The 1946 Paula Welden disappearance sparked decades of folklore surrounding Vermont’s Bennington Triangle. When the Bennington College sophomore vanished along the Long Trail wearing a distinctive red coat, an unprecedented manhunt followed. Yet over time, the real police records were buried beneath ghost stories, cursed ground theories, and sensationalized accounts of mysterious vanishings.
This investigation strips away the folklore to examine documented evidence, contemporary newspaper reports, and the search efforts that involved local volunteers, aircraft, and the FBI. Discover how five separate missing person cases were woven into a single unsolved mystery, and what the verifiable historical record actually proves happened on Glastenbury Mountain that December afternoon.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:48 1. The Version Everyone Has Heard
2:30 2. The Day, As Recorded
4:26 3. Myth One: Nobody Looked
6:31 4. Myth Two: Five Vanishings, One Pattern
8:53 5. The Curse, the Theories and the Book
12:01 6. What We Can Prove
SOURCES
2. The Charley Project: Paula Jean Welden (dining hall shifts, told roommate she was going on a hike, left shortly after 2:30 p.m., red coat, Elgin watch). https://charleyproject.org/case/paula-jean-welden
3. Bennington Banner: After 60 years, student’s fate remains a legendary mystery (left about 2:45 p.m., roommate, father from Stamford, hundreds searched, $5,000 reward, search ended by early January). https://www.benningtonbanner.com/stories/after-60-years-students-fate-remains-a-legendary-mystery,260506
4. Bennington Banner: How the mysterious Bennington Triangle came to be (Joseph Citro, not a literal triangle, wilderness around Glastenbury Mountain, modelled on the Bermuda Triangle). https://www.benningtonbanner.com/local-news/how-the-mysterious-bennington-triangle-came-to-be/article_11b5fa2e-4442-4b74-bce5-8ac2351a3f5f.html
5. Wikipedia: Disappearance of Paula Jean Welden (sheriffs criticised, State Police created, search area, no evidence of a crime), background only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Paula_Jean_Welden
6. Wikipedia: Bennington Triangle (Citro, 1992, Langer found 12 May 1951 about 3.5 miles from camp), background only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennington_Triangle
7. New York Almanack: The 1946 Disappearance of Paula Welden on Vermont’s Long Trail (search, reward, FBI). https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2022/09/1946-disappearance-of-paula-welden/
8. The Line Up: Vanished, the unsolved disappearance of Paula Jean Welden (theories, Fall River waitress, her father). https://the-line-up.com/paula-jean-welden-disappearance
9. Explorersweb: Exploration Mysteries, Bennington Disappearances (Rivers, Tedford, Jepson, Langer; Fort Devens, about 300 searchers, about 400 searchers). https://explorersweb.com/exploration-mysteries-bennington-disappearances/
10. Vermont Public (Brave Little State): The Bennington Triangle, how 5 mysterious disappearances developed a cult following online. https://www.vermontpublic.org/podcast/brave-little-state/2025-03-06/the-bennington-triangle-how-5-mysterious-disappearances-developed-a-cult-following-online
11. All That’s Interesting: Inside the unsolved disappearances of the Bennington Triangle (Langer’s remains, no cause of death, her husband’s seizure suggestion). https://allthatsinteresting.com/bennington-triangle
12. Historic Mysteries: Bennington Triangle disappearances (man-eating stone attributed to Citro, no older source, sinkholes suggestion). https://www.historicmysteries.com/unexplained-mysteries/bennington-triangle-disappearances/15658/
13. WCAX: From boom to ghost town, Glastenbury holds onto independent spirit (about 3,750 feet, 272-mile Long Trail). https://www.wcax.com/2025/10/22/boom-ghost-town-glastenbury-holds-onto-independent-spirit/
14. Wikipedia: Glastenbury, Vermont (disincorporated 1937), background only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastenbury,_Vermont
15. Bustle: Shirley Jackson’s horror novel Hangsaman was inspired by a real-life disappearance (and Ruth Franklin’s 2016 biography found no evidence of it). https://www.bustle.com/books/shirley-jacksons-horror-novel-hangsaman-was-inspired-by-a-real-life-disappearance-12217498
Drawings: AI-generated in a deliberately simple style. Music: generated with ElevenLabs.
#PaulaWelden #BenningtonTriangle #UnsolvedMysteries
source
