September 5, 2025 • 31 mins
Final episode of Unexplained Season 08.
In the heat of a Bulgarian summer, a young German tourist stumbled into an airport medical clinic, bruised, panicked, and convinced he was being hunted.
What happened next remains one of Europe's most unsettling modern-day mysteries...
Written by Emma Dibdin and Richard MacLean Smith
Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, it's Richard mccleinsmith here with a quick update before
we dive into today's episode. Unexplained is very excited to
be a part of Crime Wave at Sea this November,
joining forces with some of the eeriest voices in the
world of true crime and the paranormal four nights in
the Caribbean, with amazing podcasts like Last Podcast on the Left,
(00:20):
Scared to Death and many more live shows, meet and greets,
creepy Stories under the Stars and you can be there too,
but don't wait. Rooms are nearly sold out. Head to
Crimewave Atsea dot com forward slash Unexplained to grab your
fan coat and lock in your cabin. We'd love to
see you on board. It was a searingly hot July
(00:55):
afternoon at Varna International Airport in Bulgaria, and the terminal packed.
It was peak tourist season and the first full week
of operations since the start of the school holidays. Inside
the on site medical clinic, however, things were quiet. Doctor Kostoff,
the physician on duty, had only seen two patients that day,
(01:18):
a six year old boy with a twisted ankle and
a nervous woman looking for something to ease her fear
of flying. Doctor Kostoff sat at his desk watching the clock.
He wondered if he had enough time to nip out
and grab a cup of coffee before his next patient.
When there was a knock at the door. It was
(01:39):
the clinic receptionist asking if the doctor was free to
see another patient. It was a young man, she said,
who just walked in, looking a little worse for wear.
As the receptionist explained, he wanted to see a doctor
to confirm if he was well enough to fly. A
little confused by the request, doctor Kostov told the receptionist
(02:02):
to send him in. Moments later, the young man appeared
at the door. The doctor beckoned him in and told
him to take a seat. He looked to be in
his late twenties, tall and broad, and by all accounts
he appeared to have had a very long night and
maybe hadn't even been to bed. Doctor Kostov suspected he
(02:25):
knew exactly what the problem was. Farna was a popular
destination for stagdoos and large groups of young men looking
to let off steam. Clearly, this young man, with his
ghostly pale skin and deep dark circles under his eyes,
had gone a little too hard. Once he was sat down,
(02:46):
the young man introduced himself as Lars. It was then
that doctor Kostov noticed something else about his appearance, an
ugly purple bruise modeling the left side of his jaw.
Lars explained little sheepishly that he'd been in a bar
fight two nights ago, and that he'd ruptured his ear
drum in the process. He'd already seen one doctor about
(03:09):
it back in the city, who'd advised him not to
fly again until the ear drum had healed. But, as
Lars said then, this simply wasn't an option. He had
to get back to Germany immediately, and he wanted to
know just how detrimental it would be if he did
fly back today. Lars was clearly anxious about something and
(03:30):
begged Dr Kostoff to be as quick as he could.
Costoff agreed to take a look and asked Lars to
be still as he placed an otoscope in his ear well.
Doctor Lars demanded impatiently. Doctor Kostoff sat back, noting with
concern the way that Lars seemed unable to sit still.
(03:51):
He kept glancing around, his eyes darting back and forth
across the room as if scanning for threats. The doctor
asked Las if he was on any medication. Lars confirmed
that he'd been given some antibiotics by the first doctor,
although now he was beginning to suspect that drugs had
been laced by some kind of poison. Alarmed by this
(04:15):
possibly delusional response, doctor Kostov asked Lars to explain exactly
what he meant by that, but before Lars could say anything,
they were interrupted by a loud knock at the office door.
As doctor Kostov got to his feet to answer it,
he noticed that Lars had now frozen completely still, his
(04:36):
face screwed up in terror, as though that door was
the only thing standing between him and the devil itself.
Then Lars suddenly sprang to his feet with wild eyes.
He screamed, I don't want to die here, Please, I
have to get out of here. You're listening to unexplained
(04:58):
and I'm Richard McLean Smith. At twenty eight years old,
Lars Mittank had never traveled outside of Germany before. Born
and raised in Berlin. In his early twenties, he settled
(05:18):
in the town of Itsu, who he seemed to have
everything a young man could want, a close knit family,
a loving girlfriend, and a steady job at the local
power plant. So despite being a sociable and outgoing young man,
Lars had never had much reason to venture far from home.
But in the summer of twenty fourteen, he decided to
(05:40):
change all that. One of Lars's old friends from high
school was organizing a week long group holiday to Golden Sands,
a beach resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, and
Lars wanted to go. The itinerary would involve flying out
of Hamburg and landing in Varna, the closest Bulgarian city
(06:01):
to the resort. It was a two and a half
hour flight, not long by most standards, but the longest
Lars had ever been on. As the holiday approached, Lars
couldn't help but feel a little anxious at the prospect
of leaving his home country for the first time. But
when he met up with his friends at the airport
(06:22):
and started talking about all the fun they'd have that week,
his nerves faded quickly. This, he said to himself, was
going to be the trip of a lifetime. Once at
the resort, time flew by for Lars and his five
friends in a whirl of drink, sunshine and good vibes.
