So Supernatural - DISAPPEARED: Bennington Triangle

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Centered around the Glastonbury Mountains of Vermont, the Bennington Triangle has been the site of numerous unexplained disappearances and supernatural phenomena dating back centuries. Everyone from inexperienced college students, to trained outdoorsmen have disappeared in the triangle, alongside reports of strange lights and Bigfoot sightings. This has led many to wonder if the Bennington Triangle could hold portals to other worlds.For a full list of sources, please visit: sosupernaturalpodcast.com/disappeared-bennington-triangle So Supernatural is an audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social!Instagram: @sosupernatualpodTwitter: @_sosupernaturalFacebook: /sosupernaturalpod

Okay, did you guys see that millennial coded meme that was going around a while back? The one that says, I thought quicksand would be something I had to deal with a lot more in my adult life? Well, that is how I felt about the Bermuda Triangle. I remember when I first heard about this spot over the Atlantic Ocean, a place where ships vanish, planes disappear, where UFO reports and other supernatural phenomena were abundant. And I recall stressing about this when I was younger, like, well, you know, that's tough,

how do I avoid the Bermuda Triangle? Well, it turns out is a pretty big non-issue unless you're regularly traveling from the states to Bermuda or the Caribbean. But then I learned that the Bermuda Triangle isn't the only place like this that I have to try and avoid. See, there's actually this spot in Vermont called the Bennington Triangle, and it's not out in the middle of the ocean.

It is easily accessible on land. Centered around the Glastonbury Mountains, it's full of legends and lore that date back to the indigenous Americans who lived in that area. A place where many people have gone missing without a trace. Where UFOs, ghosts, and Bigfoot sightings are abundant. And one with so many stories and unsolved mysteries, it'll make the Bermuda Triangle slip through your mind like quicksand. I'm Ashley Flowers, and think of things like Ben & Jerry's.

And my favorite flavor is Chunky Monkey, by the way. I also think about how Vermont paved the way for same-sex marriage in America in 2009. But today we're talking about something from the Green Mountain State that's a little bit different, the Bennington Triangle. And it's kind of like the Bermuda Triangle, but in southwestern Vermont. Hi, I'm Rasha Pecorero. And I'm her sister, Yvette Gentile. A ton of people have gone missing in the Bennington Triangle under pretty baffling circumstances.

Most of these instances happened in the 1940s and 50s, but there are still active, unsolved cases happening in the region today. Not only is Bennington a hot spot for these bizarre disappearances, it's also a popular place for UFO and crypt encrypted sightings. And some say it may even contain portals to alternate dimensions. Okay Yvette, tell me if this has ever happened to you because I swear to the goddesses This happens to me every few weeks You've just finished a fresh load of laundry

You're pulling out all of your dry socks just so that you can match them up before you put them away But once you get to the bottom of the laundry basket, you're left with one odd Numbered sock that has no home to go to You're left with one odd numbered sock that has no home to go to. It doesn't have a mate, even though you know for a fact that everything had a pair when you started the load. Uh, hello? Yes. Oh my God, Rasha, yes, this happens so often. And you know who I blame it on?

Gino. I always blame it on Gino, because every time he comes back, there's one sock missing. I've searched high and low for some of those socks and yet nothing. So please tell me you've solved this mystery. Gosh, no, far from it. But I bring it up because sometimes people joke

that their dryer might be a portal to another dimension. And maybe that's where all of our spare socks are disappearing to. Okay, a secret interdimensional gateway in your laundry machine feels a little far-fetched, even for me. But I do believe there are portals to other universes out there. And there might even be one in a forested area in Southwestern Vermont. It's called the Bennington Triangle. And while its boundaries aren't super well-defined, it stretches across a hundred square miles or so,

including the very bottom left corner of the state. And it sits up right against New York and the Massachusetts borders. The area is pure mountain country, you know, the sort of remote wilderness where it's easy to lose yourself, even in this era of GPS and Google Maps. The triangle is centered over an all-but-abandoned town called Blastenbury, and for most of its history, people have stayed way away from this region as a whole, and for good reason. Seriously, it's said that in the days before

colonization, the indigenous people in the area believed the land was cursed. They would not even set foot in the territory unless they needed to bury someone. Because it was said that the Triangle was meant for the dead, not the living. Indigenous American legends also say that the Bennington Triangle is uninhabitable to people. That's because it's where the spirits of the four winds, north, south, East, and West, meet up and battle. The winds in the Triangle are said to blow in unpredictable ways, causing these sudden, bizarre storms.

