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Mike Conley's Tales of the Weird: Michigan Triangle has its share of secrets

By Mike Conley | The McDowell News

Published: February 11, 2009

For decades, we have heard stories about planes and ships disappearing without a trace in the mysterious Bermuda Triangle. But it seems that one of the Great Lakes could also have its share of weird events as well.
The Michigan Triangle is supposedly home to a variety of unsolved mysteries. People traveling through this section of Lake Michigan have told tales of seeing weird creatures in the water. There have been unexplained vanishings of not only entire ships and planes but individual people as well from those crafts. Even stranger are the stories about time standing still, slowing down or speeding up while traveling through the Triangle.
The Michigan Triangle can be found in the center of the Great Lake. One side of the Triangle stretches from the town of Ludington to Benton Harbor in Michigan and the other side extends from Benton Harbor to Manitowoc, Wis. The third side connects Manitowoc, Wis. back to Ludington, according to a Web site.
One of the most unusual and best known cases to emerge from the Michigan Triangle concerns the weird fate of Capt. George R. Donner, who was the commander of the Great Lakes freighter O.M. McFarland.
In April 1937, the O.M. McFarland was traveling back from Erie, Pa. where the ship had picked up 9,800 tons of coal. The westward journey through the Great Lakes was slow because of late spring-ice flows but the O.M. McFarland continued on toward its final destination, Port Washington, Wis.
On the night of April 28, 1937, Capt. Donner retired to his cabin. He left instructions for his crew to wake him up when the ship got close to Port Washington. About three hours later, with Port Washington getting closer, the second mate went to the captain's cabin to awaken him. However, Capt. Donner was missing.
The second mate and the crew searched the ship but Capt. Donner could not be found. The crew reported that the cabin door was locked from the inside. The McFarland was supposedly only 30 miles northwest of Ludington, Mich. when the captain vanished. Ludington is considered to be the center of the Michigan Triangle.
The captain was never found and to this day, no one knows why he vanished on that night.
Then there is the story of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501. The flight was operating its daily service between New York City and Seattle when it vanished without a trace on the night of June 23, 1950 over the Michigan Triangle. The DC-4 plane was carrying 58 people, 55 passengers and three crew members.
The plane was at approximately 3,500 feet over Lake Michigan near Benton Harbor when it vanished off the radar screens. Searchers used sonars to find the missing plane. They even dragged the bottom of Lake Michigan with trawlers without success. Some debris, upholstery and parts of human bodies were found floating in the water, but divers could not locate the wreckage of Flight 2501, according to a Web site.
In addition, investigators could not determine what caused the plane to disappear from the radar. The mystery has endured for almost 60 years.
Last September, a researcher looking into the crash of Flight 2501 said she found an unmarked mass grave that might contain the bodies of some of the 58 victims. The researcher states that the human remains from the crash washed ashore and were buried in a mass grave. She claims they were laid to rest without the knowledge of the victims' families and the grave was never marked.
But who would do this and why? It could be another mystery associated with the notorious Michigan Triangle.

Contact Mike Conley at 652-3313, ext. 3422 or e-mail nconley@mcdowellnews.com.