Case file · High strangeness
Paula Jean Welden vanishes on the Long Trail
On 1 December 1946 Bennington College student Paula Jean Welden set out to walk the Long Trail and disappeared. Her case is still unsolved.
1946 CE · 42.95, -73.10 · status: unexplained
The account
Criticism of the sheriffs' botched search led directly to the founding of the Vermont State Police.
The sceptical view
Proposed explanations include an accident, foul play or a deliberate departure; nothing supernatural is required.
The researched reading
A real, unsolved disappearance of a student on a winter trail. Exposure, foul play or a deliberate departure explain it; the “triangle” is legend.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 40% | She set out in the late afternoon of 1 December, lightly dressed, onto the Long Trail as weather worsened; getting lost and dying of exposure, then lying unfound in forest, is the most common end in such cases. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 15% | Foul play by someone she met on the road (she accepted a lift), or a deliberate departure, were both pursued; deliberate human acts explain why nothing was found. |
| Undetermined | 15% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A cultural story | 14% | Her case anchors the “Bennington Triangle” legend, which gives it a mystical framing unrelated to the evidence. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 12% | She was reportedly depressed; suicide in the woods was considered by investigators. |
| Something in the surroundings | 2% | Not relevant. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 2% | Many people vanish in forests; nothing points beyond ordinary causes. |
Official position: Vermont’s lack of a state police force was criticised; investigators found no trace and the case remains open. It led to the creation of the Vermont State Police.