(06:43):
There was always something to do, be it swimming in
the resorts pool, playing football, or simply some bathing on
the beach, just looking out at the gleaming surface of
the ocean. And then there was the night life. In
the evenings, Lars and his friendsans bar hopped along the beach. Then,
as things livened up, they ventured inland in search of
(07:06):
the clubs. The trip was everything they'd hoped it would be,
and everyone was in good spirits throughout. That was at
least until the final night of the holiday, when everything changed.
On the evening of July sixth, Lars and his friends
headed out for their final dinner. The group was a
(07:27):
little more subdued than usual, having been partying every night
since they'd arrived. Most of them wanted to take things
easy and get an early night ahead of their flight
back to Germany. In the morning, after feasting on the seafood,
they headed to a local bar for one last drink
before heading to bed. By eleven pm, most of the
(07:49):
group was ready to leave, but Lars wanted to stay out.
Emboldened by his new sense of adventure, he was determined
to make the most of his last night at Golden Sand. Eventually,
Lars's friends headed back to the hotel, leaving him alone
at the bar. They didn't think it was such a
big deal, since Lars was an extrovert and more than
(08:12):
happy to strike up conversations with strangers. Now alone in
the bar, Lars soon got talking to another group of
German tourists. The conversation was friendly at first, but then
(08:35):
the subject turned to football. Lars was a devoted fan
of Ferder Bremen, while the tourists, supported by an muncheon
a rival team. The men started arguing about an upcoming
match between the two teams, and somewhere between the alcohol
and the testosterone, things escalated quickly. Despite being clearly outnumbered,
(08:59):
Lars was the kind of guy to back down from
a fight. Much to his detriment, the other men dragged
Lars into an alleyway behind the bar and beat him up.
After one hit to the jaw, Lars staggered back before
another punch cracked him on the side of the head. Eventually,
Lars dropped to the fore and the men ran off,
(09:21):
leaving him bleeding on the ground. As Lars staggered back
along the beach toward his hotel, he felt a searing
pain inside his ear and realized that he could no
longer hear properly on that side. Having made it to
the hotel room, he collapsed into bed, hoping that a
few hours of sleep would be enough to cure him,
(09:43):
but he could barely get any rest at all. The
searing pain in his ear sharpened every time he moved
his head, and before long it began to ring and
wouldn't let up. It felt like if he let it,
the sound would eventually drive him. The rest of Lars's
group were up early on the morning of July seventh,
(10:06):
packing their bags before their afternoon flight back to Germany,
but Lars was sluggish, barely responding when his friends tried
to wake him up. Finally, when he rolled over, with horror,
they saw the state of his face. It was an
alarming sight, his jaw covered in reddish purple bruises and
(10:27):
a thin line of dried blood coming from his ear.
Still slurring a little, Lars told them what had happened.
One friend insisted that he see a doctor before getting
on a plane, in case the flying might cause his
ear some long term damage. It was reasonable to assume
he might well be suffering from concussion too, and he
(10:50):
had to do it soon or he'd miss his flight.
Lars was in luck since there was a medical center
just around the corner from their hotel well that provided
walk in appointments to resort guests. Lars was promptly examined
by the doctor, who confirmed that he had ruptured his
ear drum, but thankfully had no concussion. The doctor prescribed
(11:13):
him an antibiotic to prevent infection, then gave him the
bad news that he should avoid flying for at least
forty eight hours. Lars was angry. He had a job
and a girlfriend to get home to. He couldn't just
hang around in Bulgaria on his own for another two days,
but the doctor was adamant that the changes in atmospheric
(11:37):
pressure during a flight could cause a reparable damage to
his ear drum. A despondent Lars went back to the
hotel and watched forlornly as his friends left for the airport.
With little else for it, he went to the front
desk and asked if he could extend his stay. The
(11:57):
receptionist eyed him suspiciously, king the dark bruises on his
jaw sadly, she said the hotel was fully booked for
the next few days, but more to the point, Lars
was supposed to have checked out thirty minutes ago. A
(12:20):
dejected Lance went back to his hotel room and packed
up his things as quickly as he could. He was
still in a lot of pain, and moving slowly and
not being able to hear out of one ear was
starting to make him feel disorientated. Having checked out, he
rolled his suitcase out onto the pavement and stood in
(12:41):
the blazing sun, trying to figure out what to do.
Traveling abroad for the first time had seemed exciting when
he was with his friends, but now he was hung over,
bruised and battered, and completely on his own. On the
evening of July seventh, back in Itzahoe, Germany, Sandra Mittank
(13:04):
was getting ready for bed when she heard her mobile
phone ringing. She was excited to see that the call
was from her son, Lars. Sandra picked it up and
cheerfully asked Lars how his flight home had been, but
all she heard on the other end of the line
was silence. Lars, She said, again, are you there? Sandra
(13:28):
could hear breathing on the other end of the line,
But just when she thought it was an accidental call,
Lars finally began to speak. He didn't sound like himself
for a start. He was whispering and his voice was
shaking so much that Sandra could barely understand him, and
when she finally did hear his words, she couldn't make
(13:51):
sense of them. Lars was saying something about still being
in Bulgaria and that he was scared. There were people
following him, he said, four men who wanted to hurt him.
