What do a man-absorbing rock, electrocuted cattle and a fucked-up compass have in common? A 36-square-mile area in South Vermont known as the Bennington Triangle, according to From the Beyond: High Strangeness in the Bennington Triangle, a Small Town Monsters documentary.
Between 1945 and 1950, five people disappeared from its unmarked borders without explanation. Per narrator Mark Matzke, “The facts are few; the stories are many.”
And how! Interviewees talk of floating orbs, haunted homes, the sound of crying babies in the forest, ancient stone structures and a teleportation vortex. They also talk of UFOs, shadow people and a Bigfoot “built like a brick shithouse.” Covering so many ascribed theories in a short amount of time, it’s a veritable paranormalpalooza!
As always, director Seth Breedlove turns in a well-researched, well-made and largely well-oiled hour or so that explores a ton of questions to leave unanswered. High Strangeness feels more skeptical than his previous efforts I’ve seen, in that Breedlove seems more game to explicitly acknowledge the existence of what his core audience likely doesn’t want: plausible explanations and, quoting Matzke, “how rumor becomes record.”
That said, Breedlove saves the most outlandish Bennington Triangle encounter for last, as composer and vegetable farmer Robert Singley tells of his experience there, when time and distance suddenly became malleable. One of his lines could double as the Small Town Monsters motto: “That don’t make no sense.” —Rod Lott
Glad you enjoyed the Mysterious Beyond of Glastenbury Mountains!