This Paranormal Life - The Forest Where People Disappear - The Bennington Triangle

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

In November 1945, a resident of Bennington, Vermont walked into the mountainous forest and never returned. Locals didn’t know it at the time but he was about to be the first of MANY disappearances that would take place over the next 5 years. Something was calling these people into the woods, and the second they were out of sight, they disappeared completely… Become a commune member to get access to bonus episodes: https://thisparanormallife.com Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In November 1945, a resident of Bennington, Vermont walked into the mountainous forest and never came out. Locals didn't know it at the time, but he was about to be the first of many disappearances that would take place over the next five years. Something was calling these people into the woods, and in every story, the second they were out of sight, they disappeared completely. So what was lurking in the Bennington forest? Was it some kind of monster or something paranormal beyond our reality? Why can't I give my baby a vape? The little guy loves it!

All these questions you can find the answer to on this paranormal life! Hello everybody and welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale and come to a conclusion as to whether or not it is paranormal. My name's Rory, his name's Kit,

and boy do I have a doozy for you today, folks. Is everyone excited based off that? That enticing? introduction? Yeah. I will say sometimes disappearing sounds good. Right. It doesn't actually sound like such a bad thing. There's some days where it's like, oh, you've got to pay your taxes. Oh, you've got to drive your daughter to school. I'm like, I just want to... Yeah, should drive your daughter to school, though. That's kind of a fundamental part of her upbringing. You know, you got to... You could maybe

like not take her some other places, I guess. You've got to take out the bins. You got to pick up your daughter from school. They're having a fun day with a parents of school. You got to get out of bed this morning. Just the demands of life that are just too much. Yeah. Overbearing. Well, I think I just...

You've got to stop playing Call of Duty. It's been 16 hours. I think I just made your life easier, Kit. You know, if you are struggling to find the time to take your daughter to work and presumably pack her a lunch, throw a little vape in there. Nicotine is proven... The nicotine suppresses the appetite. Suppresses the appetite.

They make all kinds of crazy flavors now, like grape and shit, stuff that kids like. Well, actually... You could just make them go straight from pacifier to vapifier. We should make a pacifier vape for children. This is good. This is smart. The world needs this. And like, we're not totally just dereliction of duties here.

We'll put vitamins in the vape. But be like at least vitamin C, vitamin D. They're really important ones. Whatever they put in Red Bull. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever goes best with kind of, I don't know, blue... blueberry kush flavor or whatever.

Sorry, it has to be legal. Blueberry flavor. Yeah, blueberry flavor. It actually, they're bringing in a lot of new laws in Britain about smoking and vaping at the moment. And I believe one of the new ones is, Rory, you might have to give up on giving your baby a vape, end quote, because it's going to be illegal to even vape around your child for you. That's crazy. Is that a real thing? This is government overreach.

I can't blow blueberry vape in my baby. baby's face. Yeah. How am I supposed to show them all the tricks I can do? I mean, not only that. It's going to, did you see they're banning smoking forever if you're born after 2007, I think? There's no way that's, that's going to happen. It's never going to pass. There's no way. I feel it is. No way. Don't tell me what poison I can put in my body. You don't smoke. I'll put whatever poison. Yeah, but if I want to, I will. Now I want to smoke more than ever. I do love the idea of you giving a vape to your daughter and then the police arrive at your house and they're like, sir, did you give nicotine to your child?

Disappear. No, that would be. In a puff of smoke. You try and vape a puff of smoke so big you can disappear in it. One second. You just pass out in your doorstep. Yeah, it's like you can black out. That's the only way you can disappear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would kind of be a good superhero. move, wouldn't it? Listen, we're getting distracted here. I do have a great story to dive into today. One that's really important, one that covers the topic that I don't know if we've ever covered in the podcast before. Very excited to dive into this. But before we do, of course, if you love the podcast, if you love This Paranormal Life, you want to get more. The best place to do it is to head on over to This Paranormal Life.com over there. You can sign up and become a member of This Paranormal Life Commune and get a ton of awesome rewards such as

bonus episodes, merchandise, and so much more. And actually, this is the best time to go over and sign up to our Patreon because I'm excited to say we have just announced that we are going to be doing a live show in the UK later this year. That's right. Sunday, the 11th of October, we're going to be performing live at the Clapham Grand in London with our new show, This Paranormal Life, we bought a time machine. That's right.

That's the name of the show. Okay, that's pretty exciting stuff. And as always, our patrons and members at this paranormal life.com get early access to those tickets. And I'm excited to say those are on sale right now. Yeah, and you're going to want to grab them because full disclosure, this is going to be the only live show that we're doing this year. That's right. This is the only one.

We sometimes tour, but it's a ton of time and work to do this year. We only have time for one show, so we hope we can see you there. Well, actually, kid, I think you'll find that we have all the time in the world based off of the little machine that we got for the live show. No clues as to what the machine is and what it does. But come see this paranormal life. We bought a time machine. The world ends the day after.

That's why we're... If you want to see us live, I'd possibly see a real lifetime machine. Well, don't possibly genuinely. I've said too much. I've said too much. Genuinely. You're going to want to come see the show. It's the only one that we're doing this year.

