[EPISODE 28] Lars Mittank: From Airport CCTV to Nowhere

[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: Later on, after he goes missing, Interpol discover that he does go to see a doctor at the airport.

[00:00:07] Kyle Risi: And they talked to the doctor and the doctor's account changes several times, apparently, Lars had become extremely alarmed when someone entered the room while he was being examined. The doctor suggested it might have been an airline employee another possibility is that it was just a construction worker. But regardless of the details, is that after he left the room, CCTV footage shows Lars running out of the airport and into the nearby countryside.

[00:00:36] Kyle Risi: Weird. 

​

[00:00:37] Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of vanishing acts and airport anomalies, where the Lars Mittank tale takes off but never lands. Ooh, 

[00:01:11] Adam Cox: Sounds like something's gone missing. 

[00:01:13] Kyle Risi: Well, Adam, in today's episode of the Compendium, I'm going to be telling you about the extraordinary disappearance of Lars Mittank.

[00:01:22] Kyle Risi: He was just a regular young guy. He was good at sports, with a promising future ahead of him. But things take a mysterious turn when he goes missing from the airport after a trip to Bulgaria with his friends. Lars simply just vanishes as if he never existed. Have you ever heard of this story before?

[00:01:42] Adam Cox: Don't think I have, no. I mean, I've heard of luggage going missing at an airport, but a person? Yeah, 

[00:01:47] Kyle Risi: this is a person, unfortunately. Not just your luggage. This story has made Lars probably the most famous missing person in history, which has so many fascinating facets to it. From the circumstances around his baffling disappearance to the theories behind what had happened to him. As well as the ongoing search that still continues today.

[00:02:07] Kyle Risi: So this is going to be a real interesting story this week. 

[00:02:10] Adam Cox: Interesting. Yeah. Well, I've never heard of this guy. So he can't be that famous. 

[00:02:15] Kyle Risi: Well, it's because you're not that online, right? If you were online enough, then maybe you would have heard the story. Yeah. So that's on 

[00:02:22] Adam Cox: you. It's my fault. It's my fault.

[00:02:24] Adam Cox: I'm not on Reddit 

[00:02:25] Kyle Risi: all the time. But before we set off, shall we do introductions? Sure. For those of you tuning in for the very first time, I'm your host, Kyle Risi. 

[00:02:33] Adam Cox: And I'm your co host, Adam Cox. 

[00:02:35] Kyle Risi: You are listening to The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We are a weekly variety podcast where I, Kyle Risi, tell Adam Cox all about a topic that I think he'll find both fascinating and intriguing.

[00:02:48] Kyle Risi: From groundbreaking events to unforgettable people, we do this all in a simple one hour ish episode, giving you just enough information to be the star of any social gathering. 

[00:02:58] Kyle Risi: So, Adam, how are you this week? Um, yeah, 

[00:03:00] Adam Cox: I'm doing pretty good, thank 

[00:03:01] Kyle Risi: you very much. What are you bringing to the table for all the latest things?

[00:03:04] Adam Cox: All the latest things, well, I, Wouldn't say what I have is brand new information, but, um, it's happened a few weeks ago now, but it's new, it's news to me. 

[00:03:14] Kyle Risi: Give us an insight into that beautiful mind of yours.

[00:03:16] Adam Cox: Well, um, I learned about a cow called Howdy Doody. 

[00:03:20] Kyle Risi: Right, this better be good. 

[00:03:21] Adam Cox: So essentially, um, police got a report about a cow traveling in a car. 

[00:03:28] Kyle Risi: What kind of 

[00:03:28] Adam Cox: traveling? Well, this is the thing. When the police hear the report, they just think, okay, it's some kind of baby calf or whatever in the back of a car.

[00:03:35] Adam Cox: Probably need to go check this out. It's not how you transport, you know, livestock. 

[00:03:38] Kyle Risi: This isn't going to be another one of those situations where in a previous or the latest things, a guy been stopped for speeding and he swapped the driver's seat with his dog. 

[00:03:48] Adam Cox: No, not quite. Um, the guy, well, he's never had any issues before.

[00:03:51] Adam Cox: In this instance, the guy that's been transporting this cow around has had no issues previously and has been transporting the cow, because it's quite famous in this area in America, in Nebraska, Um, at different, like, fairs and trade shows and things like that.

[00:04:04] Adam Cox: So it's a bit of a local celebrity. What, the cow or the man? The cow. Okay, I'm with you. Um, but the police weren't really aware exactly from the report. They just think it's a calf in the back of a car. Yeah. So when they turn up, they find a bull that's over 2, 000 travelling in a car. The guy had basically chopped his car in half, like the, the roof.

[00:04:26] Adam Cox: Got rid of that. Okay. Um, put the cow or the bull in the passenger seat and kind of reinforce the car with like these wheels and suspension and everything else. 

[00:04:35] Kyle Risi: So I'm imagining this Thelma and Louise kind of style thingy where they're off to do some crime. Have you got a picture? I'm going to 

[00:04:43] Adam Cox: show you a video.

[00:04:44] Adam Cox: It's the best way to describe it. Okay. Maybe we should put the link in our show notes. 

[00:04:47] Adam Cox: This is an NBC report of the cow travelling in the car.

[00:04:53] Kyle Risi: Okay,

[00:04:54] Clip: Police division responded to a call of a man driving eastbound on 275 with a wood. So he's cut half of the car, not like just the whole roof. It's just like the passenger side of the car there hanging outside the vehicle. As a result, the officer performed a traffic stop. What? And addressed some traffic violations that Oh my god, he's craps all over the car.

[00:05:17] Clip: Oh, as if. Action. The occupant of the Oh no! I'm glad I'm not cleaning that up. A mealy. The Watusi Bull's name was Howdy Doody. 

[00:05:26] Kyle Risi: Howdy, Doty. And all the duties he did.

