The Bizarre Disappearance Of Lars Mittank

On 30th June 2014, 28 year old German tourist Lars Mittank, travelled with a small group of friends to Golden Sands, a luxury resort on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

Throughout the week, the group spent their days lounging on the beach, swimming in the pools, playing football, and enjoying nights out at local clubs. Lars was said to be in good spirits for most of the trip.

However, as the holiday drew to a close on 6th July—the day before they were due to fly home—Lars became involved in a bar fight with another tourist following a disagreement over football. During the altercation, he suffered a jaw injury and was struck on the ear, resulting in a ruptured eardrum.

After the incident, Lars left his friends and returned to his hotel room for the remainder of the evening. When he re-joined them the next morning, he appeared shaken and claimed that the man he had fought the night before had hired four men to attack him.

Before going to the airport, Lars visited a doctor, who prescribed him Cefprozil—an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections—and advised him not to fly until his eardrum had healed.

Realising he would not be returning home that day, Lars’ friends offered to stay behind so they could travel back to Germany together once he had recovered. However, Lars refused to let them extend their trip, insisting he did not want to inconvenience them. He reassured them that he would be fine on his own, and, despite their reluctance, his friends boarded their scheduled flight home without him.

On 7th July, Lars checked out of his hotel and decided to find more affordable accommodation. He moved to Hotel Colour, a budget hotel in Varna, a city located closer to the airport.

However, from the moment he checked into the hotel, CCTV footage would later reveal that Lars’ behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic.

The recordings show him pacing back and forth through the foyer, repeatedly peering out of the windows, and at one point hiding inside the lift. He appeared visibly anxious, as though frightened of something unseen, and his actions suggested a growing sense of paranoia as time went on.

In the early hours of the following day, Lars abruptly left the hotel. He later returned briefly to collect his belongings before making his way to the airport.

Where he went during those intervening hours remains unknown, as does the reason he ultimately chose to disregard the doctor’s advice not to fly. What is clear, however, is that he placed a deeply unsettling phone call to his mother, Sandra.

Speaking in a frightened whisper, Lars claimed that four men were following him and that he feared they intended to kill him. The call grew increasingly alarming as he said he was hiding in a “high place” and was too afraid to move in case he fell to his death. He urged his mother to cancel his bank cards, worried that he might be robbed.

It is no surprise that the call left Sandra deeply alarmed, but Lars assured her that he would keep her updated as he made his way to the airport.

By 5am, Lars Mittank had arrived at Varna Airport and placed a second call to his mother to confirm that he had made it there safely. During this conversation, he told her that he no longer had any money—an assertion that contradicted what he had said earlier, when he claimed to still have cash on him.

Before ending the call, Lars explained that he intended to visit the on-site doctor for a check-up before boarding his flight. Yet despite his reassurances, Sandra could hear the fear in her son’s voice. It was clear to her that he was deeply frightened by something he believed was still looming over him.

After ending the call, Lars went to see the airport doctor, Dr. Kosta Kostov, who reiterated that he should not fly with a ruptured eardrum, warning that the changes in air pressure could cause serious complications.

Despite this advice, Lars insisted that he intended to board his scheduled flight home. In response, Dr. Kostov asked him to sign a declaration form accepting full responsibility for any potential consequences.

As the consultation was coming to an end, a construction worker reportedly entered the examination room. At the sight of the man, Lars suddenly leapt to his feet and began shouting.

Without warning, Lars bolted from the room, abandoning his luggage, passport, and phone. He ran frantically through the airport terminal, racing past the check-in desks and boarding gates with a single apparent objective: to get outside into the open air.

Once outside, CCTV footage captured Lars sprinting across the airport car park before climbing over a tall security fence that marked the perimeter.

The final images recorded by the cameras show him running toward the surrounding woodland—disappearing from view and into the trees.

As days passed with no sign of Lars, a large-scale investigation was launched, and his worried family even hired a private detective—but no trace of him was ever found.

As the case attracted widespread national attention, speculation grew over what could have triggered such extreme behaviour. Some doctors suggested that Lars might have experienced a psychotic reaction to the antibiotic prescribed for his ear, which in rare cases can cause paranoia and hallucinations.

However, Dr. Kostov later clarified that Lars had never filled the prescription and had not taken any of the medication, ruling out the drug as a cause of his erratic behaviour.

It was also suggested that Lars may have experienced a sudden mental breakdown, although his mother, Sandra, insisted that he had no prior history of mental illness.

From this point, the case unfortunately grows cold, leaving his disappearance shrouded in mystery.

In December 2016, a glimmer of hope emerged in the case when a man was found wandering barefoot along a highway in Brazil. He appeared disoriented, carried no identification, and claimed to have no memory of who he was.

As images of the man spread on social media, many noticed a striking resemblance to the missing Lars Mittank—matching his build, hair color, and height.

Unfortunately for Lars’s hopeful loved ones, the man was soon identified as Anton Pilipa, a Canadian who had been missing for five years. He was eventually reunited with his family.

Sandra was heartbroken by the disappointment but grateful that Anton had finally returned home. Still holding onto the belief that her own son is alive, she continues to pray that Lars’s case will one day have a similarly hopeful outcome.

In the years since Lars fled the airport, there have been numerous unconfirmed sightings. In 2019, a truck driver came forward claiming to have given a ride to a man matching Lars’s description—“with a beard and long hair”—though there is no way to verify that this hitchhiker was indeed him.

It has now been 12 years since Lars Mittank was last seen, and he has become known as one of the most famous missing persons cases, with footage of him fleeing the airport viewed over 16 million times.

As of 2026, his disappearance remains unsolved.