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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