America's cursed 'Bermuda Triangle', where locals warn of Bigfoot, UFOs and the color you can never wear

Walking down Main Street in Bennington, Vermont, the signs of quintessential New England are everywhere.

Monuments to the Revolutionary War stand among the quaint cafes and storefronts. Multicolored foliage covers the trees in autumn, and snow sweeps the surrounding mountains in winter.

Altogether, it makes the Green Mountain State's oldest town one of the most picturesque in the region.

But in the woods just a short walk from Bennington's breweries and galleries hides America's 'Bermuda Triangle', an area haunted by its spine-chilling past.

Considered one of the scariest places in the US, it's the source of decades-old mysteries that still spook anyone searching for the truth. According to Native American lore, the land is 'cursed.'

Five people vanished there without a trace in the space of five years, UFOs have been spotted, and tales of monstrous encounters have been spread.

Visitors have reported hearing random sounds, seeing peculiar rays of light, smelling odors that don't match the surroundings and even finding strands of human hair left on rocks.

Even now, locals experience events that they simply cannot explain.

Although the exact perimeters of the 'Bennington Triangle' are ambiguous, it is thought to be centered around Glastenbury Mountain and covers approximately 100 square miles.

In 1946, 18-year-old Bennington College student Paula Jean Welden took a solo hike in the area and disappeared without a trace.

In 1950, eight-year-old Paul 'Buddy' Jepson, who had special needs, joined his mother to do farm chores and was never seen again.

In a terrifying twist, Welden and Jepson were both wearing red at the time they went missing - leading many locals to believe the color is bad luck. 

To this day, residents still refuse to wear the color when visiting the area.

Sixteen days after Jepson vanished, experienced hiker Frieda Langer went missing while in the woods. 

Middie Rivers, 74, an experienced outdoorsman and mountain guide, also disappeared while on a trail with a group of hunters in 1945.

And military veteran James Tedford, 68, was last seen at a local bus stop while visiting relatives in the area in December 1949.

With the exception of Langer, the bodies of the four others were never found.  

Joseph Citro, the author of Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries,  told DailyMail.com that things got 'weirder' after he started doing research on the area decades ago.  

He shared one peculiar event in which two cold-case investigators, who were also retired ex-military detectives, approached him to discuss the unexplained mysteries in the area.

He recounted that one of the detectives was trying to solve the Welden case but went missing during his investigation - never to be heard from again.

Citro said the detective told him 'that he knew where [Welden] was.'

'He had traced her body to the trunk of a car that was buried beside a cabin that was no longer standing,' the historian explained.

The last time Citro and the detective spoke, the investigator said that he was 'planning a big news event' and wanted Citro to be there for the 'big reveal.' 

That was the last the author would hear from him.

'His phone number no longer worked. His emails weren't answered. He was gone!' Citro said.

'Maybe something happened to him or maybe it was an "Al Capone's Safe" kind of deal. Anyway, that was the end of it. Never heard from him again.'

In another odd twist, the second detective also fell off the radar.

Citro said he later learned the detective had died by suicide, but he does not believe it had any connection to the Bennington Triangle. 

In 1992, appearing on public radio, Citro coined the term 'Bennington Triangle' - a nod to the infamous Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean, where boats and planes have mysteriously vanished going back decades..

From there, the legend took on a life of its own. 

Television crews, podcasters and YouTubers that focus on the paranormal have visited the area hoping to find out more.

When asked what he believes is behind all the strange happenings, Citro said he doesn't 'believe a single theory is possible.'

'The are so many disparate phenomena associated with the area. Shall we just talk about the vanishings? Or shall we include the Bigfoot sightings? And the UFO activity?' he said.

'The vanishings are a matter of history. I've talked with very credible people who've clearly seen Bigfoot-like critters in the area,' he continued. 'It is tempting to blame the former on the latter, but I resist making that leap.'

Some residents are skeptical, but others who have taken their own journeys to Glastenbury Mountain recall eerie experiences there.

Rebecca Silver, 36, who was born and raised in Bennington, told DailyMail.com that she has heard the strange stories since she was a child.

'People went missing in Glastenbury in the mountains and that Bald Mountain, across from Glastenbury, has an underground chamber for UFOs,' she said matter-of-factly.