So we're going to make it a huge event, hopefully throw a big after party surrounding the show. It's going to be awesome. Come check it out. Come grab your tickets. Sign up to Patreon. And the general sale will be one week later. Thisparnomalife.com. Links in the description.

Grab those presale tickets right now. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Hear that? That's your next obsession. Every coffee, a new world. Every sip, a new taste. This is the new espresso. One touch.

Endless possibility. iceed, flavored, long, short, because some days call for that espresso kick, and sometimes a smooth silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless, like actually effortless. Simply press, brew, and explore. Nispresso, what else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. The year is 1949, and we're in Vermont, traveling along the rural roads through the National Forest and towards the Mountain of Glastonbury. It's December 1st, and a packed bus slowly winding its way through the quiet back roads is heading to a place known as the Bennington Triangle. Hmm.

Alright, next stop is Brandon. If you're staying on for Bennington, it's another 70 miles north. Among the rows of passengers was a man named James Tedford, a 68-year-old World War I veteran who was on his way to Bennington, accompanied by suitcases full of luggage. A man brushes by him. Thank you for your service, sir. That really was a horrible World War. I'm just glad something like that will never happen again. As the bus continued its journey, the crowd of passengers thinned until eventually the bus had finally reached its destination. Bennington Depot, end of the line, folks. The remaining passengers began to gather their belongings, but when they finished,

they noticed a couple bags that hadn't been collected. Bags that belonged to James Tedford. What's the deal, folks? Whose bags of these? I think they belong to the soldier on the bus. He's sitting at the end of... The group glanced back at where James had been sitting for the entire journey. But he's gone. His luggage was still neatly stored where it had been placed. His personal belongings were untouched.

Even his ticket was allegedly resting by his seat. But James Tedford had disappeared from reality. Well, we don't know that yet. He's just not where they expected him to be. No one saw him. leave. No one remembers him even moving. He simply disappeared from reality. Now, as strange as this sounds, this was not the first time something like this had happened in the forests of Bennington. It's a bomb, by the way. The bag, the bag is a bomb. I just realized that's, sorry, because in the age of, in the age of like post-9-11,

you can't be leaving bags unattended. I just realized what that means. The truth is, Kit, that when James Tedford disappeared, people weren't surprised because by this time, he was merely another name added to the list. Not Epstein, that sounded wrong. This is the mystery of the Bennington Triangle. Kit, today we're talking about a strange corner of the world, where at any moment a passing individual might simply disappear forever. A place where people disappear forever? Maybe I should send my ex-wife's new boyfriend Kevin. there. Maybe I should buy Kevin a little all expenses paid trip to the Bennington triangle. That

sounds pretty good. Tell us about Kevin. Because normally I want to move on, but just because you brought him up, I'm kind of curious. So who she moved on to? He's a tennis instructor. Was he pro once? Might have been. I don't give a fuck what he does. What he did? Sounds like you know a lot about him. I don't. He's a tennis instructor? I don't care. I don't care what he does and where he spends his Saturdays. Yeah. You know, so it's fine. He should be spending his time in Bennington by the sounds of it. Is he tall? It's probably tall.

I got a bus 6-4. Yeah. 6-4, wow. Yeah. It actually feels like after the divorce, I moved to the Bennington triangle. A place where someone no longer exists in society and disappears. Yeah. Oh, wait, it couldn't be because I do appear every month to give her half my shit in court.

Sorry. There's not very much left, though, is there? At this point, it's like half a kick-cat bar. I'm like, this seems needless. I feel like we don't need to do this. Your Honor, what's half a nutton? Rory's ordering a burrito at Chipotle. They're like, sir, do you want guack?

And he's like, what's the point? She's only going to take half of everything I get. It's like, what? She's not going to take half your burrito, dude. I'm breaking every chip in two. It's like, just give her half the bag. You don't need to split every chip. They're just exploding.

I can't do it. Look, just to nip this in the bud before we get going, James Tedford was a real person. He was not a ghost. We've had a lot of stories on the podcast before. Well, ghosts were real people too once. Yeah, but, you know, he's real now. It was a real man on the bus who has disappeared. It's not a ghost passenger or, you know, a phantom that's been riding the bus for years.

Okay, I know what you're saying. There was a record of this person existing. Yes, and then he's straight up glitched out of this world. I think the best way to understand these events and the strange legend surrounding the area is to dive back to 1945 when the first disappearance took place. It's November 1945 and a man named Middle Rivers was leading a group of hunters through the mountains. As you can tell by the name alone, Middle Rivers was no amateur hiker. He was a seasoned outdoorsman and a local guide who had spent years navigating the dense forest and rugged terrain.

That guy definitely drinks his own piss. Sun shining blue skies sure is a beautiful day to shoot an animal in the face. Middle Rivers confidently trekked along the trail, walking slightly ahead of the group, as experienced guides often do. Come on, boys. These animals ain't going to kill themselves. They lack the mental capacity to reach that level of depression. Rivers turned a corner, moving slightly out of sight from the group behind a tree line. Hot damn, I smell a buck around this corner that's begging to beat.

His sentence ended. When the group reached the same stretch of trail where Rivers had walked out of view, they couldn't see him anywhere. Middle Rivers had disappeared. I will say if I was the life insurance salesman that gets a call from a guy called Middle Rivers, I'm like, nah, nah, there ain't a premium high enough for me to ensure your ass, your unwashed ass. Yeah, do you own any firearms?

