- Lars Mittank, 28, went missing outside Varna Airport, Bulgaria back in 2014
The final footage of the world’s ‘most famous missing tourist’ continues to confound onlookers ten years after the disappearance of 28-year-old Lars Mittank.
Lars, a tourist from Germany, vanished while on holiday in Varna, Bulgaria in July 2014 during his first overseas trip away from home.
Bizarre CCTV footage of his last sighting provides the last clues as to what happened, with Lars seen casually walking through Varna airport.
But soon after, he would be seen for the last time turning and sprinting in the other direction.
‘I don’t want to die here! I have to get out of here!’ were the eerie last words he was reported to have said, to a doctor at the airport as he was told he could go home.
In final images he was seen scaling a two-metre fence, foregoing his bag and phone, and diving into a field of sunflowers before running off into the distance, never to be knowingly seen again.
Little is known about what happened to Lars in the days before his disappearance – although friends have said he was involved in a scrap with rival football fans, suffering injuries and taking strong medication before heading home.
But after ten years and a lengthy investigation, the search for Lars Mittank still throws up more questions than it does answers.
Lars Mittank seen running from the airport in Varna after speaking to a doctor in July 2014
Lars was said to be a normal 28-year-old with no history of drug use or mental illness
Lars is seen leaving the airport for the last time on July 8, 2014
In the years since his disappearance, videos of Lars’ last movements have spawned huge interest and generated tens of millions of views on YouTube.
When a police investigation turned up nothing, online commentators took to sharing their explanations for why and how the 28-year-old could have disappeared in a moment.
But to this day, none have solved the mystery. Lars’ mother continues to hope she might find a new lead a decade on.
Lars, from Berlin, had reportedly never been out of Germany on holiday before.
He grew up in Itzehoe and had lived there his entire life, working at a power plant. He had friends and a girlfriend.
Lars’ week-long holiday in Bulgaria with friends had likewise raised no eyebrows until a few days before he was due to leave.
He had flown with friends to stay at the Viva Club Hotel on the seaside resort of Golden Sands – but near the end of their trip was injured, apparently in a fight in McDonald’s, leaving him with a perforated eardrum and possible concussion.
Mittank, a Werder Bremen supporter, had returned to the hotel one evening to tell friends he had had a spat with a group of Bayern Munich fans and been beaten up, just two days before they were due to go home.
Testimony on what exactly happened that night varies, with allegations floated that the fans had even hired men to attack Mittank.
Who the men may have been, or why they attacked him, is not clear.
But he told friends his ear hurt and that he was struggling to hear.
After going to a local doctor, Mittank was given a course of antibiotics called Cefuroxime 500 and forced to stay behind when his friends flew home on July 7 because the air pressure changes on board the plane would have hurt his ear.
He assured his friends he would be fine, told them to go on without him, and checked himself into a nearby hotel to wait and recover before flying home.
Lars stayed at the Hotel Color in Varna after telling his friends to go on without him
Lars, from Berlin, had never been out of Germany on holiday before
An overhead view of the Viva Club Hotel in Varna, Bulgaria
It was high season and Lars struggled to find a hotel, eventually settling on the budget Hotel Color in a run-down area of Varna.
Lars made a terrifying, panicked phone call to his mother from his hotel room asking her to cancel his bank cards, fearing the details had been copied when he checked in, and suggested he was being followed by four men trying to kill him.
Sandra Mittank told German TV: ‘I thought, god, my son is in danger. I could hear his heart pounding over the phone. He said people were trying to rob him or kill him.’
She said that he insisted on whispering in case somebody heard him, and warned her that the hotel was ‘strange’ and that he did not feel safe in Bulgaria.
He also sent his mother a text asking about the antibiotics he had been prescribed.
CCTV reportedly showed him pacing up and down the hotel foyer, looking out the windows and hiding in a lift.
But the only person seen on CCTV acting unusually was Lars.
On the last night he was seen, it is believed Lars left the hotel at 1am before returning about an hour later. It is not known where he went.
He had been in contact with his mother before disappearing and feared he was being followed
Lars is pictured arriving at Varna airport on July 8 with luggage that he later left behind
The next morning, on July 8, his mother’s fears were eased when he texted her to say he had made it to the airport terminal. He said he was going to try to leave.
She bought him a bus ticket and sent him 500 euros, which he never withdrew.
Lars made his own way to the airport by taxi and was seen arriving on surveillance footage.
But things took a turn for the worse when he visited an airport doctor.
He still needed the all-clear to fly from a medic, who reportedly described him as ‘nervous and erratic’, as well as mistrustful of the medicine he had been prescribed.
But Dr Kosta Kostov reportedly deemed Lars fine to fly.
Despite the all-clear to leave Bulgaria, Lars was still visibly distressed and began to tremble when a construction worker entered the room.
The doctor recalled how he cried: ‘I don’t want to die here. I have to get out of here.’
Those would be the last words heard from the 28-year-old.
Some speculated that antibiotics for his injuries could have sparked a psychotic reaction, or that he may have still been concussed.
But Kostov later ruled out the first suggestion, as Lars never filled his prescription.
At this point, Lars leapt to his feet and fled the airport on foot.
In his haste, he left behind a rucksack and suitcase containing his wallet, passport and phone.
Seen on camera, Lars ran outside and scaled a two-metre fence before running into a meadow and disappearing into a field of sunflowers by the National Highway A2.
It was the last time he was ever seen.
Some speculated that antibiotics for his injuries could have sparked a psychotic reaction, or that he may have still been concussed
Lars’ week-long holiday in Bulgaria with friends had likewise raised no eyebrows until a few days before he was due to leave
Police turned up no concrete leads and a private investigator hired by his family failed to find any trace of Lars.
It has never been established what triggered his paranoia – drugs, a reaction to his medication, a head injury from the fight, an undiagnosed mental health condition or a genuine threat from unknown attackers.
Theories have been steadily debunked over the years; his family say there was no history of mental health issues that they knew of.
Family and friends stressed he never took drugs.
One ray of hope for Lars’ family came in December 2016 when police in Brazil tweeted a photo of a bearded, scruffily dressed man they found wandering barefoot along a highway.
But he was later identified as a missing Canadian aid worker.
A German trucker also claimed to have given Mittank a lift, but an investigation into the claims led to nothing.
Lars’ fate is unknown. Conspiracy theories continue to circulate online about what could have happened, and what prompted Lars to run off. But to this day, nobody can say for sure.