Modern Mysteries

Poland's Crooked Forest remains a mystery

By T.K. Randall
April 2, 2017 ·  17 comments

Why are the trees this shape ? Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Artur Strzelczyk The peculiar grove, which was planted around 1930, contains dozens of pine trees which have somehow become bent by up to 90 degrees near to the ground resulting in odd, curved trunks.

The phenomenon is made all the more baffling by the fact that the nearby village of Gryfino, which was once home to those who knew what actually happened to the trees, was almost completely destroyed during World War II, taking the forest's secrets with it.

While today nobody knows exactly why the trees are the shape that they are, the most prevailing theory suggests that they may have been deliberately manipulated by the townspeople.Not everyone however is convinced that this is the case.

"Because there are so many crooked trees in this stand, I would proceed with caution concluding it being human-caused, even though that is a definite possibility," wrote retired plant scientist William Remphrey from the University of Manitoba.

"What I found with the crooked aspen is that even after I was able to explain the crookedness with a scientific basis, many people did not want to believe it and held onto to their far-out theories."

Source: New York Times | Comments (17)

Tags: Poland, Crooked Forest, Gryfino