 people go missing every day, some people go missing by choice, while others go missing at the hand of someone else. Some missing a person's cases are eventually solved, while others are never solved. Across the globe there are many national parks, and one of the things that some of these national parks have in common is the amount of people who seem to just disappear while on the property. But before we go any further, you know what to do, please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. As always, a very very special thank you to all of our producers and our patrons here on Esoteric Atlanta. We could not do this channel without you. We are so so grateful for each and every one of you. If you would like to join our Patreon community, there is a link down in the description box below. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. My name is Bryce, and today on Mystery Monday, we are going to be talking about the disappearance of Paula Jean Weldon. Paula Jean Weldon was born on the 19th of October 1928 in Stanford, Connecticut. Paula was the oldest of four girls. Paula was born into a very wealthy, very powerful, and very influential family. Her father, William Archibald Weldon, was an industrial engineer, architect, and designer. Paula Jean Weldon went missing on December 1 of 1946. At this point, Paula was a student, a sophomore at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. In Paula's Day, Bennington College was described by the local newspapers as a fashionable college. At the time of Paula's disappearance, she was majoring in art, but according to her friends, she was very very interested in botany and had been contemplating on changing her major. Just the idea that in the 1940s, this young lady was in college is pretty remarkable on its own. If Paula was alive today, she would be around the age of my own grandparents. Both of my grandmothers went to college. My dad's mom, the only grandparent that I still have living, was the valedictorian of her college class. This was super super super rare at this time. Most women did not go to college. But as I said, the Weldon family was very very powerful and very very influential. Even though many years have passed since Paula's disappearance, reading about her friends claiming that she wanted to change her major from art to botany doesn't surprise me because her friends also claimed that Paula loved the outdoors. And in fact, she often liked to go hiking, which is exactly what she was doing when she disappeared. Again, the date was December 1. Around 2 45 p.m. Paula had finished up a double shift at the Bennington College dining hall. She went back up to her dormitory where she spent a few minutes chatting with her roommate and friend Elizabeth Johnson. Paula told Elizabeth that she needed some time to clear her head, so she was going to go take a little hike on the long trail. The whole Vermont area is part of the upper region of the United States, Appalachian Mountains. Where I am in Georgia is at the tail end of the Appalachian Mountains. And like where I live in Georgia and where Paula lived in Vermont for school, there were many, many hiking trails and easy access to different parts of the Appalachian trail she could walk. As I said, Paula liked to hike. She liked nature. She obviously liked plants. And so this was not unusual for Paula. Elizabeth said that Paula changed into jeans and sneakers and a light red coat. Now, December in Vermont is very, very cold. However, in the afternoon, that light red jacket would have been appropriate. But it was obvious to Elizabeth Johnson, her roommate, that Paula wasn't planning on being out that long. Again, she carried a light jacket. And by nightfall, it was going to be dropping into sub freezing temperatures. She also claimed that Paula didn't take any money with her, no bags, no change of clothes. It literally looked like Paula was just going to be out for a little while for a short little walk again, as she claimed to clear her head. It is stated by 3pm she hitched a ride from State Route 67A near the entrance of the college to Furnace Bridge on State Route 9. Where she was dropped off was about two and a half miles from the entrance to the long trail. A group of hikers did see her entering the trail as they were leaving, and she reportedly walked into the northern direction on what is called Harbor Road. However, there were no confirmed sightings of her past Fay Fuller camp. The sun set that evening around 5pm. And as the sun was setting, Paula's roommate, Elizabeth, noticed that Paula was not back yet. Elizabeth just assumed that Paula must have headed over to the library to get a bit of studying in after she took her hike. By the next morning, when Elizabeth woke up, she realized Paula was still not home. At that point, Elizabeth went and notified the college administration. They, in turn, made a phone call to Paula's father, Archibald Weldon. Archibald Weldon immediately packed up from Connecticut and headed over to Vermont to figure out what happened to his daughter. It is stated that when they called her parents, Paula's mother was so distraught by the fact that they couldn't find her daughter that she basically went cosmetos and had to be bedridden. This reaction is kind of odd to me. I know that most mothers obviously would panic if their child was missing, but Paula had not, it had not even been 24 hours since Paula's disappearance and her mother was already to the point where she had to be bedridden. I have my suspicions as to why this is, which we'll get into a little bit further along in the story. Mr. Weldon then got in touch with the state attorney's office. At this point, Vermont did not have a state police. And fun fact, it was this case, the missing case, of Paula Jean Weldon that inspired Vermont to create its own state police a little bit later on. Mr. Weldon was also able to get help from local police departments in neighboring states. This is how influential Mr. Weldon was. The Bennington newspaper also ran a story about the young 18-year-old college girl that had gone missing in the red jacket. A lot of the hikers that had passed Paula then notified the authorities that they had seen Paula on the trail. We do know that Paula got to the trail. The college itself was so concerned about Paula's disappearance that they canceled classes for a few days so that the student body and the faculty could participate in the search for Paula. The long trail was searched high and low. The town was searched high and low. But yet there was no sign of Paula. The National Guard was even brought in to help with the investigation. But even with the National Guard, no clues came up in Paula's disappearance. A frantic Mr. Weldon did say that he believed Paula could have possibly run off with a boy from her hometown that he believed Paula was having a secret relationship with. But Paula's roommate, Elizabeth Johnson, was very suspicious of this story. It seems