Speaker 1: Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode. In this video,
Speaker 1: we invite you to join us for a trip down
Speaker 1: thee strange rabbit hole that some refer to as the
Speaker 1: Bennington Triangle. The area known as the Bennington Triangle, which
Speaker 1: surrounds Glastonbury Mountain in the New England state of Vermont,
Speaker 1: as a long strange history of bizarre occurrences. This includes
Speaker 1: UFO sightings, big Foot encounters, eerie lights and sounds, and
Speaker 1: the triangle also happens to be the location of several
Speaker 1: unsolved disappearances during the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. If
Speaker 1: that isn't odd enough, According to Native American lore, the
Speaker 1: area's heavily cursed. The Native American tribes of New England
Speaker 1: have always known something was off for the area and
Speaker 1: tend to steer clear of it at all costs. One
Speaker 1: two particularly chilling legend from the Algonquin tribe cautions of
Speaker 1: the existence of what are described as evil rocks in
Speaker 1: the mountains, which have the ability to spring open and
Speaker 1: devour those unfortunate enough to step upon them. Now, this
Speaker 1: is rather interesting, considering how people have vanished without a
Speaker 1: trace from within the triangle. New England author Joseph A.
Speaker 1: Citro is the person considered to have coined the term
Speaker 1: Bennington Triangle in nineteen ninety two while doing a radio
Speaker 1: broadcast about paranormal and other unusual activity in the area.
Speaker 1: According to Citro's findings, he states that the area has
Speaker 1: similar characteristics with the equally strange Bridgewater Triangle in the
Speaker 1: bordering state of Massachusetts, which has been written about extensively
Speaker 1: by cryptozoologist Lauren Coleman. The Bennington Triangle is centered around
Speaker 1: the heavily wooded forest of Glastonbury Mountain and also includes
Speaker 1: the small towns of Bennington, Woodford, and Shaftesbury, and also
Speaker 1: the abandoned or ghost towns of Somerset and Glastonbury. Over
Speaker 1: the last two hundred years, there have been many encounters
Speaker 1: with and sightings of a big foot like crypton in
Speaker 1: the area surrounding Glastonbury Mountain. The locals, as well as
Speaker 1: paranormal and cryptosiological investigators, refer to this unknown creature as
Speaker 1: the Bennington Monster. The earliest recorded sightings of the beast
Speaker 1: occurred in the early eighteen hundreds, when a stagecoach loaded
Speaker 1: with passengers was forced to stop its journey due to
Speaker 1: a heavily washed out section of the stage road. The
Speaker 1: driver the stagecoach observed that there were very large footprints
Speaker 1: in the mud which were way too large to belong
Speaker 1: to any human. While the perplexed driver was pondering these prints,
Speaker 1: the stage coach was suddenly attacked by a large creature.
Speaker 1: It was strong enough to flip the stagecoach over onto
Speaker 1: its side. The terrified passengers stated that they observed a
Speaker 1: frightening pair of large eyes peering into the overturned coach
Speaker 1: at them, before whatever the creature was screamed and then
Speaker 1: ran off to disappear in the surrounding woods. The passengers
Speaker 1: would later describe the monster as a large, hairy, black
Speaker 1: creature well over six feet in height. The area has
Speaker 1: long been rife with tales of people suddenly going missing
Speaker 1: within the area of the triangle. One of the oddest
Speaker 1: disappearances was that of a man named Carol Herrick in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three. Eric disappeared while on a hunting trip
Speaker 1: just a few miles northeast of the abandoned town of Glastonbury.
Speaker 1: Although his body was found three days later, it was
Speaker 1: observed to be surrounded by dozens of footprints too large
Speaker 1: for a normal person. It was also determined that Carol
Speaker 1: appeared to have been squeezed to death. Then, beginning in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five and continuing for the next five years,
Speaker 1: people began to go mysteriously missing from the area with
Speaker 1: an alarming regularity. A man named Middy Rivers, a seventy
Speaker 1: four year old hunting guide very familiar with the area,
Speaker 1: went missing on November twelfth, nineteen forty five. Rivers, who
Speaker 1: had led many hunting parties in the area over decades,
Speaker 1: was taking a group of four hunters to the oddly
Speaker 1: named Hell Hollow area, which is located within the southwest
Speaker 1: forest of Blastombury. While leading the hunting party back to camp,
Speaker 1: he somehow got ahead of the other four and, for
Speaker 1: reasons unknown, never returned to the camp site. At first,
Speaker 1: the other hunters were not overly concerned, as they knew
Speaker 1: Middy to be an expert woodsman and knowledgeable guide. When
Speaker 1: Rivers still had failed returned the next day, the authorities
Speaker 1: were contacted and an extensive search was held, comprising as
Speaker 1: many as three hundred worried locals, as well as a
Speaker 1: number of US Army soldiers who had been dispatched from
Speaker 1: nearby Fort Devons in Massachusetts. They searched through the deep
Speaker 1: woods for eight straight days, but the only possible evidence
Speaker 1: found was an AMMO cartridge for the same type rifle
Speaker 1: that Rivers was known to be carrying. The cartridge was
Speaker 1: found in a shallow stream, and there was no evidence
Speaker 1: of any foul play or animal attack nearby. Although they
Speaker 1: had no luck with the extensive search effort, many of
Speaker 1: Mitty's friends and those local to the area were sure,
Speaker 1: with the man's knowledge of the woods and survival skills,
Speaker 1: he would eventually return. However, this never came to be,
Speaker 1: and no trace of the missing guide has ever been found.
Speaker 1: The area from which Rivers vanished is near a Long
Speaker 1: Trail Road and Vermont State Route nine. The very next year,
Speaker 1: on Sunday, December one, nineteen forty six, an eighteen year
Speaker 1: old college student named Paula Weldon went missing while hiking
Speaker 1: in the same area around Long Trail Road, easily remembered
Speaker 1: because she was wearing a bright red jacket. Several people
Speaker 1: were called Singer that day, including a shop clerk in
Speaker 1: Bennington who had provided her with directions, and also a
Speaker 1: couple of elderly hikers who had been approximately three hundred
Speaker 1: feet behind her on the trail for part of their hike.
Speaker 1: The alarm was sounded when the college sophomore didn't show
Speaker 1: up the next morning for her classes at Bennington College.
Speaker 1: An extensive search was launched by local authorities and included
Speaker 1: more than one thousand volunteer searchers. There were also searches
Speaker 1: conducted from the air and with the assistance of the FBI,
Speaker 1: and a five thousand dollars reward was off When interviewed,
Speaker 1: the elderly couple who had observed Paula hiking just ahead
Speaker 1: of them on the trail stated that after they watched
Speaker 1: her turn a corner on the trail, she seemed to
Speaker 1: have just vanished. Despite the extensive searches and the offer
Speaker 1: of the five thousand dollars reward, no trace of paul
Speaker 1: and Weldon has ever been found, and her fate remains unknown.
Speaker 1: Exactly three years to the day of the disappearance of
Speaker 1: Paula Weldon, a man named James Tedford suddenly vanished from
Speaker 1: a bus on December one, nineteen forty nine. A military
Speaker 1: veteran and resident of the local Bennington Soldiers' Home, Tedford
Speaker 1: was returning by a bus from Saint Albans, where he
Speaker 1: had been visiting relatives when he vanished. Based on eyewitness accounts,
Speaker 1: Tedford and thirteen other passengers were on the bus at
Speaker 1: the previous stop before the bus at arrived in Bennington,
Speaker 1: but when the bus pulled into the station, he had
Speaker 1: somehow disappeared. His bags were still on the luggage track
Speaker 1: and a bus schedule was found lying open on his
Speaker 1: now empty seat. The other passengers stated that they didn't
Speaker 1: see Teedford get off the bus at any of the
Speaker 1: previous stops, and he wasn't on the bus when it
Speaker 1: pulled into Bennington. Authorities investigated the disappearance and were convinced
Speaker 1: that no one had seen anything and there were no
Speaker 1: suspicious incidents which had occurred during the bus trip. One
Speaker 1: strange and interesting fact, it should be noted that Tedford's wife, Pearl,
Speaker 1: had also vanished under mysterious circumstances a couple of years prior. Now,
Speaker 1: there aren't many details about his early life, but in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty Tadfrid was listed as a resident in Franklin, Vermont,
Speaker 1: with his wife, Pearl, who was much younger, her age
Speaker 1: being twenty eight while he was fifty six. The strangeness
Speaker 1: began following Teedford's return to Vermont after the end of
Speaker 1: his second round of military service near the end of
Speaker 1: World War II. Upon his return, he found that Pearl
Speaker 1: had vanished, no trace of her to be found, and
Speaker 1: the house the couple had rented in Franklin, Vermont, was
Speaker 1: found and being left abandoned. Tedford's family claimed no knowledge
Speaker 1: as to the whereabouts of the missing wife, and stated
Speaker 1: the last time they had seen her was as she
Speaker 1: was on her way to the Amaco gas station in Franklin.
Speaker 1: There was speculation among the locals that rather than having
Speaker 1: met with foul play, she had understandably grown tired of
Speaker 1: waiting for a much older husband to return from war
Speaker 1: and had simply taken off. Whatever the cause, she was
Speaker 1: never to be seen or heard from again. Tedford was
Speaker 1: crushed and moved into the local home for soldiers, where
Speaker 1: he still lived when he vanished the next year. On
Speaker 1: October twelfth, nineteen fifty an eight year old boy named
Speaker 1: Paul Jepson was the next in the area to go missing.