19. Cool. Okay. Awesome. Do you ever kind of wander into the woods for long periods of time? Oh, you live in the woods. Oh, that's great. Oh, with the bears? That's nice. Great. Tell me a little bit about your diet. Just meat. Meat. You shot and killed and ate raw. Okay. Yeah, I don't think we can ensure you, Mr. Rivers. I'm sorry. Any medical history? Oh, you're currently stuck in a bear trap. Okay. Okay. That's where you're calling from. Sure. Let's just jump ahead because I think that I can shorten this whole application process. Can you just tell me currently how many teeth are in your mouth? Three? Okay. I'm sorry, sir. We're going to have to. I can tell by the whistling.

Free. Free. Free. There is something funny, isn't there, about like, hunters where, like, there's something weird about how the more time you spend in nature, the more you want to kill the nature. Yeah, yeah, because you realize at any moment that nature will kill you. Whereas me, someone who never camps is not a very outdoorsy person. I mean, I hang out of the beach a lot, but, you know, I'm not, I don't wander into the woods and do survival bear grill shit.

Yeah. I'm vegan. Right. So I like, I like don't want to kill anything. Yeah, yeah. But it seems like the guys who spend the most time around animals are like, dude, I took one trip to the seaside town of Brighton and I almost strangled a seagull with my own hands. I was like, nature is f***.

And it's a eat or be eaten world out there. A Siegel took one chip from Rory's fishing chips. And he was like, nature is cruel. It's vicious. And she's a bitch. And you gotta kill or be killed, motherfucker. I threw him into a rock like a missile. I was so angry.

He had blood all down his face, but it was just ketchup. It's true. It's a really good point. But I mean, look, this is someone that should know the terrain, should know the risks. If he's been out there his whole life. and all it took was him just walking around a corner and all of a sudden he's gone? Now, full disclosure, for the record, Middle Rivers didn't disappear mid-sentence. I did add that in for dramatic effect.

Of course, how would I know that? But he did completely disappear. No body or any trace of the man was ever found. It was like he blipped off the planet instantaneously. In the days that followed, local reports described the effort to locate him as extensive. but ultimately fruitless, with one account noting that, quote, the woods offered no answer, and the trail simply ended where the man had last been seen. There were no signs of a struggle, no footprints leading off the path,

and no indication that anything unusual had taken place, leaving the search party to conclude that Middle Rivers had simply vanished. I'd like to imagine the search party for that, you know, the way they got like a sniffer dog. Yeah. It's like, all right, guys, in the absence of kind of a rag of clothing, we can give the sniffer dog. We've just found a different unwashed hippie. This guy hasn't been in about six years.

Just get the dogs to smell this. And then we'll find the guy. Yeah, it's like Middle Rivers pretty much exclusively stank of moonshine. So we're just going to let the dog sniff it. The dog sniffs it and dies immediately on the spot. Starting to realize what might have happened to Middle. Kit, what is happening here? Middle Rivers disappeared just like James Tedford would do.

several years later in the same area. We've talked about mysterious and unexplained disappearances before on the podcast, but I don't know if we've had multiple cases surrounding one area like this. Well, disappearances are a really weird thing, and we haven't talked about them that much on the podcast, but they do regularly overlap with the paranormal

because suddenly you're looking for theories. Now we are going to talk about paranormal and non-paranormal theories at the end of the episode. But I do want to caveat the story that we just heard by just, of course, making everyone aware of the facts, Middle Rivers was 74 years old. Oh, my God.

Just want everyone to know that. And I'm not... He tripped and turned to ash then. He just... He just... I'm not saying 74 is old. It's kind of old. But 74 is entering the age where

if you fall down, you might not get back. back up. It's, yeah, it could be your last. Increasingly in the modern age, I mean, I don't, I don't want to throw them onto the bus here, but, you know, my parents are in that kind of region. And in the modern age, that's not that old. Yeah. But going back a few years, 1945, did I say? Yeah. Well, don't make that noise. I think the life expectancy was 54, you know, at that point. And also depends how you lived. Yeah. Because back then, I mean, because yeah, if it's 1945 and you're 74, you were born in the 1800s. Well, this isn't helping.

That is hell my case. You've had a hard life. Yeah. But that means you're a tough person. You know the wilderness. A fragile person, I think. It's time to move forward to disappearance number two. Paula Weldon, 1946.

Almost exactly one year later, the mystery of the Bennington triangle deepened. Paula Weldon, an 18-year-old college student. I know kids happy about that. Still had some fight left in her at 18. Yeah. A couple years more life expectancy at that point, yep. Set out alone for a hike along Vermont's long trail. A well-traveled path that shouldn't have posed any danger.

Well, see, now we're getting too young, because 18 going solo hiking across America is a new house. It is a new hazard. You'll never be happy. I'm joking. I'm choking. Let's go. Let's go. While moving along the trail, she eventually approached a bend that briefly obscured her from view. When nearby hikers reached the same point, only seconds later, Paula was gone. She vanished in the brief moment that she was out of sight. Well, she fell down a ravine, yeah.