When Silver was in her 20s, she went to visit the site with friends at night and remembered how 'eerie' it was. 

'I don't know how to explain it. It felt like we weren't alone,' she said.

Though Silver didn't personally experience any extraterrestrial activity, she said that her boyfriend's friend had an 'alien sighting.'

'They were all men in black dressed in suits but they were aliens,' she recalled. 'Like the movie Men in Black.' 

Nancy Kozial, who has been living in Vermont for more than two decades, told DailyMail.com that 'there are definitely things at work' in the Bennington Triangle.

'I'm not generally one to believe in stuff like that (I recently debunked my husband's insistence that there's a ghost in our house),' she said in an email, 'but I avoid that particular swath of land after one weird experience.'

The incident happened in 2003, when Kozial had just moved to the town and 'knew nothing about' the area's frightening history.

She was on a hike at the base of the triangle when her 'rugged, outdoor' dog sensed something was not right. 

'Not far into our hike, she got spooked like I'd never seen before. When I stopped to pay attention (always trust your dog's instincts!) I noticed that the cairn marking a turn had what looked like human hair on it,' Kozial recounted.

'Like long, dark hairs. It was creepy. I cajoled the dog a little farther and saw another at which point I got out of there and have never been back to that section of the trail. I'm sure it was just someone messing around but it was weird.'

Since that encounter, she said that she and her husband have hiked in a different area and nothing strange has occurred. But she hasn't forgotten.

'It kind of sticks with you and there's definitely an unease,' Kozial said.

Lifelong Vermont resident Autumn Post, 46, who works at Knapp's Music Store near Bennington, told told DailyMail.com that she hasn't had any off-putting personal experiences but that people 'claimed to see strange things, strange lights, portals.' 

'The talk for me is enough,' she laughed.

She did recall one unusual story of a male friend who went camping in the area.

'He told me he had lost time, that there was some lapse' that he couldn't explain.

'When people go camping they get drunk and maybe he passed out, but I took his word for it,' she said.

Historian Joseph Hall, 93, told DailyMail.com that he was in high school when Welden and Rivers went missing. 

'All I can remember is that I was a freshman in high school and Paula was at Bennington College,' he said of the December day in 1946 she went missing.

'She simply disappeared. They had no clues as to what happened to her. It was a big mystery. They never did find a trace of her.'

Hall explained that Welden came from a prominent and wealthy family in Connecticut and that her father helped look for her. The teen's father was 'dismayed' that Vermont did not have sate police at the time and had to rely on the local sheriff's department.

It was Welden's disappearance, Hall said, that prompted the formation of the Vermont State Police. He believes that the student's father funded his own search for his daughter.

'Helicopters were flying the mountain looking for her,' he recalled.

'The area that Paula and Middie vanished in is all wilderness. It's a vast piece of property. It's part of the National Forest and it's extensive.'

Hall said that Middie was an expert hunter and knew the mountain very well. 

One of his theories is that he may have fallen into an old well on an abandoned property.

'It's a lame assumption. It's not fact,' he acknowledged.  

'No one found him. No trace of him.'

Hall admits that the area's strange phenomena continues to elude him.

'It's a mystery,' he said. 

Despite the spine-tingling tales that have circulated for decades, Citro said that the area is still a popular place for sightseeing, hiking and camping.

'The Long Trail goes right through there - I'm not sure if the scary stories attract people or frighten them away,' he said, referring to the famous hiking trail spanning entire state.

And while he has never had an encounter with a cryptid, he admitted that the idea helped influence one of his novels, The Gore.

'Early childhood experiences of extreme uneasiness in wooded places links directly to my lifelong interest in collecting unusual local folklore,' he said. 

'It deals with weird things in the woods! Including Bigfoot.'

Citro explained that long before area became the scene of multiple vanishings, many of its earliest settlers reported mysterious lights, formless phantoms, unidentifiable sounds, and mysterious odors.

'For centuries the Glastenbury Mountain has been a hotspot for creature sightings. But the so-called Bennington Monster, or its lookalike kin, is not unique to the Vermont wilderness.'

'Every state in New England - and by extension the country and the world - seems to have its tradition of Big Hairy Monsters,' he added.