BWBS Ep:133 The Bennington Triangle
In the shadow of Vermont's Glastenbury Mountain lies one of New England's most enduring mysteries, a dark chapter in American history that begins with a simple walk in the woods that ended in oblivion. On November 12, 1945, Middie Rivers, a 74-year-old hunting guide who knew the wilderness like the back of his weathered hands, told his companions he'd walk ahead to their camp. He never arrived. His disappearance would mark the beginning of a five-year period during which five people would vanish in the same remote area of southwestern Vermont, leaving behind grieving families, baffled search parties, and questions that remain unanswered to this day.This episode delves deep into the haunting history of what author Joseph Citro would later christen the Bennington Triangle, exploring not just the famous disappearances but the centuries of strangeness that preceded them. We begin with the ancient Abenaki people, who considered the mountain cursed and warned of a place where the four winds met in eternal struggle, where a malevolent stone could swallow the unwary whole. Their oral traditions speak of the mountain as sacred and dangerous in equal measure, a dwelling place of their god Tabaldak and home to creatures that walked upright like men but were something altogether different. The narrative traces the doomed attempts at settlement from Benning Wentworth's blind charter in 1761 through the brutal logging era that briefly brought prosperity and violence to the mountain. We examine the murders that stained the settlement's history, including the chilling 1892 killing of John Crowley by Henry McDowell, who claimed voices in his head commanded him to kill, and who later escaped from a mental hospital to vanish as completely as the mountain's later victims. The story follows Glastenbury's transformation from a rough logging town to a failed tourist resort, destroyed by flooding after just one season, and ultimately to Vermont's first unincorporated town, legally erased from existence in 1937.The heart of our investigation focuses on the five disappearances that would make the Bennington Triangle infamous. We explore each case in detail, from Paula Welden, the Bennington College sophomore whose vanishing in a bright red jacket inspired massive searches and the creation of the Vermont State Police, to James Tedford, whose impossible disappearance from a moving bus full of witnesses defies all rational explanation. We examine young Paul Jepson, the special needs child who spoke of nothing but the mountains for days before vanishing from his mother's truck, and Frieda Langer, the experienced hiker whose body mysteriously appeared seven months later in an area that had been thoroughly searched.Throughout the narrative, we weave together the various theories that have emerged over the decades to explain these disappearances.From the possibility of a serial killer stalking the mountain trails to indigenous legends of the Bennington Monster, from interdimensional portals and time slips to the more prosaic but no less terrifying reality of a wilderness that simply doesn't want human presence. We explore how the mountain's unusual geology, with its disorienting wind patterns and hidden sinkholes, might create natural traps that could swallow hikers without a trace.The episode also examines the cultural impact of the Bennington Triangle, from Shirley Jackson's psychological horror novel "Hangsaman" to modern paranormal investigations and the continuing reports of strange experiences on Glastenbury Mountain. We discuss contemporary encounters, including hikers who report inexplicable disorientation, time distortions, and the overwhelming feeling of being watched by something in the dense forest.We also take a look at recent incidents like the 2008 case of Robert Singley, who became lost on the same trail where Paula Welden vanished despite modern equipment and clear weather, finding the landscape seemed to change around him as he walked. Drawing from historical documents, newspaper archives, census records, and indigenous oral traditions, this comprehensive investigation presents the most complete picture possible of the Bennington Triangle mystery.We explore how a place that once housed 241 souls now officially contains just eight residents, how the forest has reclaimed most traces of human habitation, and how the mountain continues to exert its strange influence on those who venture onto its slopes.This is more than just a true crime story or a collection of ghost tales. It's an exploration of how landscapes can become legendary, how unexplained tragedies transform into folklore, and how some mysteries endure precisely because they resist solution.The Bennington Triangle stands as a reminder that even in our mapped and measured world, there remain places where people can simply step off the path and vanish forever, where the line between the possible and impossible becomes as twisted and unclear as a trail through dark Vermont woods.As we trace the history from ancient Abenaki warnings through colonial settlement, industrial exploitation, and modern mystery, one truth emerges clearly: some places don't want to be inhabited, some stories don't want to be solved, and some people who walk into the woods are never meant to walk out again.
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