Nope, no one even heard anything, saw anything in the seconds she was gone. Now, people took this disappearance seriously. When Paula Weldon failed to attend class that following morning, hundreds of volunteers, law enforcement officers, and even federal investigators comb the area in an attempt to find any trace of where she might have gone. That's a big group. You know, even if it was somebody who fell down a ravine or off a cliff or something, you are going to hopefully find something if you scour the fields.

In fact, the FBI even posted a five-thousand-a-firm. $1,000 reward, which taking inflation into account, I did check this, is just over $100,000. Yes. Isn't that crazy? Adjusting for inflation, they were offering one Bitcoin. That's, I mean, yeah, this was the time where you would go, you'd go buy a bottle of coke for a penny, for a nickel. Yeah. You know?

The only problem I have with that is if I go missing. now and someone's like, oh, a $100,000 reward to find Rory, in like 50 years, people are going to be like, damn, people really didn't care about that guy. That'll get you a ham sandwich these days, you know, in like 2060. So I think we should, like if I go missing, I would really appreciate it if UKIT or the commune put up a sign for like a hundred million. Right. Because the thing is I'm dead. I am dead, obviously. So no one's going to find me. You'll never have to pay the money. But that does on paper look like someone actually cared about my life. Yeah. Well, it's like in the Drake song, I'm upset. As he says, I'm upset. 50,000 on my head is just disrespect. Yeah. It's like because I guess someone put out a hit on him. And he's like, what the hell? 50K? I'm worth more than that to you people. Yeah. I think, yeah, if your bounty was too low, you might be a little offended. It's a little embarrassing. It's a little embarrassing. Yeah. So at least... It's like, look, 50 quid weather spoons voucher. If you find Rory today, 50 quid weather's

voucher, no problem. Despite weeks of searching, no evidence was ever found. Newspapers at the time said that, quote, no footprints beyond the turn have been located, and she appears to have disappeared without leaving any trail. We talked about it on previous episodes. I don't want to jump ahead, but have we considered that she went up? Because the footprints disappeared. Right. You're thinking about UFOs and alien abductions. No, well, I'm going to be honest, I ain't even going getting that far. I'm just like, she went up some way, somehow. You think she was raptured? The Lord claimed her. Could have been Jesus, yeah. There are a lot of interesting theories for today's episode of the

podcast. I think, why don't we get through the rest of the disappearances? Or she flew like the Snowman. I'm walking. Have we considered that? It was December. It was December in Vermont. It probably was some snow flying around. Disappearance number three.

This was our opening case. James Tedford in 1949 who disappeared on the bus. By the time James Tedford disappeared in 1949, the earlier cases had already begun to create a dark legend surrounding the Bennington Triangle, enough of a legend that you probably shouldn't have driven a bus full of people through it. I imagine every day this bus driver takes off with every seat taken and he reaches the first stop and he's like,

all right, everyone, first stop is, they're gone. Everyone's gone. I was going to say, he's like handcuffed to the bus so he can't get raptured. He's like getting a suit that's sewn into the seat. Putting his like kinky shackles on. He's got like leather straps pitting him to the seat. He can barely steer the bus.

I mean, it's not a bad business plan if you just drive a bunch of people into a place where everyone goes missing and then you've got a bus full of stuff up for grabs. Yeah, as long as they leave their bag sitting there. I mean, also, I mean, this is alternative theories. It's 1945.

I presume seatbelts haven't been invented yet. Is he just breaking too hard? And we check the windows. People haven't just flown out the window. That is a genuine possibility. Unfortunately, we still have more disappearances to go. Our next disappearance is Paul Jepson, 1950. In October of 1950, Mrs. Jepson and her 8-year-old son, Paul,

drove out by the Bennington Town dump where the family kept a herd of pigs. Mrs. Jepson was there to do a round of farming chores, so she left Paul unattended in the vehicle for only about 30, 30 minutes while she tended to the animals. When she returned to the car, he was gone. Mrs. Jepson immediately began to panic and called the authorities to try and help find Paul. Teams arrived to search the area and with the help of tracking dogs, they were able to pick up a scent. However, the trail they followed didn't lead towards safety or nearby homes.

Instead, it headed directly towards the forests and the slopes of Glastonbury Mountain. It was like something was calling Paul. And then, just like before, the trail ended. Search reports at the time said, quote, the scent was lost without indication of direction or cause. There's some indication up. No, not up. Dogs can't smell up.

Their noses don't, their faces don't work that way. Yeah, dogs can't look up. That's true. Paul Jefferson was never found. Disappeared. Another one claimed by the mountain. So dark. Very, very dark.

There were more disappearances. In fact, another one took place only 16 days later when Frida Langer disappeared after taking a quote-unquote shortcut through the woods back to camp. However, people do slightly disregard this one because her body was found. Yeah, that's pretty...

That would disqualify the disappearance, for sure. She did disappear, and then they did find the body eventually. Right. But, you know, depending on what is causing these disappearances, she could still be a victim of the paranormal thing. You know, so people do include it in the list. It's part of the lore.

Every one of these events is a tragedy. And what we're here to find out is whether or not these tragedies are linked to the world of the paranormal. Because if anything, the one that got found is kind of a clue for what might have happened to some of the others. Okay. Did we know what happened to her? Did she fall down the ravine, like I said? D drowned in a river. That was the official diagnosis.

