Missing Profile: The Captain Who Vanished on Lake Michigan
For those who live their life on the water, there is a myriad of dangers they must be constantly aware of. Weather emergencies, mechanical issues, illness, piracy, dangerous encounters with sea life, the list goes on and on. The biggest risk one can take is making the decision to untether themselves from the safety of the dock and make their way into one of the many giant bodies of water which make up a majority of this planet. But there is one “danger” that resides within the minds of many water lovers that, while not fully understood, is instantly recognizable to everyone who hears it. That well-known danger is, of course, the dreaded water “triangle.”
Now, dangerous “triangles” (Ex: Bermuda, Dragon, Bass Strait, etc.) are a hotly contested subject, and the official outcome you subscribe too all depends on what side of the aisle you find yourself personally. If you are someone who is more rooted on the science side, you can easily find a multitude of papers with data and statistics that verify triangle zones are in no way more dangerous or mysterious than other places within oceans and large lakes. The research projects that are done to look into these areas typically use a collection of historical weather data, documentation on shipwrecks in the area, modern and historical shipping route information, and so much more still. More often than not, it is usually the academic consensus that the only reason these places are viewed as supernatural is because at some point in history, someone decided to give a fancy name to that specific area and gathered a bunch of cherry-picked stories and legends which fit into that created narrative, thus creating a new dangerous triangle.
But, if you happen to find yourself on the other side of the aisle, the more supernatural side if you will, then you will be able to find just as many stories and “true” accounts of people who not only found themselves firmly within one of these terrible triangles, but somehow managed to survive. Those who believe that these areas do in fact have a strange power to them, have an endless supply of books, films, historical accounts, old ships logs, and eye witness testimony that push a hard to ignore claim that more weird things happen inside these weird water areas than anywhere else. And even though mainstream science says that there is nothing to this entire thing, history leans more towards the side that something strange is going on. What that strange thing is though, we may never really know.
Regardless though on what the official outcome is, whether it’s real or not, we here at The PBI can confidently say that we don’t really care. It matters not if one day this whole mystery has a final ending, because in all the years leading up to that end point, this mystery has given us countless stories to read, discuss, and share with others. That is what we exist for, to share these strange historical events with others so that they are never forgotten. Weird mysteries are our bread and butter, and when we come across one that is said to have taken place not to far from our home state, well, that makes it even better. So in spite of what you personally believe, take a few minutes to learn about a strange event which is said to have taken place inside one of these mysterious water triangles over 80yrs ago, and see if at the end you can come up with a good explanation for what happened.
Now, with that said, let’s begin.
The story begins on the cold night of April 28, 1937, as the Great Lakes freighter O.S. McFarland is making its way across Lake Michigan towards its final destination, a power plant located in Port Washington, Wisconsin. A blood red moon hangs high above the ship which is transporting over 9,800 tons of coal from its starting point in Erie, Pennsylvania which it departed from only a few days prior. While the trip was not considered difficult by any means (relatively speaking), it was made considerably slower by the frozen state of the lakes at the time. Thankfully though, the McFarland proved to be in good hands as she was captained by the well respected, George R. Doner.
Doner, who was no stranger to the frozen Great Lakes, had been sailing officially for decades, but had been on the water even longer in some capacity since he was born in 1879. Employed by the Valley Camp Steamship Company for over ten years working as a Skipper and Mate on their various ships, Doner would transfer employment when his previous employer was purchased by the Columbia Transportation Company ( which was under ownership of the Oglebay Norton Corporation) in 1935. In 1937, after not making a single voyage in two years, the C.T.C. would grant him the rank of Captain and he was given full command over the O.S. McFarland. His first official voyage of the season under that of the C.T.C., would begin on April 25, and his task was to transport coal from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin. He was 57 years old.
At 10:20pm, with the Straits of Mackinac successfully navigated through, and with manageable ice floes all around them, Captain Doner ordered the speed of the ship lowered for safety and proceeded to step away from his post. The understandable stress which he had been under for the past few hours while navigating the larger freighter through the nearly frozen straits had started to take its toll, and the respectable Captain grew tired. Informing his First and Second Mate that he would be retiring to his cabin for a well deserved rest, he instructed them to wake him up when they had passed Sheboygan and started their approach into Port Washington. Being familiar with the lake and the speed in which they were traveling, he estimated this would take roughly three hours. Confident that his men could handle the task of controlling the ship in his absence, Captain Doner made his way towards his cabin which was located at the back of the pilothouse and down a companionway. Once inside, he shut the sturdy wooden door behind him and his men instantly took command.
