Vermont’s Bennington Triangle is not a familiar name to many people like the Bermuda Triangle, but it is also the place to witness a series of mysterious disappearances.
The Bennington Triangle is a relatively large area in the US state of Vermont, the most prominent of which is the “ghost town” of Glastenbury, which used to be a small logging community concentrated on the mountain of the same name in southwestern Vermont. Abandoned in the late 19th century after the logging boom was over, the Glastenbury area is now relatively secluded and unspoiled.
Starting with a series of mysterious disappearances more than 70 years ago, this abandoned town has become the bizarre scene of countless unexplained disappearances as well as unsolved murders.
Paula Welden before going missing. Photo: The Lineup.
In 1945, a series of strange mysterious disappearances began to appear in the Bennington Triangle. Middle Rivers, a 74-year-old local hunting guide, led a group of four hunters scouting around the Hell Hollow area in the forest southwest of Glastenbury before suddenly disappearing.
After the initial unsuccessful search, many still believe that with adept experience, the hunter will survive and soon reappear in town. However, he was still “unsubstantiated”. Soon, more than 300 locals and military soldiers were dispatched from Massachusetts Fort Devens to the area in search of Rivers for eight days. But they did not find any traces.
The following year, the town witnessed the most famous mysterious disappearance in Vermont history as Paula Welden. Welden is an 18-year-old student from Bennington University who decided to give it a try on the Long Trail trek during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Welden was last seen on December 1, 1946, wearing a striking red shirt and walking down the trail near Mount Glastenbury. Welden was later absent from the school, prompting a large-scale search with more than 1,000 participants and the reward for the information that helped find her amounted to $ 5,000. However, officials still do not have any clues about Welden’s fate. The case is still open to this day.
Exactly three years after Welden “evaporated”, the Bennington Triangle saw a more supernatural disappearance.
On December 1, 1949, a 68-year-old man named James E. Tedford took a bus to Bennington after visiting relatives in St. Petersburg. Albans, Vermont. Many witnesses, including the driver, said that Tedford was still in the seat before the last stop at Bennington. However, when the bus arrived, they could not see him.
The bus where Tedford had mysteriously disappeared. Photo: Coolinterestingstuff.com.
Passengers were even more surprised to discover that the luggage and the bus timetable were still open where Tedford sat. If the witness’s testimony was correct, Tedford would have disappeared from her seat while the vehicle was moving along Route 7 through the Bennington Triangle.
Nearly a year later, around mid-October 1950. Paul Jepson, 8 years old, continues to be missing. When he was last seen, Jepson was happily playing with his mother in the family pickup truck. After the mother left to feed the pigs, by the time he returned, the boy was gone.
In addition to hundreds of people involved in the search, a police chief from New Hampshire also brought a sniffing dog. The dog could recognize the boy’s scent but suddenly lost sight at a nearby intersection.
Jepson’s father told local Albany Times Union newspaper that the boy had “said nothing” days before his disappearance.
Just about two weeks later, Frieda Langer, 53, an experienced hiker and survivalist, went missing in the Somerset area, near the Long Trail, bordered east of Glastenbury.
After walking nearly a kilometer with nephew Herbert Eisner, Langer fell into a stream and had to return to the camp to change clothes, where her husband was resting with his injured knee. However, neither my husband nor I could see Langer again.
Helicopters from the Connecticut Coast Guard and the US Army in Massachusetts and local planes and the Vermont Aviation Commission helped with the search. About 400 people participated in tracing Langer’s tracks in nearby areas but the result was still 0.
Six months after Langer’s disappearance, Langer’s body was found near Somerset Reservoir, where numerous searches have been conducted before. The body was decomposed so badly that the authorities could not determine the cause of the death. The case went to a standstill.
The unexplained disappearances have aroused many speculations about the mystery of the Bennington Triangle. It is widely believed that some “paranormal force” took action and this theory is further reinforced by UFOs and strange Bigfoot creatures in the area.
Others believe that the disappearances could have been caused by a serial killer. But the age and sex diversity of the victims contradicts this theory because serial killers tend to focus on a certain group of people.
Some have speculated that the victims died under the claws of a lynx or wildcat. However, lynx and lynx do not tend to be aggressive towards humans, and they have barely been around since before 1940.
To this day, the Bennington Triangle is still an attractive destination for those who love mysterious stories.
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