Freaky Friday Files: The Bennington Triangle

Ash
22 hours ago
6 min read

DISCLAIMER: Topics discussed in this blog, such as missing persons, may be distressing to some readers. Reader discretion advised.

Hi friends! For this week's edition of Freaky Friday Files, I thought we could explore the Bennington Triangle (maybe a distant cousin to the Bermuda Triangle? LOL).

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The Bennington Triangle

The Bennington Triangle refers to an area of Southwestern Vermont in which several people went missing between 1945 and 1950. American Author Joseph A. Citro first coined the term in his book Shadow Child. Citro claimed that the Bennington Triangle area shared similarities with the Bridgewater Triangle, Massachusetts - a place home to many legends about UFOs, Bigfoot, and other paranormal phenomena.

It's not clear where the triangle begins and ends, but it is thought to be centred on Glastenbury Mountain and most likely includes towns such as Woodford, Shaftsbury, Somerset, and of course, Bennington.

A Bennington College student named Robert Singley (27 at the time) ended up getting lost in the area in 2008, but was later found by Vermont State Police.

I wonder why certain areas of the world are more likely to have people go missing there?!

Unsolved Mysteries/Cold Cases

Middie Rivers (1945): On the 12th of November, 1945, a 74-year-old Middie Rivers disappeared while hunting in a place called Long Trail, Bickford Hollow (4 miles/6.4km west of Bennington). Rivers was considered well-versed in outdoor recreational activities and frequently went along with his son-in-law on hunting and camping trips. Around 4 PM, Rivers was spotted walking AWAY from camp by a friend (it's not clear if the friend was at this camp or elsewhere; I think on another trail perhaps). When Rivers failed to return to camp that evening, a search party was sent out. Vermont authorities went to extreme lengths in searching for Rivers and even believed they were on the lookout for his remains. However, the only thing that someone found of Rivers was a handkerchief.
Paula Weldon (1946) - On the 1st of December, 1946, 18-year-old Paula Weldon vanished quite close to the location where Rivers disappeared the year before. Weldon was a sophomore at Bennington College and left campus early to head out walking and hitchhiking to the Long Trail. One confirmed sighting of Paula was by a man who gave her a ride from campus to a site on Route 9, near Long Trail. Paul wasn't dressed for any extreme weather conditions and was wearing: a "red jacket, jeans, and lightweight sneakers" with no camping gear carried. When Paula didn't show up for class the next day, an extensive search began. Again, nothing was ever found. It's also not clear why Paula was going out on her own. One interesting fact about this case is that it inspired the book Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson.
James Tedford (1949) - On the 1st of December, 1949 (interesting to me how this is also the 1st of December), 68-year-old James Tedford went missing. Tedford was a WWI veteran. At the time of his disappearance, Tedford was a resident at the Vermont Soldiers' Home in Bennington and visited some family in St. Albans. His relatives took Tedford to the bus station and watched him board the bus home. The last confirmed sighting of Tedford was at the bus depot in Burlington when he had a brief conversation with someone he knew (an acquaintance). Tedford then transferred to another bus around 6:15 PM, heading back to Bennington. The bus driver claimed to authorities that a man "resembling" Tedford may have hopped off the bus in the village of Brandon (70 miles/112 km north of Bennington). Authorities also received tips that a man fitting Tedford's description was "acting queerly" downtown and investigated this. I assume by "acting queerly" they mean happy in this context, or maybe over-exuberant. What's even worse about this case is that it took 8 days for Tedford to be reported missing by the Vermont Soldiers' Home. Reports from Tedford's family said that Tedford was in a state of melancholy at the time and didn't want to return to Bennington. They also said he may have been experiencing mental illness at the time. No trace of Tedford was ever found.
Paul Jepson (1950) - On the 12th of October, 1950, Paul "Buddy" Jepson, an 8-year-old disabled boy, vanished into thin air while he was helping his mum with farm chores. Around 3 PM, Buddy's mum drove to the Bennington town dump with Buddy, where they had a herd of pigs and left Buddy in the car for 30 minutes on his own. When she returned, Buddy was nowhere to be found. Official searches focused on the areas near where Buddy went missing, but a dog tracked Buddy's scent along an adjacent road to an intersection where the trail abruptly ended. It is theorised that the rain washed away Buddy's scent, and Buddy's dad thought that maybe someone struck down Buddy and took him from the scene in a state of panic (what?? that was my first thought too).
Freida Langer (1950) - On the 28th of October, 1950, just six days after Buddy disappeared, a 53-year-old woman, Freida Langer, also disappeared without a trace. Freida was hiking in the woods near Somerset while hiking with her husband, Max and her cousin Herbet. During their hike, Freida slipped and fell into a lake around 1 PM. She said to her cousin that she would take a shortcut back to their cabin to change her soaked clothing and would catch up later. However, Freida never returned. A search and rescue operation was conducted with over 300 people joining in to help. It's important to note that Freida had a seizure disorder, and some speculate that exposure to cold temperatures led to a seizure, and she became disoriented and lost in the woods and passed. On the 12th of May, 1951, some fishermen found Freida's body near Deerfield River (an area that had only been lightly searched the previous year). No official cause of death was ever noted, but the most likely explanation is that she drowned. And interestingly, the only body recovered out of these 5 missing persons.

Possible Explanations

Let's move on now to some possible explanations of the "Bennington Triangle". I also want to say here that I don't think authorities found a connection between all 5 of these cases, but people on the internet (like myself) and true crime buffs like to speculate.

Serial K*ller - I think this one is plausible, BUT it's hard to make connections between all the victims as they range in age, gender, and what they were doing. Serial k*llers tend to be people who commit m*rders at least 3 times, and usually there is something in common with ALL the victims and/or how they fulfil their crime. I also think if it were a serial k*ller, then someone would have bragged about it by now. Maybe the first three could be explained by this, but I'm not super convinced (especially because there were no confirmed "active" serial k*llers between 1945 - 1950 in Bennington). I found a Reddit post that claims Freida's body was "put on display," so that could have been a serial k*ller, but I'm still not convinced, especially because wouldn't a serial k*ller do that with all the bodies?
Supernatural Explanations - Some people believe that the Bennington Triangle is an area where supernatural phenomena occur, and it's been theorised that some of these disappearances were subject to UFO/aliens. This theory is further perpetuated by indigenous myths, such as the mountain swallowing a man whole and indigenous persons refusing to set foot on the mountain unless they were burying a loved one. Some people also claim that a cryptid such as Bigfoot was responsible.
Mountain Cats/Animals - It's possible that some of the missing persons met their demise at the hands of a mountain cat, such as a mountain lion, bobcat, or lynx. However, these animals aren't thought to be aggressive towards humans, and there hasn't been a mountain lion sighting in Vermont since 1881.
Hypothermia - As we know, what can happen to people when they get hypothermia (just look at the Dyatlov Pass incident -I wrote about that "here"). Anyway, this theory is that perhaps all these people got lost in a remote area and succumbed to hypothermia.
Mining Town Demise - As Bennington was a mining town, some people think that the mountain has many unmarked mining shafts where people accidentally fall to their d*aths. It's also interesting to note that due to the type of wind on the mountain, the plants don't grow in a way we would expect, so it's easier to get disoriented as we rely on them to help us in the wilderness.