Because I hadn't even thought of that But that is a good way to disappear Probably should have Right But I mean listen So there's a pretty fast river running through this place You kind of left that out until now I'm worried I had to ask

How she disappeared Middle was named after the river Oh yeah I forgot The famous river Bennington's mostly river Actually Are you forgetting kit

That a guy flipped out of a bus Yeah It's the Bennington triangle, if you couldn't put it together like the Bermuda triangle or these other paranormal triangles, it's a location on this earth with strange disappearances, paranormal activity. It doesn't matter if you're on the hiking trails, if you're a kid in a car, if you're a man on a bus, people are disappearing. It is kind of a psychological difference to being Irish or even

being British compared to being American that you have to contend with, our country over here in Ireland and Britain is just smaller. Yeah. Disappearing is not really a fear we have. Yeah. It's true. Like Ireland is just not that big. I mean, I'm sure it happens. But like, it definitely has hit me the few times I have been in kind of wildernessy places in America, like Joshua Tree. or when me and you were in the Nevada desert. Oh, yeah. That, like, you see the missing persons posters and you're like, wait, what? I've never seen a real missing person's poster in my life.

Yeah, yeah. Or if I have, it's like in a city, you know, where it's like, it's just a sad story. Someone's, you know, disappeared. But unfortunately, they probably will be found. Yeah, just like, just lamppost littered and missing persons posters. It's really scary. Very creepy. Yeah, that was a bit of a culture shock.

I think I talked about on the podcast before. But whenever Kit and I went out to investigate Area 51 in the desert, we were staying at a tiny, tiny hotel, if you can call it that, in the middle of nowhere. Oh, yeah, the motel. The motel. And on our last day, we were talking with the lovely lady there who ran it. And we said that we drove up from Vegas. And she was like, oh, I mean, it's great that you didn't drive down from the north because there's a serial killer. impersonating a police officer,

flagging down cars and then shooting the passengers in the head. We were like, this is the last day of our trip. We've been driving everywhere. We've been getting real friendly with Officer Jones who's been patrolling.

In fact, we were on our way to get brunch on our last morning. He's so nice. I just assumed part of the desert uniform was no pants. That was part of regulation. I was like,

Officer Joe's a really cool guy. Like, he just, I don't know, he's really passionate about life. He's always licking his lips. He was showing us the inside of his trunk the other day. He was like, it's really spacious. You guys should hop in. Check it out.

Yeah, that's just things that we don't, I've just never had any experience with. It's very scary. We haven't had to worry about. So, yeah. I don't know what my point is. But it's a different, it's a different world, man.

The continent of the Americas is, is pretty big. Pretty big, pretty scary. And I'm getting the impression that this mountain range is big and dangerous. And if it's dangerous now, imagine what it would be like in the 1940s.

Very scary. Kit, it's that time of the episode. We need to talk paranormal theories. And then, if we have time before the end, logical explanations. Don't make it sounds like such a conclusion. Yeah, no, I'm just looking at. the clock i don't think we're going to have time for logical conclusions so that's probably for the

best just the paranormal stuff what if the reason no one ever found the bodies is because there's nothing to find we're talking about time slips yeah hey called it we've discussed it on the podcast before we've done whole episodes on this before a time slip is a phenomenon that we've covered before it usually involves a particular place where there's some kind of strange anomaly that creates a portal to another time. Usually the past, we haven't, we don't know about anyone that went to the future. I don't remember if there's anyone who's going on the future. Yeah, I don't know if they work that way. But it's as simple as that. People will be walking down the street and then unintentionally step out of their timeline and into another. Yeah. I think as you said, it's a street in Liverpool

that's very famous for it, where people will be walking down the street, feel some strange sensation, And then all of a sudden it's as simple as they don't recognize the cars or the buildings or the clothes that people are wearing because they slipped back in time. Yeah. And no, it's not because Liverpool is like going back in time. All right. It's a very cool progressive place. City. And yeah, do they film lots of stuff in Liverpool? Like the show Say Nothing. They literally didn't even shoot the show in Belfast where it's set because Liverpool looks more authentically old. Yeah, sure. Some of the streets look really fucking old. Because Liverpool looks like the bombed out troubled times of Belfast.

Sure. Yeah. But no, that's not what was happening. There was like kids riding penny farthings and stuff. Yeah. And listen, we can't talk. I remember when old manager Charlie was on tour with us in Belfast. Right.

And it was his first time visiting the city. Yeah. And we were like messaging and being like, how are you getting on, dude? Do you join it? And he was like, yeah. there's a flaming skip outside my window. Right. Just a giant trash can lit on fire.

And I was like, yeah, man, welcome to the city. Yeah, I think this theory is interesting because when we talk about time slips before, we usually talk about the perspective of the person that slipped into the past. We don't talk about what it was like to be someone who saw that person slip. Yeah.

Which is, could be as simple as this. One minute they're there. They take a step and then go on. What I love about stuff like time slips as well is because it sounds really sci-fi, really Twilight Zone, really paranormal. But then if you like do corner like a theoretical physicist or a quantum physicist and be like, all right, I know it's pretty out there, but what about time slips? They'll be like so annoyed, but they'll be like, oh, yeah, it's technically possible. And you're like, what? And they're like, yeah, well, yeah.