[00:05:29] Kyle Risi: Oh, is that why he's called Howdy Doody? Jeez, God. Yeah. 

[00:05:33] Adam Cox: Imagine driving along and like you're, you're coming up to that car and you're about to overtake and you're like, what the hell? 

[00:05:39] Kyle Risi: And where was that? That was in Nebraska. That's Nebraska, yeah. Okay. Not surprised there.

[00:05:43] Kyle Risi: That's kind of farm country, right? Yeah, a place 

[00:05:45] Adam Cox: called Norfolk, apparently. So. 

[00:05:47] Kyle Risi: Oh, really? Norfolk, Nebraska. Great. So, um, this week for my All The Latest Things. I found this really interesting YouTube short by an American who had discovered that German students in their final year of school are studying concepts like the American Dream, American Individualism, and American Exceptualism in school for their equivalent of like their A1, A2 levels. Okay. But... Not in the way that you think, they're studying these ideals as examples of like modern day propaganda. Ooh, okay. Now, listen to this quick little clip.

[00:06:21] Clip: Do you know that German high school students learn about U. S. propaganda in their English courses in high school? Recently, a follower asked to send me a textbook that they use in German 11th to 13th grade English courses to study U. S. propaganda. So, like in the United States, where we study German World War II propaganda, in Germany, they're studying current U. S. propaganda. They cover everything from U. S. exceptionalism to the American dream, and they show German students how U. S. citizens have been led To have a lack of self critical awareness to how their ideals have failed. I didn't want to believe it at first, but if you Google the name of the textbook and the word Arbitur, which is the final stage of German high school, it returns all kinds of study guides and notes.

[00:07:01] Clip: And what really shook me is that on one of these study guides, it says, the U. S. has become a wasteful consumer society of lonely individuals. So if you've ever wondered how some people outside of the U. S.

[00:07:11] Kyle Risi: That cuts deep. That does cut deep. So, here's the thing that really amazed me. Like, we always talk about propaganda as if it's something that other countries do, like, uh, communist nations or Germany during World War II.

[00:07:23] Kyle Risi: But hearing that German students are actually analysing concepts like the American Dream as forms of propaganda just blows my mind. It 

[00:07:31] Adam Cox: is because you associate the American Dream as like this positive thing or this aspiring thing that Americans, perhaps a little bit outdated, but this thing that you aspire to do.

[00:07:41] Adam Cox: To have a real nice house with the white picket fence outside, you've got a wife, kids, everything, a flag out front, job, everything, own a gun. 

[00:07:49] Kyle Risi: But at the same time, when you look at examples of Kind of Eastern European propaganda from pre World War two. It's the same. It's these ideals. It's about the working man It's about working together.

[00:08:01] Kyle Risi: It's about building a stronger economy And these all positive messages, but they're viewed through a very negative oppressive lens But because most of these ideals in the American kind of dream kind of let's call the propaganda because that is what it is That's my new way of looking at it. They're so woven into the fabric of American culture That most Americans don't see it as propaganda at all.

[00:08:23] Kyle Risi: It's like, almost like you are a fish and you don't realise that you're actually swimming in water. Wow. 

[00:08:29] Adam Cox: So, almost a bit like, uh, the Truman Show. 

[00:08:31] Kyle Risi: A little bit. Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, 

[00:08:34] Adam Cox: I still don't necessarily disagree with the principles. Like you say, there is some positivity, but I guess...

[00:08:39] Adam Cox: I mean, a wasteful society, that seems like quite a harsh thing to say. Because I can't imagine... You know, the modern civilization with plastics and everything. I imagine a lot of Western culture is kind of wasteful. It is 

[00:08:50] Kyle Risi: true. And we obviously, we take, um, what's the word? We take the lead from the American kind of society.

[00:08:57] Kyle Risi: But when you think about the key messages in the American dream this whole sense of individualism, right? And that you can make it on your own. And what that does is that puts the self first rather than the collective and that can lead to kind of some unsatisfied lonely people in the world. 

[00:09:16] Kyle Risi: So Adam, it leaves me wondering, how do Americans actually view these ideas? Do they see this as a form of propaganda? 

[00:09:25] Adam Cox: Yeah, I wonder. I mean, we do have some US listeners, so if you are listening, um, it'd be great to get your reaction on this. I 

[00:09:31] Kyle Risi: would love to know exactly what you guys think.

[00:09:34] Kyle Risi: So yeah, get in touch. Is this propaganda so ingrained in their lives that they can't even fathom the question of whether or not they are kind of being persuaded by a propaganda machine? And also, is the American dream even relevant in today's society?

[00:09:48] Kyle Risi: When you look at some of the struggles that some ordinary Americans are facing in their day to day lives, I was reading the other day, That one American couple, they have like a total household income of 100, 000 a year, and they're still struggling to make ends meet. Does that mean that the American dream is becoming more and more unattainable?

[00:10:09] Adam Cox: Possibly. I mean, depends I guess maybe where they live, but the cost of living is affected. A lot of people across the world. 

[00:10:16] Kyle Risi: Well, that's my, all the latest things for this week. Cool.

[00:10:19] Adam Cox: Should we get on with the mysterious disappearance? 

[00:10:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah, let's do it. So, what makes the disappearance of Lars Mittank even more unsettling?

[00:10:27] Kyle Risi: is that his last moments were actually caught on security camera. Now the footage shows him running out of the airport seemingly in a state of panic and then we just never see him again and in a world where cameras are literally everywhere the question is how can someone just vanish without leaving any clues?

[00:10:45] Kyle Risi: So the tale of Lars Mittank becomes even more astonishing when you consider the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. Like, these murky details have thrust Lars into the global spotlight, captivating the interests of the internet detectives and even his own mother since 2014.

