Over the last few weeks, we have examined several unusual incidents that have occurred on the waters just off the shore of our very own Oceana County in the area
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Local Lore - The Great Lakes Triangle: Flight 2501 and other strange occurrences
Over the last few weeks, we have examined several unusual incidents that have occurred on the waters just off the shore of our very own Oceana County in the area now known as The Great Lakes Triangle. All of these incidents have involved ships. Ships, however, are not the only thing to have gone missing in the Great Lakes Triangle.
On June 23 in 1950, the Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 was flying over the Triangle as part of its daily service between New York and Seattle when it mysteriously vanished. At around 1 a.m. the captain made a request to descend from an altitude of 3,500 feet to 2,500 feet in order to avoid a lightning storm. Air traffic control denied his request, and shortly after that the plane lost contact. A full-scale search for the wreckage would ensue, involving sonar equipment and even dragging the bed of Lake Michigan, but interestingly enough, nothing would ever be found. In the days following the disappearance, bits of debris and human remains began to wash ashore and all 55 passengers and three crew members were presumed dead, making it the deadliest commercial airline accident of its time. Witnesses from the ground reported seeing strange lights in the sky sometime after radio contact was lost. Beginning in 2004, the Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates began making annual searches for the wreckage and to this day they have not managed to locate it. Over the years, two mass graves were found which were linked to the victims of the plane crash, one in St. Joseph was found in 2008, and another in South Haven discovered in 2015.
A little closer to home is the disappearance of Steven Kubacki. In 1978, Kubacki was a student of Hope College in Holland, Mich. One day, in February of that year, Kubacki went on a solo cross country skiing expedition and simply vanished. When he didn’t return home, a search party was sent out and it was discovered that there was a trail of footprints in the snow leading out past the edge of Lake Michigan before ending abruptly. His backpack and skis were later discovered on the beach nearby. The obvious conclusion was that he had fallen through the ice and was lost. However, on May 5 of the following year, Kubacki turned up on his father’s doorstep claiming that he woke up lying naked in a meadow that was 40 miles from his father’s house in Pittsfield, Mass. This was also 700 miles away from where he vanished on the edge of Lake Michigan. Kubacki had with him a backpack containing maps that he was unfamiliar with, and he claimed to have no memory of the events that occurred after his arrival at the Lake in 1978. Kubacki is still alive and well today and has famously refused to discuss his disappearance with the media.
Of course, nobody can say for certain what it is that makes The Great Lakes Triangle such a dangerous stretch of water. Theories can range from the geological to the supernatural and even the extraterrestrial. Michigan after all is home to a large number of UFO sightings, usually clearing the top ten states according to most sites. Believers of these theories seem to cite the unusual disappearances of Kubacki and, previously mentioned, George R. Donner as evidence. Still, the more practically minded might say that there are perfectly good explanations for all of these events. But back in 2007 there was a discovery that has only added to the air of mystery surrounding the area, dubbed “Lake Michigan’s Stonehenge.”
Truthfully, little is known about the Stonehenge, and calling it a type of “Stonehenge” is nothing short of misleading. The stones are neither large, nor circular. They are arranged in more of a line or triangle. In fact, we don’t even know if the stones lie in the area known as The Great Lakes Triangle, as their exact location is being withheld for the time being in order to protect the site. What we do know is that they were discovered in 2007 by one Dr. Mark Holley and that they are beneath 40 feet of water somewhere in Lake Michigan. One stone is reported to have a carving of a mastodon on it, but it has yet to be examined, meaning that there is still a chance it is a natural feature which simply resembles a mastodon. Either way, “The Lake Michigan Stonehenge” has become inextricably linked to the mysterious Great Lakes Triangle and it will probably stay that way for many years to come. The tale is just too much fun to tell, particularly around campfires late at night.
