The Many Mysteries of Vermont's Bennington Triangle

     I want to start this page off with something incredibly enticing, something to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up while at the same time making you itch for some sense of resolution. Something that is equal parts terrifying and fascinating. As you've probably guessed by the title of this post, today I'll be talking about the layered mystery that is the Bennington Triangle. 

A View of the Vermont wilderness

History    

  
 Vermont is known for many things; cheese, Ben and Jerry, maple syrup, Bernie Sanders. However, one of the less recognized aspects of this small northeastern state is its vast expanses of wilderness. Approximately 76% of Vermont is swathed in lush, dense, and sometimes dangerous forest which, altogether, makes it the 6th most densely forested state in America. Vermont's forests are also unique in that they mark a transitionary zone between their boreal and deciduous counterparts to the north and south respectively. Although much of this land is privately owned, that isn't to say that it's followed the trend of over-development in line with the rest of the United States. In fact quite the opposite is true, and especially so with a particular stretch of land centered around Glastenbury Mountain.

    Nestled along the southern tip of Vermont and not even a days ride from neighboring Massachusetts, the area immediately surrounding Glastenbury Mountain was once sought out as early as 1761 for its potential to become an important location within the industrial logging community. Despite its harsh conditions, rugged terrain, and unease of access, a select few families believed they could carve out a living for themselves amongst the rocky cairns and brooding pines of this particularly unrelenting portion of the Green Mountain State. The tiny towns of Somerset and Glastenbury were only ever officially inhabited in 1791 yet even as late as 1840 a meager total of 53 people lived in the small logging community. However, things would quickly change following the chaos and confusion of the American Civil War. 

    Not unlike many other cities and towns across America at the time, Somerset, Glastenbury and other nearby industrial oriented villages on the edge of the Glastenbury wilderness benefitted immensely from the war effort. By 1880 the population of Glastenbury had grown to a stable 241 people. This was in large part due to a newly constructed railroad that wound its way up the mountain that finally connected the struggling timber town to larger, more profitable cities elsewhere in Vermont. 

    However, this golden age would be brief as only 10 years later the area's logging boom had cleared the mountain of nearly all its old-growth trees, rendering the towns of Glastenbury and Somerset practically useless. With no source of steady income, the logging towns emptied almost as quickly as they had been inhabited. Almost 50 years later and Glastenbury had found itself with a grand total of 7 inhabitants, forcing the state legislature to declare the town unincorporated in 1937. As such, the vast virgin wilderness surrounding Glastenbury Mountain had claimed its first victim. However, as we'll soon learn this would be far from its last.

    Despite the utter failure of the settlements at the base of Glastenbury Mountain, the surrounding areas managed to do quite well for themselves. As Glastenbury and Somerset declined many of their inhabitants trickled out into these nearby towns, the biggest of which include Bennington, Woodford and Shaftsbury. Despite its near abandonment, the treacherous yet beautiful wilderness surrounding the mountain was never completely forgotten. Due to its quiet, remote nature along with its stunning vistas and high peaks the area surrounding Glastenbury Mountain was favored among hunters, hikers, and nature aficionados alike. Although its days as a center for logging were long behind it, the wilderness seemed to have a bright future as a temporary respite from the growing industrial world of the 20th century just downstream. However, beginning in 1945 a string of bizarre, unsolved disappearances around the mountain would make Vermont citizens think twice about a wooded weekend walkabout.

 A String of Disappearances

     On November 12th of 1945 local hunting guide Middie Rivers set out on a day not unlike any other. The 74-year-old was a well experienced outdoorsman who had grown up in and around the Glastenbury wilderness and as such was cited by many to be extremely knowledgeable of its general layout and topography. On this particular Monday, Rivers was prepared to lead a group of four hunters through the dense growth forest to a destination not far from an area known as Hell Hollow. The trek went smoothly until, on the way back to camp, Rivers ventured a short distance ahead of the rest of the group. Initially unconcerned and now with a basic working knowledge of the way back, the hunters trailed behind. It was only when they returned to camp and Rivers was nowhere to be seen that a slight sense of concern began to arise. Despite this, Rivers' reputation as an experienced woodsman meant that this concern was quickly replaced with confidence in Rivers' ability to find his way back on his own accord. 

