"Bennington Triangle" is a phrase coined by New England author Joseph A. Citro during a public radio broadcast in 1992 to denote an area of southwestern Vermont within which a number of people went missing between 1945 and 1950.[1] This was further popularized in two books, including Shadow Child, in which he devoted chapters to discussion of these disappearances and various items of folklore surrounding the area. According to Citro, the area shares characteristics with the Bridgewater Triangle in neighboring Massachusetts.
Precisely what area is encompassed in this hypothetical "mystery triangle" is not clear, but it is purportedly centered on Glastenbury Mountain and would include some or most of the area of the towns immediately surrounding it, especially Bennington, Woodford, Shaftsbury, and Somerset. Glastenbury and its neighboring township Somerset were both once moderately thriving logging and industrial towns, but began declining toward the late 19th century, and are now essentially ghost towns, unincorporated by an act of the state legislature in 1937.
According to Citro's books, stories of strange happenings had been told about Glastenbury and the surrounding area for many years prior to the disappearances in the 1940s, the best-known of which is probably that of Paula Jean Welden.
