#the bennington triangle

[heroesbydavidbowie]

i dont know if you guys are interested in something like this but in Vermont there was a place called 'The Bennington Triangle' (the secret history was probably based on the bennington college, that's why i think i can post it on this acc, i love this area lol), in 1945-1950 five people disappeared there without leaving any trace what could possibly happen to them, although a few months after the last disappearance they found Frieda Langer's body. What feels not right about this is the fact that the area where they found her had been searched before, but they didn't find anything there.

The cause of death is also unknown as her body was already in a horrible state. We still don't know what happened to the other 4 people (Middie Rivers - 74 years old, Paula Welden - 18 years old, James Tedford - 68 years old, Paul Jepson - 8 years old) as their bodies has never been found

[little2nerdy]

i go to a really small college in rural vermont and the area is surrounded by this conspiracy (i don't think thats the right word) called the bennington triangle, its basically this area where a bunch of people went missing in the 40s and 50s, but theres alot of local lore about it and people also like to throw in legends and myths from the native community in the area so its turned into this like creepy ghost story that we warn freshman about and hype up to seem like a big deal.

ANYWAY, my friend this morning sent me a link to a supernatural fanfic that is focused on the bennington triangle, like its a case for sam and dean taking place roughly in the timeline of season one, and tbh this could've been such a cool fic, but much to my friends dismay (after not properly reading the tags) they realized it was a slash fic 😂 and are now traumatized.

(update it’s apparently so badly written that they couldn’t finish it)

[hauntedvermont]

Documentary Review: Bennington Triangle / Glastenbury, VT by MSG Films

We review the documentary by MSG Films on Bennington Triangle in Glastenbury, Vermont US available on YouTube. Direction, camera and editing by Matt Garland.

Today we review the documentary by MSG Films on Bennington Triangle in Glastenbury, Vermont US available on YouTube. Direction, camera and editing by Matt Garland. Among many mountains in the world, very few are as recognizable as Vermont’s Glastenbury Mountain. It is due to the history of missing people, reports of paranormal sightings and hearing of noises such as trains despite there being no…

[blogparanormalexpresso2stuff]

The Bennington Triangle is WEIRDER Than You Think

The Bennington Triangle: Vermont's twilight zone of vanishing hikers, time distortions, and cryptid encounters. From the infamous "Famous Five" disappearances to modern-day paranormal experiences, discover why this area has become a magnet for the unexplained.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries-movedd]

The Disappearance of Paula Jean Welden

Paula Jean Welden, 18, was a sophomore at Bennington College on December 1, 1946, the day she told her roommate, Elizabeth Parker, she was going for a long walk but failed to return. A search focused primarily on Vermont’s Long Trail (a 270-mile trail that cut through Vermont to the Canadian border), where local witnesses reported having seen her.

The trail yielded no clues, however, and soon, what the Bennington Banner refers to as “tantalizing and unquestionably strange leads” began to materialize. These include claims by a Massachusetts waitress that she’d served an agitated young woman matching Paula’s description. Upon learning of this particular lead, Paula’s father disappeared for 36 hours, supposedly in pursuit of the lead, but it was nevertheless a strange move that led to his becoming a prime suspect in Paula’s disappearance. Soon stories began circulating that Paula’s home life was not nearly as idyllic as her parents had told the police. Apparently, Paula had not returned home for Thanksgiving the week prior, and she may have been distraught about a disagreement with her father. For his part, Paula’s father posited a theory that Paula was distraught about a boy she liked and that perhaps the boy should have been a suspect.

Over the next decade, a local Bennington man twice bragged to friends that he knew where Paula’s body was buried. He was unable to lead the police to any body, however, let alone Paula’s, and with no evidence of a crime, no body, and no forensic clues, the case grew colder, and the theories grew stranger, including those linked to the paranormal. New England author and occult researcher Joseph Citro came up with the “Bennington Triangle” theory, which explained the disappearance as linked to a special “energy” that attracts outer space visitors, who would have taken Paula with them back to their world.

