00:00Oh, that's really weird, Susie says, looking at a tree with a yellow bandage tied to it.
00:07She's been walking around a strange forest in southern Japan for an hour, and it seems she's got lost.
00:14She hung the bandage on the tree 30 minutes ago and started to walk right away from it.
00:19She didn't turn anywhere. She was walking straight.
00:22And then, half an hour later, she returned to this tree.
00:26Susie couldn't have gone far from the nearest settlement.
00:29She feels the forest is trying to deceive her.
00:32The trees are moving to not let her out of this place.
00:35All this looks like a horror movie.
00:38As night comes, a mysterious, invisible monster should appear and hang creepy crafts made of sticks on branches.
00:46Anyone would have panicked and started screaming for help.
00:49But not Susie. She smiles in the face of any danger.
00:52Besides, her phone and internet are on, so everything is fine.
00:58She takes a few steps to the side and ties a blue bandage to another cedar.
01:03Then she starts walking along a narrow path, moving further and further away from the marked tree.
01:08She notices something. The path has a slightly curved shape.
01:12Susie starts running forward and returns to the marked tree 10 minutes later.
01:16All this time, she's been just walking in a circle.
01:20Susie walks away to another tree and notices another curved path here.
01:25She takes her phone, opens online maps, and looks at her location through satellite photos.
01:30It's incredible. The trees in this place grow, forming concentric circles.
01:35There are several layers here.
01:36It resembles mysterious circular patterns that somebody left on fields all over the world.
01:41Shocked, Susie records herself on her phone to inform subscribers she has found a strange natural anomaly.
01:49While filming, she hears someone laughing.
01:52It's a smiling guy standing next to her.
01:54He finds it funny how she's speaking seriously about this forest.
01:58He tells her there's nothing unusual about this place.
02:01Trees grow in circles, thanks to people.
02:04In 1973, they planted cedars in such a way with purpose and created 10 concentric green circles.
02:10They did this as an experiment to find out how trees would grow in such rounded conditions.
02:17They called it experimental forestry.
02:19The trees started to grow in a convex shape, symmetrically fanning out.
02:24This proved that the size of gaps between the trees affects their growth.
02:28Initially, they had to cut down the trees according to the plan.
02:32But the place has become popular among tourists and locals.
02:35They love to take beautiful photos using drones and walk along the rounded paths of this little maze.
02:40Susie gets upset a little.
02:43She informs subscribers there's nothing mysterious here.
02:46The guy who told her about the circles offers her to visit the mysterious crooked forest in Poland.
02:51That's where she will definitely see a strange phenomenon.
02:54But before going there, she decides to check out another exciting place in Japan.
02:59She arrives in the fishing village of Aoshima.
03:02The first locals Susie meets here are cats.
03:05There are more of them than people.
03:07Cats are everywhere.
03:09They live here thanks to a lot of fish.
03:12Once upon a time, this place was full of mice that spoiled fishing boats.
03:16People brought cats to this place to fight the rodents.
03:19When all the mice had disappeared, the cats stayed here.
03:22Since then, people have been considering them as full-fledged citizens.
03:27The video with cats gets the most likes on Susie's channel.
03:30But now, as she promised, it's time to go to Poland.
03:33The forest looks weird thanks to the curved trees.
03:37The lower parts of their trunks are bent, making them look like bellies.
03:41It's also strange that they all point only to the north.
03:45Susie goes around the whole forest and counts about 400 trees.
03:49It seems people change the shapes of the trees.
03:52But for now, there's no evidence of this.
03:55It's believed they planted trees in the 1930s and damaged them during growing at an early age.
04:00Nobody can say why.
04:02There was a small village near the forest.
04:04Its locals probably knew the secret.
04:06But unfortunately, the town was destroyed more than 70 years ago.
04:11The key to the mystery disappeared along with it.
04:14Of course, scientists had hypotheses.
04:16But they were all quickly refuted.
04:19Perhaps this curved shape was caused by a genetic anomaly.
04:22There are trees with similar trunks in other forests of the planet.
04:26But here, the curves look too perfect and neat.
04:29It's like an artist worked on them.
