The Crooked Forest of Poland

Deep in the woods outside Gryfino, Poland, sits a grove of about 400 pine trees that grow with a bizarre, 90-degree bend at their base. Planted in the early 1930s, the trees all sweep northward before curving back up to grow straight toward the sky. The exact cause of this strange formation remains one of nature’s great unsolved mysteries. Some theories suggest a strange magnetic pull or a heavy snowstorm flattened them as saplings. The most widely accepted theory is human intervention—that local foresters intentionally manipulated the young trees to create naturally curved timber for building boats or furniture, though the onset of WWII halted their plans forever.