SOLVED: The Bizarre Disappearance and Reappearance of Danny Filippidis

Today we are going to be discussing the disappearance and reappearance of Danny Philipitus. Danny Philipitus was 42 years old when he went missing, then resurfaced only a week later, 2,900 miles away from where he went missing. Danny Philipitus is from Toronto, Canada and he worked for the Toronto City Fire Department for 28 years. He also has a wife as well as two children. He was described by friends as fun and outgoing with a larger than life personality. By early February of 2018, Danny left his home to go to the White Face Mountain Skewers or in Lake Placid, New York, with eight friends and co-workers from the Toronto Fire Services for an annual ski trip. They were there for a few days, skiing and relaxing, just having a good time. By February 7th, the day started as normal, just like the other days. They skied that morning, but after a few hours, the friends got tired and they wanted to relax, rest and unwind for the rest of the day. It was nearing the end of their trip, so they just wanted to relax and enjoy each other's company at that point. So, sometime that afternoon of that day, the group was at their lodge located about halfway up the White Face Mountain when Danny realized that he had actually forgotten his cell phone in the car. He said that he wanted to take some pictures and capture more memories as the trip came to a close, so he told his friends that he was going to ski down the mountain to grab his cell phone from the car and that he would be back up later. But a few hours had passed, and he did not return, and as it became darker, his friends began to worry. Not too long after that, his friends alerted the skivers orts staff to let them know who then contacted the authorities who started a massive search for Danny. The friends found that Danny's passport was still at the lodge, so they knew that there was no way that he could have flown out of the country and back home at any point. They also saw that his cell phone was still in his car. So to them, that said that he never made it to his car, which was his reason for leaving in the first place. So his friends had no idea what to think at that point. Over the course of the following days, over 140 volunteers along with Danny's wife, members of the New York State Police, the Department of Homeland Security, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation all sent out in their searches for Danny. They utilized helicopters, drones, and sniffer dogs, and they put in a total of 7,000 combined hours in their searches for Danny. But he was absolutely nowhere to be found on that mountain. At that point, people just did not know what to think. Danny had been skiing many times in his life, and he was said to be an intermediate level skier. So he wasn't this Olympic gold medalist who was outskying every single day and doing flips and tricks, but he was experienced and well versed with the rugged terrain on the mountain. But his disappearance was around the same time that a big winter storm was coming in that made visibility poor. So that made them realize two things. That searching for him was going to be a very difficult feat, but also that it's possible that this winter storm somehow caused him to be harmed and that he may be somewhere up on that mountain injured and unable to get help. However, only six days after these intense searches started, they came to a close. Danny's wife received a call from an unknown number and she answered only to find that it was her missing husband on the other end. As they spoke, she urged him to call the police and get some help, so he did just that. He called the police and that is when his wife and the police found out that he was actually 2,900 miles away, clear across the country in Sacramento, California. Upon arrival, police discovered him wandering around at a rental car facility at the Sacramento airport. They found that he had a new cell phone, a haircut, and he was still wearing all of his ski clothes and gear that he was wearing six days prior when he went missing. And at that time, he had no idea who he was or how he even got there. He said that all he remembered was that he was last skiing and that's the last thing he remembered when he was initially found. He tried remembering what happened over the course of the past six days, but he only had a very spotty memory. He vaguely remembered being driven in a big rig, but he couldn't recall any details of what it looked like on the outside or inside or who was driving. He did not remember if he had been the victim of a crime or if he had been attacked. He had no idea what had happened over those six days. So at this point, of course, his family were all very relieved that he was found alive. He was taken back to Toronto and treated at the hospital there. He was so happy to find himself surrounded with friends and family, but there was still this question of what exactly had happened. At that point, the police said that the doctors were still working with him to question him and help him remembering what it was that happened while he was missing. They wondered initially if there could have been any sort of mental health issues that could have caused this. Maybe he had some sort of undiagnosed mental health condition that presented itself while he was on the trip and he had some sort of moment of panic or psychosis that caused him to leave willingly or maybe there was some sort of drug involvement that would make sense for why he would leave New York go all the way across the country and then have very little or no explanation for how he got there. Like I said, Danny had no idea who he was or how he got all the way out to California initially, but he actually did remember a nickname that he had called his wife. But other than that, there was nothing. No answers for his haircut that he had gotten none on how he got this new iPhone or how he was able to call his wife. However, upon getting treatment at the hospital, it was found that he did have some signs of some sort of head injury. As days had passed, Danny started to remember bits and pieces about what had happened. So he remembers that on the day that he went missing, he was skiing down the mountain to get his cell phone when he thinks he may have taken a wrong turn. But the weird thing is that he does not remember having any sort of fall or injury, but he did say that at one point he remembered that it started getting dark and suddenly he felt sore and a bit disoriented. So he removed the skis from his