The Crooked Forest

One of Mysterious places of the world

THE CROOKED FOREST IN INDONESIA

On the corner of western Poland, near Gryfino( a town), a strange and unnatural woodland exists. This forest has weirdly curved pine trees after which it is named -”The Crooked Forest” Over the years numerous theories have been proposed but no one truly knows what caused this shape of the trees.

From the base, the pine trees grow with a 90-degree sharp bend northward, but then curve back to grow straight up into the sky giving it a J or ¿ shape. This is where the name for the forest comes from. The neighbouring pine trees to this forest are completely straight and not bent at all. Despite this eerie bent, the trees are completely healthy. They are 49 feet tall (less than the average height of pine trees i.e.147–206 feet) for reasons unknown. It is found that the local farmers planted the trees in 1930, but it is estimated that the trees were seven to ten years old when they encountered this change in their form.

THE POSSIBLE CAUSES

Enemy Tanks

A popular idea is that during the invasion of Poland in World War II, enemy tanks plowed through the young forest, flattening the trees to such an extent that they grew back crooked. But a problem with this theory is that it won’t explain, why is only this one small patch affected? The dates of the curvature and the war may match up (about 82 years ago), but the wound still seems questionable to be run over by heavy tanks giving such odd yet uniform shape if the young trees survived at all.

UNIQUE GRAVITATIONAL PULL

Some people believe that the area has eccentric gravitational pull that is responsible but there is no evidence to prove this theory. This is because gravity of the earth pulls downwards and not sidewards. And again the question ‘why only a small patch is affected?’ remains unanswered.

SNOWFALL

Another theory suggests that the trees encountered a heavy snowfall with a strength that bent the small saplings of the tree forcing them to grow crookedly. However, these hypotheses do not explain why other trees in the area were not affected, and how only these hundreds of trees grew almost identical in form.

HUMAN INTERVENTION

The most believed theory proposes that the trees were intentionally manipulated by common farmers. It is accepted that the farmers intervened the trees when they were young in the hope of obtaining bent timber for furniture. Trees were also twisted in various forms in order to develop a curved timber. These curved timbers were known as ‘compass’ timbers.” These were like the tree circus.(Axel Erlandson was a farmer, who shaped trees as a hobby, opened a place in 1947 called ‘The Tree Circus’ .image down below)

The annexation of Poland during WWII might have led to the terminating the project amid leaving the neighbouring trees tall and straight. There are questions like — could the bent be possible in those days?And that did it actually occur? The answer to this mystery lies with the people of Gryfino, but since that town was already abandoned during the beginning of WWII the answer too was abandoned until the 1970s(when a power plant was built in that area).

While concluding, no one knows the original cause for the bent but the theory of human intervention seems the most reasonable.

UNCONVINCING CAUSES

Several more theories were proposed to solve the mystery of the crooked forest but none proved to be plausible. There were assumptions of aliens and evil spirits stating the forest to be haunted. But today’s world requires scientific proofs which the people having these assumptions could not provide.

SOME COMMON FACTS ABOUT THE FOREST:

• Crooked Forest is a group of pine trees that bent near the base of the tree trunks, giving it a shape like a fish hook or ‘¿’.
• The Crooked Forest is located in the west province of Poland near the town of Gryfino.
• The trees of the forest are said to be planted in the 1930s making them 91 years old in 2021.
• Crooked Forest consists of 400 trees approximately that are arranged in 22 rows.
• It is also believed that the trees were purposefully bent after 7-10 years of their existence.
• The bends in the Crooked Forest tree trunks are generally in the direction of due north.
• Tourists all over the world come to visit this amazing site.