The Crooked Forest, known in Polish as Krzywy Las, sits near the town of Gryfino in western Poland. It holds roughly 400 pine trees whose trunks bend sharply at the base before curving back upward. The trees were planted in the 1930s, and the cause of the distinctive curvature remains unexplained.
This is where Home Depot sources their lumber
An infestation of the pine shoot moth produces a very similar structure. The eggs are laid into the shoot killing it. The pine reacts by producing a new shoot on the side which curles towards the vertical again producing these characteristic bends in pines.
See here for a very early stage:
and the cause of the distinctive curvature remains unexplained.
It is explained in the 4th paragraph of the attached sign in Polish. It was caused intentionality by humans. @vegafjord@slrpnk.net got it almost right.
What’s not fully explained is exactly what for these trees were grown like that.
Boat hulls maybe?
That's the explanation that I heard, and it makes a lot of sense. A lot less to steam and bend if it already grows in mostly the correct shape. It could be some other wood structure too, maybe the mystery is we don't know exactly what they were building with them.
Based on what happens to the herbs growing in containers on my patio, I bet it was cats
The cats in Poland must be huge
The shared orientation makes me wonder if it was a smaller version of the tunguska event. Trees were flattened but grew back upwards over time.
My thought was much the same. A bit of a search around found there was a big tornado in Lublin in 1931, but that's quite some way away. There was another smaller tornado in Łążyn in 1940, which is closer, but still a little way off to the east.
Nothing concrete, but a newly planted woodland would be susceptible to even a strong storm that wouldn't be a notable weather record.
Nobody knows why, but I can imidiately see what happened. This is simply somebody who chopped down some trees, planted new ones, let them grow a couple meters, then chopping off all the branches except those pointing southeast.
I have a small forest close by with weird bendy trees. It's said that the forest was sick, which made the trees more bendy so all the trees are kinda shaped like that.
that's not what my auntie said in 1999:
✨ there is a powerful earth-energy line going trough and all the trees have to get out of the way of the line and bow down ✨
she actually believed this. I've been major impressed by the power of that invisible energy so that I still think of it when I myself see bended trees
We still tell children ancient myths like that.
"That is the ears of a troll." "A house nisse is making that noise in the attic." Fairy rings, witches snot, elves dancing, all that stuff.
I’ve seen shit like this where they claim some pseudo science explanation like a warp in gravity. Even as a kid, I knew that was bullshit, because the earth it like really massive, so why would one special spot be affected? Tree sickness makes a lot more sense.
This comment reminded me that I used to be terrified of husnissar when I was a kid.
Me too. I remember asking my mom something like "Why TF are we feeding this thing porridge?!". "So it won't mess with us."
"Why doesn't dad just kick it's ass, shoot it or set up a trap?"
Scariest part of going to the outside bathroom at the cabin as a kid.
All things serve the beam
They used to plant and shape trees for use in building wooden war ships. A few years ago a strand of oaks in France matured to where they could be used. That is not what is going on here, but maybe for some other purpose.
Funny Polish boy grew up and died and everybody forgot he made ~~cornfield circles~~ bendy pines.
This is where they grow politicians.
For exceptionally interesting content
Rules: