Case file · Anomaly hotspot
The Bennington Triangle
A Vermont area around Glastenbury Mountain tied to a cluster of 1940s disappearances.
1945 CE · 42.98, -73.20 · status: folklore
The researched reading
Real, sad, unsolved cases from one rough corner of Vermont, joined into a “triangle” decades later. Wilderness and chance are enough to explain them.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 40% | Five unrelated disappearances in 1945–50 (Middie Rivers, Paula Welden, James Tedford, Paul Jepson, Frieda Langer) in a rugged, thinly settled area were grouped by author Joseph Citro in 1992; getting lost, accidents and possible crime are ordinary causes misread as a pattern. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 27% | Glastenbury Mountain is dense forest with bogs and steep ravines; Frieda Langer’s body was found in 1951 in an area already searched, a familiar outcome in wilderness search work. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 10% | Naming a “triangle” creates the pattern it claims to find. |
| Undetermined | 9% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | Later retellings add folklore (a man-eating stone, Bigfoot, the “ghost town” of Glastenbury) and embellish details of the cases. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 3% | No natural anomaly is documented here. |
| Secret human technology | 3% | No evidence of military or secret activity. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 3% | The cases are unsolved, which is not the same as unexplainable. |
Official position: Each disappearance was investigated by police (Welden’s led to the founding of the Vermont State Police); none was linked to the others.
Connections in the atlas
- Middie Rivers lost on Glastenbury Mountain
- Frieda Langer near Somerset Reservoir
- Paula Jean Welden vanishes on the Long Trail
- James Tedford vanishes from a bus
- Paul Jepson disappears