Plus, something that I didn't know until I was researching this episode, plants actually rely on the direction of the wind to grow. And because of the strange wind patterns in the triangle, these plants shoot up in all kinds of odd directions, leaving the landscape with this very confusing pattern, which means it's easy for people to get disoriented and lost out there. The indigenous people in the area also had stories about a man-eating stone in the Triangle. When unsuspecting travelers get too close or even step on the stone, it was said to gobble them up.

But in the mid-1700s, European settlers came along and ignored all of the indigenous people's warnings about evil dwelling in this land. Instead, they set up a logging operation in the Triangle, thinking, hey, there's all of this untouched wilderness full of huge trees, let's cut them down and make a profit. They also established some towns for the loggers to live in, like Glastonbury and Bennington, which is where the Triangle gets its name from. Glastonbury and Bennington, which is where the triangle gets its name from. But as soon as these industries got going, the rumors of mysterious disappearances began. Unfortunately, there isn't a ton of great record-keeping about the first missing people, so we don't know all the specifics.

We just know that throughout the 1800s, loggers and lumber mill employees kept vanishing. Those who came to the Triangle and lived to tell the tale talked about strange noises coming from the woods, like something otherworldly was lurking out there. It's bad enough that by 1892, a lumber mill worker named Henry McDowell couldn't take it anymore. He lives and works in a nearby logging town called Fayville. And he isn't just hearing noises in the woods, he was also hearing voices in his head. Now I don't know exactly what these voices said to Henry, but I do know that they became

so disturbing that one day, he grabs either a rock or a bit of wood and he uses it to bash in another man's skull. His victim dies and Henry is arrested and sent to a mental health hospital just outside of the Triangle. Except, not long after he's committed, Henry escapes. It's said that he makes his way from the facility back to the Triangle, more specifically to the Glastonbury Mountains, and nobody knows what happens to him after he disappears into those woods.

According to legend, he's been transformed into some kind of immortal monster, one that still haunts the area, thirsting for blood to this very day. Well, by the early 1900s, the area was considered so creepy that even the logging companies didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. They pretty much abandoned the region altogether. I mean, Fayville and Glastonbury were basically ghost towns by that point. There had been too many murders, too many weird disappearances, too many spooky voices and weird stories. There were still towns

on the outskirts like Bennington, but otherwise, throughout the 20th century, the Triangle itself was basically abandoned. Nobody wanted to spend too much time there, other than your occasional hiker, camper, hunter, you know, the outdoorsy type. Like 74-year-old Middie Rivers. On November 9, 1945, he's there on a hunting trip with his son-in-law and a few friends. It's safe to assume Midy has heard the rumors before about the region, but he isn't easily intimidated. In fact, he's been to this particular part of the Triangle several times before.

And for the first couple of days, this vacation was going great. Three days in, on November 12th, Midy is walking back to his camp with the rest of his group. It's about 4 p.m. and he's a little ahead of everyone else, far enough that eventually, the rest of the group loses sight of him entirely. They make their way back to camp, expecting to find Midy already there, only there's no sign of him.

They search the area for a while and they can't find a single clue about where he's gone. At that point, they realize that they need to get professional help, so they head straight to the town of Bennington to report Midy missing. Right away, the locals put together a search team. But they're not freaking out just yet. Midy's hunting buddies say, you know what, he's an experienced outdoorsman. But the weather overnight goes below freezing. So that's when they start to worry.

