The Dancing Forest
On a strip of sand dunes in the Baltic, a stand of pine trees grows in loops, rings and spirals, as if they had been dancing.
What was reported
The Dancing Forest is a patch of pines on the Curonian Spit, a long, narrow sand dune between a lagoon and the Baltic Sea, shared by Russia and Lithuania. Its trunks twist into curves, corkscrews and full loops, some of them close to the ground.
Local legends say it was a sacred place, or that it's a place of strange energy. A popular belief is that climbing through one of the loops adds a year to your life.
Explanations offered
The trees were planted in the 1960s to stop the dunes shifting. Scientists think young trees were damaged by caterpillars of the pine shoot moth, which ate their growing tips, so the trees grew sideways before turning upward. Wind and the shifting sand may have played a part.
- When
- Planted in the 1960s
- Where
- Curonian Spit, Kaliningrad, Russia
- Witnesses
- Visitors
- Status
- Partly explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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