Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 102. Mysterious Reappearances: Steven Kubacki and The Lake Michigan Triangle

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

In 1978, Steven Kubacki went skiing near Lake Michigan and vanished without a trace. Danny Filippidis was heading to his car to grab his phone when everything went dark. What happened to these men, and do the strange areas where they were last seen have anything to do with their disappearances, and their even stranger reappearances? Subscribe on Patreon for bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to bonus content as well as other perks. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to bonus episodes and more when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok and Instagram for a daily dose of horror. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Wait, did we just invent California? Discover why California is the ultimate playground at visitcalifornia.com. Some people believe there is something really strange happening around Lake Michigan. On April 28th, 1937, a ship captain named George R. Donner was leading a freight ship, the OS McFarland, through the still frozen channels of the Great Lakes.

At 57, he was an experienced captain who had been sailing nearly since his birth in 1879. And though it was mid-spring, this northern passage was still frozen. But the captain's goal was simple. Navigate the freighter from Lake Erie up through the icy waters of Lake Huron, over the tip of Michigan, and then down the slushy Lake Michigan to his destination of Port Washington and Wisconsin. There, he would drop off the coal supply the ship was carrying. But the journey had begun three days prior on April 25th, and Captain Donner had barely slept at all.

Steering through the ice was nothing new to him, but the compasses in both the fore and aft of the ship had broken, making things unusually dangerous. He gripped the wheel of the freighter, pulling it back and forth to dodge ice flows in the narrow straits of Mackinac at the very tip of Michigan. He knew the chances of capsizing were perilously high and conditions were only getting worse with each passing day. But he was a good captain.

With a steady sense of direction and a level head under pressure. With his guidance, the ship and its crew seemed to be getting through the worst of the ice. Just then, something strange happened. Captain Donner released his iron grip on the helm 20 minutes past 10pm. The freighter was quietly chugging through the pitch black night, only three hours from port. Donner told his crew to let the boat cruise into the shore and he went down to his quarters to finally try and rest. Crew members reported hearing the captain walking around his room, perhaps putting things away and finishing up some paperwork. The

ship approached the dock and the second mate raced down the stairs to the tucked away captain's cabin at the end of the hall and he knocked on the door. But there was no answer. Perhaps the rocking of the ship had lulled Donner to sleep so he tried the handle. Locked. After more persistent knocking, the second mate decided to grab the first mate and the key to the locked wooden door.

Eventually, they gently pushed the door open, hoping to not startle the captain, but to their surprise, the room was empty. Their captain was gone, seemingly disappeared into thin air. The entire crew was called in to search every room, hull, and compartment on the entire ship, but no trace of Captain Donner was ever found. The watchmen, who had been on the deck all night, were certain they hadn't seen him roaming around. After docking, the search made its way into the water, where rescuers kind of expected to find George Donner's body floating or washed ashore on the lake,

but instead there was no indication that he had ever been there. Urban legends say the captain jumped overboard with weights tied to his feet so that he would never be found, though that doesn't explain how he would have made it out of his windowless room at the bottom of the ship, the door still locked from the inside. But if you ask those who live in the area, they have another idea as to what happened. See, throughout history, strange things have been happening around Lake Michigan. Unexplainable things. Some even call it the Lake Michigan Triangle and have suggested

that there was something in the air that night, something supernaturally strong that may have whisked the captain off to another dimension. Now I don't know if that's true but what I do know is that it's this area, this strange and unexplainable area where our first story takes place. But before we get to it, this is Heart Starts Pounding and I'm your host, Kaylen Moore. I'm going to tell you two stories today that both feature people who disappeared in the snow. But both stories have very strange twists to them that even I can't make sense of. I know some people believe that these stories fall under Missing 411, the David Politis theory that something otherworldly is responsible for unexplained disappearances. I know actually

Mr. Ballin brought that up when he talked about each of these cases, but I wanted to take a little bit deeper of a look and see what else might be going on. It felt appropriate to tell these stories as I sit here in the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters and the snow gathers gently outside. If you're new here, I tell these inside of our community headquarters, an old Victorian home high up on a hill. Sometimes I have visitors like the Psychopedia podcast, but usually it's just me and Jinx, our friendly ghost. Oh, and also Gordie, our terrifying monkey doll who may or may not be haunted. And actually, as I was just listening through the tapes on this episode, I think I heard Jinx in the background at one point, so please let me know if you hear anything or if

I'm just losing my mind in here. And actually, one more thing before we dive in, I just wanted to shout out the listener who reached out to me and said that they are a chemical warfare weapons specialist. I didn't know that was a thing, but I love that it is and I love that one of you who listens to the show is that. So if you have any strange, morbid or macabre things that you do for work or that you do as a hobby on the side, please always feel free to let me know. I love hearing about that stuff. But like I said, I have two great stories for you today, whether you're listening on the Odyssey app,

Patreon, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's get into it. February, 1978. College senior Mark Bager watched as his roommate packed ski gear into a bag. The fellow Hope College student, 23-year-old Stephen Kubacki, said he was headed off on a solo cross-country ski trip around the Lake Michigan shore.