[00:11:00] Kyle Risi: What they've done is they've been diligently working to piece together exactly what happened to him, and the unsettling footage of Lars has just contributed to this notoriety, making him perhaps the most well known missing person in history. But people are fascinated by the clues and are continually searching for answers, adding just more and more layers to this already bewildering story. So that's what today's episode is all about. 

[00:11:25] Kyle Risi: I want to tell you a bit about what happened in the lead up and also after, because it's a really fascinating story.

[00:11:32] Kyle Risi: One of the issues that I had when researching the story was that it was really challenging due to the different accounts and various theories circulating within the online sleuthing community. However, it is worth noting that the very engagement of these internet sleuths has allowed Larsa's mother to continue her own investigation.

[00:11:49] Kyle Risi: And without them, it just wouldn't be possible at all, regardless of how conflicting some of the information is. 

[00:11:54] Adam Cox: It's quite impressive that these internet sleuths, they kind of come up quite a lot in our stories. Trying to uncover these unsolved mysteries or looking into things that they think there's more to the story than we're led to believe.

[00:12:07] Kyle Risi: And actually at the same time, a lot of these online sleuthing communities have really kind of given police some real genuine solid leads to go on. And in some cases they've even helped solve crimes. That Netflix documentary Don't Fuck With Cats, where the whole internet sleuthing community kind of helped find that guy through their investigations, all the way that they were able to triangulate the building versus the road where the sun was setting, .

[00:12:33] Kyle Risi: And people just put all those clues together and they were able to find where he was living. 

[00:12:37] Adam Cox: Wow. Yeah. Where are these sleuths hanging out? I want to kind of join in some of these communities. 

[00:12:42] Kyle Risi: Well, a lot of them are hanging out on Reddit. There's a load of Facebook groups as well. So they're everywhere.

[00:12:48] Kyle Risi: And the thing is though, they're not to be kind of reckoned with really. It's a testament to the collective power of human beings, right? So these cases should be opened up to the wider community when they crop up because they can really benefit a lot of these investigations.

[00:13:05] Adam Cox: True, but then I guess have we saw with Elisa Lam a similar sort of thing whereby actually sometimes they can hinder or misinformation might get out and then they are, they kind of latch on to that. 

[00:13:15] Kyle Risi: That's true and and that's possible. But I guess maybe it depends how...

[00:13:20] Kyle Risi: The police orchestrate and what information they choose to release. Maybe that could help like they do it in a clever way. If it's managed. Yeah, yeah. Managed investigation. Yeah. Managed sleuthing. 

[00:13:32] Adam Cox: Sleuthing investigations. That sounds like a good name for a new 

[00:13:34] Kyle Risi: business. I think so. And

[00:13:36] Kyle Risi: The thing is, uh, Liza's mother, she's just tirelessly working with these online communities to try and find any clues that will lead her to a son. And in many ways, she's the reason why the story still commands this much attention today, because she's so involved in these communities and it's really inspiring.

[00:13:54] Kyle Risi: I mean, one of the issues with these online communities is that the minor details can be easily distorted, as you already mentioned. So someone might share a supposed fact that quickly gets warped and then is passed from person to person. And then before you know it, we have conflicting stories just everywhere.

[00:14:09] Kyle Risi: And it's difficult to kind of separate fact from fiction. Yeah. But I guess it's better than nothing in my view until we can work out how an internet sleuth can kind of help with proper investigation to be productive rather than causing some messiness there, but at the same time, it looks like they're helping to a degree as 

[00:14:28] Adam Cox: well.

[00:14:28] Adam Cox: Yeah, I think they've always got good intentions in this. They're not, you know, um, not intending to mislead or go down a rabbit hole if they don't 

[00:14:35] Kyle Risi: think it's true. It's just pandering to kind of human curiosity, isn't it? These stories. So I will do my best to present the story accurately, but it's important to remember that even if some of the details are fuzzy, there are enough verified facts to make this case really compelling.

[00:14:52] Kyle Risi: So people have become really obsessed with just minor details, but solving the mystery still eludes everyone. And the known facts are strange enough just on their own. So, Lars Mittank. He is a 28 year old man from Germany. He became one of the most famous missing persons on YouTube after he disappeared on July the 8th, 2014.

[00:15:12] Kyle Risi: He was last seen in a resort town called Golden Sands in Bulgaria, which is located kind of on the Black Sea. Now Golden Sands appears to be this charming, well maintained seaside town, which is kind of really popular with kind of like party goers and young people.

[00:15:26] Kyle Risi: Now, Lomas was born in February 1986 in Northern Germany, and was an only child. He was popular, he was athletic and academically successful. And after graduating, he worked as an engineer at the GDF Suess power plant, which is roughly around about 100 miles from his hometown.

[00:15:44] Kyle Risi: And this is where he specialized in fixing small electrical machines and seemed to really enjoy his work. One of his main passions in life was soccer, in particular, his football team that he was really passionate about. So Lars had a deep love for football and this might be linked to his mysterious disappearance. And we'll get onto that in just a moment.

[00:16:04] Kyle Risi: But a few years prior, his dad had suffered a stroke, leaving his mother as his primary caregiver. And Lars, being an only child, would travel nearly a hundred miles almost every weekend where he lived to help take care of his dad. And this level of dedication is pretty rare for someone in the late twenties, you know?

[00:16:21] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and also 

[00:16:22] Adam Cox: if you've got... Um, well, if there's no other sort of choice and plus you do want to help your parents. You 

[00:16:26] Kyle Risi: have a responsibility, don't you? Yeah. But it's not something that people would choose to do.

[00:16:30] Kyle Risi: It's almost like you feel like it's your responsibility, which is good. It's part of being a responsible adult. Yeah. Eventually his mum persuades him that he needs to take a holiday. And so he decides that he's going to take a two week holiday with five of his friends to the Golden Sands resort in Bulgaria.