At first, she thought he was playing some kind of
practical joke. He had to be, after all, his flight
(14:11):
had been due back that day, but her son had
never been one for pranks, which could only mean that
the fear in his voice was completely genuine. Terrified, Sandra
asked if there was anything she could do. Lars asked
her to cancel his bank hearts because he was afraid
that somebody had access to them. He also told her
(14:35):
that he'd been attacked the previous evening and now his
attackers were chasing him through the city. But where are
you now, asked his mother, As Lars explained he'd left
the resort and moved to a hotel closer to the airport,
hoping to throw off his assailants, but now he was
convinced they'd found him alarmed and utterly helpless. Sandra begged
(14:59):
him to call the police if he really felt in danger,
but it was no good, said Lars. He couldn't trust
the authorities. Then he asked his mother if she knew
anything about seth priscil, the antibiotic he'd been given. He'd
taken it as prescribed, but now he wondered if the
doctor who'd prescribed it was secretly working with his attackers.
(15:23):
The drug was making him feel weird, he said. Before
Sandra could get any more information, Lars abruptly ended the call.
Sandra tried desperately to call her son back, growing increasingly
(15:44):
frantic as her cause went straight to voicemail. Back in Varna.
Throughout the call to his mother, Lars had been hunkered
down in a corner of his hotel room. He'd pulled
all the blind shut, worried that somebody in a nearby
building might be spying on him. But his mother's mention
of the police seemed to trigger something in him, a
(16:06):
realization that he wasn't safe anywhere. He abruptly left his
room and started pacing the hallways of the hotel. It
was a somewhat dingy and run down place, and the
more time he spent there, the more agitated he became.
But at the same time he knew it wasn't safe
to leave. He looked through every window he passed, peering
(16:30):
out to see if anyone was watching him from a
nearby rooftop. He went down to the foyer and walked
back and forth, eyeing everybody who came and went. For
a while, Lars took refuge in the hotel's lift. The
enclosed space with its bright fluorescent bulb made him feel safe. Certainly,
(16:51):
there was no way anybody could be lying in wait
to attack him there. But then the doors opened to
reveal a confused looking man hoping to get in. But
was it just another hotel guest, thought Lars, or an
assassin sent to kill him. Terrified, Lars fled as fast
as he could, sprinting through the hotel lobby and out
(17:13):
onto the street. By then it had gone one a
m and the streets were deserted. Lars had no idea
where he was going. All he knew was that he
had to keep moving. Back in Germany. Lars's mother, Sandra
hadn't slept a wink. All she could think about was
her son, all alone in a foreign country and seemingly
(17:37):
in danger. At a complete loss of what to do,
she was just contemplating trying to get in touch with
the Bulgarian police herself when her phone rang again. The
relief at seeing Lars's name flash up on the screen
didn't last long. He sounded even worse than he had
in their last conversation. Rather than whispering, now he was
(18:00):
talking so fast she could barely understand him. Sandra tried
to force him to slow down. She asked if he'd
been able to get any sleep, and Lars laughed out loud.
Of course he hadn't, he said. Didn't she understand what
he'd been going through. He'd been up all night trying
to evade his pursuers, but now he said they were
(18:23):
closing in. In that moment, a chilling realization dawned over Sandra.
Lars wasn't in physical peril. There were no shadowy men
chasing him across the city. It was something much worse
than that. Lars had become untethered from reality. Sandra mittank
(18:55):
made her son promise her that he would go straight
to the airport at the first opportunity and get on
the first flight back to Hamburg. They'd figure the rest
out from there come home, she pleaded, and, much to
her relief, eventually Lars agreed. Back in Varna, Lars collected
(19:17):
his suitcase and checked out at the hotel. Then he
took the short taxi ride to the airport. He spent
the entire journey watching the driver's face in the rear
view mirror, monitoring him for any signs of possible danger. Thankfully,
Lars arrived at the airport without incident. Once there, however,
(19:39):
the large crowds and brightly lit terminal seemed to disorientate
him even further, and though the pain in his ear
had diminished, it seemed then to come roaring back. It
was then that he remembered the doctor had advised him
not to fly. He knew that he didn't trust that
doctor and that he was just trying to keep him
(19:59):
from a s but he still wanted a second opinion
to make sure, and that's how he ended up at
the airport clinic of doctor Kostov. Costov confirmed that Lars's
ear drum was indeed ruptured, but the flying wasn't likely
to make the damage any worse. At first, Lars was
(20:20):
relieved by the news, only for another panic to grip him.
So it was all true, he thought the other doctor
really had been lying to him and trying to keep
him from leaving Bulgaria. Lars began glancing nervously around the room,
appearing to be looking for cameras or monitoring devices. He
(20:40):
then asked doctor Kostov about the antibiotic, now absolutely convinced
that the doctor who prescribed it had been trying to
poison him. By now, doctor Kostov was picking up the
clear signs of paranoia. He wasn't going to clear Lars
to fly anywhere until he'd had a full psychiatric evaluation.
(21:02):
But before he could figure out the next steps, they
were interrupted by that loud knock on the door. Lars
sprang to his feet like he'd just been electrocuted. Trembling,
he eyed the door, convinced that the men who were
pursuing him had finally tracked him down. He looked around frantically,
(21:24):
but there was no way out. I don't want to die,
he screamed. I have to get out of here, just
then the door swung open. On the other side of
it was a construction worker in a high viz vest
looking confused, and with that Lars bolted out of the room.