There was a ton of fresh snow out there right on the eastern edge of Lake Michigan and Stephen wanted to take advantage of it. That winter, he was only one semester away and nine credits short of finishing his degree at the small school in the town of Holland. By his senior year, Stephen Kubacki had made somewhat of a reputation for himself

at the small Christian college. Classmates described him as a little more free-spirited than the average student, and by that they meant he one time led a one-man protest to protect the books at the campus library. He also had taken a year to study abroad in Europe, to expand upon his work as a history major with an emphasis in German. So his roommate Mark wasn't really surprised that Steven was taking this solo trip. He was a pretty daring guy. So he finished packing his bag and then headed out of their off-campus house making sure

he said goodbye on the way out. Now Mark wasn't exactly sure when Steven was supposed to be back from the trip. But a few days passed, and he hadn't returned. There was no word from Steven, he hadn't called at all. Mark knew that the length of Steven's trip was dependent on the amount of ice that had accumulated on the path that he planned to take. But as the days went on, he started getting a really bad feeling. By sundown on the seventh day of his roommate's

absence, he ended up calling the authorities and reported him missing. A search started almost immediately. Police put down chains on their tires and drove down the icy streets to the location that Mark thought Steven might have been at. There, the flat terrain was covered in snow and the lake was frozen solid. And there was no sign of Stephen anywhere. But one day later, the search team got a lead. On Monday, February 20th, 1978, snowmobilers were out on the ice near Saugatuck,

about 20 minutes south of Hope College, when in the distance, they saw some debris. They drove over to get a better look at what it was, thinking it was maybe just trash they could pick up, but it was snow skis, poles, and a backpack, all which were later confirmed to be Stevens. The writers reported it to the state police, which set off an even bigger search and rescue mission for the missing college senior.

Officers and college officials worked together to track Stephen's movements, walking on foot while helicopters showed a wide scope from above. The search charged on, even as a thick fog rolled in and threatened to ground the planes looking for him. As the visibility worsened, it seemed like all hope was lost. But then, out in the distance, someone started screaming that they had found something. This episode is brought to you by Hero Bread. What's your health goal for the year?

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at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. There were footprints in the snow that matched the boots Stephen was wearing the last day he was seen. 200 yards of these prints were found

leading just past the edge of the lake onto the ice. But the strange thing was that the footsteps abruptly ended without any further sign of disturbance. It was like he had just been beamed up, or worse, had maybe fallen through the ice, which had refrozen over. State Trooper Joe Armstrong,

one of the lead investigators during the search, characterized the disappearance point as, quote, an unsafe place to go. Certain areas of the lake were prone to fractured ice due to the strong currents that flowed there. And while the cops saw this as now a classic case of a young adventurer who had fallen through the ice, this discovery raised a lot of questions for the people that knew Stephen. Like why would he have taken off his backpack at a different location than where his prints disappeared? And why was he on the ice?

Stephen was a seasoned outdoorsman. By all accounts, he was considered to be an experienced cross-country skier, and he was very familiar with the area. They just didn't buy that he ran out onto the ice. Even still, a vigil was held for Stephen at Hope College. He was remembered at the 1978 commencement ceremony months later in May, where the school did grant him a bachelor's degree in absentia. For many, though, this story harkened back to the story of Captain Donner, the one who vanished under mysterious circumstances out on this very lake.

Was the answer to Steven's disappearance that simple? Or was there something more to it? Others in the area heard this story and got a really, really bad feeling in their stomachs. They had heard stories of young men like Stephen going missing around Lake Michigan. Young men from good families with no past criminal records just like Stephen vanishing into thin air without a trace. It wouldn't be until months later, however, that they'd know what was actually happening.