[moonmausoleum]

The Mysteries of The Bennington Triangle on Glastenbury Mountain

People have always feared the wilderness. This is also the case of the area around Glastenbury Mountain where several strange disappearances have made people think that it could be something going on in what has been known as The Bennington Triangle

People have always feared the wilderness. This is also the case of the area around Glastenbury Mountain where several strange disappearances have made people think that it could be something strange going on in what has been known as The Bennington Triangle.  Deep within the picturesque landscape of Vermont lies a region cloaked in mystery and shrouded in eerie tales—the Bennington Triangle. An…

[my-52-weeks-with-christie]

Book Review: A Conundrum...

Shirley — Susan Scarf Merrell Whilst working on my Murder By Mail series, I ran across a short story penned by Shirley Jackson called The Possibility of Evil. Which gives a fictional first-hand account of how the missives of a poison pen writer affect the community in which they live. A mere six pages, it takes no time at all to finish, and it’s one of the best short stories I’ve ever…

[mecthology]

Enigmatic Bennington Triangle: A History of Mysterious Disappearances.

Starting with the vanishing of 74-year-old Middie Rivers in 1945, the area has witnessed a string of missing persons cases, including the infamous disappearance of 18-year-old Paula Welden in 1946, which remains unsolved to this day. A thorough search was done, but all they found was one rifle cartridge in a stream. They figured Rivers might have leaned over, causing the cartridge to slip out of his pocket into the water. Rivers knew the area well and was skilled in outdoor activities.

Adding to the enigma, 68-year-old James E. Tedford inexplicably vanished from a moving bus in broad daylight, leaving behind his luggage and an open timetable.

The disappearance of eight-year-old Paul Jepson in 1950 further deepened the mystery, with a bloodhound losing his scent at a nearby crossroads, hinting at a possible abduction.

Experienced hiker Frieda Langer's disappearance came 16 days after the disappearance of Jepson, and the subsequent discovery of her badly decomposed body near the Somerset Reservoir only added to the perplexing nature of these events.

There aren't any clear links found connecting these cases, aside from the fact that they occurred in the same area and around the same time. Despite extensive searches, the Bennington Triangle continues to yield more questions than answers, fueling speculation about paranormal forces, serial killers, or even large predators as possible explanations for the disappearances.

Follow @mecthology for more such mysteries and legends.

Source: Wikipedia & allthatisinteresting.com

[preservationofnormalcy]

Can we get your recommendations for cryptocartographic curiosities worth a visit?

Ooof, well, a lot of them are cryptocartographic for a reason. By definition they're usually not mapped very well, or sometimes they're just tourist traps. Michigan Blue Hell is a no-go zone, the Bennington and Bermuda triangles are big and easy to get lost in, it's kind of --

Oh, you know what? It's kind of exclusive but if you can get a guided tour of the Denver International Airport, jump on it. A lot of the lowest tunnel structures are off limits due to spatial instability, but the upper floors are relatively stable and shifts are predictable. Ever seen concrete ripple like water? Light doesn't work right down there either, it sort of...oozes. It's weird.

Anyway it's been used as an extranormal art collective for a couple decades. There's one exhibit built in a room that only rotates back into the complex once every three years. I think it's due this year, you could go see that!

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

* Dina is excluded since she couldn’t control her fate.

* Nina, Suzanne, and Joyce Dagen are excluded since they couldn’t control their fate. Cale is excluded since he had to rely on Bobby to survive.

* Jill Tuck’s “games” are excluded since the first was a nightmare and the second was just Hoffman being an asshole.

[husheduphistory]

Mystery and Missing: The Tragic Trails of the Bennington Triangle

Nestled into the southwestern region of Vermont lies an expanse of wilderness stretching approximately 100 square miles. Thick with forest and natural wonders including the Glastenbury Mountain this region, roughly bordered by the towns of Glastenbury, Woodford, and Bennington, has deep rooted history including the first town created in Vermont and significant chapters in the American Revolution. It is scenic, it is historic, and to many it’s also terrifying.

 The chilling stories of Glastenbury Mountain began centuries ago when the Native American population regarded the space as sacred, but also cursed. Being the place “where the four winds meet” they used the area only for the burial of their dead and warned people not to travel the region. They also told the tale of a large and malicious stone that would swallow up anyone who stood on it.  If a curse placed by nature, a revered-but-feared burial ground, and a rock that could consume a human was not enough, there were also the tales of the wild men, large hairy human-like creatures that roamed the dense woods alongside other beasts.

