Vermont’s Very Own Bermuda Triangle || The Bennington Disappearances

Bright Side

The Bennington Triangle is a spooky part of the Green Mountain National Forest, famous for its mysterious disappearances and weird happenings. Back in the 1940s, a guy named Middie Rivers vanished while leading a hunting group. Then, in 1950, an 8-year-old boy named Paul Jepson disappeared during a family hike, and in 1951, three hunters also went missing without a trace. Despite many search efforts, no clues or explanations were ever found. Alongside these disappearances, the area is rumored to be haunted, with stories of strange lights and eerie sounds adding to the mystery.  Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me

Transcript

00:00A college sophomore finished her shift at the cafeteria and decided to go for a hike.

00:05She got dressed, said goodbye to her roommate, and hitchhiked a ride to the start of a trail.

00:11The 18-year-old girl met some hikers who were coming back and asked them for directions.

00:16It was getting dark, but the student pressed on, and she was never seen again.

00:21Her name was Paula Jean Weldon, and she went missing in 1946.

00:27She was walking along a trail near Bennington, a town in southwestern Vermont.

00:32The next day, her roommate reported her missing.

00:35The authorities quickly organized a search party.

00:38Hundreds of people searched the woodlands around the trail for four weeks.

00:42Her college even shut down for a while so students and faculty staff could join the

00:46search.

00:47They came back empty.

00:49The girl had disappeared into thin air.

00:52Paula didn't pack a bag.

00:54She didn't take any extra clothes or money.

00:57All the evidence suggested she didn't expect to be out for more than a couple of hours.

01:03Her father was a well-known industrial engineer.

01:05He blamed the county sheriff for poorly conducting the investigation.

01:10Despite all the efforts, the poor girl was still nowhere to be found.

01:14Her case remains unsolved to this day, but this is not the first time someone went missing

01:19in Vermont's forests.

01:22A year earlier, Middy Rivers, a lively 74-year-old man, was the guide for a group of four hunters.

01:29He reached a fork in the road with his son-in-law.

01:32Middy said he would walk a short distance down one of the paths.

01:36After all, he didn't want to miss lunchtime back at the camp, but that was the last time

01:40anyone had saw him.

01:42The group he had accompanied searched for the man all afternoon before calling the police.

01:47A more extensive search followed but it didn't yield any results.

01:51The local man was an experienced hiker and he was well familiar with the trail.

01:56Still, he had gone missing.

01:58Firefighters, volunteers, and even servicemen couldn't find the missing person after a month

02:03of searching.

02:05All that they found was a cartridge he dropped in a nearby stream.

02:09The local authorities still haven't solved the case.

02:13Nobody knew at the time, but Middy and Paula were just the beginning.

02:17In just half a decade, five people in total disappeared in this part of Vermont.

02:23Years went by, but still, nobody could explain their disappearances.

02:27And that's why the area got its name, the Bennington Triangle, after the famous Bermuda

02:32Triangle where ships and planes have been disappearing for centuries.

02:37In 1949, the most puzzling disappearance happened in the Bennington Triangle.

02:42A 68-year-old veteran boarded a local bus.

02:46He was going home after visiting his relatives in St. Albans.

02:51His family took him to the bus station and there were 14 witnesses who claimed he was

02:55still on it at the last stop before Bennington.

02:58But he never got off the bus there.

03:00His luggage was still on the rack and an open bus timetable sat on his empty seat.

03:06The man had apparently vanished into thin air while on a moving bus.

03:10And there's another weird thing.

03:12He disappeared on the exact same date the college student went missing three years ago.

03:17The youngest person to mysteriously vanish was an 8-year-old.

03:21He was with his mother while she worked on the family farm.

03:24She went to feed the pigs and left her son alone for an hour or so.

03:28When she came back, the woman couldn't find her son.

03:32The locals soon formed search parties and the local sheriff brought in tracking dogs.

03:37They picked up the scent but lost it suddenly at a nearby crossroads.