(21:45):
He pushed past the man in the high viz vest
and ran for his life back into the terminal building,
leaving behind his passport, his wallet, his phone, and all
of his luggage. Thanks to the extensive CCTV surrounding Varna Airport,
(22:10):
the last known sighting of Lars Mitank was captured on video.
Footage shows him sprinting out of the airport building and
climbing over an eight foot barbed wire fence. After making
it onto the ground on the other side, Lars proceeded
to run across a field of sunflowers in the direction
(22:31):
of a nearby forest. At this point, he dropped off
the edge of the surveillance camera's range and vanished. Doctor
Kostoff reported what had happened to airport security, who in
turn informed the Bulgarian police. For weeks, investigators combed to
(22:52):
the forests and fields surrounding the airport, confident they would
soon find Lars. Surely he couldn't get far without his work,
wallet or passport, they thought. But despite the extensive search,
no trace of Lars was ever found. In desperation, his mother, Sandra,
hired a private investigator to try and figure out what
(23:15):
exactly had happened to her son, but it came to nothing,
and although the footage of Lars's final moments circulated widely online,
its infamy failed to produce any viable leads. The most
likely explanation for what happened is that during his last
(23:37):
twenty four hours in Varna, Lars experienced some kind of
psychotic episode. He became paranoid and delusional, convinced that he
was being followed and persecuted. What isn't clear is why.
It's possible that his descent into madness was caused by
the head trauma sustained during the bar fight, or perhaps,
(24:00):
as others have suggested, it was an extreme response to
stress and sleep deprivation. A more unlikely possibility is that
he had a bad reaction to the antibiotic. In very
rare cases, this kind of drug can cause psychosis as
a side effect. There are some, however, who've speculated that
(24:22):
Lars wasn't paranoid at all, that he really was being pursued,
and that he disappeared because his attackers caught up to him.
Local police claim to have found no evidence of this.
In a spooky echo of the unexplained death of Eliza
lamp who died mysteriously in a hotel in Los Angeles
(24:45):
in twenty thirteen, footage captured at his hotel and at
the airport shows Lars quite literally running from nothing. Lars
Mittank has now been missing for more than eleven years.
His mother, Sandra, has never given up on finding him,
and still runs an active Facebook group dedicated to the case.
(25:09):
There have been plenty of supposed sightings over the years
in locations all across the globe, from as far away
from Bulgaria as Brazil. The only verified sighting of Lars's
last known whereabouts, however, was in that remote, desolate field
where he ran for his life before seemingly vanishing into
(25:32):
thin air. When I reflect on Lars's story, I'm haunted
not only by the mystery of his disappearance, but perhaps
by something darker still, the idea that the mind can,
at any given time fracture to a point from which
(25:55):
there is no coming back, If indeed that is what
happened to Lars. To imagine what he endured that sense
of being hunted by invisible forces, that terrifying conviction that
the familiar world has been replaced by a cruel imitation.
Is to glimpse the most fragile boundary of all, the
border between reality as we hope it to be and
(26:18):
the one that emerges if we allow all those latent
fears in our heads to take over and completely cloud
our judgment. And maybe that's why his story feels so
unsettling to day, because in our own way, we are
all perhaps stumbling into a world where reality has never
been less certain, Where every face we see on a
(26:42):
screen is a fake, a polished and filtered version of
the real thing. Where voices we might have once felt
were reliable, governments, institutions, and the media feels suspect to
so many. Even our own family photograp are touched up
and manipulated to create the perfect picture postcard, so that
(27:06):
even in years to come, should we want to look
back nostalgically to our own personal pasts, we will no
longer find the truth of them, but simply a sweetened
and sanitized version of it. Reality, it seems, is being
closed off at both ends. We are the descendants of
(27:26):
the false advert, the sales gimmick, and the spin doctor.
By all accounts, we should be better experts at spotting
the unreal by now. But that's the problem with reality.
It has always been a slippery thing, whether by our
design or not, and we each of us live in
our own version of it. So if reality is always
(27:49):
a little distorted, the question then, really, if we have
the luxury to choose is through just what filter would
we prefer to have it distorted? Through fear and hate
or love and empathy? What lens would we prefer others
to apply when they look at us. That concludes our
(28:15):
final episode of season eight. As we step away for
a little while, I want to thank you the listener
sincerely for spending your time with Unexplained. Your dedication, your curiosity,
and your willingness to journey into these shadowed corners with
me means more than I can ever say. If you
(28:36):
haven't already, please do rate, to review and maybe share
the show. It really helps to keep it all going. Lastly,
I just want to give a massive shout out to
this season's writers who've been doing an absolutely phenomenal job.
In alphabetical order, thank you so much to Diane hope,
Emma Dibden, James Connor Patterson and Neil mac Robert. Neil
(29:00):
actually has a book coming out. It's a horror novella
that has been described as equal parts terrifying and heartbreaking.
It's called Good Boy and comes out on October night,
so please look out for that. We'll return fittingly for
our first episode of season nine on Friday, October thirty.
First All Hallo's Eve with more unnerving tales from the
(29:24):
borderlands of the Unknown. Until then, we remain sometimes eerie,
sometimes strange, sometimes terrifying, always unexplained. This episode was written
by Emma Dibden and Richard McLain Smith. Thank you as
(29:46):
ever for listening. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast
created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
including the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.