Three hours later, at 1:20am (now April 29th and Captain Doner’s birthday), the ship began its approach into Port Washington. Following the Captain’s orders, the Second Mate approached the cabin to alert Doner that he was needed in the pilothouse to prepare for docking procedures. The man proceeded to knock on the door, but strangely there was no answer. Calling for the Captain once again, the Second Mate began to knock on the door just as he had done just moments ago, but still, there was no answer. Concerned that the Captain could not hear him for some reason, the Second Mate made the decision to enter the room, but when he attempted to turn the handle, it would not move. The door it appeared, was locked from the inside.
Worried that the Captain would sleep past the point he insisted he be woken up at, the Second Mate went to retrieve the master key. After bringing First Mate Charles Reicher up to speed as to what was going on, he headed back to the Captain’s cabin and proceeded to unlock the door. Making his presence known before walking down the stairs and stepping into the room, the Second Mate assumed he would hear Doner respond to his announcement and call him in, but just as before, he heard nothing. Now worried that perhaps the Captain had undergone some sort of medical emergency and was unable to respond, the Second Mate opened the door with authority and proceeded inside, but what was waiting for him behind the sturdy wooden door and at the bottom of the stairs was not what he expected. For there in front of him, was nothing besides an empty room. The Captain it appeared, was gone.
Understandably confused, the Second Mate began to search the small room. With only limited space available to hide, the room was thoroughly checked within a matter of moments. Nothing seemed to be out of place, the bed did not appear to be slept in, and the porthole windows were securely fastened. Even if they weren’t though, no man would have been able to pass through them anyways as they were quite small, and Captain Doner was noted as being somewhat on the larger side. So where did the Captain go? The Second Mate wasn’t sure, but he knew that he needed to inform the rest of the crew that their Captain was missing, and that they needed to begin a search of the ship immediately.
Thinking that the Captain may have left the room just a few minutes before the Second Mate had arrived, possibly due to hunger, the crewmen headed for the galley to investigate. When they arrived, they took notice of two firemen who were finishing up their break and asked if they had seen Doner, but the two men replied that for the entire time they had been there, they had not seen the Captain. Not long after that, every man on the ship was made aware of the situation and the entire freighter needed to be searched from top to bottom; every room was to be entered, every door unlocked, every crate and container checked. No stone was to be left unturned, and the Captain was to be found before they arrived in Port Washington.
Unfortunately though, that search proved useless as Captain George R. Doner was never found onboard. When the O.S. McFarland docked in Wisconsin, the crewmen contacted the proper authorities to let them know their Captain was missing under mysterious circumstances. An alert went out to the Coast Guard on the lake and an immediate search was started. The Captain, they promised, would be found and the mystery of what happened would be solved. But as was quickly becoming the norm in this unfortunate situation, that did not prove to be the case, and Captain Doner was never located. He had just turned 58.
At first daylight the rescue mission shifted into body recovery, and ships both big and small along the same route that the O.S. McFarland had taken were instructed to keep an eye out, but just as before, nothing was found. The Captain it appeared, had simply vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. When questioned by the local authorities as to what happened that night, the crewmen were only able to give scant information at best. At 10:20pm, Captain Doner retired to his room, and it was believed that he was in there for at least two hours as movement was heard coming from inside the cabin. The men who heard the noise from the inside stated that it sounded like Doner was going through some paperwork, possibly taking care of documents that would be needed at docking, but this was unable to be confirmed as nobody ever actually saw inside the room.
Outside of the actual disappearance though, authorities did learn some pretty interesting pieces of information relating to the overall state of Captain Doner prior to his vanishing. Port Washington Sheriff Ben F. Runkel, upon speaking with the ships officers, learned that Doner was in a highly nervous state throughout a majority of the trip because the ship’s fore (front) and aft (rear) compasses were not functioning properly for some unknown reason. Because of this issue, Doner refused to rest in any capacity, even going so far as to completely forgo sleep all together so that he could keep an eye on their position. Along with this, the ship’s steward told Sheriff Runkel that at one point, Captain Doner approached him and explained that he was not feeling well, but would not further explain what exactly was wrong. He then asked the steward if they would mind staying in his cabin through the night while he slept so as not to be left alone, but the steward declined.
