Lake Michigan Triangle Revisited

I’m coming back to the Lake Michigan triangle because I only touched the surface in my first post on the subject. There is so much more to talk about! And given I had read in 2025 that the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle was “solved” I thought why not dive back in?

Before we get into more stories from Lake Michigan’s triangle, let’s touch on the claim that the mysteries behind the Bermuda Triangle have been solved. If anything, I think the title of that article is clickbait. Much like articles that clam Jack the Ripper’s identity has been revealed. When you read the articles, there really aren’t any bombshells, just new data that may explain some mysteries but not all. There are still plenty of weird stories that an underwater volcano can’t explain away.

The Le Griffon is one of the earliest known disappearances attributed to the Triangle, vanishing in 1679. It was her maiden voyage and she was loaded with 12,000 pounds of fur. She vanished without a trace. Some wonder if the Ottawas or Pottawatomies boarded her, murdered the crew, and destroyed the ship with fire. Another theory is the crew themselves sunk the ship and made off with the fur as the fur trade was big business back then. Neither theory has any evidence, though, and the wreckage has yet to be found.

This mystery happened on June 23rd, 1950. Northwest Airlines Flight 2501 is flying to Seattle from New York City. Fifty-eight people are on board. While over Lake Michigan and in the triangle, Captain Rober Lind radios a request to descend 2,500 feet, citing a severe electrical storm and high winds, but he is denied permission. The plane vanishes. A search was sent out and human remains did wash up on show in the following days. Debris was recovered but it was so broken up that there is no longer a plane to find, and, therefore, a definitive answer to why it went down remains unanswered.

This 1978 incident took place on the shores near the triangle’s location. Steven Kubacki, a 23-year-old Hope College student is cross-country skiing near Saugatuck, MI when he disappears. Snowmobilers found his equipment and police located footprints on the ice but they end abruptly. That suggests Kubacki had fallen through the ice and drowned.

Mystery solved, right? Nope. Kubacki was found alive and well over a year later and 700 miles away from Michigan wearing weird clothing and a backpack full of random maps. A T-shirt from a Wisconsin marathon was also in his possession, leading him to say, “I feel like I’ve done a lot of running.” He had no memory of where he had been for over a year.

While I think some do have mundane and tragic explanations, others definitely fall into the unexplained category. What do you think of them? Do you think the idea that the Bermuda Triangle isn’t so much an evil place were bad things always happen but a series of unfortunate events and we are just looking for reasons to help explain why they happen? Is the Michigan Triangle the same?

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