Postcard showing Glastenbury Mountain. Image via legendsofamerica.com.

These tales were known but in the decades after the Civil War the old warnings faded and people now living in the region looked to transform their town. In 1872 the town began its first metamorphosis, becoming a logging community fed by the ample and seemingly endless supply of lumber surrounding them.  A train line was built extending nine miles to Bennington and three coal kilns supplied coal that would be shipped down the mountain on the rails. The operations were a success and by 1880 the little town had a school, post office, and a population of 241 people. It looked promising but in the 1890s a black cloud seemed to take a firm residency over the region.

The first strike came on April 4th 1892 when Glastenbury residents Henry McDowell and John Crowley had a confrontation. It is unknown what words were exchanged, but McDowell felt they were strong enough to warrant grabbing a rock and bludgeoning Crowley to death before escaping into the woods. He was eventually caught in Connecticut, convicted, and sent to Waterbury State Hospital. After some time though, the guards felt he could be trusted to spend some time out in the yard. Once outside he saw his moment and hid in a coal cart before making his escape. He was never seen again. Five years later in October 1897 John Harbour of nearby Woodford was found dead, killed by a single gunshot wound. His killer was never found.

It was in that same year that Glastenbury came face to face with a big problem. They were a lumber town, but they were running out of trees to cut. Given that they already had cleared land, created pathways, and had a number of silent buildings from the now-extinct lumber industry, they decided to take an entirely different turn and transform the area into a resort town with a trolley, hotel, and casino. The hopes were high, but after one season the dreams were decimated when massive flooding ravaged the town. With no trees or root systems to help alleviate the impact of the water, it ran over with nothing in its path, destroying the railways leading to the resort that was going to save the town. The flood was the death blow to Glastenbury and with seemingly no other option, the residents moved on leaving the town nearly abandoned with less than ten residents remaining. This low population was one of the reasons that in 1937 the town was disincorporated, putting it in place to officially become a ghost town.

Image showing the repurposed buildings and trolley meant to transform Glastenbury. Image via obscurevermont.com.

The region sat quietly while the wilderness reclaimed it, largely remaining out of the public eye until November 12th 1945 when it became the focus of search parties and newspaper headlines. The man they were searching for was Middie Rivers, an outdoorsman who had become closely acquainted with these woods in his almost seventy-five years. An avid hunter and fisherman, Rivers was spending the day hunting with a small party including his son-in-law. While the group was stopped near Bickford Hollow, Rivers decided to move ahead of the party. By the time the clock struck 4pm he had not returned, and the concerned hunting party went out to find him. When the group saw no sign of Rivers they traveled down to Bennington and asked Fire Chief Wallace Mattison to help them search. The search went on for days and grew to include hundreds of people and soldiers from Fort Devens in Massachusetts. Hours marched on, the sun rose and set multiple times, and the hope that Rivers was fine out in the woods that he knew so well and that he would just show back up one day quickly faded when the snow began to fall. Rivers was never found and the only thing ever recovered was a single rifle cartridge from his gun.

The tragic disappearance of Middie Rivers might have slipped away into time, but instead it unfortunately became “the first one.” 

In December 1946 eighteen-year-old Paula Jean Welden was a sophomore at Bennington College where she studied art, had an interest in botany, and worked at the college cafeteria. After her shift on December 1st she told her roommate she was going to do some hiking on the Long Trail, a 272-mile footpath that follows Vermont’s Green Mountains up to the border of Canada. She was dressed in sneakers, blue jeans, and a red parka, clothing that was fine for that afternoon but would offer no protection for the kind of cold that settled in after dark. She left just before 3pm and she was seen several times that afternoon. One owner of a gas station claims he saw a woman matching her description near a gravel pit, she began hitchhiking and was picked up by a local contractor who took her as far as his house which was about 2.5 miles from the beginning of the Long Trail. Once she began walking on the trail she encountered a group of hikers who answered some questions she had before they moved on in the opposite direction of Welden. According to some reports a local man named Ernest Whitman may have had one of the last encounters with Welden when she stopped to speak to him at his cabin. She asked how long she could go on the trail and he informed her it was four miles to a fork. He warned her that she was not dressed for the weather but she went on her way anyway.