[00:16:48] Kyle Risi: So the Golden Sands is well known as a hotspot for young people, offering all sorts of inclusive deals and abundant opportunities for partying.

[00:16:55] Kyle Risi: And Lars, according to his friends, was the life of the party. He went on the trip with around five of his friends, two of whom were his old high school mates. Uh, there was a guy called Tim Scholt and Paul Roman. And they did the usual holiday activities like beach trips and they played soccer, they hung out at bars and things like that.

[00:17:12] Kyle Risi: Lads, lads, lads. That's on tour. One particular point to note is that Lars eating habits during the trip, unlike his friends who were taking full advantage of the all inclusive resort, Lars seemed to be kind of like on a health kick and mostly he just ate like light foods like soup and salad and fruit.

[00:17:32] Kyle Risi: While some people online made a real big deal about this and they kind of instigated that maybe this was a clue to kind of his mental state at the time or maybe he was depressed or something. But, I think, simply, it was just more...

[00:17:45] Kyle Risi: The fact that he was on a mindful diet because he was really passionate about football and he played for his local football team and I think he just generally was on just 

[00:17:52] Adam Cox: a health kick. Just being quite dedicated I mean I find it quite hard like when you're trying to be healthy and you've got all this food in front of you I think if anything I, you end up overeating because you're like, well, I'm going to use this opportunity, just eat what I want, drink what I want.

[00:18:07] Adam Cox: And then you're like, Oh, 

[00:18:08] Kyle Risi: I feel sick. And it takes a lot of dedication and discipline to kind of maintain a healthy diet when you're on holiday. 

[00:18:15] Adam Cox: Yeah. And especially when it's all inclusive, you haven't got to pay extra. Why wouldn't you have a few 

[00:18:20] Kyle Risi: extra beers? Exactly. When it's free, it makes it even harder, right?

[00:18:23] Kyle Risi: So I don't really believe that this was a clue to his mental state at the time. I just think he was just on a health kick.

[00:18:29] Kyle Risi: So the week was mostly uneventful for a lads holiday until the second to last day when they decided to go and watch a world cup match. So the world cup was happening in Brazil at the time and they went to a bar to watch Costa Rica playing against the Netherlands.

[00:18:43] Kyle Risi: The bar was just, of course, as you can imagine, just filled with soccer fans from different countries and different clubs. So during the match, there were some tensions with a recent group of high school graduates who were fans of a rival kind of team that the boys were fans of. And of course, words were exchanged, and some say there was a physical fight, although it's not clear what exactly happened. But it just wasn't a major issue. Maybe there was a bit of a scuffle, they pushed each other, shared some words, etc. But nothing major 

[00:19:08] Adam Cox: happened there. Sure. Pushed over a table, glasses, like, woah, woah, woah.

[00:19:12] Kyle Risi: So after leaving the bar, the group went to kind of a McDonald's with an open air window.

[00:19:16] Kyle Risi: And Lars, who was focusing on his health, chose not to eat. And he just stood aside while his friends placed their orders. And when his friends turned around after getting their food, Lars was just gone and they didn't see him for the rest of the night. But they weren't that concerned really, they just thought that maybe he had met someone.

[00:19:32] Kyle Risi: So they weren't really in a panic. At McDonald's though? Well, maybe I mean I wouldn't really be that concerned if one of my mates just 

[00:19:38] Adam Cox: disappeared I guess these are guys and maybe you know, they're not in the same sort of ways Maybe it's like a group of female friends.

[00:19:45] Adam Cox: Yes. Like where did she go? Who's taking her? They'd be like, oh, he's probably just gone back to the hotel 

[00:19:50] Kyle Risi: room or whatever. Yeah, when Lars does show up again, he says that he's been attacked by four Bulgarian guys. 

[00:19:55] Adam Cox: Oh, well, I take what I just said back. 

[00:19:58] Kyle Risi: Now, according to him, one of them threw a punch and when he ducked, he got hit in the ear and Lars was convinced that the boys responsible were the ones that he had an altercation with, even though, it wasn't them who attacked him, because when they were in the bar, one of them commented on how easy it is to find someone. To pay to attack someone in Bulgaria. 

[00:20:20] Adam Cox: Oh, right. So these guys in a bar may have paid someone else to go attack Lars.

[00:20:25] Kyle Risi: That's what he seems to think just based on like the experience from what they had said. That seems so odd. It does seem odd. Maybe they had spotted him after the bar. I don't know, they paid someone. Hey, here's 100 euros. Go beat them up. I don't know. That's 

[00:20:37] Adam Cox: common 

[00:20:38] Kyle Risi: in Bulgaria.

[00:20:38] Kyle Risi: How weird.

[00:20:39] Kyle Risi: So Lars has showed up with an ear injury and he decides to go see a doctor. Now the specialist diagnoses him with a ruptured eardrum and recommended surgery. Now Lars chose not to have the procedure done locally, but that he was going to fly back to Germany instead. So he was given a strong dose of antibiotics, around about 500 milligrams.

[00:20:59] Kyle Risi: And some people on the internet believe that the antibiotics might explain Lars unusual behavior, which we'll discuss later. However, based on the information available, antibiotics don't generally have any major side effects.

[00:21:12] Kyle Risi: At the most, they might cause like an upset stomach, and there are rare occasions that it can cause like, kind of like, dark, large patches on the skin. But it's unlikely that the antibiotics had any impact on his behavior after the fight. No, yeah, 

[00:21:26] Adam Cox: you, I mean, normally they advise don't take antibiotics with alcohol, um, because it voids the effects and yeah, you take antibiotics with like before or 

[00:21:35] Kyle Risi: after food. And he wasn't really drinking either during the holiday, he was on this health kick, so I don't imagine that he would have gone and had like 10 pints after taking the antibiotics. Doesn't seem like that 

[00:21:46] Adam Cox: based on how he was, 

[00:21:47] Kyle Risi: So Lars friends planned to stay with him, but he insisted that they leave, so they caught the original flight out while Lars stayed behind due to obviously the concerns about his ear.