A day goes by and nobody finds Midy. That turns into two days and then three. By day four, there are 40 people looking for this guy. On day five, the officials pull in the army. That's another 90 men. When that's still not enough, they call for even more volunteers and offer to pay people for their time. But no matter how hard they look, they never track Midy down. To this day, his body has never been found. Neither have his clothes, his gear, his shoes, nothing. Cut to a little over a year after Midy's disappearance. It's December 1st, 1946, and an 18-year-old college student named Paula Weldon decides she wants to go for a hike. Well, the trail she picks just so happens

to run right through the Bennington Triangle. Now, I don't wanna make it sound like this is some big backpacking excursion she'd been planning for a while. She's living on campus at Bennington College, close to the woods. So one morning she puts on a bright red jacket, tells her roommate she's going out, and she leaves.

It's all totally spur of the moment. On her way out of town, Paula stops at a local store to ask for directions. She's never walked this trail before and wants to make sure she's headed the right way. Once she arrives at the trailhead, she bumps into an elderly couple who's taking a hike there too.

They're naturally a bit slower, so they end up farther behind her. But they do see Paula in that bright red jacket, walking up ahead on the trail for quite a while. Then she turns a corner. When the couple follows a few minutes later, Paula's no longer ahead of them. She's gone. Now the couple figures Paula must have gotten really far ahead.

In fact, nobody sounds the alarm until the next day when Paula fails to show up for her classes. At which point school officials report her missing and there's a huge search. It's even bigger than Mitty's. I'm talking 1,000 people retracing her steps up the trail, sent tracking dogs, helicopters, the whole nine yards. But Paula's never seen again. And no one can find a clue about what might have happened to her. That's so eerie. I mean, yes, it can be easy to get lost in unpopulated areas. And for what it's worth, the trail Paula was on is known to be difficult. It coils around tall

mountains with steep drops and muddy patches. Plus, there are parts of the trail that aren't well marked, so it's very easy to take a wrong turn. But Paula went missing in front of eyewitnesses. You'd think that couple would have noticed if she'd hiked the wrong way, if she'd slipped, if she'd fell down a cliff. Like, she just disappeared out of nowhere. Oh, but just wait, because if you find that fascinating, you'll be shocked by this next story. It's October of 1950.

Frieda Langer is camping in the Triangle with her family. Frieda is 53 years old, and the campground she's set up is basically perfect. It's right by a river and it's very picturesque. Well, on the 28th she's about half a mile from the campsite with her cousin when Frida trips and falls into the river. Now, to be clear, she's fine. The water isn't cold enough, fast enough, or deep enough to be dangerous. But Frida tells her cousin to wait there while she rushes back to the campsite

to change into dry clothes. Now, like I said, they're not that far from the site. She should only be gone for a few minutes, except time goes on and the cousin starts getting worried because Frida still hasn't come back. Eventually, he heads to the campsite to see what's taking so long. cousin starts getting worried because Frida still hasn't come back. Eventually he heads to the campsite to see what's taking so long. But when he gets there he can't find Frida. There's no sign she even made it back. No wet clothes left

drying, no soggy footprints in the dirt. When the cousin asked some other people at the campsite if they've seen Frida, nobody has. Now, I can't overstate how quick this walk should have been. There is no way Frida could have gotten lost, especially because she knew her way around this part of the triangle. Now weeks go by and the search team still can't find a trace of her. It doesn't help that rain and snow start falling just a few hours after her disappearance.

So there is a limit to how much ground they can cover. But there's something that makes Frida's case a little different from the others. Six months after her disappearance, some fishermen spot something weird in the forest. It's Frida's dead body. Only she's three and a half miles away from the campsite on the other side of a deep ravine. Oddly, search teams already looked over this exact area where her body was discovered, and they didn't see any sign of her during those previous surveys.

But because her body is so badly decomposed, a coroner can't determine her cause of death. However, the police have to put something in their report. So they write that she most likely slipped and quote, drowned in a hole on the dark and rainy night of her disappearance. Okay, let me wrap my head around this Rasha. What you're saying is she fell into a hole and turned up dead three and a half miles away? Like how does that even work? I mean unless she got really, really lost. But I agree that the whole thing sounds a bit fishy. However, all of these stories we've shared so far, well, they're just the tip of the iceberg.