When Welden’s roommate didn’t see her return that night she was not worried, she assumed she was just in another part of the college or in the library studying late. But, when she realized the next morning that Welden was still gone she went to the faculty. The president of the college called her parents in Connecticut and asked if their daughter was home with them. She was not. And when Welden’s mother was informed her daughter was also not at school she fainted on the spot.

Missing person flyer used for Paula Welden. Image via wikipedia.com.

The search for Paula Welden had one huge roadblock from the start, the structure of the search itself. At the time of her disappearance Vermont did not have its own state police force so the search was assembled and conducted by the president of Bennington College and Welden’s father. A group of 370 students and faculty went out to search for her, splitting into groups and throwing confetti on areas that were already searched so other groups knew that that area had already been looked at. In time both the Connecticut and New York state police were brought in to assist and a reward of $5,000 was offered. It was no use, no trace of Paula Welden was ever found.

Image used in the search of Paula Welden. Image via wikipedia.com.

It is easy to say that both Middie Rivers and Paula Welden were probably unfortunate victims of the elements in the wooded expanse that includes Bennington and Glastenbury, but the story of James Tedford is much more difficult to explain away.

It was late into 1949 and James Tedford was supposed to be back home, but he was not. The sixty-eight-year-old World War II veteran had been spending some time visiting his wife and family in Fraklin, Vermont before boarding a bus in St. Albans to return back home to the Vermont Soldiers’ Home where he lived in Bennington.

Along the way back there was a stop in Burlington where Tedford ran into an old friend and the pair chatted a bit before he once again boarded the bus on the final stretch of his ride home. When the bus stopped back in Bennington it was discovered that the veteran was nowhere to be found. His last known whereabouts was on the bus on December 1st at approximately 4pm, almost exactly three years after the last known sighting of Paula Welden in the same region. There was no question that Tedford boarded the bus, not only was he seen getting back on but his suitcase, unfolded map, and unchecked bus ticket were still sitting on his seat. He was simply gone. Shockingly, it took days for anyone to put the pieces together that Tedford never returned home and a search for the man did not take place for over a week after he was last seen. No trace of James Tedford was ever found.

Newspaper clipping about the disappearance of James Tedford. Image via vermontdailychronicle.com.

The disappearances already seen in the region were unsettling but with the end of 1950 came a string of incidents that made some people genuinely begin to question what was going on in the wilderness around Glastenbury Mountain. The first took place on October 12th 1950 when eight-year-old Paul Jepson went missing under some eerily similar circumstances. The eight-year-old was out with his mother, some report that he was with her at the local dump that they maintained, and others state he was helping her tend to the pigs near their Glastenbury farmhouse. Allegedly he was in the family pickup truck and his mother walked away to do some work before returning to the truck and finding the child missing. Like Welden he was also wearing red and his time of disappearance was between 3 and 4pm, approximately the same timeframe that Fisher, Welden, and Tedford also all vanished. A search was launched for Jepson and hundreds of people from the local region combed through the dump, the town, and went into the mountains with no success. Bloodhounds were brought in from the New Hampshire State Police and they did pick up the scent of the boy, but it was lost at an intersection near where Welden was last seen. In the days and weeks that followed Jepson’s disappearance there were reports of motorists seeing a young boy walking along a road but subsequent searches came up empty. Paul Jepson was never seen again.

Newspaper clipping about the disappearance of Paul Jepson. Image via vermontdailychronicle.com.

With the disappearance of Jepson still fresh in the minds of the locals, they very quickly found themselves facing a growingly familiar story when two weeks later on October 28th fifty-three-year-old Freida Langer also walked into the woods and seemingly vanished. Like Middie Fisher, Langer was extremely familiar with the woods so there was nothing to be concerned about when she left her family’s camp cabin for a hike with her cousin. During their walk Langer fell into a stream near the Somerset Reservoir and rather than continue on in her wet clothes she decided to walk the half mile back to the camp where she and her husband had spent every weekend for the last decade, change clothes, and meet her cousin back in the woods to resume their walk. When Langer did not return the concerned cousin went back to the family campsite and was horrified to learn that Langer had never even made it back the half mile to change her clothes. Once again a search was launched, and once again there was no sign of Langer. But, unlike all the previous disappearances, the Langer case would have closure.

