Scattered in the woods around Szczecin, in northwestern Poland, countless reminders of World War II often leave bizarre mysteries to be solved. Near the German border, a peculiar stand of trees all weirdly bent like question marks standing on their heads can be found, leaving many puzzled.
They all look quite similar—strangely curved like a “J”—and all are grouped roughly in the same spot. So, who or what caused these curved trees to grow into such bizarre shapes?
About 20 miles south of Szczecin, near the town of Nowe Czarnowo, some 60 to 80 of these crooked pine trees have grown for about 75 years, with some reaching heights of 50 feet. Closely grouped in one area, they are oddly surrounded by pine trees shooting straight up. Each deformed tree sprouts from the ground and rises 4 to 20 inches before jutting sharply outward in a horizontal direction. It then makes an arc of about 10 feet only to return to a natural vertical pose.
“This place stimulates people’s imagination,” Lidia Kmiecińska of the Gryfino Forest District told The Epoch Times, speaking in Polish. “Just ask visitors what the Crooked Forest is all about, and an avalanche of various inquiries and hypotheses emerge.”
Speculations and theories abound as to what caused these bowed trunks—some explanations being more plausible and others simply fanciful rumors. The facts have gotten skewed somehow, for even media outlets and Wikipedia have reported that there are 400 of them when that simply isn’t the case. Even more outlandish stories have circulated, with tales of aliens and Nazis intentionally bending the trees.
What the science tells us, though, is how naturally growing trees are equipped with an internal mechanism that detects gravity; the tree knows whether it is growing parallel or perpendicular to said force. Should it sense it isn’t growing straight, it will correct for this, bending as it grows until it is vertical.
Judging from the trees’ apparent ages, it’s believed they were saplings in the 1930s around the time of the Second World War. Prior to 1945 and before the war, Szczecin and West Pomerania were part of Germany, but the border was pushed westward once the war ended. By 1950, the majority of the Germans living here had either fled or been driven out.
Thus, the most popular and plausible explanation for the phenomenon is that someone, a German probably, intentionally bent them. They would have made an incision in the saplings and curved them manually. The reason might have been to use them for curved timber at a later date, years down the road. This could have been for boatmaking, conceivably, or crafting furniture, barrels, or sleighs.
Other plausible theories exist besides this, such as that the trees were crushed by heavy snowfall or bent by strong winds. Yet the less plausible tales, perhaps, make for a far better yarn.
Oh! It was the Nazis shaping the trees to form swastikas. Or, genetic mutation caused it. They were run over by German tanks and grew that way. Or, paranormal activity is to blame. All these wonky theories have been put forward.
“They are not the result of supernatural forces or, as some have suggested, tanks stationed here during the war,” Mr. Kmiecińska told the newspaper. “It is not the result of UFO activity or a secret laboratory of the Nazis who were allegedly testing some secret nuclear weapon here—though there were such hypotheses.”
If humans were the cause, they are probably long gone by now, and so we may never know for sure who or what caused the crooked trees near Szczecin. The one clear fact is that a number of curious upside-down question marks became a fixture and an attraction for visitors, entertaining all with a little wartime folklore.