Because there are other mind-blowing tales about the triangle, and they seem to defy the laws of physics altogether. It's a chilly afternoon on December 1st 1949. It's three years to the very day since Paula Weldon, the hiking red jacket wearing college student, disappeared in the Bennington Triangle. A 68 yearold World War I veteran named James E. Tedford is making a 150-mile bus trip through Vermont. He boards his bus in the town of Bennington and lots of people report seeing him. But when the bus gets to its final destination, James isn't on board. But all of his things are. on board. But all of his things are. Officials find his bags, his ticket, which still hasn't been punched, and a bus schedule sitting in his seat. Like he just set them down and then, well, we don't know. Nobody saw James get off the bus. People who work at other stops along the way say they've never seen a man fitting his description.

To this day, nobody knows what happened to him. It defies any logical explanation. The best theory anyone can come up with is that somehow James just teleported off that bus as it was passing through the triangle. To where is anyone's guess? We could go on for hours about all of the other spooky missing person cases in the triangle. Like, there's supposedly a group of three hunters who all disappeared without a trace in 1949. A pig farmer's son who vanished from their property in the Triangle a year later, in October of 1950. And even a 17-year-old who allegedly went missing during a hike in the area, fairly

recently in 2011. Now look, if you spend any time camping or hiking, you know that it is sadly very easy to get lost in the woods, and those situations can become dangerous or even fatal pretty quickly. But that's not the same as going missing from an established trail with a couple of people right behind you, or when you're just a short walk away from your campsite, or from a bus that's literally in transit. So it's only a matter of time until someone looks at this string of disappearances and

tries to see if they're all related. Keep in mind, at least five people all vanished without a trace in a period of just five years, between 1945 and 1950. So there has to be a logical, rational way to explain all of that. Like maybe those folks were victims of the same serial killer. Think about it. I mean, the Bennington Triangles forest would be the perfect killing field for a serial killer.

Because it's remote, it can be difficult to navigate, and given how few of the victims' bodies are ever found, it's safe to assume a killer would have plenty of room to hide the evidence and cover up their crimes. Okay, let's talk about that a bit more. Because yes, there could be a Bennington Triangle serial killer. Especially if you're looking for a grounded explanation for all of these bizarre disappearances. But there's not one sign of foul play in any of these cases. And it's hard to imagine any serial killer committing so many, let's say, perfect crimes. On top of that, the folks who disappear don't have a whole lot in common. We're seeing both men and women.

And there are a wide range of ages, from children to teens to older people. Now usually serial killers have a type. So the mass murderer theory just doesn't hold water, in my humble opinion. All right. I've got another possible explanation for you, and it comes from a local historian and author named Joseph Sitrow. During a radio interview in 1992, Joseph was the first person to say these disappearances could have a supernatural explanation. He's also the first to suggest that whatever's going on might be tied to this specific region.

That's when Joseph actually coins the phrase, Bennington Triangle, to describe the area. He also says that it might be like the Bermuda Triangle, a hub for all things creepy, spooky, and unexplained. So to support this theory, Joseph points at all the other weird things that have happened in the Triangle besides the disappearances. Because yeah, there's a lot more to this story. There sure is. Joseph says the Triangle is a hotbed for UFO sightings. For centuries now, even dating back to before Europeans arrived in the area, people have

seen unexplained lights in the sky on a regular basis. Take this account from 1968. Two teens are camping in the woods when they see something weird in the sky. It's long and thin, like a flying cigar, but with a big transparent dome on top. And while the teens are staring at it, three smaller ships emerge from the bottom of it. While the teens are watching all of these UFOs, a figure appears in the dome of the mothership. Then something really

strange happens. They hear a voice talking to them in their minds. They just know, somehow, that the speaker is the one who's watching them from inside of the craft. So the voice says that they come in peace and they don't want to hurt anyone. They're literally just there to visit. Then a bright light flashes and the teens pass out. When they wake up, they see the UFOs disappearing into the sky. From there, sightings become more and more frequent. But most of the reports aren't as detailed as the one about the cigar-shaped craft. A lot of people say they see bright lights or orbs flying in the sky. Okay, so something must be drawing in those UFOs and making people vanish without a trace, right?