[00:21:58] Kyle Risi: So he was really weary of flying because of the potential effects of air pressure changes on his perforated eardrum. Now, it's unclear whether or not the doctor originally warned him about this, but Lars felt that it would be a problem? Well yeah, because 

[00:22:12] Adam Cox: I think I've been ill before travelling on a plane, and if you have like an ear infection, that can really hurt for like a week or two afterwards.

[00:22:20] Adam Cox: So I could, yeah, I can totally get why you'd want to do that.

[00:22:23] Kyle Risi: Here's the thing though. Having a perforated eardrum, the National Health Service, the N H s website, suggests that flying might actually be more comfortable and not more dangerous if you have this condition.

[00:22:34] Kyle Risi: So it's understandable that Lars not being, obviously a medical expert, would be concerned 'cause he doesn't know this information. It is unfortunate, though, that after seeing two medical professionals in Bulgaria, neither of them told him that flying would be the better option. They just didn't give him that option.

[00:22:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I'm surprised that it 

[00:22:49] Adam Cox: would be better, I thought common knowledge was if you've got something wrong with your ears, you try and avoid it because it just hurts, or at least it just makes it worse.

[00:22:56] Adam Cox: It doesn't necessarily cause it 

[00:22:58] Kyle Risi: to get better. I mean, communication between Lars and the specialist was quite strained anyway. So it's a bit unclear whether or not it was a doctor or Lars who decided that he shouldn't fly. But Lars's mother, Sandra, mentioned that the specialist wouldn't communicate with Lars in English at all. And Lars actually felt like he was being mocked by the specialist. So interestingly, Sandra thought that this was significant because Lars doesn't usually use the word mocked, the German word for mocked. Despite this though, Lars manages to get the antibiotics from the doctor.

[00:23:30] Kyle Risi: But yeah, so they clearly didn't tell him that he shouldn't fly, yeah. So when Lars's friends flew back to Germany, they left him alone in Bulgaria. But they weren't too worried about him at the time, because when they left, he just seemed fine.

[00:23:47] Kyle Risi: Like he wasn't acting strange. If he had been, they probably wouldn't have kind of left, they would have probably set off alarm bells if he was acting strange, but none of that happened. And so according to them, Lars appeared relaxed and in good spirits. So they just, they, they left. Okay.

[00:24:03] Kyle Risi: The fact that it was also summer made it hard for Lars to find a hotel room because most places were fully booked.

[00:24:08] Kyle Risi: So he ended up staying at the Hotel Color Varna. Now this is a rather seedy location and was usually frequented by drug dealers and sex workers. Unfortunately this was the only place that was available. As for that night, not much is known except for some phone calls and texts that Lars exchanged with his mother. 

[00:24:26] Kyle Risi: We do know that Lars was uncomfortable when the hotel staff photocopied his credit card.

[00:24:32] Kyle Risi: Now around 11 p. m. He calls his mom to ask her to block the card because obviously he's worried about potential fraud. He just figures that he can unblock the card when he gets home. And later, Lars makes another unsettling phone call. This time he's left his hotel room and he says that he's on a hill, possibly in danger of falling.

[00:24:50] Kyle Risi: Right? So he mentions that there are four men that are chasing him and their intention is to harm him. And he asks his mom not to call back so that his phone won't ring and therefore give him away. So he's out at night on a hill. That was my understanding of it, but that sounds bizarre, right? How did he get into that sticky situation? So later, he texts his mum and asks her about the name of the antibiotics that he's taken. He had consumed three pills at this point, and it seems that he was worried about how it might be affecting him.

[00:25:21] Kyle Risi: So the next morning, his mum books a flight for him to come home, she doesn't hear back from him for a long time, but when she finally does, she feels a sense of relief. 

[00:25:30] Kyle Risi: So in this story, Lars plans to go to the airport and he needs 500 euros.

[00:25:34] Kyle Risi: Now, he suggests using Western Union to his mum, who's never heard of it before. But because Lars explains it clearly, his mum thinks he's thinking clearly and isn't worried about him at all. 

[00:25:45] Kyle Risi: Now, Lars ends up at the airport medical centre for some reason. It's unclear if he's there because his mum wanted him to get checked out or if it was something that was required.

[00:25:55] Kyle Risi: Okay. But things get confusing here because Lars then calls his mum to say that he shouldn't fly or drive even though he hasn't even seen a doctor yet. 

[00:26:04] Adam Cox: So, we're not quite sure why. How he's got there, but it sounds like he hasn't seen anyone and he's come to this conclusion that he shouldn't 

[00:26:13] Kyle Risi: fly or drive.

[00:26:14] Kyle Risi: That's right. And then also the weird instance where he thinks that he's being pursued by someone on the hill, and then calls his mum and asks about the ingredients in the antibiotics, makes me question whether or not he's having some kind of strange, episode of some kind. 

[00:26:29] Adam Cox: It sounds like that so far, 

[00:26:30] Kyle Risi: but.

[00:26:31] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it sounds like paranoia is setting in. Yeah, yeah, definitely that. So he's worried about these men chasing him. Mm hmm. He's worried about the ingredients of the antibiotics, which could be a result of why he's panicking. And also he's saying that he shouldn't fly without getting a second opinion.

[00:26:47] Kyle Risi: Later on, after he goes missing, Interpol discover that he does go to see a doctor at the airport.

[00:26:54] Kyle Risi: And they talked to the doctor and the doctor's account changes several times, apparently, Lars had become extremely alarmed when someone entered the room while he was being examined.

