Megalithic Marvels - The Bennington Triangle: Where People Vanish Without a Trace (rewind)

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Deep in the mountains of southern Vermont lies a region known as the Bennington Triangle—a place surrounded by eerie legends, unexplained events, and a series of mysterious disappearances. In this episode, we investigate the strange stories connected to the area, the people who seemingly vanished without a trace, and the enduring question: is there something unusual about the Bennington Triangle, or can its mysteries be explained?

To outsiders, the New England state of Vermont is probably most famously known for its colorful autumn leaves, covered bridges, and maple syrup. However, to the locals of the area, there is something else Vermont is known for. Something far more strange and mysterious. Something known as the Bennington Triangle. This is where strange anomalies, unusual events, and a strange, of disappearances including five people in a span of five years that have left the locals bewildered. This is also where, unbeknownst to most, large, mysterious, artificial stone mounds known as cairns, are located on the top of Mount Glastonbury. These are pre-colonial and

appear to even be prehistoric. More on these later. So Bennington County is an area-situ in the southwest corner of Vermont, nestled in the foothills of Glastonbury Mountain. Glastonbury is an unincorporated town in Bennington County with only nine residents as of the 2020 census. But Glastonbury wasn't always this small. Mining and logging operations drew hundreds of people to reside in Glastonbury for a time after the Civil War. when the town included a post office, small houses, a school, and a population that peaked at 241 people in 1880. But today, the area sits virtually abandoned. What happened to the town of Glastonbury?

And why do so many consider this area even today to be cursed? Well, to answer this question, we're going to have to travel back in time together to 1867. The year of 1867 would mark the first of many bizarre reports coming from the town of Glastonbury. Numerous residents reported encountering a cave-dwelling wild man who was known to terrorize women in the towns of Bennington and nearby Glastonbury. Witnesses reported that this wild man would often pull back his coat exposing himself, if you know what I mean, waving his guns, his pistol in the air wildly before retreating back into the forest. Now this Galastonbury Wildman, as he would come to be known, would only be the first of a series of unusual events that would plague this area. In 1879, reports

tell of two hunters who had an encounter with a strange creature in the mountains. It appeared to really look like a man, yet with wild eyes, and it was covered top to bottom, supposedly, with red hair. As the story goes, the creature begins to approach these men, these hunters, and so they began to fire upon it as they ran away. Now, this story, as crazy as it sounds, actually appeared in the New York Times. In 1892, in the town of Fayville, which is considered to be the heart, of what's now known as the Bennington Triangle, a 38-year-old worker for the Eagle Square sawmill named John Crowley was bludgeoned with a rock by fellow millworker Henry McDowell. No one is quite certain what led to the murder, but local historians agree that the men had

been drinking heavily and arguing the previous night. After it was discovered that Crowley was dead, McDowell hopped on a train in an attempt to flee to Canada. He would later turn himself over to Connecticut authorities and confessed to the murder. McDowell was declared to be insane after complaining of, quote, voices in his head, end quote. And he was ordered by a judge to serve out his sentence in the Vermont state insane asylum. McDowell, however, had other plans. He ends up escaping from the asylum and concealed himself inside a child. train car hauling a load of coal. McDowell was never seen again. Some believe that he may have made his way

back to Glastonbury to roam the forests. Now five years after McDowell's escape, a second murder would occur within the Bennington triangle. It was the first day of deer season and 40-year-old John Harbor, a prominent Woodford citizen, set out to what's known as it, Wiltshoho in hopes of shooting down a buck. Instead, Harbor himself was shot dead. When his body was discovered, it appeared that he had been dragged several yards from where the shooting had occurred and left beneath a cedar tree where he slowly bled out with his fully loaded rifle beside him.

