flag in clear conditions, which was eerie. That could mean anything from an injured crew member to an infestation of pirate ghosts. But when a rescue boat finally arrived at the location, there was no sign of the Rouse Simmons anywhere. Wreckage from the ship, including Christmas trees and Captain Schoonemann's wallet, washed ashore in the following decades, temporarily transforming the beach into an especially obvious Banksy painting. Yeah, I don't get that joke either. But it wasn't until October 1971 that the Rouse Simmons was finally found by scuba diver Gordon Kent Bell Richard off the coast of Two Rivers, Wisconsin. In late October of 1921, the Roosevelt left High Island, Michigan, bound for Benton Harbor. But the ship encountered some kind of disturbance along the way, and its wreckage was found 42 miles from Milwaukee. None of the ship's 11 crew members were accounted for, and their remains were never recovered. While some people claim the Roosevelt met its demise during a storm, others believe it was involved in some sort of clash with another vessel. But considering no accidents were reported by any other ships in the area at the time, that theory doesn't hold much water. Hey, there are only so many boat jokes. You knew we were going to get to a water pun schooner or later. So what really happened to Roosevelt? To this day, no one knows. The fact that the ship's yawl, or two-headed sail, was never recovered potentially adds another layer to an already complex mystery. People have suggested that the yawl may have been taken by a souvenir by whomever or whatever sank the ship. Just in case you thought that boats were the only things at risk in the Lake Michigan Triangle, consider the story of George R. Donner, captain of the coal-powered vessel McFarland, who vanished from his cabin on April 29, 1937. Days earlier, the McFarland had picked up a shipment of coal from Erie, Pennsylvania. The ship had no problems traversing the Great Lakes on its return voyage until it arrived in the Triangle. After successfully guiding his ship through rough, icy waters, Captain Donner retired to his quarters late on April 28 to get a few hours of sleep. When the McFarland's first mate knocked on Captain Donner's door as they approached Port Washington early on April 29, there was no answer. The door to the captain's quarters was locked, so the crew searched the galley for their skipper. But there was no sign of him anywhere. This prompted the men to break down Captain Donner's door, believing he'd fallen into a deep coma-like sleep. Or maybe he was totally hammered. Hey, he was a sea captain. Instead of discovering their captain inside, sleeping off a massive hangover, the crew found nothing but an empty cabin. Captain Donner was never found. And the case remains as much of an enigma as it was in 1937. Arguably, even more upsetting than a plane crash is a plane vanishing forever, its passengers never to be recovered. That's what happened to Northwest Airlines flight 2501 in 1950 while flying over the Lake Michigan Triangle. En route from New York City to Seattle, the plane had reached the eastern shoreline of Lake Michigan just after midnight on June 24. The plane's captain, Robert C. Lind, requested clearance from air traffic control to descend to 2,500 feet in order to avoid a lightning storm brewing over the Great Lake. Captain Lind's request was denied. And a short time later, the plane vanished. Lind, two crew members, and 55 passengers disappeared along with it. At the time the plane went MIA, a local on the ground told reporters he saw a terrific flash out in the lake. This strange light was seen by plenty of others, one of who explained, it was a funny light. It looked like the sun when it goes down. It only lasted a second and then was gone. These ghostly sights and sounds have led to speculations that something supernatural, even extraterrestrial, caused the plane to go missing, sort of like that Stephen King miniseries, The Langoliers, which was better than people give it credit for. The worst commercial airplane disaster of its time, the disappearance of Flight 2501 remains mired in mystery. The only clues ever recorded were some bits of debris and scattered remains that washed ashore. Subsequent searches have failed to recover the aircraft. For a time, adventure fiction writer Clive Kustler funded an annual quest to retrieve Northwest Flight 2501 from its watery grave. But every year, the search team returned ashore empty handed. Not even an old boot or cartoon fish skeleton? Man, nothing was biting that day. In February 1978, West Michigander Steve Kubatsky was reported missing during a cross-country skiing expedition. As authorities swept the area for signs of Kubatsky, they discovered a set of footprints that led right to the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and then ended abruptly, like he'd just been raptured or had returned to his kingdom beneath the waves. After Kubatsky's skis and backpack were recovered nearby, everyone assumed he'd fallen through the surface ice on the lake and met his demise. Even though the ice and snow over Lake Michigan were especially thick that winter. But in a shocking twist, Kubatsky woke up in a grassy field 15 months later in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 700 miles east of where he disappeared. He had no memory of where he'd been for over a year or how he'd managed to end up so far away from home. His last memory was of reaching Lake Michigan. Kubatsky refused to discuss his situation after his initial rescue and to this day remained silent about the event, which is understandable. Nobody likes reliving the time they entered a Belushi trance and wandered halfway across the country. He may have started a second family somewhere. Or worse, he may have started a band. For whatever reason, Michigan experiences an abnormally high number of UFO sightings compared to other states. Some residents think the Lake Michigan Triangle is to blame. According to WOODTV, based out of West Michigan, police have been fielding complaints about UFOs over the Lake Michigan Triangle since 1913. In 1919, the New York Times reported on two colossal balls of fire seen falling into the Great Lake. The Sausalito News in California noted that the impact was heard as far away as Indiana. The New York Times called the objects meteors. But other eyewitnesses claim they were metaphysical forces wreaking havoc. Although, considering the Lake Michigan Triangle's history and reputation, it could have been aliens hauling lumber. On March 8, 1994, hundreds of Michigan residents along Lake Michigan reported seeing disk-like objects hovering over them, some with flashing lights. Among the witnesses was a local National Weather Service radar operator who told police, I've never seen anything like this, not even when I'm doing storms. These aren't storms. Spooky. Makes you wonder how many boats Fox Mulder must have lost in Lake Michigan. There's a deep cut. Archeology professor Mark Holley and his colleague Brian Abbott discovered a circular stone arrangement in 40 feet of water while using sonar technology to search for shipwrecks in the Lake Michigan Triangle in 2007. Along the periphery of the rocks, Holley and Abbott also found a boulder marked with a prehistoric carving of the long extinct mastodon, suggesting that the formation could be several thousand years old. Some think the Stonehenge-like arrangement served a ceremonial purpose, while others believe it was built to dam up the lake in order to make fishing easier. Research into the rock formations remains ongoing. And in order to respect indigenous groups whose ancestors may have erected Lake Michigan's underwater Stonehenge, the exact location of the structures is being kept secret. Although if every horror movie ever made is any indication, they should probably just leave those rocks alone. So what do you think? What's behind the mystery of the Lake Michigan Triangle? Tell us your theories in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.