This Mysterious Mountain Not Far from CNY Has a Dark and Eerie History
Stories of unsolved disappearances, malicious spirits, and even a Bigfoot-like creature have surrounded Glastenbury Mountain for decades.
Glastenbury Mountain is a short distance over the Vermont border, about a 3.5 hour drive from Central New York. For years, its drawn interest from fans of the supernatural and the unknown due to a series of unexplainable events in the mid-20th century. The "Bennington Triangle" as it has become known is the closest thing locals have to a culprit.
THE "BENNINGTON TRIANGLE"
The name is used to refer to an unofficial area between the towns of Bennington and Shaftsbury, Vermont. Between 1945 and 1950, five people vanished under mysterious circumstances in this area. Even skeptics agree there is something unusual about the mountain.
Its origin might be traced back to the late 1800s, when the Glastenbury community was heavily involved in logging. In April 1892, a heated dispute erupted between two lumberyard workers and one of the men was beaten to death. Five years later, in 1897, another man was mysteriously shot and killed during opening day of deer season.
A town formed on the basis of logging suddenly loses its identity when there are no more trees to cut down, and when that happened, the town's lumber yard shut down. Glastenbury's attempt in the early 1900s to rebrand itself as a resort town failed, and soon it became a bona fide ghost town.
But in 1945, the area became well-known again, this time for the disappearance of a 74-year-old hunter and guide named Middie Rivers. Rivers knew the area like the back of his hand and wasn't one to get lost. The story goes that Rivers, who was with four other people when he disappeared, claimed he "saw something" and went running after it. He was never seen again.
"A LARGE HUMANOID CREATURE"
Four more people would go missing from the area up through 1950. And many people claim to have seen a "large humanoid creature" in the area where Middie Rivers first went missing in 1945. Some people say it's the Vermont Bigfoot, others cite UFOs, and even a Man-Eating Stone have been used as possible explanations for the disappearances.
To this day, people who spend the night on Glastenbury Mountain have reported waking up completely disoriented.
True or not, the stories surrounding Glastenbury Mountain have made it one of the most strange places in New England.