See, John Wayne Gacy was prowling the other side of the lake from Displanes to Chicago. But still, when news broke in December that year that a man was found with the bodies of 26 males as young as 15 in a crawl space below his home, they started to wonder if Stephen was amongst the remains. But nothing ever came of that. It took some time for police to identify all of the bodies, and Michigan police actually did send Stephen's dental records to Chicago, just on the chance that his remains could be identified. But with Stephen's case closed by

the local police as a drowning, it didn't seem like there was ever going to be any more closure to it than that. His parents even hired a private investigator to look into his disappearance more, but she couldn't find anything. Eventually, spring came and the ice melted. A thorough search of Lake Michigan would finally be able to provide the Kabakis with some closure. But to the expert's surprise, a sweep search of the lake didn't turn up a body. So left with really no choice, everyone just stopped looking. They would have to make peace with the closure they had. Or so they thought. In May of 1979, 14 months after Stephen was last seen, June Bozak was

approaching her home at 37 Christian Road in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. June was taking an evening walk with a friend that Saturday night and around 8 p.m. they were approaching her front door but from a distance she noticed that someone was actually standing on her porch waiting for her. She couldn't believe her eyes but it was a man in his early 20s with shaggy brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. It looked just like her nephew. But her nephew had drowned last winter, and she had attended his memorial 900 miles away. Not able to contain her confusion,

she just blurted out, "'Steven?' Hi Aunt June,' was all the man said back." June ushered Stephen into her home and soon his family and reporters flocked to the scene. To their surprise, Stephen recounted the same stranger than fiction story over and over again. Every time they asked him

where he had been this entire time. According to him, he had woken up on May 15, 1979, in a grassy meadow in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He said he came to, wearing random clothes and sitting next to a backpack that he also didn't recognize, inside the bag were marked up maps, homemade hitchhiking signs, a Wisconsin Marathon t-shirt, and brand new glasses that he also didn't recognize. He also had $40 in cash. What Stephen didn't possess though, was any recollection of how he got there or how long he had been missing for.

He only realized how much time had passed when he read a newspaper over a stranger's shoulder at a nearby restaurant in town. His parents were speechless as he told them this story. when he read a newspaper over a stranger's shoulder at a nearby restaurant in town. His parents were speechless as he told them this story. They were just so overjoyed that they got to see their son again, something they never thought would happen. But that didn't mean that the rest of the world felt the same way they did. Reporters were dying to learn the details about what happened to Steven while he was gone. Had he suffered from amnesia for 15 months, maybe because of a head injury he had received? Or worse, had someone been holding him captive and now he was too afraid to say anything?

In interviews, Stephen was really pushed to dig up the memories. But all he said he could remember were vague feelings. He remembered feeling cold, stranded, alone in the dark, and he had a creeping worry that he was going to freeze to death. He also noticed that his body felt tired when he woke up as if he had been running a lot, and maybe that's why he woke up in the field wearing worn-in running shoes that he didn't recognize and had that marathon t-shirt in his bag. He also figured that whatever had caused his memory blackout was probably a physical injury and not a psychiatric one, so he decided that he wasn't going to seek any mental health treatment.

And still, he just told newspapers that he had, quote, a lot to think about, and he planned to find out where he was and what he did, but he needed to do it all on his own. So after the initial public welcome home, Stephen stopped speaking to the press entirely. If he did see a doctor about his condition, he never shared an update. Instead, he moved across country to the Pacific Northwest. He built a quiet life as a psychologist. And that's the story of Stephen Kubacki.

No, I'm just kidding. I looked into this a lot more. Because this story kind of drove me up the wall. It seemed like Stephen was at peace with what happened to him, with not remembering anything for 15 months. Which if that happened to you, wouldn't you want to know what happened? If this was some kind of hoax that he pulled, I thought that maybe sometime in the last 47 years he would've come forward and said something. Or someone would've come forward and said something.

Or someone would've come forward and said something like, Oh Steven was on my couch this whole time, or I saw him once at a bus stop. But no, no one ever did. Which makes it feel a lot less like a hoax. And that's probably why over the years, so many people have pointed to the area and said that Lake Michigan's triangle might actually be responsible for his disappearance. So I will say,

Stephen is not even the strangest disappearance to happen in the area. Northwest Airlines flight 2501 took off on June 23rd, 1950 from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. It was headed to Seattle, Washington with 55 people aboard including the captain, his second, and the flight attendant. And the captain checked in with ground control at 12.13 a.m. The plane had hit a patch of turbulence above Lake Michigan and requested to drop down to 2,500 feet, but ground control informed them that there wasn't enough airspace. And that was the last communication the world ever heard from flight 2501.

