The "Bennington Triangle"
There are strange places around the world where people seem to go missing or strange unexplainable things happen. We have a term for these clusters we call them triangles. Like one such famous Triangle called The bermuda Triangle. Tho I would love to talk the bermuda Triangle I would like to speak to you about a lesser known Triangle so lets get into it
Welcome to peculiar Occurrences I am your host Lilith nova
(Intro)
In David Paulides Books Missing 411 he talks about spots around the united states and the world mostly in national parks and near bodys of water where any where between 5 to 30 people are all missing at any given time under mysterious circumstances. If you would like detail about these circumstances please go watch my original Missing 411 video where I talk about the factors that qualify a case as a Missing 411 case.
Well today I would like to talk about one such cluster and all the peculiar disappearances with in this region
The "Bennington Triangle" is a phrase coined by New England author Joseph A. Citro during a public radio broadcast in 1992 to denote an area of southwestern Vermont within which a number of people went missing between 1945 and 1950. It was also said that Native americans would not go near this area due to years of disappearances among there people in this area as well as a lot of pioneers that had gone missing back in the youth of American times.
Precisely what area is encompassed in this hypothetical "mystery triangle" is not clear, but it is purportedly centered on Glastenbury Mountain and would include some or most of the area of the towns immediately surrounding it, especially Bennington, Woodford, Shaftsbury, and Somerset. Glastenbury and its neighboring township Somerset were both once moderately thriving logging and industrial towns, but began declining toward the late 19th century, and are now essentially ghost towns, unincorporated by an act of the state legislature in 1937.
According to Citro's books, stories of strange happenings had been told about Glastenbury and the surrounding area for many years prior to the disappearances in the 1940s,
Between the years of 1945 and 1950, five people disappeared in the Bennington area. The first occurred on November 12, 1945 when 74-year-old Middie Rivers disappeared while out hunting. Rivers was guiding a group of four hunters up the mountains. On the way back, Rivers got ahead of the group, and was never seen again. An extensive search was conducted, but the only evidence discovered was a single rifle cartridge that was found in a stream. The speculation was that Rivers had leaned over and the cartridge had dropped out of his pocket into the water. The disappearance had occurred in the Long Trail Road area and Vermont Route 9. Rivers was an experienced hunter and fisherman and was familiar with the local area. It was very unlikely that a man like this would have gotten lost he was the sort you would want to help find a missing person in this area. I could find little to nothing on the investigation efforts of this disappearance the only place I could even find this story is in the wiki and stories and articles that discuss the Bennington Triangle so I am assuming he was never found and any and all efforts to find him failed. The only speculations I found spoke of Alien abduction, shadow people, and crossing over into other dimensions all things that have been reported to have occurred in this area for decades
Now the 2nd disappearance in this string of Disappearances in this 5 year span is probably the most famous one. A girl named Paula Jean Welden, 18 years of age , disappeared about a year later on December 1, 1946. Welden was a sophomore at Bennington College. Welden worked part-time at the dining hall in The Commons on campus. On Sunday, December 1 she worked the lunch shift. She decided to find and walk a portion of the Long Trail, a few miles from the campus. Paula knew of the famous trail but hadn't yet had an opportunity to hike it. She tried to get some other students to join her that day, but they were busy. Paula went by herself.She packed no bag, took no extra clothing, and did not take any extra money. From all appearances, she did not expect to be gone more than a few hours. Welden walked down the campus driveway and hitched a ride from State Route 67A near the college entrance in North Bennington to a point on State Route 9 Local contractor Louis Knapp picked her up and drove her as far as his house on Route 9, about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from the Long Trail. From this point, Welden either hitchhiked or walked the rest of the way to the start of the Long Trail in Woodford Hollow.