Nearly six months after Langer walked into the woods two fishermen were out on the Deerfield River when they made the gruesome discovery of human remains. They had been out that morning but were not having any luck where they were so they decided to move downstream in hopes to find more fish, instead as they moved through the water something caught their eye under the grass hanging over a large water-filled hole at the bank of the river. Langer’s body was found three miles from where she left to walk back to her cabin and it took the pair of fishermen nearly three hours to hike the three miles through intensely thick forest to Somerset Road where they hitchhiked to a home to call for help. The body was badly decomposed but there was no question that the remains were Langer, on the skull was a metal plate, the result of brain surgery that she had five years earlier. It was the surgery that led to the official conclusion that Langer must have suffered a seizure, fallen in the water, and died of accidental drowning. How the experienced hiker who was so well versed in the woods ended up two and a half miles away from her familiar destination remained unknown.

Image of Freida Langer. Image via legendsofamerica.com.

Before 1950 came to a close there was one more name that would join the unfortunate ranks of souls last seen in the wilderness of southwestern Vermont. On November 29th 1950 sixteen-year-old Martha Jeanette Jones was reported missing by her parents. But, at the time she was reported gone Jones had already been missing for an entire month. She was last known to be hitchhiking to school in Manchester and traveling through the infamous region when she too disappeared. The school was under the impression that she was home while her parents assumed she was at the school. Like so many others, Jones was never seen or heard from again.

With the number of mysterious occurrences in the Glastenbury-Bennington region there are bound to be theories about what happened to the missing. There are purely logical ones, Langer may have had a seizure and drowned, the young Paul Jepson or Paula Welden may have been kidnapped, James Tedford may have decided he no longer wanted to live at the Vermont Soldiers’ Home and silently left the bus with no one noticing, one of more of the missing may have simply succumbed to the ruthless wilderness and elements. There are these theories, and there are others that believe that there is something very abnormal going on in the woods of southwestern Vermont.

The stories go back to the Native American tales of the land being cursed and a human-swallowing rock, but there was something else they spoke of, that being the “wild men” of the woods. The idea of large, hairy creatures roaming the woods is easy to dismiss as Native American legend, but there is an account of many others seeing a similar creature in the late 1800s. According to the story a stagecoach full of people were traveling through the mountains near Glastenbury during a torrential downpour that made progress nearly impossible. The stagecoach driver came to a halt and when he climbed down with lantern in hand he noticed a large set of footprints in the mud in front of them. The tale continues that people started to come out of the stagecoach to look at the footprints when the horses began to get extremely restless. Then, something hit the stagecoach with tremendous force and everyone inside scrambled out. According to their accounts whatever was hitting the coach finally hit it with a blow strong enough to knock it on its side and through the pelting rain they saw a massive human shape, covered with hair, and two huge eyes in the darkness that turned and ran back into the woods.

The creature dubbed The Bennington Monster became yet another mystery of the region, but it was looked at a little stronger in November 1943. Before the “first” disappearance of Middie Fisher in November 1945 there was the story of Carol Herrick. Herrick was also an outdoorsman and an avid hunter who went out hunting one day with his cousin Henry. Allegedly, the two men got separated and Henry contacted authorities to try and find his cousin. Carol Herrick was found days later laying near his gun that had not been fired. The cause of death was equally confusing and disturbing, it was said that his lungs were punctured by his ribs and it appeared that he had been “squeezed” to death.

Since its earliest days the forests of southwestern Vermont have been surrounded by unsettling stories. The Native American tales of the land being cursed, man-eating rocks, and wild men live in the collective memory alongside tales of beasts attacking stagecoaches, inexplicable sounds coming from the woods, and even reports of mysterious lights and flying objects being seen over the treetops. It is the disappearances though that earned the region the name “The Bennington Triangle”, coined by author Joseph Citro in 1992. When it comes to The Bennington Triangle the years between 1945 and 1950 will forever be synonymous with the disappearances of Middie Rivers, Paula Welden, James Tedford, Paul Jepson, Freida Langer, and Martha Jeanette Jones, but these names reflect only a small sliver of the strange occurrences in the woods.

The terrifying truth is that we may never fully know the extent of the unexplained that already has, and continues to unfold, in the region of The Bennington Triangle of Vermont.