    However, after an entire day had passed the hunters as well as fellow townsfolk allowed their concern to take hold, rapidly amassing a search party of over 300 volunteers including search and rescue teams with the US army. The search went on for an exhausting 8 days during which no clues as to Rivers whereabouts were uncovered. The only piece of evidence that was unearthed took the form of an unspent rifle cartridge of the same type that Rivers had been carrying lying alone in a stream not far from where he had initially disappeared. Even after the search was called off townspeople had a hard time believing that the well known and well renowned Rivers could have seemingly vanished into thin air, with many believing that he might soon resurface. For the next five years however, the wilderness would prove to nearby residents that perhaps lightning could strike more than once.

    18-year-old Paula Welden was a popular, smart, and attentive student at nearby Bennington College when she inexplicably vanished in broad daylight on the morning of December 1st, 1946. Having decided to stay at her college dormitory for Thanksgiving Break instead of returning home like most of her peers, Welden decided to spend the last day of her well deserved break by hiking a short and well blazed portion of the Long Trail near Glastenbury Mountain. Paula was hard to miss and, sporting a bright red coat, she had stopped in Bennington that morning to ask for directions to the trail and was noticed by an elderly couple who are believed to have been the last people to have seen her alive.

    According to their account, the couple had been trailing about 100 yards behind Welden when she rounded a turn in the path. When the couple had made their way to the same bend they were unnerved to notice that Paula had vanished from their line of sight. Despite the peculiarity of the situation, the elderly coupled assumed that due to her apparent youth, the vibrant young girl had simply made her way up the trail some ways ahead of them. Concern was never mounted until the following morning when her peers had returned to campus, classes had resumed and people began to notice that Paula Welden had not been heard from or seen in over 24 hours.

    Shortly afterwards, a statewide search was initiated for the missing girl. Paula's popularity on the Bennington campus as well as the sheer mystery of her case led to one of the largest turnouts for a missing persons case in the state's history with a total of 1,000 volunteers scouring the Vermont wilderness for any clues as to her fate. The FBI even went so far as to issue a $5,000 reward to anyone who could provide any clues as to her whereabouts. Despite all of this not a single shred of evidence was ever uncovered and Welden's fate still remains unknown to this day. 

Paula Welden is the most well remembered
victim of the Bennington Triangle

    Two strangely identical disappearances within a time frame as short as a year is bizarre in of itself. So, when little more news came out of the Bennington Triangle for the next few years, local residents were somewhat relieved to say the least. However this complacency was shattered yet again when an even more bizarre disappearance occurred on a stretch of road passing through the area exactly three years after Welden's disappearance. 

    On December 1st of 1949 James Tedford, age 68, was returning to Bennington via bus after visiting family in nearby St. Albens. Tedford was one of 14 passengers onboard when at some point between St. Albens and Bennington, Tedford disappeared. Tedford had been there one moment and seemingly gone the next, somehow vanishing in broad daylight from a moving vehicle. Alongside claims from the bus driver as well as several passengers that Tedford had indeed boarded the bus in St. Albens, Tedford's existence was solidified when his baggage was discovered in an overhead luggage rack along with an open bus timetable strewn across his seat. When questioned, the remaining passengers stated that they had not seen Tedford depart the bus at any point during its route nor had they observed anything suspicious along the way either. 

    Less than a year later in October of 1950 the forest would claim yet another victim under mysterious circumstances. A family of three, the Jensens lived in the area and tended to a group of nearby pigs. On this particular evening as the family headed just outside of Bennington to feed the animals, they left 8-year-old Paul Jensen in the cab of the family pickup truck where he was last seen playing with one of his toys. When the boy's mother returned from feeding the pigs only moments later, Paul was nowhere to be seen. Much like the previous disappearances a search party was assembled albeit with similar results. Police even brought in bloodhounds to assist in the search for the young boy. Oddly enough the dogs tracked his scent up until they reached a nearby crossroads where the trail went cold.

    This last detail would seem to hint at a potential kidnapping but after months without any more leads suspicion soon fell upon Paul's parents. The townsfolk of Bennington accused Paul's parents of having fed their child to the pigs, a claim which both parents fervently denied. When questioned further about their son's disappearance, Paul's father left investigators with a chilling proposition. In his own words it had perhaps been "the lure of the mountains" that had drawn Paul into the darkness. Despite all of this however, the Bennington Triangle still had one more victim to claim.