[00:27:05] Kyle Risi: And it's not entirely clear who this individual was. The doctor suggested it might have been an airline employee assigned to guide him to the plane. Another possibility is that it was just a construction worker. But regardless of the details, is that after he left the room, CCTV footage shows Lars running out of the airport into the nearby countryside.

[00:27:27] Kyle Risi: Weird. So we're left uncertain about what exactly happened to him in that medical center. But regardless of the details, what we do know for sure is that Lars ran out of the airport. This part of the story is well documented because it's available for everyone to be able to see on YouTube. Oh, okay.

[00:27:46] Adam Cox: So that CCTV footage of him running out, that's the last. That's 

[00:27:50] Kyle Risi: the last time. Wow.

[00:27:51] Kyle Risi: So this video has contributed to making Lars one of the most famous missing persons on the internet. And the footage reveals how odd the whole scenario is. Like Lars initially enters the airport, carrying a backpack and a weekend bag. And then later, we see him just running at full speed before eventually turning into a slow jog.

[00:28:12] Kyle Risi: Should we have a look at that video? Yeah, 

[00:28:14] Adam Cox: let's do that. I think maybe, well, I don't know if it will, but it might make more sense. 

[00:28:18] Adam Cox: Okay, so, um, there's Lars, I'm assuming, in a yellow t shirt, orange backpack, walking into the airport. Uh, he's being directed 

[00:28:27] Kyle Risi: to... Looks like he's asking for directions, doesn't he? Yeah, someone's 

[00:28:31] Adam Cox: like guiding him. I'll go down this way, wherever that is. Oh, and now he's running full pelt out of the airport.

[00:28:39] Adam Cox: And he's outside the airport and he's turned from like a sprint to a sort of a slower jog. Although now he's running a bit faster again when he's outside the airport and now he's walking quite calmly. And he's on the outskirts. There's a path. Yeah, he's right outside the airport. So it looks, you know, he's going like closer to fields, but now he's picked up speed again.

[00:29:05] Adam Cox: So he's kind of going backwards and forwards in speed. But that's weird. 

[00:29:10] Kyle Risi: It's strange, isn't it? And 

[00:29:12] Adam Cox: so that last footage there, where he's really in the distance, that's the last time he's seen alive. 

[00:29:16] Kyle Risi: That's right, yeah. So what you're seeing in the background there is him entering into a sunflower field. And that's the last time we see him. 

[00:29:23] Kyle Risi: So in the airport footage, you see him sprinting and then he's walking and then he's jogging. And then once he's outside, he kind of like pauses, he stops, and then his manner in the way that he's running suggests that he isn't being chased. 

[00:29:37] Kyle Risi: And 

[00:29:38] Adam Cox: I don't know because he kind of changes between like a jog to a walk and then a bit of a jog so it's almost like he's trying to get away and then when he thinks the coast is clear he kind of calms down it's not like he's running and like as fast as he can to get like away 

[00:29:55] Kyle Risi: but he's also not looking behind him as if someone's chasing him if he was being chased then he would be looking behind him right you it 

[00:30:02] Adam Cox: almost feels like, has he put on a bit of a show?

[00:30:05] Kyle Risi: I don't know. It's just so bizarre. I mean, the manner that he was running suggests that he isn't being chased to me. And it's not like he's running for his life either, because otherwise there wouldn't be that mix of jogging, then running and then stopping. It's a real odd sort of run as well.

[00:30:20] Kyle Risi: It's as if he's like in a desperate need of the toilet. Do you know what I mean? But then the toilets are inside. Yeah, well for me, I 

[00:30:28] Adam Cox: feel like it's kind of like, uh oh, he's just caused a scene at a restaurant, he's quickly trying to get away and then acting 

[00:30:34] Kyle Risi: casual.

[00:30:35] Kyle Risi: Oh I don't know, it's just bizarre. It's clear that this is someone who's not potentially thinking clearly. It 

[00:30:42] Adam Cox: does, it does actually remind me of the Elisa Lam video, I know I bring it up again, but that kind of. Um, where it's discovered that obviously she hadn't been taking her medication and she was having a mental episode, I think that's the right way to phrase it.

[00:30:56] Adam Cox: So, it kinda reminds me of this a little 

[00:30:59] Kyle Risi: bit. So 

[00:30:59] Adam Cox: maybe something isn't quite right with his mental, um, ability, like we first thought. 

[00:31:05] Kyle Risi: So in the doctor's office he apparently said that I don't want to die here. I have to get out. Wow. So whether that's true or not is up for debate.

[00:31:15] Kyle Risi: Sandra, his mother, who took it upon herself to investigate in Bulgaria, said that she saw the footage and it differed from what the police had. Right? Because what was released that we saw isn't the whole footage. There's a lot more to it.

[00:31:27] Kyle Risi: So according to her, when Lars runs out of the actual airport, he stops, he then checks his pockets to like kind of make sure if he's got his passport and his wallet, which he then realizes that he's left in the airport, right? But then he seems to look around as if kind of like deciding which way to go.

[00:31:46] Kyle Risi: And then, he then just legs it. So if you were running for your life, you wouldn't do that? You wouldn't be like kind of like gauging, getting your bearings. 

[00:31:54] Adam Cox: So this is the additional footage that his mother had seen. Of him checking his pockets and then making this decision of where to go outside the airport. Yeah. Right. So we don't know why that wasn't released, but it just wasn't. 

[00:32:06] Kyle Risi: It just wasn't released part of the investigation. Fine. 

[00:32:08] Kyle Risi: In the footage as well, we also see that when he stops to check his pockets, He passes within like 20 feet of two police officers. So if he was in danger, that's the safe haven, 

[00:32:20] Adam Cox: right? So that is really weird then. Why was he not, yeah, wanting to tell them if he felt like his life was at risk?