For days following the disappearance, coastal communities kept an eye out for a body to wash up on shore, but one never did. Rumors began to circulate that the Captain chose to end his own life by sneaking off to the side of the ship, tying heavy weights around himself, and leaping into the lake. Others speculated that the Captain was murdered for some unknown reason and his body was tossed overboard not long after passing through the Straits of Mackinac. This would have given the crew plenty of time to cleanup the scene and come up with a story prior to arriving in Port Washington. While nobody could really say if any of these theories were true, what they could agree on is that they were both (somewhat) plausible.
But then you had the other side, the ones who didn’t agree with the narrative and believed something more supernatural was afoot. These were the people who thought the Captain may have fallen victim to a power beyond his control, and that he wasn’t missing, but rather taken by something. These individuals believed Captain George R. Doner unfortunately ended up as just another tally on a long list of victims of the dangerous Lake Michigan Triangle. He was neither here nor there anymore, but rather, he was stuck inside the triangle forever.
For those of you who were unaware, much like Bermuda, Australia, and Japan, Lake Michigan is also thought to be lucky enough to call itself home to a dangerous aquatic triangle (albeit a scalene one). Said to be located between the points of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Ludington, Michigan, and Benton Harbor, Michigan, the Lake Michigan Triangle is said to be responsible for causing disasters both on the water and in the air, with some even claiming the triangle can be held responsible for the wreck of the Le Griffon all the way back in 1679. But, as with every claim of validity for something supernatural, there is a grounded explanation available to attempt to explain it. And in order to explain this mysterious event, we must look at its original source, a understand exactly what is being said.
In the original articles that came out in the following days after Captain Doner’s disappearance, they make it a point to tell that his crew did not believe he took his own life. He was both a well respected and trusted man, and he gave no indication that he was in a position that would lead him to harm himself. What they do state though is that he was extremely fatigued and not acting like himself because of it. He was spacy, lost in his own mind, and was hyper focused on the compasses. Anything he could do to avoid sleep, he would do, and this is where the issue comes in. According to medical studies, when a person has avoided sleep for 48 hours, their cognitive performance will begin to decline rapidly, and the brain will begin slipping into periods of complete unconsciousness which is known as microsleep. They will also experience extreme anxiety, heightened stress levels, and increased irritability. After 72 hours of being awake, the periods of microsleep will begin to last longer and you will begin to experience disordered thinking, have difficulty multitasking, experience depersonalization, and start to hallucinate both audibly and visually. After 96 hours of no sleep, which is 4 days, your entire perception of reality will have changed and you will have slipped into sleep deprivation psychosis.
It takes 4 days of no sleep to enter into sleep deprivation psychosis, and it took 4 days from the time of leaving Pennsylvania for Captain Doner to disappear. That is 4 days for him to grow restless, nervous, and paranoid. Now, while we cannot say exactly that this is what caused the Captain to vanish, we can say that it is a pretty good theory. Yes, the Captain may not have been the type to harm himself, but when caught within such an extreme case of sleep deprivation, it is not unbelievable to think that he may have completely blacked out, exited his cabin, and mistakenly fallen or jumped overboard. Again though, this is all speculation on our part here, but from how his crew spoke to the authorities and reporters at the time, this does seem like it could be the answer. But this does not solve the questions of what happened to his body, what was going on with the compasses, and why his crew heard him messing with a bunch of stuff in his cabin which could not be located. Do these questions have logical answers? Possibly. Do we even know where to begin with trying to answer them? Not at all.
Finally, to wrap things up, when looking into the mystery of the disappearance of Captain George R. Doner, one will become aware of multiple books (and now podcasts) which briefly mention the event based off what little information has been preserved. Most of these books are focused on a vast amount of spooky things that are said to have taken place within the Great Lakes at one time or another, and a majority of them started to include the tale (with subtle changes here and there) of Doner in the mid 1970s. But the one thing they all have in common is that they have placed a subtle spin on the tale which tries to make it stranger than it actually is, and that is pretty wild because this entire event is extremely strange to begin with, even without a terrible triangle being added to it.
As we said before up top, aquatic mysteries such as this may one day be solved, or they may forever be an open case file with no resolution, both are equally enjoyable to learn about. Just remember though, these events more often than not focus on real people, and those real people deserve to have their story told in a grounded way. Try and avoid the spin as much as you can when speaking of them, and respect the facts of the event. Because even though it might not seem like it all the time time, the facts you will uncover are often times stranger than fiction.
(Note: many individuals and websites incorrectly list Captain Doner’s last name as “Donner” with two n’s, and incorrectly list the ship as the “O.M. McFarland,” rather than the O.S. McFarland.)
-The Pine Barrens Institute
Image Credit: Literary Hub
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