{"id":535,"slug":"long-trail-near-route-9-paula-welden-last-seen-corridor-vermont","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Paula Welden walked into the Bennington Triangle — December 1, 1946, the eighteen-year-old Bennington College sophomore in the red parka who hitched a ride to the Long Trail and asked the last person who saw her how far it went. To Canada, he told her. She was never seen again — no body, no clothes, no trace, the search that failed so completely it created the Vermont State Police.","The disappearance was the first of the Triangle's — five people gone in five years around Glastenbury Mountain, the ghost town and the trail that took them. Welden's is the famous one — the college girl in the red parka, the futile search, the case that made Vermont get a police force. The trail still goes up Glastenbury; the red parka is still the story the trail tells — the girl who went for a hike and became the reason for the state police.","The file keeps the Welden corridor: the December hike, the last sighting, the failed search, and the Bennington Triangle.","Long Trail/Welden is the archive's disappearance file — the hike that created the state police."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Paula Welden is the archive's disappearance file — the Bennington Triangle's first victim.","A trail keeps its missing — the file's suggestion being that the Long Trail's hold is the absence: the girl who vanished without a trace, the search that built a police force, and the mountain that kept the answer."]}],"name":"Long Trail near Route 9 (Paula Welden last-seen corridor)","aliases":[],"type":"TRAIL_CORRIDOR","type_label":"Trail Corridor","cats":["FOLKLORE","HISTORICAL_MYSTERY","MYSTERIOUS_DISAPPEARANCE","UNEXPLAINED","MISSING"],"groups":["legends","nature"],"desc":"Approximate trail corridor associated with a documented 1946 disappearance.","full_desc":"Long Trail near Route 9 (Paula Welden last-seen corridor) is a trail corridor in Vermont. Approximate trail corridor associated with a documented 1946 disappearance. Vermont State Police records Paula Welden last seen December1,1946; hikers reported her on the Long Trail near Route9 and Glastenbury Mountain.","address":null,"city":"Bennington","county":null,"state":"Vermont","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":42.871243,"lon":-73.180181,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Official indexed excerpt only; full police page returned403. No precise last-seen coordinate inferred and no paranormal explanation asserted. Historic1946 trail alignment needs comparison with current trail before geocoding.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":69.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":4026,"type":"UNEXPLAINED_PHENOMENON","description":"Welden’s complete disappearance—no body, no trace—remains unexplained and anchors the Bennington Triangle mystery. Witnesses name it Paula Welden; the name travels further than the proof. Long Trail near Route 9 (Paula Welden last-seen corridor)'s file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. The claim is disputed by the sources that preserve it. The report is preserved in sources like 'Paula Jean Welden'. Small phenomena, steadily reported: the file's most honest kind of haunting.","evidence":"DISPUTED","evidence_label":"Disputed","entity":"Paula Welden","where":null,"first_report":"1946","approx_date":null,"confidence":0.85,"conflict_notes":"Theories range from accident to foul play to paranormal speculation; the case is a documented unsolved disappearance.","source":{"name":"Paula Jean Welden","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jean_Welden","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Vermont State Police records Paula Welden last seen December1,1946; hikers reported her on the Long Trail near Route9 and Glastenbury Mountain. Long Trail near Route 9 (Paula Welden last-seen corridor)'s past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'Paula Welden' documents the entry. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Paula Welden","url":"https://vsp.vermont.gov/unsolved/missing/c/welden","publisher":"Vermont State Police","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Paula Welden vanished on December 1, 1946, hiking the Long Trail; she was never found. The documented date is 1946-12-01. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Paula Jean Welden'. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1946-12-01","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Paula Jean Welden","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jean_Welden","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}},{"description":"The disappearance is the first of the \"Bennington Triangle\" cases (1945–1950). Long Trail near Route 9 (Paula Welden last-seen corridor)'s past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'Bennington Triangle'. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Bennington Triangle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennington_Triangle","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[{"name":"Paula Welden","claimed_identity":"Paula Welden","verified":null,"summary":"Welden’s complete disappearance—no body, no trace—remains unexplained and anchors the Bennington Triangle mystery. Paula Welden is what the reports name it. Reports in the file date to 1946. The reports at Long Trail near Route 9 (Paula Welden last-seen corridor) are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. The report is preserved in sources like 'Paula Jean Welden'. The named presence is what turns a haunting into a household.","behavior":"Welden’s complete disappearance—no body, no trace—remains unexplained and anchors the Bennington Triangle mystery.","area":null,"first_ref":"1946","source":{"name":"Paula Jean Welden","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jean_Welden","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[{"name":"Welden disappearance","type":"DISAPPEARANCE","date_start":"1946-12-01","date_end":null,"description":"On December 1, 1946, 18-year-old Bennington College student Paula Welden set off for a hike on the Long Trail in a red coat — and vanished completely, despite massive searches and FBI involvement. Her disappearance was the first in the so-called 'Bennington Triangle' cluster and helped spur the creation of the Vermont State Police.","evidence":"DISAPPEARANCE","source":{"name":"Paula Jean Welden","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jean_Welden","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Paula Welden","url":"https://vsp.vermont.gov/unsolved/missing/c/welden","publisher":"Vermont State Police","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Bennington Triangle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennington_Triangle","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},{"name":"Paula Jean Welden","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jean_Welden","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"Approximate trail corridor associated with a documented 1946 disappearance.","incoming_value":"The trail corridor where Paula Welden vanished in 1946—the Bennington Triangle’s first case.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"full_description","existing_value":"Long Trail near Route 9 (Paula Welden last-seen corridor) is a trail corridor in Vermont. Approximate trail corridor associated with a documented 1946 disappearance. Vermont State Police records Paula Welden last seen December1,1946; hikers reported her on the Long Trail near Route9 and Glastenbury Mountain.","incoming_value":"The Route 9 corridor of the Long Trail marks where Paula Welden, an 18-year-old Bennington College student, vanished on a hike on December 1, 1946—never found despite massive searches. The first of the Bennington Triangle disappearances.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Official indexed excerpt only; full police page returned403. No precise last-seen coordinate inferred and no paranormal explanation asserted. Historic1946 trail alignment needs comparison with current trail before geocoding.","incoming_value":"Lore enrichment; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":3,"legends":0,"entities":1,"sources":3}}