On July 8th 2014, Lars Mittank sprinted, seemingly in a panic, from a Bulgarian airport. He was never seen again.
The story starts a few weeks earlier, on June 30th, when Lars and four friends arrived at the Golden Sands sea-side resort for a vacation. The trip went as normal until July 6th, when the group of German tourists visited a local bar. They were involved in an altercation with a few locals regarding football. Although it didn’t become physical, Lars Mittank would disappear from his group while waiting for them to order food at McDonalds. His friends looked for him with no luck before returning to their hotel in hopes that Mittank returned there, but he hadn’t.
The next morning, Lars Mittank returned to the hotel room with a badly damaged eardrum and injured jaw, claiming that he had been roughed up by a group of Russians hired by the group they’d fought with the night before, although his friends weren’t sure how believable his story was. Nonetheless, Mittank was injured and needed medical attention. Although his friends offered to stay with him until he was sure he was safe to fly, Lars insisted that his friends leave without him.
On July 7th, one taxi carried the friends to the airport while another carried Lars Mittank in search of medical attention. The doctor he ended up seeing strongly suggested surgery but Lars refused, not wanting to go under any surgery outside of Germany. Instead, he was prescribed 500mg of Cefuroxime, an anti-biotic used to treat bacterial infections. Mittank left the doctor’s office afterwards and found a hotel to stay in.
A little while after midnight, Lars called his mother in a paranoid state, asking if she would freeze his credit card and bank accounts. He also texted and asked her to look up the medication he had been prescribed. He called her again a few hours later and told her in hushed tones that he felt he was being followed. Lars left the hotel in the middle of the night. At some point, he ended up calling his mother once more, asking her to buy him a plane ticket home. During the call, he continued to express that he felt he was being followed by 4 men.
Lars Mittank was dropped off at the airport at 6 AM in a taxi that he had shared. His co-passenger later stated that he noticed Lars’ pupils were extremely dilated. While this is well known as a reaction to certain drugs, it can also be one of the body’s responses to serious head trauma.
Once entering the airport, Lars sought out the airport doctor and spent 43 minutes in his office. It is unknown what was discussed that would require such a long time spent there but it IS known that the appearance of a maintenance worker (either in the waiting room or exam room itself) frightened Mittank enough to set him into a sprint out of the office.
Lars Mittank is seen on CCTV footage (GIF’d above) eventually making his way out of the airport in a frantic sprint. He runs outside for a while before hopping a fence and disappearing from view.
This was the last time that Lars was ever seen.
There is speculation as to what caused such paranoia in an otherwise completely stable man. While Lars himself seemed to believe there were outside parties with ill-intent towards him, it is just as likely that Mittank suffered a head injury much more severe than a busted ear drum. The damage could have set in as time went on and damaged his perception of reality. Until he is found, we might never know.
Lars Mittank’s family set up a Facebook page, which you can check out here, where they sometimes give updates and clarify possible sightings.
You can also watch a video that contains the CCTV footage here.