The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
(30:08):
other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or
a story of your own you'd like to share. You
can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and
reaches online through X and Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod
(30:30):
and Facebook at Facebook dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast
Hello, it's Richard mccleinsmith here with a quick update before
we dive into today's episode. Unexplained is very excited to
be a part of Crime Wave at Sea this November,
joining forces with some of the eeriest voices in the
world of true crime and the paranormal four nights in
the Caribbean, with amazing podcasts like Last Podcast on the Left,
(00:20):
Scared to Death and many more live shows, meet and greets,
creepy Stories under the Stars and you can be there too,
but don't wait. Rooms are nearly sold out. Head to
Crimewave Atsea dot com forward slash Unexplained to grab your
fan coat and lock in your cabin. We'd love to
see you on board. It was a searingly hot July
(00:55):
afternoon at Varna International Airport in Bulgaria, and the terminal packed.
It was peak tourist season and the first full week
of operations since the start of the school holidays. Inside
the on site medical clinic, however, things were quiet. Doctor Kostoff,
the physician on duty, had only seen two patients that day,
(01:18):
a six year old boy with a twisted ankle and
a nervous woman looking for something to ease her fear
of flying. Doctor Kostoff sat at his desk watching the clock.
He wondered if he had enough time to nip out
and grab a cup of coffee before his next patient.
When there was a knock at the door. It was
(01:39):
the clinic receptionist asking if the doctor was free to
see another patient. It was a young man, she said,
who just walked in, looking a little worse for wear.
As the receptionist explained, he wanted to see a doctor
to confirm if he was well enough to fly. A
little confused by the request, doctor Kostov told the receptionist
(02:02):
to send him in. Moments later, the young man appeared
at the door. The doctor beckoned him in and told
him to take a seat. He looked to be in
his late twenties, tall and broad, and by all accounts
he appeared to have had a very long night and
maybe hadn't even been to bed. Doctor Kostov suspected he
(02:25):
knew exactly what the problem was. Farna was a popular
destination for stagdoos and large groups of young men looking
to let off steam. Clearly, this young man, with his
ghostly pale skin and deep dark circles under his eyes,
had gone a little too hard. Once he was sat down,
(02:46):
the young man introduced himself as Lars. It was then
that doctor Kostov noticed something else about his appearance, an
ugly purple bruise modeling the left side of his jaw.
Lars explained little sheepishly that he'd been in a bar
fight two nights ago, and that he'd ruptured his ear
drum in the process. He'd already seen one doctor about
(03:09):
it back in the city, who'd advised him not to
fly again until the ear drum had healed. But, as
Lars said then, this simply wasn't an option. He had
to get back to Germany immediately, and he wanted to
know just how detrimental it would be if he did
fly back today. Lars was clearly anxious about something and
(03:30):
begged Dr Kostoff to be as quick as he could.
Costoff agreed to take a look and asked Lars to
be still as he placed an otoscope in his ear well.
Doctor Lars demanded impatiently. Doctor Kostoff sat back, noting with
concern the way that Lars seemed unable to sit still.
(03:51):
He kept glancing around, his eyes darting back and forth
across the room as if scanning for threats. The doctor
asked Las if he was on any medication. Lars confirmed
that he'd been given some antibiotics by the first doctor,
although now he was beginning to suspect that drugs had
been laced by some kind of poison. Alarmed by this
(04:15):
possibly delusional response, doctor Kostov asked Lars to explain exactly
what he meant by that, but before Lars could say anything,
they were interrupted by a loud knock at the office door.
As doctor Kostov got to his feet to answer it,
he noticed that Lars had now frozen completely still, his
(04:36):
face screwed up in terror, as though that door was
the only thing standing between him and the devil itself.
Then Lars suddenly sprang to his feet with wild eyes.
He screamed, I don't want to die here, Please, I
have to get out of here. You're listening to unexplained
(04:58):
and I'm Richard McLean Smith. At twenty eight years old,
Lars Mittank had never traveled outside of Germany before. Born
and raised in Berlin. In his early twenties, he settled
(05:18):
in the town of Itsu, who he seemed to have
everything a young man could want, a close knit family,
a loving girlfriend, and a steady job at the local
power plant. So despite being a sociable and outgoing young man,
Lars had never had much reason to venture far from home.
But in the summer of twenty fourteen, he decided to
(05:40):
change all that. One of Lars's old friends from high
school was organizing a week long group holiday to Golden Sands,
a beach resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, and
Lars wanted to go. The itinerary would involve flying out
of Hamburg and landing in Varna, the closest Bulgarian city
(06:01):
to the resort. It was a two and a half
hour flight, not long by most standards, but the longest
Lars had ever been on. As the holiday approached, Lars
couldn't help but feel a little anxious at the prospect
of leaving his home country for the first time. But
when he met up with his friends at the airport
(06:22):
and started talking about all the fun they'd have that week,
his nerves faded quickly. This, he said to himself, was
going to be the trip of a lifetime. Once at
the resort, time flew by for Lars and his five
friends in a whirl of drink, sunshine and good vibes.
(06:43):
There was always something to do, be it swimming in
the resorts pool, playing football, or simply some bathing on
the beach, just looking out at the gleaming surface of
the ocean. And then there was the night life. In
the evenings, Lars and his friendsans bar hopped along the beach. Then,
as things livened up, they ventured inland in search of
(07:06):
the clubs. The trip was everything they'd hoped it would be,
and everyone was in good spirits throughout. That was at
least until the final night of the holiday, when everything changed.