Now, although this murder would come as a shock to the community, police never located any suspects and the unsolved murder of John Harbor would long be forgotten. So the murders of Crowley and Harbor would set the stage for the area's slow decline and give rise to whispers that the area is cursed. Next, the mining and timber industries began to wane, which caused many residents to move away and look for work on opportunity elsewhere. An attempt was made to convert an old boarding house that was once used by the loggers into a fancy hotel resort and casino. The resort only lasted one season, though, before a flood in 1898 destroyed the railroad tracks. Thus, Glastonbury and its neighboring settlements would soon shrink and eventually turn into ruinous ghost towns.

So more than four decades would pass with little activity in the Bennington Triangle, But that's when the disappearances began. Now, apparently, there are only two access points that lead into Glastonbury. The two-mile dirt road and a hiking trail that runs along the ridge of the Green Mountains, known as the Long Trail. And the long trail runs the entire length of the state, actually, and it passes straight through Glastonbury in the area known as Bickford Hollow, also referred to as Hell Hollow. Now, on November 12th, 1945, a 70-year-old man named Middy Rivers is going hunting with his son, Joseph, and three other friends. At about 7.30 a.m. that day, they leave camp to begin the hunt. The group hikes together for a while, and they reach a fork in the trail.

Now, being an avid hunter and hunting guide who knows the area well, Midi tells the group that he will meet everyone back at camp for lunch as he decides to go off one fork in the trail and the others wanted to go the other fork. However, Midi does not return to the camp for lunch that day. And by about 3 p.m. his son Joseph starts to worry. They begin to search for Middy until dark, but there is no sign of him anywhere. Authorities are alerted, and by the next day they scour the forest for hours. hours and then days, but there is still no trace. Eventually the search is called off as winter sets in. Now months later, a hiker found a blue handkerchief with 30 cents wrapped inside

that apparently belonged to Midi. But Midi himself was never found. Now, the weird thing is Midi was an experienced outdoorsman who had matches and a gun with him according to his hunting party. So it seems like he would have known to have made a fire if he was lost to stay warm, and that he would have begun firing his weapon to alert the search party as to his whereabouts. Now the following year in the winter of 1946, a woman named Paula Wilden is attending Bennington College about a 30-minute drive from Glastonbury. She is a sophomore who on December 1st of again, 1946, finishes her shift at the dining hall and returns to her dorm room. She there tells her roommate that she needs a break from her studies and that she wants to go out

on a hike. Some theorize that it's almost like the forest is calling her. She begins to leave campus that afternoon and she's wearing her red sweater, jeans, and sneakers. She ends up pitching a ride from a driver named Lewis Knapp and tells him that she needs a ride to Glastonbury Mountain and more specifically to the long trail. Being that Lewis lives in that direction, he offers to take her as far as his house. So according to Knapp, she appeared in the car to be in a good mood. And then when they reached Knapp's house, Paula thanked him for the ride and continued toward her destination about three miles away. Now witnesses say that they saw her later down the road approaching the trailhead.

By about 4 p.m., Paula makes it to the mountain and begins talking to another group of hikers near Bickford Hollow, asking for directions to get to the long trail. This is the same place Middy Rivers went missing. Now, these other hikers proceeded to tell Paula that she is actually already on the trail, and that the trail goes over the mountain and that if she stays on it long enough, it'll take her all the way to Canada. As the sun sets an hour later, it begins to snow. Sometime after midnight, a couple driving through the area stops to put chains on their tires. As they're outside, they notice

fresh footprints in the snow. Giving the late hour and the impending storm, they thought this was a little bit odd to see fresh tracks, and so they follow the tracks for several hundred yards to where they disappear next to some tire tracks, as if some person stepped straight into a car and vanished. Now, it's not for certain if Paula made these prints, but by the time the authorities arrive, these tracks are gone covered by the snow. Paula Weldon is reported missing the next day, and her disappearance becomes major news. Authorities mobilized to do a massive search and rescue mission. Helicopters, bloodhounds, volunteers, National Guard,

and even the FBI are all out searching. But Paula is never found. Now exactly three years to the day after the disappearance of Paula, on December 1st, 1949, 68-year-old military vet James E. Tedford is riding on a bus from St. Albans back to his home in Bennington. The bus is driving along U.S. Route 7 that will take James straight through the heart of the Bennington triangle. The bus makes several stops along the way. According to reports that the stop right before his, James apparently sees someone he knows standing outside at the bus stop.