[00:32:28] Kyle Risi: But that suggests that he wasn't at risk. And 

[00:32:31] Adam Cox: so that... That kind of, when I said, that makes me think when I said before that this almost feels like a bit of a show. That running out and then calming down and then sort of slightly jogging and stuff. Do you think? It almost feels like he's put on 

[00:32:45] Kyle Risi: a bit of a show.

[00:32:46] Kyle Risi: Interesting. But for what reason? That I don't know. Hmm. Eventually, he's presumed to have just crossed the fence and then vanishes into a field of tall sunflowers. Tall enough to obviously hide him completely, but it's at this point that he's just never seen again.

[00:33:00] Kyle Risi: So Lars mother hired a Bulgarian lawyer to investigate her son's disappearance. Now, Germany also got involved through Interpol, but they just didn't make any progress whatsoever. And some people think that the Bulgarian government were trying to keep the story quiet so that it wouldn't hurt kind of like tourism in the area.

[00:33:20] Kyle Risi: Which is understandable, but it just means that we don't get to find out what happened to Lars. Yeah, there's no closure. Yeah, and the thing is that when you have a missing persons situation like this, it's important to get the message out there as quickly as possible. What's really captivating about the story is that Lars mum didn't just rely on the authorities.

[00:33:40] Kyle Risi: She took matters into her own hands and over the years she's gotten various leads. People have contacted her claiming that they might have found Lars. And she would go off and check it out for herself, right? While none of these leads, though, turned out to be her son, she did discover 15 other Germans living in Bulgaria.

[00:34:01] Kyle Risi: And some of them had issues like addiction or mental illness. And amazingly, she manages to reunite some of these people with their families. Oh, so these are missing people? These are other missing people that people have suspected of being Lars. No way, 

[00:34:15] Adam Cox: and she's helped bring them back. She's found other people.

[00:34:18] Adam Cox: Yeah. So this has helped bring attention, yeah, maybe not necessarily to their cause, but in a roundabout 

[00:34:24] Kyle Risi: way. Sadly, some of them didn't want to go back to Germany, but I mean, she's, the ones that do, like, she's been able to kind of reunite them with their families. But.

[00:34:31] Kyle Risi: The fact is that doing this gave her hope. It made her think that even though the odds are slim of finding him alive, because like we said, it's really important to get the message out there. If you don't find a missing person within a set period of time, the chance of finding them alive diminishes. But the fact that she was finding all these other German citizens living on the streets of Bulgaria, has given her hope.

[00:34:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So she just continues to search even today, holding out hope. What struck me about this is that in Germany, only about 3 percent of missing person cases go unsolved a year. And I would have thought that would have been way higher. So they're really normally quite good at finding missing people, especially if you are a German citizen.

[00:35:16] Adam Cox: Yeah, but in this case, Lars is one of those 3%, at least at the moment. 

[00:35:19] Kyle Risi: I guess so, yeah. But I guess that also gives her hope as well, knowing that like, the chance of finding a missing person is high. Yeah. But yeah, Sondra frequently uses Instagram to search for Lars. And when someone contacts her with a potential sighting, she would inquire about the location and the timing.

[00:35:35] Kyle Risi: And she would then post the information on Instagram and then ask anyone if they could kind of go out and verify the sighting by getting more pictures of that person who was typically often homeless. Yeah. In one instance, a man resembling Lars appeared in Brazil and he does, he does look similar. It's really uncanny.

[00:35:55] Kyle Risi: But he just kind of like was more rugged and he had a beard. However, it was later revealed that the man was not Lars, but rather a guy called Anton. And he'd been missing from British Columbia. and was reunited with his family after five years. And the way that he went missing is that he had hitchhiked and walked all the way from British Columbia.

[00:36:14] Kyle Risi: To Brazil. What? Why? I don't know. Madness. He was just kind of like hanging around Rio de Janeiro during kind of like a period of mental instability But like they found him and they reunited him with his family back in Canada But 

[00:36:28] Adam Cox: okay, so that explains why because I was thinking well, you know, there are phones Along 

[00:36:33] Kyle Risi: the way.

[00:36:33] Kyle Risi: Sure, but he's obviously having a mental episode. Yeah. Yeah so the theory that seems more plausible to me involves kind of the ear injury accompanied by an untreated head injury, possibly a concussion that he maybe got when he got jumped, right? And this could explain the erratic behavior and those feelings of paranoia. And. Once he found himself with no money and no phone or passport, he might have potentially lost his memory and just ended up getting lost in Bulgaria.

[00:37:00] Kyle Risi: Which is a good thing, because it means he's out there, right? 

[00:37:03] Adam Cox: That does make sense to a degree, because he went to the, well before he went to the hospital, he thought it was dangerous for him getting on a plane. His paranoia had already kicked in. He thought he'd maybe seen men chasing him, which maybe is linked to the people that attacked him in the first place.

[00:37:18] Adam Cox: On the flip side, you could say, well, actually maybe he's still being chased and so therefore he did like fear for his life, but then that doesn't explain the way that he ran 

[00:37:26] Kyle Risi: away. I mean, actually, I think this theory could shed light on why he acted so strangely, like running through the airport and into the sunflower field.

[00:37:34] Kyle Risi: I think that does explain it, potentially, if he is feeling paranoid.

[00:37:37] Adam Cox: The only other thing I thought of, but probably can't prove that, is the medication that he was given, was it actually antibiotics? Was he taking three pills at that time? Was it something else that did make him go a bit crazy?

[00:37:50] Kyle Risi: I think when he... called his mum and gave her the name of the medication that would have been branded on the box. So I don't think there would have been anything else, but maybe he just had an adverse effect to those drugs. Possibly. And I mean, according to everyone that he knew, he had a really great life.

[00:38:06] Kyle Risi: He enjoyed his job. He loved living in Germany. So it doesn't seem like he's the kind of guy Hmm. 