    The last disappearance to take place in the mysterious woods around Glastenbury Mountain occurred a mere two weeks later when 53-year-old Frieda Langer vanished in a similar manner to that of Middie Rivers and Paula Welden. Langer had been hiking along the Long Trail with her cousin Herbert Eisner when she slipped and fell into a shallow stream. Unharmed but wet and covered in mud, Langer thought it best to head back to camp where she could change into a new pair of clean clothes. Seeing as their camp was only a short distance away Langer headed back alone, instructing Eisner to wait for her return.

    Eisner ended up waiting longer than anticipated and as the sun rose higher and higher in the Autumn sky he figured it would be best to head back to camp to make sure that everything was alright. When he returned he was shocked to discover that Langer had never made it back herself. Worried, Eisner along with Langer's husband filed a missing person's case and not long after a search party was quickly put together with over 400 volunteers, firefighters, and even aerial assistance. As you might expect by now nothing was found of the 53-year-old woman and it was quickly assumed that she had inexplicably fallen victim to whatever curse had claimed so many others before her.

    Months passed when in May of 1951, seven months after the initial search had been called off, the severely decomposed corpse of Frieda Langer was stumbled upon near the Somerset Reservoir area. Unfortunately, due to the state of the body authorities were unable to determine a cause of death. Interestingly, Somerset Reservoir was an area that had been searched extensively, numerous times during the initial search. What's more is that Langer's body had been discovered in a uncharacteristically open portion of the typically dense forest, meaning that she should have been easy to spot during the initial search. Even though Langer is the only missing person to have been found in the Bennington Triangle her discovery answers little and seems to raise more questions.

    Although these disappearances share little in the way of similarities other than time and location, many have pointed to the possibility of a potential serial killer. Others have drawn similarities to attacks from various wildlife such as bears and mountain lions. However, the majority of people in the area believe that there are more supernatural explanations for the disappearances, citing the area's bizarre history according to both the Algonquin tribes that first called it home and the first settlers who followed soon thereafter. 

Theories

    Although the disappearances have come to be what the Bennington Triangle is most known for, they weren't the first, or last, unexplained events to occur within its loose borders. According to some of the area's earliest settlers, the mountain and its surrounding land were thought to be cursed which, at the least, might account for its failed industrial endeavors. The local Algonquin tribes carefully avoided Glastenbury in particular, believing that certain stones atop the mountain could swallow people whole. The tribe also held the belief that the mountain was a place where the four winds met, causing an incredibly violent exchange. The latter claim actually holds some truth as the location of Glastenbury Mountain along with its steep rock faces and tall trees can at times be cause for incredibly unpredictable weather patterns.

    Along with this curse the Algonquins alongside subsequent settlers to the area in the 1700s and 1800s held a long history of sightings of an ape-like creature not unlike other similar accounts across the US. This creature, locally known as the Glastenbury Monster, was first cited when it reportedly knocked a stalled coach onto its side sometime in the mid-1800s, terrifying the passengers inside. The last thing they saw was the glowing eyes of the creature before it let out a blood-curdling howl and hurdled back into the forest. Further evidence for this claim comes only 2 years prior to the string of disappearances beginning in 1945 when a man by the name of Carol Herrick was reported missing in roughly the same area as the young Paula Welden. After only a few days Herrick's body was discovered in a clearing surrounded by huge, mysterious footprints. His official cause of death? He had apparently been squeezed to death.

    Along with curses, man-eating rocks, and bigfoot sightings, others have claimed Glastenbury Mountain as a hotspot for UFO activity amongst other unexplainable occurrences. For many years believers and townsfolk alike have bore witness to strange floating lights in the sky atop the mountain. Today, the area continues to add onto its own folklore. Disembodied voices appear on dead-air radio broadcasts, planes inexplicably fall from the sky, and against all odds, high end navigation equipment fails to work properly. 

    Whatever the case, the mystery of the Bennington Triangle is likely to remain just that; a mystery. Even with a variety of possible explanations, each one fails to answer a vital piece of each case to which it is applied. It would seem, for the time being at least, that there's only one thing we do know for sure; if you ever do find yourself in the Bennington Triangle, just make sure you're not alone.