Sometimes the strangest sights are found in nature. In this case, about 400 pine trees in northwest Poland appear to be almost normal—but they are not. If you look at the base of these trees, you may feel like you’ve just entered a strange mystical fairy tale.
All of the trees have the same northward 90-degree bend at the base of their limb. Known as the Krzywy Las, or "Crooked Forest," this unique site remains an unexplained mystery.
Every tree in the Crooked Forest has the same haunting bend, but despite bent beginnings, they have all grown to be tall and seemingly unhampered by their C-shape curves. Some experts believe that the trees grew like this because they incurred some sort of damage to the tip and along some side branches.
Trees are resilient, and so they continued to thrive, relying on the one branch they had left to take over complete function and grow upwards. Whatever damage occurred to one tree must have happened to them all because they remain uniform in deformity.
The Crooked Forest is around 80 years old. It is estimated that the damage that made these trees look how they do today occurred when the trees were about 7 years old. This would have been before the Second World War reached Poland, which helps to explain the most popular theory about how the trees came to be crooked. As the story goes, in 1930 a group of farmers planted these trees, intentionally damaging the base in order to create some sort of product, perhaps uniquely shaped furniture. The world may never know if it’s true because the farmers were unable to finish their work after the invasion on Poland during World War II dismantled their plans.