According to witnesses, James gets off the bus to talk with his friend for a minute or so and then hops right back on the bus as it drives away. Now when the bus finally arrives to Bennington, every passenger gets off except for James. His suitcase was left on the bus and a bus schedule was left on his seat. But James has vanished. He was last seen wearing an Army overcoat and gray suit. No one goes searching for him immediately as it took a few days for his family to realize he was missing. A search party was eventually launched, which ended with no James.

October 12, 1950, Margaret Jepson drives her truck to Bennington County Dump, where she takes care of the property's many pigs. She brings along her eight-year-old son named Paul. They arrive to the county dump about 3 p.m. And she tells Paul to wait in the truck while she finishes her chores. However, when Margaret returns to the truck about 30 minutes later, Paul is gone. She does some searching for him on her own and then calls the police shortly after 5 p.m. A bloodhound tracks Paul's scent from the town dump to a fork in the road not far away. Paul's scent vanishes as if he had stepped straight into a car.

Now, officials found a pair of men's gloves on some rocks nearby, but that was all they ever found. Now, it's important to note that Paul's father had stated in reports that his son had been known for running away before and that his son had previously expressed the urge to go into the mountain. mountains, which kind of seems like maybe a strange thing for an eight-year-old to say. On October 28th, Frida Langer is enjoying a camping trip with her family on the eastern side of Glastonbury Mountain. She is with her husband Max and her cousin Herbert. On that afternoon, Frida and Herbert decide to go on a hike. Apparently, Max, the husband, stayed back as he had some knee pain.

Now, Frida and Herbert leave camp at 3 p.m. About 3.45 p.m. as they hike, Frida slips and falls into the stream that they are walking along. She appears unharmed, but she tells Herbert that she wants to run back to the camp and get a dry set of clothes and that she will return and catch up with him. However, when Frida doesn't return, Herbert assumes she must have stayed back at the camp. But when he returns back to camp an hour later at 4.45 p.m., Frida is not there. He talks with her husband, Max, who says he has not seen her either. A massive search party is launched to find Frida starting that evening, and it continued through November. Now, what's odd is that Frida's family, the Langer family, had owned this camp for 10 years,

and they spent almost every weekend there together. So how did Frida become so lost in one hour's time in a place that she was seemingly so familiar with? Now Bloodhounds also tracked her scent from the stream where she fell all the way back straight into the middle of camp. But Frida had vanished. The search parties eventually,

called off as winter sets in and her family fears the worst. Now there is one thing that sets Frida's case apart from the rest. Less than a year later on May 12th, 1951, two fishermen find Frida Langer's body near the dam at Somerset Reservoir about four miles from where she was last seen. Now it turns out that 18 months before she disappeared, she had had an operation to have a brain tumor removed, which had caused her to occasionally black out. Is this what happened again? Maybe on her way back to the stream, did she blackout, slip again, and fall into a deep waterhole, and have an accidental drowning. However, this wouldn't explain how the bloodhounds tractor sent from the stream back to the camp. In 1950, Vermont state attorney Edward A. Johnson stated, quote,

five persons in five years mysteriously missing, not knowing whether they are dead or alive, is not a record for the state, county, or any town to be proud of. Everyone is watching to see what Vermont will do. If this isn't solved, it will be a disgrace, end quote. That is quite a statement by the state attorney. So there's been a lot of speculation regarding the mysterious events around Bennington Triangle. of these most famous disappearances, all five people disappeared within a six-mile radius of each other, and all five went missing in the late fall or early winter, and each one seemed to almost vanish in the thin air.