On the evening of July sixth, Lars and his friends
headed out for their final dinner. The group was a
(07:27):
little more subdued than usual, having been partying every night
since they'd arrived. Most of them wanted to take things
easy and get an early night ahead of their flight
back to Germany. In the morning, after feasting on the seafood,
they headed to a local bar for one last drink
before heading to bed. By eleven pm, most of the
(07:49):
group was ready to leave, but Lars wanted to stay out.
Emboldened by his new sense of adventure, he was determined
to make the most of his last night at Golden Sand. Eventually,
Lars's friends headed back to the hotel, leaving him alone
at the bar. They didn't think it was such a
big deal, since Lars was an extrovert and more than
(08:12):
happy to strike up conversations with strangers. Now alone in
the bar, Lars soon got talking to another group of
German tourists. The conversation was friendly at first, but then
(08:35):
the subject turned to football. Lars was a devoted fan
of Ferder Bremen, while the tourists, supported by an muncheon
a rival team. The men started arguing about an upcoming
match between the two teams, and somewhere between the alcohol
and the testosterone, things escalated quickly. Despite being clearly outnumbered,
(08:59):
Lars was the kind of guy to back down from
a fight. Much to his detriment, the other men dragged
Lars into an alleyway behind the bar and beat him up.
After one hit to the jaw, Lars staggered back before
another punch cracked him on the side of the head. Eventually,
Lars dropped to the fore and the men ran off,
(09:21):
leaving him bleeding on the ground. As Lars staggered back
along the beach toward his hotel, he felt a searing
pain inside his ear and realized that he could no
longer hear properly on that side. Having made it to
the hotel room, he collapsed into bed, hoping that a
few hours of sleep would be enough to cure him,
(09:43):
but he could barely get any rest at all. The
searing pain in his ear sharpened every time he moved
his head, and before long it began to ring and
wouldn't let up. It felt like if he let it,
the sound would eventually drive him. The rest of Lars's
group were up early on the morning of July seventh,
(10:06):
packing their bags before their afternoon flight back to Germany,
but Lars was sluggish, barely responding when his friends tried
to wake him up. Finally, when he rolled over, with horror,
they saw the state of his face. It was an
alarming sight, his jaw covered in reddish purple bruises and
(10:27):
a thin line of dried blood coming from his ear.
Still slurring a little, Lars told them what had happened.
One friend insisted that he see a doctor before getting
on a plane, in case the flying might cause his
ear some long term damage. It was reasonable to assume
he might well be suffering from concussion too, and he
(10:50):
had to do it soon or he'd miss his flight.
Lars was in luck since there was a medical center
just around the corner from their hotel well that provided
walk in appointments to resort guests. Lars was promptly examined
by the doctor, who confirmed that he had ruptured his
ear drum, but thankfully had no concussion. The doctor prescribed
(11:13):
him an antibiotic to prevent infection, then gave him the
bad news that he should avoid flying for at least
forty eight hours. Lars was angry. He had a job
and a girlfriend to get home to. He couldn't just
hang around in Bulgaria on his own for another two days,
but the doctor was adamant that the changes in atmospheric
(11:37):
pressure during a flight could cause a reparable damage to
his ear drum. A despondent Lars went back to the
hotel and watched forlornly as his friends left for the airport.
With little else for it, he went to the front
desk and asked if he could extend his stay. The
(11:57):
receptionist eyed him suspiciously, king the dark bruises on his
jaw sadly, she said the hotel was fully booked for
the next few days, but more to the point, Lars
was supposed to have checked out thirty minutes ago. A
(12:20):
dejected Lance went back to his hotel room and packed
up his things as quickly as he could. He was
still in a lot of pain, and moving slowly and
not being able to hear out of one ear was
starting to make him feel disorientated. Having checked out, he
rolled his suitcase out onto the pavement and stood in
(12:41):
the blazing sun, trying to figure out what to do.
Traveling abroad for the first time had seemed exciting when
he was with his friends, but now he was hung over,
bruised and battered, and completely on his own. On the
evening of July seventh, back in Itzahoe, Germany, Sandra Mittank
(13:04):
was getting ready for bed when she heard her mobile
phone ringing. She was excited to see that the call
was from her son, Lars. Sandra picked it up and
cheerfully asked Lars how his flight home had been, but
all she heard on the other end of the line
was silence. Lars, She said, again, are you there? Sandra
(13:28):
could hear breathing on the other end of the line,
But just when she thought it was an accidental call,
Lars finally began to speak. He didn't sound like himself
for a start. He was whispering and his voice was
shaking so much that Sandra could barely understand him, and
when she finally did hear his words, she couldn't make
(13:51):
sense of them. Lars was saying something about still being
in Bulgaria and that he was scared. There were people
following him, he said, four men who wanted to hurt him.