And one thing that I wanted to mention was that in 2023, a YouTube channel called The Missing Enigma actually got an interview with Stephen. But strangely, Stephen didn't wanna talk about his disappearance at all. And that's because he announced that he wrote a book about it and is currently looking for a publisher. He said that over the years, memories of what happened while he was gone

have actually come flooding back and he remembered more than he would admit to in 1979. He said that his disappearance had to do with, and I'm not making this up, quote, a revolutionary organization, an idealistic terrorist in training, spiritual experiences with hallucinogenic drugs and alternate realities, the French Foreign Legion, and a young man's struggle to find meaning during a turbulent time. And according to him, if we wanted to learn more about his experience, we would have to buy the book. So did something strange and potentially interdimensional happen to Stephen Kubackbakki? Or was this a very, very

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-♪ Sunwing, that's the end! your local travel advisor or as... Our next story takes place in Lake Placid in New York, another lake with an eerie and mysterious history. On February 7th of 2018, a 49-year-old firefighter named Konstantinos Philippidis, who went by Danny, was with a group of work friends on their yearly ski trip from Canada to Whiteface Mountain in New York. Now, Whiteface Mountain is a popular skiing location

near Lake Placid with 94 trails that stretch 25 miles in total. It's a big mountain and it's known for having the biggest vertical drop east of the Rockies. And as a result, like with basically any ski mountain, people get hurt. People sometimes veer off of the narrow paths into uncharted territory. But Danny had been doing this trip for years with his coworkers, and he was an experienced skier.

He loved skiing so much that by the early afternoon, he was a little disappointed that his friends were ready to call it for the day. At around 2.30 p.m., the group was heading towards the lodge to grab a drink and rest when Danny said that he was gonna go for just one more run. First though, he said he needed to grab his phone from his car, so he took off on his

skis towards the bottom of the mountain. His friend sat there, drinking for a while, when one of them looked at their watches. Hey, where's Danny? He wondered aloud to the group. They all looked around, thinking that they would catch him coming down the mountain by this point, but no one saw him. They waited a little while longer, and then a little longer, and then longer still, but Danny never returned. By 4.30pm, they left the lodge to go look for Danny at the main resort.

He wasn't there either, so one of the guys thought that they should just go check his car because after all that's where he said he was going. But when they got there, his car was parked in its spot. And there, sitting in the front seat, was his phone. That was enough for the group to report Danny missing. Kicking off a massive search across Whiteface Mountain. So the search drew more than 6,000 people to look for the missing father of three. Police officers, forest rangers, Homeland Security, U.S. Border Patrol officers, and

local ski patrol for Whiteface and the neighboring mountain all came together to cover every inch of the resort. One hundred Toronto firefighters even crossed the border to volunteer their time. They just wanted to find Dani, who officials were certain had to be lost somewhere out in the snow. Eventually, Dani's wife flew into Lake Placid

to join the search the next day, but law enforcement didn't have good news for her when she got there. They let her know that they were able to find her husband's passport, so it seemed unlikely that he grabbed his things and took off. He wouldn't have been able to fly or even get back to Canada, and his car was still parked at the ski lodge. So they knew that he hadn't driven anywhere.

He was most likely still somewhere on the mountain. Panic was setting in for Danny's family as the hours turned into days. He had become one of the East Coast's most important missing persons overnight. News stations everywhere were picking up this story. The chances of finding him were dwindling as the week was going on, if he had fallen somewhere, the freezing temperatures made it less likely every passing day that he would still be alive. By February 13th, a week after Danny was last seen, it was almost certain he was dead. No other trace of him had been found on the mountain, no one had come forward saying they saw him, his wife was basically

ready to start making arrangements for a memorial service. When out of nowhere, she got a phone call from an unknown number, and something inside her told her to pick it up. When she did, she recognized the voice on the other end of the line immediately. It was Danny. And as much as she couldn't believe what she was hearing, that he was still alive, she really couldn't believe what he told her next. He said that he was at the Sacramento airport, 3,000 miles from where he was last seen, with no memory of how he got there. Danny told her that he had woken up the day before feeling cold and sore with very little

awareness of his surroundings and a crushing headache. When he looked around, he saw that he was actually sitting in the cab of a big rig truck, still wearing his ski gear. Eventually, he asked the driver to pull over so he could throw up on the side of the road. When he gets back in the truck, he asks the driver, where am I? And the truck driver told Danny that he was in Utah. The driver then said that they were on their way to Sacramento and that that would be the end of the line in their journey together. By the time Danny got out of the truck, he wasn't able to remember the man's name.