that, allegedly, according to Elizabeth Johnson, Paula's roommate and friend, that Paula was having some issues with her family back in Connecticut. So much so that Paula had not gone home for Thanksgiving. In fact, there was a uncashed check that Paula's very wealthy and very influential family had sent Paula still sitting in her desk. This is interesting too because we know that Paula was working some shifts at the school dining hall. And yet her family was wealthy and influential. And we're also sending her money because, again, there was an uncashed check in Paula's desk. Now, could it be that Paula's behavior towards her family was just that of a rebellious teenager? Could it be that maybe her parents were a little strict and that was the huge fight they had that motivated Paula not to go home for Thanksgiving? Of course. Of course, it could have been nothing but just innocent miscommunication and just normal teenage issues. But in this awakening that were all happening, we're starting to realize certain things about certain families. Now, I have no idea if the Weldens are part of this religious group will say that has been running our world for the past 6000 years where they do funky things in their families. I don't know. I have no idea. However, there were some other things that caught my attention. The fact that her mother automatically jumped to the worst case scenario to the point where she had to be bedridden. And there was another interesting situation that happened. Fall Rivers, Massachusetts, today is about a three and a half hour car ride away from Bennington College. Soon after Paula's disappearance made local papers, a waitress in Fall Rivers, Massachusetts claimed that a young lady matching Paula's description was in her diner with another man. She claimed that Paula seemed a little bit out of sorts. But of course, the lady at the moment didn't know that this could potentially be a missing person. For her in this moment, this was just a very noticeable customer. Well, as soon as Mr. Welden heard the story of the waitress in Fall Rivers, Massachusetts, he decided that he would go himself to Fall Rivers, Massachusetts to follow up on this claim. He did not tell any of the authorities. He just drove off by himself to see what was going on. The official narrative is that nothing came of this story. The young woman in the red jacket that the waitress saw was not Paula. And this could be true. But again, very suspicious that her father decided that he was going to take the sighting into his own hands and not notify the official people helping with the case. Elizabeth Johnson went on to allegedly claim that she was actually suspicious of Mr. Welden. She didn't believe that there was a boy in Paula's hometown that Paula was interested in dating and could have run away with. Again, if she was going to run away with this boy, why did she leave an uncashed check behind and why didn't she take any clothes with her? If she was interested in just leaving her life behind, why was she still thinking about changing her major? Nothing added up. None of what Mr. Welden claimed his daughter was going through made sense to Elizabeth Johnson. And then of course, as I said earlier, they had had a huge fight. By December 16th, 15 days after Paula's last official sighting, her dad packed her room up and headed back to Connecticut. In doing so, he bashed Vermont, claiming that the whole case was handled irresponsibly by the powers that be. Once again, this whole disastrous case is what motivated Vermont to create its own state police department. Paula's case remained a cold case until 1955. When in conversation one night, a lumberjack, a local lumberjack, claimed to have followed Paula down the long trail. He also joked and laughed and said he knew exactly where her body was. While this lumberjack was immediately pulled in for questioning, but as he was being interviewed, claimed that he was only blowing smoke and joking around and so they let him go. 13 years later, a body was found along the long trail. However, this body was not Paula's. Now this whole area is what's now called the Bennington Triangle. This is because between 1945 and 1950, five people went missing. Five people including Paula. Only one of these five missing people's body has been found. The other four seem to have vanished out of nowhere. Now moving forward, we're going to go through all of the other cases of the missing persons in this Bennington Triangle area. Now of course, this case happened a very, very long time ago. But if I had to guess from my spidey senses or my gut feeling about what happened to Paula Jean Weldon, I would definitely guess in my opinion that her father probably had something to do with it. But I don't know if he had something to do with it in the traditional sense. We know that people go missing in state and national parks all the time. We know that people believe certain parks and places on the earth are portals. We also know that people who practice this 6000 year old dark religion know where some of these portals and or underground tunnels are. We also know that some of these people use their own children in some of these rituals. Now that's just my opinion. Again, this is a very old case and I could be wrong. In fact, I do plan on asking Janine about this to see if we can get some clarity. But that's kind of the gist I got when I was reading through this case. Another interesting thing about the Bennington Triangle, this whole area of wilderness, it seems that the Native Americans who lived here first believed that this area was cursed. Now the interesting thing is Paula's parents ended up retiring in Venice Beach, Florida. This is right where my boyfriend's family is from. This is the area that my boyfriend's ancestor settled in Florida. So maybe next time when I'm down there I can try to find their resting places. Now as I said Paula did have three younger sisters. I'm assuming that those three sisters grew up, got married, had children of their own. So I'm assuming that there are weldens out there that are related to this missing young woman. And to them I give my deepest sympathies. And for them I do hope that one day there are answers as to what happened to their sister, their aunt, their great aunt. I have a feeling moving forward into the future we're going to learn a lot about these national parks. We're going to learn a lot about what really goes on in these national parks. And in my opinion the wild animals of these national parks are the least of our concerns. Alright guys thank you so much for sitting through that video. Please leave me your opinions down in the comment section below. I hope you're all having a wonderful start to a wonderful week. Thank you again to Josh McKay for doing our music. If you would like to purchase the opening song, again there's a link down in the description box below. And thank you to Todd Roderick for helping me get this out to you all today. I will talk to you soon. Bye.