The Michigan Triangle
Encyclopedia
The Michigan Triangle is an area of Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...

 where unexplained phenomena have reportedly occurred.

Location

According to author Linda S. Godfrey in her book Weird Michigan (2006), the Michigan Triangle is located over central Lake Michigan. One side stretches from the town of Ludington
Ludington, Michigan
Ludington is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 8,357. It is the county seat of Mason County.Ludington is a harbor town located on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Pere Marquette River...

 to Benton Harbor
Benton Harbor, Michigan
Benton Harbor is a city in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan which is located west of Kalamazoo. The population was 10,038 at the 2010 census. It is the lesser populated of the two principal cities included in the Niles-Benton Harbor, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a...

 in Michigan; another links from Benton Harbor to Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Manitowoc is a city in and the county seat of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, United States. The city is located on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Manitowoc River. According to the 2000 census, Manitowoc had a population of 34,053, with over 50,000 residents in the surrounding communities...

; the final side connects Manitowoc back to Ludington.

Disappearances

There are numerous stories of the supposed appearance of strange creatures, unexplained vanishings, time standing still, slowing to a crawl, or speeding up, or other unusual happenings.

George R. Donner

One well-known and often repeated case is that of Captain George R. Donner, who commanded the Great Lakes freighter O.S. McFarland. While on a journey back from Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...

 after picking up 9,800 tons of coal, the ship made course westward through the lakes. It was slow going due to late-spring ice floes, but the ship was making steady progress toward its destination, Port Washington, Wisconsin
Port Washington, Wisconsin
Port Washington is the county seat of Ozaukee County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The city is about 25 miles north of Milwaukee and 110 miles north of Chicago. In the 2000 census Port Washington had a population of 10,467...

, when Donner disappeared.

On the night of April 28, 1937, the captain took to his cabin, with instructions to be awakened as the ship drew near to port. About three hours later, with Port Washington growing close, the second mate appeared at the captain's cabin, prepared to awake him, but found no one. He and the crew searched the ship, but the captain was nowhere to be seen. The mate reported that the cabin door was locked from the inside, adding to the mystery of the triangle. Reportedly, the McFarland was 30 mi (48.3 km) northwest of Ludington, Michigan
Ludington, Michigan
Ludington is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 8,357. It is the county seat of Mason County.Ludington is a harbor town located on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Pere Marquette River...

 at the time of Donner's disappearance; Ludington is reputed to be the nexus of the Lake Michigan Triangle.

The story was allegedly first reported in the 29 April 1937 edition of the Cleveland Press
Cleveland Press
The Cleveland Press was a daily American newspaper published in Cleveland, Ohio from November 2, 1878, through June 17, 1982. From 1928 to 1966, the paper's editor was Louis Seltzer....

and is also mentioned in Dwight Boyer
Dwight Boyer
Dwight Boyer was a reporter and marine historian of the Great Lakes...

's Strange Adventures of the Great Lakes (1974).

Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501

Another disappearance took place on June 23, 1950, and involved a Northwest Airlines
Northwest Airlines
Northwest Airlines, Inc. was a major United States airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines by a merger approved on October 29, 2008, making Delta the largest airline in the world...

 DC-4 aircraft carrying fifty-five passengers and three crew members. This flight 2501 had departed from New York City and was due to land at Minneapolis. The last radio contact recorded with the plane was that it was 3500 ft (1,066.8 m) over Battle Creek, Michigan
Battle Creek, Michigan
Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek Rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area , which encompasses all of Calhoun county...

 and was going to change its course to a northwesterly path over Lake Michigan, due to bad weather near Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. After this, the plane disappeared and could not be raised by radio. Considerable light debris, upholstery, and human body fragments were found floating on the surface, but divers were unable to locate the plane's wreckage.

Once again, the aircraft was in the center of the supposed triangle when it disappeared.
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