Obviously it is. Like, look, yeah, is it unlikely sure. Is it, have we seen it happen to mice in labs? Yes. Sometimes they call them the Shanghai experiments of 98. 16 mice just blipped, okay? We don't know why. We don't know how.

We've been trying to recreate it ever since. No one can explain it. We had a lab monkey called Bobo that disappeared out of nowhere. And then someone saw him in a painting. of the Battle of Hastings. The Bayo tapestry. He's a background in a lab coat, so afraid. He was holding a Claymore.

He had a suit of arms. He got blipped back to 1066. They're like, yes, most of my day is just your spreadsheets, calculations. Some of my day is looking for bobo. On Google Maps. I take the satellite view and I wind the clock back. It's a possibility.

It's one of the theory. We think it's Diet Coke. We think if you consume just enough aspartame, you blip. Option two. And I don't know if I agree with this one today, but it is a theory. UFOs.

Alien abductions. Believe it or not, this is a popular theory. The late 1940s was right around the beginning of widespread, UFO sightings in North America. Yeah. But Kit, we've studied so many UFO abduction stories over the years.

We know that it isn't just a green tractor beam that sucks a dude up into the sky. Sometimes it is. Well, occasionally. Sometimes it's a tractor beam sucking a guy's jeans off his legs. Pause. But typically you would find more physical evidence. You would find indentations in the ground. The vegetation's been altered.

People would have seen something in the sky or heard something. No, you are right. There's almost always just the primary source sense evidence of, as you say, usually a lot of noise, a lot of light. Yeah. A lot of X, Y, Z. Yeah, yeah. So for someone to just disappear, I don't think a UFO could have made that happen. Another paranormal explanation that people have considered is a cryptid. But come on, guys. I mean, if we're talking about a traditional cryptid here, like Bigfoot,

or some kind of big cat. These people wouldn't just be blipping. There would be screams. There'd be blood. There'd be torn clothes on the ground. You know? Unless you're talking about a cryptid that's much more otherworldly and supernatural.

Atmospheric jellyfish, for example. Exactly. Another great episode. You know, there are local legends in Vermont about something referred to as the Bennington monster. Should have brought that up earlier, for sure. If there's a monster named after this exact place, bring that up in the first act.

When people describe it, it's essentially just Bigfoot or a Wildman. It's just like... Oh, and I'm sure he was just minding his own business when these people, when these perinicent people went missing. I'm sure he was just playing Domino's. Yeah. Yeah, but... Okay, well, here's a great example.

Let's just say the Bennington Wildman did turn up. Middle Rivers was a hunter with a gun going through there. You don't think he would have at least fired a shot. There would have been a struggle. Cobra strike to the throat. Snap the gun in half. throw middle over his back and take off into the woods. You think that's what would happen?

I think it's possible. I don't know. I don't believe it. May I remind you, someone disappeared on a bus. Yeah. Unless the Bennington monsters buying a ticket and hopping on board and just like snapping a neck in the back, I don't think that's possible. I think out of all these theories, the one that stands out the most to me, of course, is time slips.

Now, interestingly, another version of time slips is a phenomenon that's known in the paranormal world as a thin place. Now, we have talked about this, I believe, on the show before. Maybe not in this context, but I think we described it talking about like fairy circles and things like that, where it's a location where the boundary between our world and the supernatural world or between multiple realities is somehow weaker. It's thinner, which allows people to slip from one world into another without explanation. Yeah, it's true. I mean, we are getting to the core of kind of deep down, but unfortunately, annoyingly vague paranormal beliefs that there just are funny places.

Yeah. There are places where the vibe is different. And sometimes you get into explanations of why that is, is it laylines? That would be quite a popular one in Britain. It's the concept of laylines. Yeah. Is there a, is there a, uh, a, um, a. matrix of paranormal energy on the terrain itself, which as you say makes it a thin place or makes it special in some way. Often very ancient cultures have ideas around this. I know in Ireland, they do have this kind of thing. There's many, for example, like holy wells, which would have been like places of, you know, spiritual energy dotted around the country have to imagine that America has these as well. Yes, thin places where, as I said, the world that we inhabit, our reality is

kind of pressed up against this more fantastical paranormal supernatural world. It also feels a little bit like the backrooms that we talked about before, you know, where people just kind of step into this alternate reality, this other space. You know, once again, we hear the stories of the people who went into the room. Today we're listening to the stories of the witnesses who saw these people disappear. It's much like the Disney Pixar movie Coco, which talks about the traditional Day of the Dead, I think it's more like on a specific, that's often what goes alongside a thin place is that there's maybe a specific time as well. Yeah. Something's especially possible. We need to pull up the full moon charts. Was there a full moon? Was it the solstice? You did say one was

in December. I remember that much. Was it the winter solstice? That's true. Was it the planets? Was Venus being eclipsed by Mercury or something? Some weird space shit going. what I'm saying, bro. Possibly. The whole, like, thin place, reality slipping thing is genuinely so interesting. We might have to do a full episode on it in the future because there's a lot more stories about it. It's very cool.

You know where else is a thin place? Where? Japan. No one's overweight. Yeah. If you ever tried to navigate the thin corridors of the 7-Elevens? I feel like a bull in a China shop. I'm just knocking shit over as I walk.