boots and he started walking and making his way back up to what he thought was the lodge that he was staying at with his friends. But when he got to the lodge, nobody was there. He found that the lodge was completely deserted. So he just continued on trying to find a sign of anybody. So upon looking around, he ended up near a road somehow where he saw a truck. So he flagged down the passing truck with hopes of finding a ride off of that mountain. Upon later investigation, it was found that Danny most likely took a wrong turn and he actually ended up at a children's slope and found himself near a children's ski lodge then made his way to an area to a hub for kids programming, which would have been closed at that time. So that's why nobody was around. After flagging down the truck, his memory of what happened again was very fragmented. But through the bits and pieces, he remembers climbing up into the warm cab of a truck, still wearing his ski boots helmet and his winter clothes. Then he recalls being stuck in that car on the side of the road near what he thought was a truck stop before falling asleep again. He then remembers waking up again in an area that he didn't recognize. So the driver told him that they were driving through Utah. He went on to say that he had never been out west in the US. He had no idea where he was or where he was going or what was going on because he had never been to this area of the country. He didn't know who he was with just that he was in this cab of the truck, driving across parts of a country that he was not familiar with. He took the driver's word for it that they were in fact in Utah. Throughout this ride, he remembers that he slept a lot. He would wake up for a short period of times with what he described as a crushing headache and extreme fatigue. So all he could do at that time was slip back into a deep sleep. He said that he didn't even realize that he was getting farther and farther away from where he went missing at Lake Placid. He thought that whatever this was, wherever he was going, whatever he was doing, he thought that it might just be a bad dream. This whole time, it was stated that the driver never asked him where he needed to go or anything about him. But to me, with Danny's fragmented memory, it's possible that he did ask or try to take him somewhere. But Danny was so disoriented that he didn't know where he was going. However, after several days in that truck, the driver informed him that he had reached the end of the line in Sacramento. Still, even after being dropped off in California, he didn't know who this driver was and his identity has never been discovered I believe to this day. After being dropped off in Sacramento, Danny describes that he was wandering around the city, trying to figure out a way to get into contact with his wife. Again, I don't know how he knew that he needed to try and contact his wife, but he knew that he needed to. But even though he still was not sure how to do so, all he had on him was the credit card that he kept in his pocket that he had used to pay for his lift pass when he was back in New York, as well as some cash. He remembers that he went to various stores, all trying to find someone that would sell him an iPhone, but it took him a while to do this because many stores were hesitant to sell him an iPhone without an ID. But ultimately, as we know, he was able to get one. But even after getting that phone, he could not remember his wife's phone number. So on his iPhone, he ended up searching the internet, and that is when he realized that he was a missing person. So that following day, which I don't know where he slept that first night, but he probably doesn't know either. Police have said though that they think that he most likely spent the night near Richards Boulevard along the Interstate 5 corridor, which is about 13 miles away from the airport. But either way, the next day, it was said that he was able to flag down a ride who brought him to the Sacramento Airport where he suddenly remembered his wife's phone number. So then, as we know, he was able to get back into contact with his wife, who then urged him to call 911, who subsequently got him to the hospital for an evaluation. Upon being evaluated by different neurologists and neuropsychologists, they believed that he must have fallen while skiing and suffered from a severe concussion, which led him to having amnesia. According to Dr. Charles Tader, the director of the Canadian Concussion Center at the Toronto Western, about one in four cases of concussion can suffer episodes of amnesia. He goes on to say that while many people will make a full recovery, but for some people, this amnesia can last forever, and they may never regain these bits and pieces of lost memory. Now, even though they have tried to figure out who that trucker was that drove him all the way across the country, Danny has never recovered his memory as to who it might be, and to this day, this driver has never come forward to identify himself. After this whole event, Danny was absolutely odd by the effort that was put into searching for him after this entire ordeal. He has since returned back to work, and from there, he says that things have been relatively normal. He released a statement saying quote, "brothers and sisters, as most of you are aware this past February, I went through a very difficult ordeal. Fortunately for me, I survived an incredible situation and was reunited with my family. Over the past few months, I've been working at home with my wife and family, working with doctors to piece together what occurred, and assisting me with some substantial memory loss. With the help of a great medical team, I have been able to recover and I'm thrilled to have been fully cleared to return to work. During my time of recovery, I was astounded to learn the details of the efforts put into searching for me while I was missing. Finding out the large number of people that volunteered has been very emotional and honestly a little overwhelming. In particular, my brothers and sisters of Toronto Fire, both of those who went to Lake Placid for the search and also those who volunteered to cover my shifts, I have a list of all of your names. I hope over time to shake every one of your hands and personally thank you. The words thank you don't come close to expressing my gratitude and debt to all of you. We often talk of the family aspect of firefighting, but few people will ever understand how close our family really is. You showed me my family and everyone watching what a fire family is all