At first, she thought he was playing some kind of
practical joke. He had to be, after all, his flight
(14:11):
had been due back that day, but her son had
never been one for pranks, which could only mean that
the fear in his voice was completely genuine. Terrified, Sandra
asked if there was anything she could do. Lars asked
her to cancel his bank hearts because he was afraid
that somebody had access to them. He also told her
(14:35):
that he'd been attacked the previous evening and now his
attackers were chasing him through the city. But where are
you now, asked his mother, As Lars explained he'd left
the resort and moved to a hotel closer to the airport,
hoping to throw off his assailants, but now he was
convinced they'd found him alarmed and utterly helpless. Sandra begged
(14:59):
him to call the police if he really felt in danger,
but it was no good, said Lars. He couldn't trust
the authorities. Then he asked his mother if she knew
anything about seth priscil, the antibiotic he'd been given. He'd
taken it as prescribed, but now he wondered if the
doctor who'd prescribed it was secretly working with his attackers.
(15:23):
The drug was making him feel weird, he said. Before
Sandra could get any more information, Lars abruptly ended the call.
Sandra tried desperately to call her son back, growing increasingly
(15:44):
frantic as her cause went straight to voicemail. Back in Varna.
Throughout the call to his mother, Lars had been hunkered
down in a corner of his hotel room. He'd pulled
all the blind shut, worried that somebody in a nearby
building might be spying on him. But his mother's mention
of the police seemed to trigger something in him, a
(16:06):
realization that he wasn't safe anywhere. He abruptly left his
room and started pacing the hallways of the hotel. It
was a somewhat dingy and run down place, and the
more time he spent there, the more agitated he became.
But at the same time he knew it wasn't safe
to leave. He looked through every window he passed, peering
(16:30):
out to see if anyone was watching him from a
nearby rooftop. He went down to the foyer and walked
back and forth, eyeing everybody who came and went. For
a while, Lars took refuge in the hotel's lift. The
enclosed space with its bright fluorescent bulb made him feel safe. Certainly,
(16:51):
there was no way anybody could be lying in wait
to attack him there. But then the doors opened to
reveal a confused looking man hoping to get in. But
was it just another hotel guest, thought Lars, or an
assassin sent to kill him. Terrified, Lars fled as fast
as he could, sprinting through the hotel lobby and out
(17:13):
onto the street. By then it had gone one a
m and the streets were deserted. Lars had no idea
where he was going. All he knew was that he
had to keep moving. Back in Germany. Lars's mother, Sandra
hadn't slept a wink. All she could think about was
her son, all alone in a foreign country and seemingly
(17:37):
in danger. At a complete loss of what to do,
she was just contemplating trying to get in touch with
the Bulgarian police herself when her phone rang again. The
relief at seeing Lars's name flash up on the screen
didn't last long. He sounded even worse than he had
in their last conversation. Rather than whispering, now he was
(18:00):
talking so fast she could barely understand him. Sandra tried
to force him to slow down. She asked if he'd
been able to get any sleep, and Lars laughed out loud.
Of course he hadn't, he said. Didn't she understand what
he'd been going through. He'd been up all night trying
to evade his pursuers, but now he said they were
(18:23):
closing in. In that moment, a chilling realization dawned over Sandra.
Lars wasn't in physical peril. There were no shadowy men
chasing him across the city. It was something much worse
than that. Lars had become untethered from reality. Sandra mittank
(18:55):
made her son promise her that he would go straight
to the airport at the first opportunity and get on
the first flight back to Hamburg. They'd figure the rest
out from there come home, she pleaded, and, much to
her relief, eventually Lars agreed. Back in Varna, Lars collected
(19:17):
his suitcase and checked out at the hotel. Then he
took the short taxi ride to the airport. He spent
the entire journey watching the driver's face in the rear
view mirror, monitoring him for any signs of possible danger. Thankfully,
Lars arrived at the airport without incident. Once there, however,
(19:39):
the large crowds and brightly lit terminal seemed to disorientate
him even further, and though the pain in his ear
had diminished, it seemed then to come roaring back. It
was then that he remembered the doctor had advised him
not to fly. He knew that he didn't trust that
doctor and that he was just trying to keep him
(19:59):
from a s but he still wanted a second opinion
to make sure, and that's how he ended up at
the airport clinic of doctor Kostov. Costov confirmed that Lars's
ear drum was indeed ruptured, but the flying wasn't likely
to make the damage any worse. At first, Lars was
(20:20):
relieved by the news, only for another panic to grip him.
So it was all true, he thought the other doctor
really had been lying to him and trying to keep
him from leaving Bulgaria. Lars began glancing nervously around the room,
appearing to be looking for cameras or monitoring devices. He
(20:40):
then asked doctor Kostov about the antibiotic, now absolutely convinced
that the doctor who prescribed it had been trying to
poison him. By now, doctor Kostov was picking up the
clear signs of paranoia. He wasn't going to clear Lars
to fly anywhere until he'd had a full psychiatric evaluation.
(21:02):
But before he could figure out the next steps, they
were interrupted by that loud knock on the door. Lars
sprang to his feet like he'd just been electrocuted. Trembling,
he eyed the door, convinced that the men who were
pursuing him had finally tracked him down. He looked around frantically,
(21:24):
but there was no way out. I don't want to die,
he screamed. I have to get out of here, just
then the door swung open. On the other side of
it was a construction worker in a high viz vest
looking confused, and with that Lars bolted out of the room.
(21:45):
He pushed past the man in the high viz vest
and ran for his life back into the terminal building,
leaving behind his passport, his wallet, his phone, and all
of his luggage. Thanks to the extensive CCTV surrounding Varna Airport,
(22:10):
the last known sighting of Lars Mitank was captured on video.