You ever tried to buy a piece of clothing in Japan? Man, you'll realize the thin place. Whose sizes are different. Now, we can't talk about this case without bringing up a documentary called Missing 4-1-1. For show, for show. You know about this, right?

This is one of the most requested topics on this paranormal life history. Yeah, which is absolutely so insulting to our listeners that I refuse to do it, but still acknowledge it in a different case. Right at the buzzer as well. Right at the end. Yeah, I just say that and I go,

So there you go, we brought it up. Now conclusions. No, listen, I'm sure we will get on to that full investigation. That one is hard to tiptoe around because it's a little more grisly. And I think a lot of people are like, there's probably a lot of murders in there. Yeah, and there's kind of a sense to which we're trying to, sometimes we don't want to cover a story that's too all-encompassing. We want to pick out an individual disappearance.

Yeah. Or a handful of people like this investigation. Yeah, exactly. So I'm sure we will get on to it. But for those of you who don't know, missing 411 was some books and then a documentary that came out a few years back, made a huge splash in the paranormal world.

It focuses on unexplained disappearances primarily in national parks and remote wilderness areas. It's pretty crazy stuff that they kind of theorize. And the community has really taken it and brought it to some pretty wild places in terms of theories. as to what's going on. The stories in that documentary are very similar to today,

if not even creepier and more bizarre, with people theorizing that the U.S. national parks are home to secret military labs built underground and in caves. Or dare I say it, folks, you ever hear of a little place called the Hollow Earth? Yeah, that's right, we're doing it. I don't know if that's what that means.

It is what it means. No, it's another offer. Because what they're describing is the plot to Resident Evil, that Umbrella Corporation has illegal labs underneath the earth. Yeah. And it's disappearing people. You're talking about an ancient race of like mole people or Nordic grays that are living in the earth. Yes, I believe they are the Nordic grays. Yeah.

Okay, where they can live to 200 years old or something like that. And they live under Mount Shasta. I did an episode on the Hollow Earth very early into our journey. into making this paranormal life. And he didn't shut up about it for like three years. And we're about to get back into it. I became madly obsessed with it. Then I got hit in the back of the head by a baseball once.

I forgot it ever happened. And then I read the words hollow earth yesterday. And it all came back. I'm ready to do Hollow Earth part two. I want to go back journey to the center of the earth. Wow. But we're not doing that right now because we have to kind of wrap up

and come to our conclusions. I guess we're going to. we do have a little time to talk about rational explanations, so we'll do it. Option number one, did these people get lost and die in the woods? Possibly. Possibly. It's very... It's very tragic, but not paranormal. There are ravines. Like I said, many ravines.

Many rivers, it sounds like. Middle rivers, yeah. Listen, I'm just going to tell you a little bit of information. a little bit more information about the people that went missing, and we need to take that into consideration. Listen, I'm just going to tell you a little bit more about some of the individuals in our cases, and we need to take that into consideration

while we're coming down on our conclusions. So a reminder, Middle Rivers was 74 years old. Paula Weldon, the 18-year-old student, went hiking by herself in December in Vermont. That's a dangerous time to go hiking, especially solo. Is it a cold? place. I don't know the Americas. Paul Jepson was eight. That's just a child. A lot of bad stuff can happen. Oh, I got it twisted and I thought it was the dad, but it was because there's Paul and

Paula Jr. Yeah. So Paul Jr. went missing. Yes. Okay. The kid. Um, she left, I would have picked you up way earlier on that. She left her eight-year-old for 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Oh, my God. That's fine, right? Dude, works out well for Madeline McCann. Anyway, maybe it's a generational thing, but like, I remember going shopping with my parents. And they would be like, careful what you admit here. They're like, do you want to come in or you want car? And I'd be like, car.

And they'd be like, okay. And then we just lock the doors to the car. And they'd be like, I'll come back with the shopping. Yeah. You just sit, you just chill in the car. Yeah, I know. It was the 90s. No one does that anymore.

Maybe they don't do that anymore. They don't have car time. You don't, if you leave your dog in a car, people will like smash the car windows open to free the dog. One time my family just went on holiday and they just left me in the car. That's the plot of home alone. That's your misremembering.

And these guys tried to break in the house and I had to like come up with some genius booby traps to protect myself. Just a lot of things to consider in today's case. Another one of the bodies was found I think like just face down in a river. You sound like you're mentally like winding down, even the, like, do you even believe the paranormal explanations anymore?

I think the yes is disappearing. Today's case, blipping out of existence. Listen, it's worth noting that, you know, the locals and the police did take all of these disappearances very seriously. And by the time that we reached Jepson's disappearance in 1950, the Bennington Evening Baner Newspaper even published an article suggesting that the region might contain a, quote, Lost Horizon, which is a reference to a novel from 1933, where a group of people become lost in a mystical mountainous area of Tibet.

Wow. So I only bring that up to show you that even at the time, a lot of people, locals, newspapers, and law enforcement believed it could be something paranormal. There could be something here, a triangle, a thin place, time slips, whatever it was, people were walking into the woods and disappearing. It is really tough. because I'm kind of open to everything on this topic. Like, I know there is the rational side of our brain,

which wants to say this is bollocks. It's obviously Occam's Razor dictates that we must say that this is just a natural and logical disappearance that someone died and is lost. The world is a big place. But part of me does believe in the kind of woo-woo explanations. I think there's time for it. There's space for it.