***********************************************

Sources:

Abramovich, Chad. “The Vanished Town of Glastenbury and the Bennington Triangle.” Obscure Vermont, 31 Mar. 2020, urbanpostmortem.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/the-vanished-town-of-glastenbury-and-the-bennington-triangle/.

Alexander, Kathy. “Bennington Triangle, Vermont.” Legends of America, Oct. 2023, www.legendsofamerica.com/bennington-triangle-vermont/.

Dailey, Eva. “The Bennington Triangle: The Ghost Town of Glastenbury Vermont.” The Looking Glass, 17 Oct. 2018, svclookingglass.com/4299/art/writing/the-bennington-triangle-the-ghost-town-of-glastenbury-vermont/.

Fair, Bethany. “History Space: Tale of Two VT Ghost Towns.” Burlington Free Press, 29 Oct. 2018, www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2018/10/29/history-space-tale-two-vt-ghost-towns/38202243/.

Leahey, Maynard. “Verdict of Accidental Drowning Closes Freida Langer Mystery.” The North Adams Transcript, May 14th 1951, https://www.newspapers.com/image/545381347/?terms=%22Frieda%20Langer%22&match=1

“Missing Jepson Youngster Makes Fourth Disappearance of Local Persons in 5 Years” The Bennington Evening Banner, October 24th 1950, https://www.newspapers.com/image/546025887/ 

“Missing Schoolgirl, 16, Brings To 6 Numbers of Persons Lost in Southern Vt.” The Burlington Free Press, December 13th 1950, https://www.newspapers.com/image/198069883/?terms=%22Paul%20Jepson%22&match=1

Page, Timothy. “Secrets of the Bennington Triangle - Vermont Daily Chronicle.” Vermont Daily Chronicle - News & Commentary for Vermont, 29 Sept. 2023, vermontdailychronicle.com/secrets-of-the-bennington-triangle/.

“74 Year Old Hunter Lost For Two Days.” The Bennington Evening Banner, November 14th 1945, https://archives.library.wcsu.edu/omeka/files/original/Michael_C._Dooling_Collection_MS_062/5262/ms062_01_18_middieRivers.pdf

Rossen, Jake. “The Lost Girl of Vermont’s ‘Bennington Triangle.’” Mental Floss, 26 Apr. 2023, www.mentalfloss.com/posts/bennington-triangle-paula-welden-vermont-mystery.

[femmeterypolka]

hey lol. i read your comment about cishet men on the bennnington tumblr post. i naturally felt curious which is why i'm writing to you here...how can you describe the dating experience for cishet women at bennington? any tips for navigating the dating scene at benn for a newbie who has never been in a relationship?

i wouldn’t really know how to answer the question about the dating experience for cishet women, as someone who a) doesn’t really have a lot of friends, let alone any in straight relationships, b) hasn’t been in a relationship there, and c) isn’t cishet. i don’t know if i’d have any tips other than generally trying not to be a curmudgeon like i am, go to parties or other social events to meet people and see who you vibe with? also i guess an actual piece of advice would be: bc so many people on campus are queer, sometimes your first impression of someone might not be accurate (as in: someone you assumed to be a cis guy might actually be genderqueer or nonbinary, or someone you assumed to be straight might actually not be into women). be prepared end up in some sort of weezer pink triangle situation at some point. steel yourself. it’s sort of already happened to me and isn’t fun.

anyway. good luck soldier. if you see me on campus tell me you like my shoelaces or whatever

[hauntedvermont]

Documentary Review: Glastenbury Mtn & The Bennington Triangle | Exploring A Ghost Town & Mysterious Cairns

Documentaries play a vital role in showcasing history and facts in an interesting way. One recent documentary we watched was the documentary by Green Mountain Metal Detecting titled “Glastenbury Mtn & Bennington Triangle: Exploring a Ghost Town & Mysterious Cairns,” available on YouTube. Here is my brief review on it.  This documentary shares a realistic and logical representation of the area…

[slypuzzle]

The Mystery of the Bennington Triangle

Between 1945 and 1950, several people vanished in the Bennington Triangle, Vermont, a region known for eerie disappearances and paranormal activity. Did you know that reports of strange lights and Bigfoot-like creatures add to the mystery? What do you think is behind these unexplained events?