04:31This suggests that something from the environment has affected them.
04:35You can find similar trees all over the world.
04:37But mostly, they're loners and never grow in such big groups.
04:42Perhaps snow falls on the tops every winter.
04:45Tree trunks bend under such a heavy weight.
04:47But why is only the lower part changing?
04:50And why do other trees in the forest look normal?
04:53Also, there's no explanation why these trees point north.
04:56Is there any purpose?
04:57The most plausible theory says that local farmers changed tree shapes to create furniture and details for ship manufacturing.
05:05It's fast and easy to make a basket from such a tree, for example.
05:08By the way, manipulating the growth of trees was a common practice among some ancient tribes in America.
05:14They deformed the trunks for navigation and communication in forests.
05:19Well, that's all very interesting.
05:20But now Susie wants to see something scary.
05:23One of the subscribers advises her to visit one creepy forest.
05:27This place is located on an island 17 miles south of the center of Mexico City.
05:33Susie gets here on a small boat.
05:35As soon as she steps on the ground, she turns on the live broadcast on her phone.
05:39She records dolls hanging on trees all over the island.
05:42They have different clothes, different sizes, and faces.
05:46There are about a dozen creepy toys on every tree.
05:50Rain and hot sun deformed the toys' faces.
05:53They're covered with moss and greenery and have taken eerily scary forms.
05:58There are rumors they come to life at night.
06:00Want to check?
06:01One of the subscribers writes.
06:03No problem.
06:04Susie agrees.
06:05The sun is going down below the horizon.
06:08Darkness falls on the forest.
06:10Susie is wandering among the trees.
06:12The moon lights her way.
06:14She makes a fire to get warm.
06:16At this moment, she hears a strange sound.
06:19She notices some movements out of the corner of her eye.
06:22The phone turns off.
06:23Susie looks up and sees one of the dolls, lit up by the flames,
06:27is turning its head in her direction.
06:30Susie screams and runs away from this place.
06:32Of course, the doll didn't move.
06:35You can notice a little bird sitting behind the toy's head.
06:39A few days later, Susie found out that one of the Mexico City locals
06:42had moved to the island in the 50s and filled it with toys.
06:46He collected dolls from landfills and canals around the island.
06:50He spent several years decorating every tree.
06:53In the beginning, it looked strange and exciting for tourists.
06:56Then, as the dolls began to age and rot,
06:59the place became more attractive for people.
07:01There are several legends about the reasons for his obsession.
07:05Okay, Susie's had enough of these mysteries and creepy places.
07:09Now she wants to admire something majestic that was created by nature.
07:13She arrives in California's Sequoia National Park,
07:16where the most giant trees in the world grow.
07:19She's looking with an open mouth at the biggest tree in the world,
07:22a giant sequoia.
07:24Its name is General Sherman, and it's about 2,000 years old.
07:28The volume of this tree is almost half the size of an Olympic swimming pool.
07:33Despite its age, it's not the oldest one.
07:36There are redwoods in the park that appeared 3,000 years ago.
07:40And the tallest tree in the world grows here, in California.
07:44It's a redwood that belongs to the Sequoia family.
07:47It's called Hyperion, and its height reaches 380 feet.
07:51This is one-third of the Eiffel Tower's height.
07:53Just imagine what kind of view you can see from the tree's top.
07:58Now Susie is on the island of Madagascar.
08:00She's going to see unique baobab trees.
08:03They look like something has ripped them out of the ground,
08:05turned upside down, and shoved them back in.
08:08Baobabs are some of the most beautiful trees in the world.
08:11Most of them are here, in the alley of baobabs.
08:14But you can also find them in Australia and South Africa.
08:17Their tree trunks resemble sponges.
08:19They expand and absorb moisture during the rainy season.
08:22Then, elephants like to drink it.
08:24They tear off and chew the trunk's parts to quench their thirst.
08:28At night, flowers bloom on the baobabs.
08:31They smell like sour milk and attract bats.
08:34But the most interesting thing is that the baobab doesn't dry out
08:38and doesn't fall like other trees after the end of its life.
08:41It crumbles, settles, and leaves a pile of pieces on the ground.
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