[00:38:13] Adam Cox: And it was described as a life and soul of the party, you kind of said, but he wasn't necessarily drinking or kind of indulging too much, but was the rest of the time, do we know that, was he, was he, like, all okay throughout the rest of the 

[00:38:25] Kyle Risi: holiday?

[00:38:26] Kyle Risi: No alarm bells were rung amongst his friends. And like we said, if it, if there had been, they wouldn't have left him. Yeah, fair. Another angle to consider is the possibility that he felt threatened while in the hotel. Maybe perhaps by people who were trying to rob him or extort him.

[00:38:42] Kyle Risi: This could explain the comment that he made about not wanting to die in the airport, and also could potentially explain him asking his mother to send 500 euros via Western Union. However... The 500 euros were found untouched in his account. So a robbery seems quite unlikely.

[00:39:03] Kyle Risi: What I find truly perplexing though is that the way that he left the airport, like he left everything behind and that leads me back to the idea of a traumatic brain injury.

[00:39:13] Kyle Risi: But then the question remains, what happened to Lars? Did he die somewhere in the woods and he's yet to be found? Or did he manage to wander into town and start a new life? And the theory of the brain injury seems to me to be the one that makes the most sense when you try to unravel kind of this complex mystery.

[00:39:32] Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah, it does. His mum still thinks that he is out there and she's chasing every single clue that she can to find him. One idea is that he may have just lost his memory and that's why he hasn't reached out. Another theory though suggests that he was telling the truth about being followed.

[00:39:48] Kyle Risi: And given that Bulgaria has an issue with human trafficking, it is possible that Lars could have been targeted. Although these problems typically only affect local Bulgarians and not really tourists, and it's typically kind of the local Romani people. 

[00:40:03] Adam Cox: I would have thought so. Females are children because they're easier to kidnap. 

[00:40:06] Kyle Risi: I mean, it is something to consider though, but I think that is unlikely. Now Sandra has likely thought about all of these possibilities, especially when she doesn't have the closure that she needs.

[00:40:18] Kyle Risi: And in such cases, your imagination would often like, just kind of wander to the darker scenario. So she's probably thought about this. There was one promising lead though at this point and that was a trucker and he had claimed that he had given a hitchhiker a lift to Brandenburg.

[00:40:32] Kyle Risi: And then later realized that when the story finally did break, that it was probably Lars. And unfortunately, Sandra never managed to reconnect with the truck driver at all, but she has asked people to keep an eye out for Lars in the Brandenburg area. So, it's contributions from online detectives and curious minds that just keep Sandra going.

[00:40:55] Kyle Risi: And helping her to maintain the hope that Lars will be found alive one day. 

[00:41:00] Kyle Risi: In Dusseldorf, another man who looked like Lars was identified and within two hours, thanks to the quick efforts of online sleuths a woman had posted a picture of the homeless man and within that short time frame, someone found him and confirmed that sadly it was not Lance.

[00:41:15] Kyle Risi: That's really quick. But yeah, that's the point that like this community is really active and within two hours from across the world. All you need to do is just post a picture, ask for confirmation, someone can go out there and they can then verify yes or no. I guess that's 

[00:41:30] Adam Cox: one of the pluses of social media now.

[00:41:32] Adam Cox: Like, you can kind of do all that. So, in this instance, it can be really valuable. 

[00:41:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Another theory suggests that Lars might have been a drug mule. Some people think that he panicked, thinking that he might be caught. And then just ran out the airport. However, this theory loses strength when you consider that no drugs were found amongst any of his belongings.

[00:41:51] Kyle Risi: Although some say that his behavior like running out of the airport and jumping over the fence indicates that he might have been on drugs. Maybe it was in his system but his actions and his personality doesn't really necessarily fit the typical pattern that you'd expect from a drug mule either.

[00:42:08] Kyle Risi: But who am I to say? Like. what that pattern would be, but I just don't buy that theory. And so that's the story of Lars Mittank. It just feels like 

[00:42:17] Adam Cox: so many scenarios of what could happen, yet so many unanswered questions. We're sat here thinking it feels like, based on the events leading up to his disappearance, that maybe that incident at the pub or whatever, and the impact on his eardrum, maybe have It offset his mental stability.

[00:42:37] Adam Cox: That's, that's the only logic that we've got here to suggest why he ran away. But yeah, all sorts of things could have happened. I mean, he could be out there on the streets. He could have got himself into trouble, climbed into something that was actually quite dangerous and, you know, got hurt. Like you, we just don't know where he is.

[00:42:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's really sad. I hope they do find him. I, I genuinely hope. I mean, I hope he's somewhere out there and he's, and he's safe and he's mentally sound. I don't think that's going to be likely. I think it's more likely that he is out there. He's lost his memory. He's got some amnesia, but I hope that that is the case because the alternative is that sadly he's dead.

[00:43:15] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And it 

[00:43:15] Adam Cox: sounded like he had a good relationship with his mother to, to not make contact with her. There has to be a very good reason why. 

[00:43:23] Kyle Risi: That's right. I agree with that. So, shall we, uh, run the outro? Okay. So, and so we come to an end of another episode of the compendium and assembly of fascinating and intriguing things.

[00:43:34] Kyle Risi: If you found today's episode both fascinating and intriguing, then we urge you to subscribe and leave us a review. And don't just stop there. Schedule your episodes to download automatically. Doing this not only ensures you're always in the loop, but also boosts our visibility, helping us to serve you even more captivating tales straight to your ears.

[00:43:52] Kyle Risi: You can also follow us on Instagram at The Compendium Podcast, or visit our home on the web at thecompendiumpodcast. com. We release new episodes every Tuesday, and so until then, remember, 

[00:44:04] Kyle Risi: Not everyone who wanders into an airport is lost, but Lars might be. 

[00:44:10] Kyle Risi: See ya. 

[00:44:11] Kyle Risi: See ya.