Like this is some sort of paranormal ground, or maybe some sort of portal. It may very well be, because UFOs and disappearances aren't the only thing to cross off your so supernatural bingo card. Turns out the Bennington Triangle has its own cryptids too. So the Bennington Triangle sounds like a pretty dangerous place. I mean it might be full of serial killers or aliens. It's got a bit of everything.

Right. Or if you believe this next story, it could be home to something that's literally wild. In the early 19th century, a group is traveling through the triangle in a stagecoach when they hit a patch of thick mud that they can't drive through. Everyone stops to figure out an alternate route, but that's when the driver notices something strange in the mud. Huge footprints that can't be from a human being. And the thing that left them must have super long legs because the footprints are pretty far apart. Before the driver has a chance to take a closer

look, something comes running out of the woods. It's six to eight feet tall, running on its hind legs, and it's completely covered in black hair. It races over and hits the stagecoach hard enough to tip it over. Then the beast roars loudly before running off into the woods again. Okay, so when I first heard this story, I was thinking, they were attacked by Bigfoot, right? Well, what I found was the creature that's usually spotted around the Bennington Triangle is actually called the Bennington Triangle is

actually called the Bennington Monster. However, I sort of think that they might be the same thing. They're both described as these giant hairy ape-like beasts with piercing roars and massive strides. So, while the locals definitely aren't calling it Bigfoot, it seems like they're pretty darn similar. I found the same thing, and while this stagecoach incident is one of the most detailed sightings on record, I do know that there have been a lot of other similar reports.

Even one as recently as 2003, where a local was driving down a road in the Triangle when he saw a creature lumbering in the distance. It was six feet tall and completely covered in black hair, just like the thing that attacked the stagecoach. It was walking on its hind legs, but the guy only saw it for about a second before it disappeared into the trees. The witness's first thought was that someone was playing a practical joke, like a person in a gorilla suit. Except the road he was on was so remote, it didn't make sense for a prankster to be out in the middle of nowhere like this.

That's when his mind went to the Bennington Monster and he alerted the press. So I was sort of wondering after this, like did the Bennington Monster cause a lot of those mysterious disappearances? But you'd think if that were the case, we would have at least found remains, clothing or blood. I mean, anything from its victims. Okay, so oddly, I did find something that sort of supports that.

Turns out there's this one hunter who vanished from the triangle in 1943, only for his remains to be found with signs that he'd been squeezed to death. That guy's name was Carl Herrick and there were unidentified footprints all around his body. But you have a point, this is just one isolated incident. Which is why I don't think this Bennington monster is the one to blame for all of these

disappearances. However, I did read about another theory that ties a lot of this together. And y'all, this one is a bit wild. But what if something about the Bennington Triangle makes people teleport unexpectedly? Stick with me for a second as I piece this all together. Starting with the story of Frieda Langer. Remember, she was really close to her campsite, just a half mile away when she went missing. But then she was found six months later three and a half miles from where she was last seen.

If she got teleported to another part of the woods several miles from her tent, she must have been disoriented enough to wander around until she died of dehydration or starvation. Search teams had cleared the area where her body was found, which suggests it wasn't there when people were first looking for her. Then there's James Tedford, the guy from the bus in 1949 who also went missing. Maybe he was whisked off to some deep, dark, hard-to-reach part of the triangle as well. So maybe we haven't been able to find him because we never searched the right areas. He could have been teleported dozens of miles away. And similar things are still going

on in the triangle now, even in the 21st century. In 2008, a man named Robert Singley was hiking in the area. And he did this all the time, so he really knew his way around these trails. Except somehow he got lost while walking a path he'd been down countless times. As Robert was wandering around trying to get his bearings, he noticed a strange fog rolling in. It was so thick he couldn't see anything

except one maple tree. So he decided to sit under it and wait for the fog to clear. He lit a fire for warmth and spent the whole night there. When the sun rose, Robert realized he was on the opposite side of the mountain from where he'd started, about six or seven

miles away. And in his mind, there was no way he could have gotten that far. It was almost like he had unwittingly passed through a gateway that dumped him on the wrong side of the slope. Now here's another theory that's similar, but maybe even stranger. What if the issue isn't teleportation, but an interdimensional portal? And unfortunate passersby are getting sucked into another universe. Think about it this way.