Speaker 1: Jepson was last seen in the cab of his mother's
Speaker 1: pickup truck in Bennington, where she had left him to
Speaker 1: play while she briefly tended to her pigs. When the
Speaker 1: mother returned, she found that the boy was gone. She
Speaker 1: quickly looked for him in the nearby immediate area with
Speaker 1: no luck, after which she reported him missing, and soon
Speaker 1: hundreds of volunteers had assembled to help search for the
Speaker 1: missing boy. Tracking dogs were brought in to aid in
Speaker 1: the search for the missing boy. The dogs were able
Speaker 1: to pick up his scent and followed it towards Glastonbury Mountain. However,
Speaker 1: when the scent was lost at a nearby crossroads, it
Speaker 1: was thought that perhaps the boy had either been abducted
Speaker 1: by a stranger or otherwise accepted a ride in a
Speaker 1: passing automobile. Paul's father stated that oddly enough, the boy
Speaker 1: had talked about visit the mountain almost NonStop for the
Speaker 1: last week or so. The area around Glastonbury Mountain will
Speaker 1: searched extensively for the next several days, but sadly, no
Speaker 1: trace of Paul has ever been found. Then, sixteen days
Speaker 1: after Paul Jepson's mysterious disappearance, a woman named Frida Langer
Speaker 1: disappeared on October twenty eighth, nineteen fifty. Frida was camping
Speaker 1: with several other family members in the forest near Glastonbury Mountain. Langer,
Speaker 1: then aged fifty three, along with her cousin Herbert Elsner,
Speaker 1: had ventured away from the family's woodland campsite to go
Speaker 1: on a hike near the Somerset Reservoir. They had managed
Speaker 1: to hike just a few hundred yards from their campsite
Speaker 1: when Frida lost her footing and fell into a mountain stream,
Speaker 1: completely soaking her shoes and clothing. Due to the chili
Speaker 1: fall temperature in the mountains, Frita told her cousin to
Speaker 1: wait while she ran back to their campsite to change
Speaker 1: into some dry close. Her cousin stated that he waited
Speaker 1: for what seemed like a sufficient amount of time, and
Speaker 1: when Freda still hadn't returned, he decided to go back
Speaker 1: to the camp to see if she was okay. However,
Speaker 1: upon his return, he was shocked to learn that Freda
Speaker 1: hadn't returned to the campsite at all. She had instead
Speaker 1: apparently vanished in broad daylight in the distance of a
Speaker 1: few hundred yards. Brita was reported missing, and over the
Speaker 1: next several weeks, search parties with as many as four
Speaker 1: hundred people, including concerned volunteers, law enforcement, firefighters, and military,
Speaker 1: as well as some aircraft searched for her and came
Speaker 1: up empty handed. Sadly, the search was eventually abandoned. Seven
Speaker 1: months later. However, on May twelfth, nineteen fifty one, Frita's
Speaker 1: body was discovered near Somerset Reservoir, strangely enough, in an
Speaker 1: area that had been extensive searched many times previously. Advanced
Speaker 1: decomposition of her remains meant that no cause of death
Speaker 1: could be determined, and her case is still unsolved. And then,
Speaker 1: just as strangely and suddenly as they had begun, the
Speaker 1: string of disappearances stopped. Freedom Langer was the last person
Speaker 1: to vanish mysteriously during this timeframe and the only missing
Speaker 1: persons whose remains were found. Other than the geographic locations
Speaker 1: and timeframe, no other connection has been discovered that tie
Speaker 1: these cases to one another. Although some have speculated that
Speaker 1: a serial killer may be responsible for these strange disappearances,
Speaker 1: some blame the Native American curse or simply claim that
Speaker 1: the paranormalists to blame, as there appears to be an
Speaker 1: act of portal here into the unexplained. There's also the
Speaker 1: theory that the area is very unstable due to the
Speaker 1: unusually care chaotic and confusing wind and weather patterns on
Speaker 1: the mountain, which can cause people to easily become disoriented
Speaker 1: and then lost as a result. Regardless of what is
Speaker 1: to be believed, the Bennington Triangle is known to be
Speaker 1: home to strange and mysterious paranormal phenomena. As well as
Speaker 1: the aforementioned Bigfoot encounters and the stirring of mysterious disappearances,
Speaker 1: there are many many reports of strange broading orbs of light,
Speaker 1: sightings of other bizarre forest creatures, and even the occasional
Speaker 1: UFO siding. Well, there you have it, a small glipse
Speaker 1: into the unknown courtesy of the enigma known as the
Speaker 1: Bennington Triangle. I hope you've enjoyed these stories, and if
Speaker 1: there are other strange areas you'd like for us to cover,
Speaker 1: feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments below,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to please like, share, and subscribe for more. Also,
Speaker 1: i'd like to say, if you enjoy true tales of
Speaker 1: the paranormal, I invite you to visit my channel thirteen
Speaker 1: Past Midnight, where I narrate strange encounters from my books
Speaker 1: as well as some other unusual fare. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: take care of yourselves and each other. I'm Steve Stockton,
Speaker 1: and i'll talk to you next time.