And when Danny set foot in Sacramento on February 13th, he had nothing with him but the same ski outfit on his back. No phone, no wallet, no ID. However, he did find some cash that he had saved for the ski lift in his pocket. And it was around this time that memories started flooding back to him. He remembered being on a mountain, specifically leaving his friend group

after he said he wanted to do one more run. And then nothing. He knew he needed to get in touch with his wife. So he found an Apple store and he begged an employee to sell him an iPhone without identification, but after he turned it on he couldn't remember his wife's number. So he just searched the only thing he remembered at that time which was Whiteface Mountain and that was in hopes that he would find the resort's number, but the top result shocked him. It was

his name as a missing person. By the time Danny finally remembered his wife's phone number, he was at the Sacramento airport. And all things considered, he actually wasn't doing too horribly. He even looked fine. He had managed to get himself a haircut and a fresh shave with the leftover cash. But after confirming Danny was safe,

his wife had a million other questions. And the people around her were also a little skeptical of Danny's story. Danny said that he had a horrible head injury that left him without memory for a week. But the man that came back from Sacramento had a new haircut, a fresh shave, and a brand new iPhone. It seemed strange, to say the least. And Danny didn't make it any better because no matter how hard he tried,

he said he couldn't remember anything else. And while speaking with Danny on the phone, his friends and family could tell that something sounded off about his state of mind. So while he was in Sacramento, actually, he was transported to a hospital for a medical evaluation. And the doctors there definitely had a lot to say about him. So getting amnesia after a concussion isn't really unusual. It can happen in up to 25% of traumatic brain injury cases.

But losing your memory for days at a time is extremely rare. Memory loss of events that happen directly after brain injury, also known as anterograde amnesia, typically only last a few seconds, maybe as long as 48 hours. A dissociative fugue state, however, can last for much longer periods of time. This type of psychological episode can be triggered by a head injury but is often triggered by emotional trauma. Researchers are still figuring out the neurological causes of a fugue state, but for now experts best describe it as like your brain is short-circuiting. Patients in fugue states lose track of time and, even worse, they can

totally forget who they are. Fugue states typically come to an abrupt end when someone stumbles upon something or somewhere completely unfamiliar. So the theory is that Danny heard that they were in Utah, a part of the country that was foreign to him and it snapped him back into consciousness. If Danny experienced a fugue state, the question became, did something or someone trigger the episode? So the story that he was able to put together with the help of the police is that he probably suffered some sort of head injury while heading down the mountain. Then he was most likely unable to get into his car so he asked someone for a ride. Perhaps it was the truck driver and that was the only person who saw him during this whole fiasco. But here's what's a

little suspicious about that. The truck driver who the police suspect took Danny from New York State to the West Coast has never been identified by the police suspect took Danny from New York State to the west coast, has never been identified by the police or the press, nor did he ever come forward. Danny doesn't remember hailing the ride across the country or what he spoke to the driver about, if at all. He tried recalling the man's name or any details about the truck, but the only guesses he could come up with were completely generic. Why would a truck driver pick up a skier fully dressed for the mountain and drive him out of upstate New York?

Wouldn't he have noticed Danny's injuries and taken him to get help instead of across the country? Some conspiracy theorists also wonder about Danny's motivation. Why didn't he borrow a phone instead of going through the trouble of buying a new one? Once he got the phone and realized he was a missing person, why did he find his way to an airport instead of the police? But doctors who treated Danny following this reappearance would likely suggest that his judgment was flawed by his altered consciousness. In the months following his reappearance, Danny Filippidis was not able to regain any of the memory. Just that he was on his way down the slopes that afternoon when all of a sudden, everything went dark. He started feeling painfully cold,

and then he woke up in Utah. So what could have happened to these men in the time that they don't remember? Theories range from alien abduction to hoax with everything in between. Is it possible that the strangeness of the areas in which they disappeared had something to do with it? I talked about it in our summertime, terrifying true urban legends episode last year, but Lake Placid has a strange history itself. There's rumors of ghosts in the forest

surrounding the lake, and the strange disappearance of Mabel Smith Douglas, whose body was found perfectly preserved in the lake 30 years after she disappeared, still haunts the area. But I've said it before, Heart Starts Pounding exists in a place where sometimes the legends are true. Where the mysteries around us sometimes do have fantastical explanations. That's all I have for you today on these stories. Join me next week where I dive into another terrifying true urban legends episode.

And until then, stay curious. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by Kaylen Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Additional research and writing by Marissa Dow. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe.

Have a heart-pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com.