What if there are endless parallel universes out there? Just like in The Avengers or Loki, I know I'm such a dork, I'm sorry I'm taking you on that path. But they each have a wall between them, one that prevents people from accidentally stumbling from one reality to the next. Now what if this supposed boundary between worlds is especially thin in the Bennington Triangle, making it easy for these little tears between worlds

to open up and create doorways. You could walk through one and end up in a whole other dimension. It could explain how these people were gone without a trace. Okay, I think you might be on to something, because remember that indigenous American legend we shared earlier, with the stone that eats people, one idea is that the boulder isn't really devouring people alive. It's an actual gateway. People step on it and just get whisked off to another world. But if anyone witnesses this, it looks like the missing person got sucked up into the

stone, which might be where legends about the Cannibal Rocks come from. This theory also helps explain the Bennington Monster, because a lot of people believe cryptids like it, including our famous Bigfoot, might be from another dimension. Monster hunters have followed Bigfoot tracks deep into the woods only for the trail to come to an abrupt stop. And there are eyewitness accounts of cryptids like this vanishing into thin air, while people are looking literally right at them. Which sounds to me like these beasts have some ability to blip from one reality to the next, maybe at will or maybe at random.

Either way, if you accept that Sasquatch, the Bennington Monster, and other similar cryptids are from another universe, well then it makes a whole lot of sense that they've also been spotted in the triangle. Especially with all of its alleged portals. Rasha, I love that theory, but I do think there's a final one worth exploring too. And it's that there's nothing supernatural per se about the Bennington Triangle at all. Just that it's slightly more dangerous than most stretches of rural land, especially when you consider all of those odd wind patterns. But for what it's worth, the Bermuda Triangle also gets strong winds and lots of tropical storms.

So the wind might be responsible for some of the disappearances there. Except, unlike the Bermuda Triangle, Bennington is full of hikers and campers. And we know how easy it is to get hurt if you're lost and separated from your group, right? You're not wrong, Yvette. When the Hunter-Mitty Rivers went missing, at least one member of the search team got badly injured while looking for him. An army corporal fell into a river and had to be rushed back to base camp where he was

diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder. So if that happened to experienced servicemen, it would be pretty easy for a hunter, a camper, or a hiker to slip and break a bone or hit their head. If they're deep enough in the woods that nobody saw what had happened or called for a medevac ambulance right away, it's only a matter of time until they succumb to the elements or get killed and eaten by a wild animal. Right.

And I could see that explanation working for Midi Rivers. But I do want to return to that hunter whose body was found squeezed to death, Carl Herrick. Because I'm trying to imagine what wild animal would do something like that, and I'm honestly drawing a blank. The official reports classified his death as a bear attack, but it's worth mentioning bears don't squeeze their prey. To me, it sounds more like it was the Bennington Monster

who popped through some interdimensional portal. Which is why I don't think the triangle fits any concrete, grounded explanation. Look, there's a lot about the triangle that can't be explained away that easily. And we can't totally write off all the other wilder theories about aliens, portals, or the Bennington Monster either. So the truth is out there, and maybe the only way to figure it out is to visit the Bennington Triangle for ourselves, Rasha. What do you think?

There is not enough money in the world. You could not pay me to go on that trip with you, even though I love you. There's no way. So I'm going to leave that mission up to the experts, because I don't want to be the next victim of whatever's lurking deep in that forest. This is So Supernatural, an audio chuck original produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So SupernaturalPod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Join Rasha and me next Friday for an all new episode.

So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?