about. I'm still shocked, like I mean I'm back to work, I feel great, but you know you forget about it for a few days and then someone or something jogs your memory and then you think back at it and it's still overwhelmingly shocking to that it happened. Still I feel fortunate that I'm here. We're just talking today because of all the potential things I guess could have resulted. When I woke up and came to having to discuss with the fellows like later on post week and having discussed later on with some of the ski patrol and the New York State police, it was somewhat determined that I was probably on the kids hill. I must have made a wrong turn, but somehow that's where I was. I wasn't in a high-level mountain area or I was pretty well near the bottom of the hill. I didn't make it to the main lodge because I think I had it towards the car which is adjacent to the lodge and then with my vehicle not there, we really got a little overwhelming and I think that's when I'm assuming you know I held or you know put my arm up or something like that just to heal a ride back into town. It was a truck. Like a transport? Like a transport and I don't know if I said anything, I don't really recall having I'm just assuming that I held a ride and not certain if I said anything but I would assume that I must have said you know I can get a ride or something. The doctor says you know I think you had a severe head injury and it was temporary and evening is going to be normal for you moving forward. You know after three days, four days, fifty, I think there's a lot of despair, a lot of stress on them in a sense that it just didn't look reasonable that I would be down to okay. Dad was here, dad was gone and wow dad's back. We can almost talk about anything now in a sense that I was close to them before but even closer now. So with this case obviously we are left with a very good ending. However it wouldn't be my channel if I didn't bring up at least some theories in this case that people have brought forward. So some people believe that this is actually a case of an alien abduction. Some people believe that he might actually be having false memories of how he really got there because of how spotty his memory is. Maybe he confused the alien aircraft for the truck cab once he was inside because as we know he doesn't actually remember getting into the truck or what it looked like from the outside only remembering what it was like inside and what it looked like and only remembering that he was inside never that he was ever outside of the truck. He didn't have any sort of mental illness or illicit drug use and he can't remember anything about the truck driver who got him all the way from New York to California. He is also an experienced skier. So it's hard for some people to believe that he would have just suffered a head injury when all he was doing was skiing down the mountain to grab his phone. It's not like he was doing anything that he hadn't done before. He wasn't trying new tricks. He wasn't going you know super fast. It's like he was racing or anything like that. He was just kind of casually going down the mountain to grab his phone. So there's no reason to think that he wouldn't have known how to get there and that he would have been doing tricks or anything new that would have caused him to have an injury. And the fact that this case was pretty big at that point and nobody ever came forward claiming to be the truck driver is another aspect of that. Obviously he is thought to have suffered a head injury but some people believe that if he really did suffer such a bad head injury that he forgot a week of his life and wandered aimlessly so much so that he ended up clear across the country and did not remember at all how that there isn't any way that he would end up back at work with no residual issues. So some people theorize that this was actually an alien abduction that carried him all the way across the country. Some people think that the alien abduction is really what caused his head injury in the first place so that you know they could do whatever they were going to do to him and then he would forget about it and end up back in California and nobody would question you know anybody that had anything to do with it. Others theorized that the truck driver actually ended up hitting Danny with the truck after Danny somehow ended up on the road and then the truck driver took him into his cab and then realized that Danny was still alive and then took him as far as possible dropped him off in a random place that he had never been before to keep anybody from you know finding his trail or figuring out what really happened and that might be why the truck driver never came forward with who he is. So those are the two other theories in this case personally I think the more boring logical answer of him suffering a head injury and getting lost across the country from this random hitchhiking ride. I do think that's more likely. But I do see the questions and how an experienced skier would randomly just get a head injury though I know that even the most experienced skiers can sometimes take a wrong turn and maybe they start going too fast with the without realizing it and they hit a tree or something like that. It is kind of crazy to me that someone forgets that long of their life. The fact that he was in that truck that long, he doesn't remember stopping to go to the bathroom, he doesn't remember eating, he doesn't remember who the truck driver was that he spent a week of his life with. He doesn't remember anything, which I think is just kind of crazy at that point. And some people might say that he was in a coma and slipping in and out of consciousness, but at the same time I haven't seen stated anywhere that he like soiled himself or anything like that. So that leads me to believe that he probably was able to get up and go to the bathroom. So just little aspects like that really make me question things. This could have been a situation of all play, but as far as we know, it really is just a straightforward case of a crazy situation and somebody who survived something extraordinary. But I really want to know what you all think because this definitely is a different type of case than those I normally discuss. I do think this has a very happy ending because he was returned to his family and returned to his normal life without too many complications. So I hope things are going pretty well for him. With that, I'm going to have an amazing week. Stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope to see you next time.