03:41The guy was never found.

03:43Again, there was a strange element to this story.

03:46The youngster was wearing a bright red jacket.

03:49This would have made him more visible to the rescuers.

03:52But more strikingly, Paula, the college sophomore who disappeared four years earlier, also had

03:58a red jacket.

04:00The final disappearance happened just 16 days after the little fella vanished from the farm.

04:05A 53-year-old woman was camping with her family in the Green Mountain National Forest.

04:11She went for a hike with her cousin.

04:13But there was a mishap.

04:14The woman fell into a stream.

04:17She decided to go back to the camp to change clothes.

04:20Her cousin thought she would join him later and continued along the path alone.

04:24But the woman never came back.

04:26In fact, she never reached their base camp.

04:29For two weeks, 300 searchers scouted the woods.

04:34They brought in helicopters but found no trace of the unfortunate woman.

04:38The last disappearance in the Bennington Triangle had an ending.

04:42Not a happy one though.

04:44In the spring of the following year, the searchers found the poor camper three and a half miles

04:48from the original campsite.

04:50They had previously covered that spot, which made it only more mysterious.

04:54It was impossible to determine why and what happened to her.

04:58The only thing these five disappearances have in common is the period of time and the

05:03geographic area.

05:0536 square miles of thick woods in the southwest of Vermont.

05:10This remote area of Green Mountains wasn't the happiest of places.

05:14Bennington and the nearby village of Glastonbury were founded as mining and logging towns.

05:20The living conditions were harsh.

05:23Near the end of the 19th century, the locals tried to rebrand the area as a tourist destination.

05:29But the mountain was unstable and a huge flood washed away their dreams of a happy life.

05:35Residents started moving out.

05:37In 2010, only eight people lived in Glastonbury.

05:41It became a ghost town.

05:43In the late 1940s, the area was back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

05:49But how could these disappearances have remained a mystery for so long?

05:53Surely someone had a reasonable explanation.

05:56One theory suggests that it was a case of foul play.

06:00Maybe an unknown person was up to no good and harmed the unsuspecting people.

06:05But then there would have been a pattern.

06:07And there is none.

06:09Or maybe the elements were responsible.

06:12The college student went missing on a pleasant day at the very beginning of winter.

06:16She was lightly dressed because it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

06:20But in the evening, the air temperature plummeted.

06:23It was a freezing 9 degrees Fahrenheit the following morning.

06:27In this part of Vermont, the weather is quite unpredictable.

06:31It can get really windy, especially in winter.

06:34Perhaps the bad weather and the dense forest confused the missing people.

06:38Recently, a strikingly similar case of disappearance happened here.

06:42A college student got lost in heavy fog at the top of Glastonbury Mountain.

06:47When he didn't return home, his fiancée called the police.

06:51State troopers immediately went out to look for him.

06:54But it was too dark and foggy to see anything.

06:57Luckily, they found him the next morning.

06:59He got lost because of the thick fog.

07:02He managed to find his way back to the trail only after the weather conditions improved.

07:07This story had a happy ending.

07:09But could this incident explain what happened to the people who disappeared over 70 years ago?

07:15The mountains around Bennington are full of abandoned mineshafts.

07:19A reminder of the town's history.

07:22A hiker lost in fog could easily fall into one of these wells.

07:26They could have no way of getting out.

07:28The area is so remote that no one would ever find them.

07:32The second danger are wild animals.

07:34Black bears are native to New England.

07:37Local hiking clubs advise visitors to store their food in special boxes, not to attract bears.

07:43The Green Mountain National Forest sits in the middle of the Bennington Triangle.

07:48Today, this popular recreation area is within a day's drive of 70 million people.

07:54People come here to camp, hike, and ride mountain bikes.

07:57But do all of them know about the 5 mysterious disappearances?

08:01I guess I wouldn't dare venture into this remote patch of Vermont's wilderness now.

08:06That's it for today.

08:07So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your

08:11friends.

08:12Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

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