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Lars Joachim Mittank (born 9 February 1986) is a German man who disappeared on 8 July 2014, near Varna Airport in Varna, Bulgaria.

Mittank was on holiday at the Golden Sands resort, where he was supposedly involved in a fight, and was unable to fly home with his friends for health reasons. Mittank was documented acting strangely while alone in Bulgaria. He called home to his mother claiming that people were trying to kill him. On the day when he was supposed to fly home, Mittank went to the Varna Airport to consult with a doctor. He was later seen on airport security footage running out of the airport and towards an adjacent forest. The case has generated intense interest, and the frequency with which people viewed the footage of him fleeing the airport has led to him being named "the most famous missing person on YouTube".

Lars Mittank was born on 9 February 1986, in Berlin, Germany.

On 30 June 2014, 28-year-old Mittank travelled with five of his friends to Varna, Bulgaria. He was in a good mood." Another friend, Tim Schuldt, said that Mittank did not eat much, and that he would have only a small bowl of soup or a small salad at a time. His friends reported no additional abnormal behaviour by Mittank until the final part of the trip. On 6 July 2014, the day before they were supposed to return home, Mittank and his companions were at a bar in town, and Mittank got into a disagreement with some other German nationals over football. Mittank turned up at the resort the following morning and told his friends he was beaten up by four men hired by the group in the bar whom he disagreed with the night before. Mittank's friends wanted to stay with him, but he insisted he was fine on his own, and told them to follow the original travel plan and fly home on 7 July, which they did. Mittank checked out of the resort the same time as his friends, and checked into the Hotel Color Varna for one night. While at the hotel, Mittank called his mother, Sandra Mittank. Mittank was last seen at Varna Airport on 8 July 2014, the day that he was hoping to fly home to Germany. According to Kostov, he told Mittank that he was fine and could return home. However, Mittank did not leave his office, expressing doubt about the medication that he was taking. Kostov said that Mittank then began to tremble.

Mittank's mother, alongside Bulgarian and German doctors, have suspected that Mittank's unusual behaviour was the result of a rare side effect from the antibiotic that he was prescribed, Cefprozil. However, according to Kostov, Mittank had not been taking his medication. It is also unknown what happened to Mittank after he fled the airport. With the police unable to determine Lars Mittank's fate, Sandra Mittank hired a private investigator, Andreas Gütig. Mittank had experience in hunting, fishing, and trapping, but there is skepticism about whether he would have been able to survive for long outdoors due to intense heat in the summers and lack of food. About a year after his disappearance, a truck driver thought he saw him hitchhiking in Varna. The driver became aware of the Mittank case later, and said that the man with him resembled an older version of Mittank. Mittank has been described as "the most famous missing person on YouTube". By May 2018, less than four years after his disappearance, the security footage of him in the airport had been viewed more than 16 million times. Disappearance of Stoyan Kostov – another high-profile disappearance of a man in Bulgaria, which has led to an international search. It was later discovered that his partner at the time of his disappearance was British murderer Dena Thompson.

Quick Facts

• On the day when he was supposed to fly home, Mittank went to the Varna Airport to consult with a doctor.
• Mittank was on holiday at the Golden Sands resort, where he was supposedly involved in a fight, and was unable to fly home with his friends for health reasons.
• While at the hotel, Mittank called his mother, Sandra Mittank.
• The case has generated intense interest, and the frequency with which people viewed the footage of him fleeing the airport has led to him being named "the most famous missing person on YouTube".
• He called home to his mother claiming that people were trying to kill him.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Disappearance of Lars Mittank". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.