It should also be noted that mysterious lights in the sky have been reported as far back as the mid-1800s in the area known as the Bennington Triangle. The most recent sighting of these strange lights occurred in 1984 when numerous witnesses claimed seeing silo-like lights jetting from the heavens as they were hiking through Glastonbury Mountain. Another report claims that a farmer who lived near the Green Mountains came up to find 23 of 25 cows dead in his barn. And the dead ones were arranged in a circle and the live ones were just hanging out like nothing happened.

A veterinarian later determined that all the dead cows had been electrocuted simultaneously. However, the barn showed no sign of damage. Also, two witnesses reported seeing a UFO that night, and regarding these mysterious large stone mounds known as cairns that I referenced at the beginning of the show. These are found throughout the New England states, and upon close observation, appear to definitely be pre-colonial and seem to be prehistoric. Approximately 20 years ago or so, an archaeologist by the name of David Lacey with the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont

was upchecking the status of an old fire tower on Glastonbury Mountains summit, And he discovered several of these cairns literally just right off the legendary long trail. In his report about them, David wrote, quote, at the summit of Glastonbury Mountain and within the Appalachian Trail corridor are a cluster of three sites. The National Register eligible Glastonbury Mountain Fire Lookout Tower, the remnants of the Associated Caretakers Cabins, and at least three stone. cairns whose cultural origins are uncertain, but which could well be prehistoric, end quote. And if you're watching this episode by way of video, you're going to see these fascinating photographs of what I believe are these ancient cairns. One of them appears larger than the other two, and this largest one's in quite great shape for as ancient as it may be. There's even a huge tree

that has fallen over on it. And this thing is stacked like about 10 layers high in a circular mound, almost cylinder-like, with large stones. Now, a gentleman named Norman E. Muller wrote a great paper on these Glastonbury Mountain Cairns. But he actually tracked down this archaeologist, Dave Lacey, and I wrote back and forth to him and asked him questions about them.

and he got some great feedback back from this archaeologist who told him the following. Regarding the largest can with the most moss on it, here is what archaeologist David Lacey said. I think this one is very old. I have never seen any colonial stone piles generated in the late 1700s and early 1800s that have vegetated growth like this on them. Moss coverage is one thing, but this structure has seen.

succeeded to club moss and herbaceous coverage. This researcher Norman who wrote this article on the cairns also reached out to someone named Tom Wessels and a forest ecologist, an author of the book Reading the Forest Landscape. And he sent him the information on these cairns as well as the photos of these moss-covered cairns. And here is what Tom, this forest ecologist, said back. Based on the amount of herbaceous and club moss vegetative cover, I think there is strong evidence that that third cairn you attached is much older than 200 years. I base this on numerous stone mounds I have examined that were created on cultivated lands in the mid-1800s. That land was subsequently abandoned in the late 1800s. So these mounds occur in a 150-year-old white pine hemlock forest

that would have litter fall rates more similar to a fir forest than a hardwood forest and are not even close in the successional development to the cairns on glastonbury this all suggests to me that the cairns on glastonbury predate european settlement of the region okay so there we have two academics on record as stating they believe that these cairns are very old at least older than 200 years, older than the colonial days. Okay, so I believe that at minimum this means the Native Americans made them long before the Europeans arrived. But even more so, I lean towards these being prehistoric, that these are so old, they predate everything in the region. And they're very mysterious.

And I'll do an episode at a later date that focuses on cairns. But these are strange, mysterious anomalies. And here they are located on the top of Glastonbury Mountain that overlooks the Bennington triangle. So I don't know about you, but this leads me to wonder, is there a link? Is there a connection with these mysterious stone mounds located on the top of the mountain.

Many believe that these cairns were ritualistic, occultic in nature. Were they part of activating this area in a strange paranormal way that links to all these strange anomalies in this region? So is the Bennington Triangle just a series of strange coincidences? Or is there something else more sinister happening? in Vermont. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Until next time, keep exploring.