Footage shows him sprinting out of the airport building and
climbing over an eight foot barbed wire fence. After making
it onto the ground on the other side, Lars proceeded
to run across a field of sunflowers in the direction
(22:31):
of a nearby forest. At this point, he dropped off
the edge of the surveillance camera's range and vanished. Doctor
Kostoff reported what had happened to airport security, who in
turn informed the Bulgarian police. For weeks, investigators combed to
(22:52):
the forests and fields surrounding the airport, confident they would
soon find Lars. Surely he couldn't get far without his work,
wallet or passport, they thought. But despite the extensive search,
no trace of Lars was ever found. In desperation, his mother, Sandra,
hired a private investigator to try and figure out what
(23:15):
exactly had happened to her son, but it came to nothing,
and although the footage of Lars's final moments circulated widely online,
its infamy failed to produce any viable leads. The most
likely explanation for what happened is that during his last
(23:37):
twenty four hours in Varna, Lars experienced some kind of
psychotic episode. He became paranoid and delusional, convinced that he
was being followed and persecuted. What isn't clear is why.
It's possible that his descent into madness was caused by
the head trauma sustained during the bar fight, or perhaps,
(24:00):
as others have suggested, it was an extreme response to
stress and sleep deprivation. A more unlikely possibility is that
he had a bad reaction to the antibiotic. In very
rare cases, this kind of drug can cause psychosis as
a side effect. There are some, however, who've speculated that
(24:22):
Lars wasn't paranoid at all, that he really was being pursued,
and that he disappeared because his attackers caught up to him.
Local police claim to have found no evidence of this.
In a spooky echo of the unexplained death of Eliza
lamp who died mysteriously in a hotel in Los Angeles
(24:45):
in twenty thirteen, footage captured at his hotel and at
the airport shows Lars quite literally running from nothing. Lars
Mittank has now been missing for more than eleven years.
His mother, Sandra, has never given up on finding him,
and still runs an active Facebook group dedicated to the case.
(25:09):
There have been plenty of supposed sightings over the years
in locations all across the globe, from as far away
from Bulgaria as Brazil. The only verified sighting of Lars's
last known whereabouts, however, was in that remote, desolate field
where he ran for his life before seemingly vanishing into
(25:32):
thin air. When I reflect on Lars's story, I'm haunted
not only by the mystery of his disappearance, but perhaps
by something darker still, the idea that the mind can,
at any given time fracture to a point from which
(25:55):
there is no coming back, If indeed that is what
happened to Lars. To imagine what he endured that sense
of being hunted by invisible forces, that terrifying conviction that
the familiar world has been replaced by a cruel imitation.
Is to glimpse the most fragile boundary of all, the
border between reality as we hope it to be and
(26:18):
the one that emerges if we allow all those latent
fears in our heads to take over and completely cloud
our judgment. And maybe that's why his story feels so
unsettling to day, because in our own way, we are
all perhaps stumbling into a world where reality has never
been less certain, Where every face we see on a
(26:42):
screen is a fake, a polished and filtered version of
the real thing. Where voices we might have once felt
were reliable, governments, institutions, and the media feels suspect to
so many. Even our own family photograp are touched up
and manipulated to create the perfect picture postcard, so that
(27:06):
even in years to come, should we want to look
back nostalgically to our own personal pasts, we will no
longer find the truth of them, but simply a sweetened
and sanitized version of it. Reality, it seems, is being
closed off at both ends. We are the descendants of
(27:26):
the false advert, the sales gimmick, and the spin doctor.
By all accounts, we should be better experts at spotting
the unreal by now. But that's the problem with reality.
It has always been a slippery thing, whether by our
design or not, and we each of us live in
our own version of it. So if reality is always
(27:49):
a little distorted, the question then, really, if we have
the luxury to choose is through just what filter would
we prefer to have it distorted? Through fear and hate
or love and empathy? What lens would we prefer others
to apply when they look at us. That concludes our
(28:15):
final episode of season eight. As we step away for
a little while, I want to thank you the listener
sincerely for spending your time with Unexplained. Your dedication, your curiosity,
and your willingness to journey into these shadowed corners with
me means more than I can ever say. If you
(28:36):
haven't already, please do rate, to review and maybe share
the show. It really helps to keep it all going. Lastly,
I just want to give a massive shout out to
this season's writers who've been doing an absolutely phenomenal job.
In alphabetical order, thank you so much to Diane hope,
Emma Dibden, James Connor Patterson and Neil mac Robert. Neil
(29:00):
actually has a book coming out. It's a horror novella
that has been described as equal parts terrifying and heartbreaking.
It's called Good Boy and comes out on October night,
so please look out for that. We'll return fittingly for
our first episode of season nine on Friday, October thirty.
First All Hallo's Eve with more unnerving tales from the
(29:24):
borderlands of the Unknown. Until then, we remain sometimes eerie,
sometimes strange, sometimes terrifying, always unexplained. This episode was written
by Emma Dibden and Richard McLain Smith. Thank you as
(29:46):
ever for listening. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast
created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast,
including the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained.
The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
(30:08):
other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or
a story of your own you'd like to share. You
can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and
reaches online through X and Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod
(30:30):
and Facebook at Facebook dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast
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