There's space for it. You know, it's, especially when you have this, a suspicious amount of activity, you know, that's our job as paranormal investigators to consider that as an option and ultimately say no. But it's, the problem is it would be one thing actually, if it were to bet. And if the local people were like, look, bro, we've been here for 1,000 years. You think we don't know about the thin place? Yeah, anybody who goes and even so much as looks at the thin place vanishes. We've all seen them vanish. That would be one thing. But we don't have that. What we have is... What's wrong with Vermont? What we have instead is a pattern of people not knowing what's happening and a pattern throughout modern history of people regularly disappearing, sometimes being found dead, sometimes being found alive and sometimes not being found at all. It's almost a kind of survival.

bias at play, where if someone turns up alive or maybe even turns up dead, we say, well, no, that was logical. But if they don't turn up at all, we're like, it's paranormal. It's like, well, no, there's just, there's three options. There's a secret third thing. But it doesn't mean the cause is different. Yeah. They all went missing for the same reason. The outdoors is dangerous and vast. And if you're on your own, well, you're on your own. Yeah. I don't, yeah, this is a lot of problems with today's case. If these time slips or reality slips, were happening just in like a car park, that would be one thing.

But the fact that it's a lot of people going missing, hiking by themselves in quite a dangerous terrain and area, I mean, you gotta address the elephant in the room. Is this just a dangerous place to hike? And a lot of people weren't prepared for it or befell some kind of tragedy. Yeah, because... Or was it the Bennington Wildman?

11 foot tall. Hair, thick is strong. Because unfortunately, sometimes when you do see those missing persons posters, we talked about in America. A lot of times it'll be like, Paula Weldon, last scene, February 12th, went out into the woods with a chubba chub and a pack of wet wipes. It's like, all right, well. And a chubb chub ain't slang for boner, folks. Would have been great if they had had water and a first aid kit and a satellite phone. Yeah.

But they did, you know. Exactly. So this is 1940s. Yeah. That probably would have been a good prepare. Yeah. For a trip like that. Wow, wet wipes.

They really thought ahead. Yeah, there were plenty. I think it's time to come down on our conclusions, guys. For this week's episode, I think it's pretty clear that it's going to be a no for me this week. It's a no from me this week. Unfortunately. But I did find this case very interesting. I think the concept of time slips and reality slips and thin places is so interesting.

that combined with missing 411. It sounds like we've got some great episodes in the future that we could dive into, along with the Hollow Earth Part 2. Let me know in the comments. If you want to hear the Hollow Earth Part 2, maybe we'll do that as a bonus episode because I think if it was on the public feed,

we'd lose a lot of listeners. And you know how that episode's going to go when we finally get into it? Rory's going to go, our story today begins, and I'm going to go, whoo! Disappear. I'm going to take my leave. He's going to mentally disappear from his brain.

I do actually, it's been a while since we've had a case where I go tinfoil hat mode. Yeah, I know. I lose my mind a little bit. We've all been saying, dude, you're a shill. You've been cash in those NASA checks. Don't think we're not been noticing. Hey. Look at those nice new glasses on your face.

We know what's happening. You're in the pocket of round earth. Let me tell you, I'm ready to prove you guys wrong. I got a case coming up. that I'm watching out my windows at night for white vans across the street. I've stumbled onto something huge. Yeah, that's coming up. But in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of the podcast.

I had a blast researching this one. Hopefully you enjoyed listening to it. And of course, a reminder, the message that we gave you at the start of the episode, we are doing our only live show of the entire year this October on the 11th right here in London. Please come along. It's going to be so much fun. We're going to turn it into a huge event. And it would be so sad if we didn't get to do a live show and have the opportunity like we always do to meet the listeners. Do, you know, sell some cool merchandise, do the meet and greet, hang out afterwards. Have a big party with everyone.

Dude, what's the after party going to be? I don't know. Wait, actually. Am I going to learn to DJ? Wake up, wake up, woke up. Actually, you know what? I can tell you what the after party is going to be like. I just got to fire up a little machine there.

that we bought real quick and I can go check it out. We're gonna be traveling through time. We're gonna do something insane. Which it's gonna be nuts. We probably shouldn't talk about it too much because obviously if like, if world governments find out that we have possession of this technology, they will make sure

we never get to display it. Yeah. But the show is called this paranormal life, we bought a time machine. The white van that was parked outside of your house because of the hollow earth, another white van pulled up and they're like, wait, why are you here? It's because of the time machine.

With the what? We're here because he's investigating the hollow word. Jesus Christ, another van pulls up. The traffic outside my apartment is ridiculous, just lines of vans. I've already been to the future, and I've seen that tickets are flying off the shelves. So you are going to want to head to This paranormalLife.com. To become a member, the link is in the description. And as we said, members always, when we do live shows and tours, they get first access, first dibs on those tickets. So there is a pre-sale life right now for the next.

week. And then I think next week on around Wednesday, I think the general sales starts, we'll give you a reminder next week for everybody else. But if you want to get first dibs and get the best seats in the house, go grab those tickets to this paranormal life.com. Go check it out, guys. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the podcast. We love you and we'll see you next week.