She had set out for a hike on the Long Trail. Many saw her go, including Ernest Whitman, a Bennington Banner employee who gave her directions. She was alleged to have been seen on the trail itself by a group of whom she questioned about the trail they tried to tell her that tho her clothing was fine for the weather at the time if she where to get caught up there after dark it would become far to cold up there and perhaps she should go change. She did not head there warning then she was seen by an elderly couple who were about 100 yards (91 m) behind her. According to them, she turned a corner in the trail, and when they reached the same corner, she had disappeared. An extensive search was conducted when Welden didn't return to the college campus, which included the posting of a $5,000 reward and help from the FBI. However, no evidence of her was ever found. Unconfirmed rumors speculated that she had moved to Canada with a boyfriend or that she became a recluse living in the mountains. Or that she had gotten hurt hit her head and wondered off with amnesia There was also speculation that she may had went into the woods to commit suicide tho none of this was ever proven an no body was ever found. Tho Investigators discovered that one of the last people to see Paula alive was a man who lived along Harbour Road. He was in the midst of an argument with his girlfriend when she walked by. The man stormed off in a jealous rage shortly thereafter and depending on different statements he made, he went to his shack and spent the evening by himself, or he drove his truck up the travel portion of the trail (where Paula was heading). He lied to police on several occasions and was a person of interest in 1946 and again in 1952 when the case was revisited. Reportedly, he told at least two people that he knew within a hundred feet where Paula was buried but later claimed it was just idle talk. When no evidence was found that a crime had actually been committed, no body was ever discovered, and no forensic clues were identified, this avenue of the investigation ended
The manner in which Paula's disappearance was handled was sharply criticized by Paula's father and many others. He pointed out that the lack of a statewide law enforcement organization and the lack of training of local sheriffs contributed to a poorly run investigation. Within seven months of Paula's disappearance, the Vermont legislature created the Vermont State Police.
James E. Tedford (also spelled as Teford or Tetford), a veteran, was the third person to disappear. He went missing on December 1, 1949, exactly three years to the very day after Paula Welden had disappeared. Tedford was a resident of the Bennington Soldiers' Home. He had been in St. Albans visiting relatives, and was returning home on the local bus when he vanished. According to witnesses, Tedford got on the bus, and was still on the bus at the last stop before arriving in Bennington. Somewhere between the last stop and Bennington, Tedford vanished. His belongings were still in the luggage rack and an open bus timetable was on his vacant seat. No one had seen him get off of the bus Peculiar enough there where reports that in earlier years he was a resident in Fletcher town Frankland vermont with his younger wife Perl she was 28 and he was 56 things started to get Peculiar upon his return from his 2nd military spent after WW2 He returned home to find that his wife Perl had vanished and the property they had for rent in Fletcher town had been left abandoned. Not even the family knew what had happened to her. Feeling desperate and lonely Teford checked him self into a old folks home for veterans shortly before his own disappearance. Due to the lack of evidence in this case many Peculiar and even paranormal explanations has been sited for this case such as both of them fading into another dimension, Them going through a Portal of some kind along with UFO's But what ever did happen the authorities and 14 witnesses to James E. Tedford peculiar disappearance remained baffled.
Paul Jephson (1950)
The fourth person to vanish was eight-year-old Paul Jephson. On October 12, 1950, Jephson had accompanied his mother in a truck. She left her son unattended while she fed some pigs. His mother was gone for about an hour. When she returned, her son was nowhere in sight. Search parties were formed to look for the child. Nothing was ever found, though Jephson was wearing a bright red jacket that should have made him more visible to rescue teams. According to one story, bloodhounds tracked the boy to a local highway, where, according to local legend, four years earlier Paula Welden had been dropped off before to go hitchhiking where she disappeared.
Right away a lot of people thought the two cases could be connected tho nothing from the boy was ever really found and there is very little public information about this case.
The fifth and last disappearance during this time period occurred sixteen days after Jephson had vanished. On October 28, 1950, Frieda Langer, 53, and her cousin, Herbert Elsner, left their family campsite near the Somerset Reservoir to go on a hike. During the hike, Langer slipped and fell into a stream. She told Elsner if he would wait, she would go back to the campsite, change clothes and catch up to him. When she did not return, Elsner made his way back to the campsite and discovered Langer had not returned, and that nobody had seen her since they had left. Over the next two weeks, five searches were conducted, involving aircraft, helicopters, and up to 300 searchers. No trace of Langer was found during the search. On May 12, 1951, her body was found near Somerset Reservoir, in an area that had been extensively searched seven months previously. No cause of death could be determined because of the condition of her remains.
But what could have happened to Frieda Langer they were still very close to the camp and no one from the camp nor her cousin ever heard her scream pulse both family and rescue teams searched the area she was fund in numerous times yet she was not found there at 1st suggestion she had been placed there later.
Langer was the last person to disappear and the only one whose body was found. No direct connections have been identified that tie these cases together, other than the general geographic area and time period. But could these cases some how be related could this be a roving serial killer, or perhaps something more paranormal I don't know but I want to know what you think about this peculiar occurrences down below. Have you ever heard of any of these cases or the Bennington Triangle? I wanna know what you think in my comments
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