monoculture forests are deeply unsettling in a way that is hard to explain to people who do not spend a lot of time looking at forests
this thing is alive in an undead hivemind kind of way and it wants to fucking kill me
this literally looks like a poorly designed video game
Let me tell you how bizarre these are. I was in one last week because I am doing a soil sample internship, and it was so strange. Like, I didn’t realize the forest was planted at first, and then suddenly I stepped forward, and everything was in straight lines. Not to mention, the lovely mossyness of all of it was covering up a LAYER OF SAND. The forest we were in was growing in Sand. Another surprise I was not warned about by my supervisor. When I finally asked him about it, her told me the whole forest had been planted after WWII, and the whole place was an old Soviet training ground. He then said, “Oh, I forgot to mention, don’t go on the other side of the road we came in here on, there’s unexploded bombs over there.”
That layer of moss that looks like lovely green foliage? It was about an inch think and dryer that a bone. (Which my supervisor’s dog found many of and kept trying to bring them to me. Very sweet, but ew.) And under that thin land of moss? Sand.
Also, to repeat, this place was a DESERT. Like, we walked out of the trees at one point and it was pure Sand. (Also my supervisor found an exploded bomb casing and proceeded to carry that around with him for the rest of the expedition)
Bizarre, spooky, and all around not the best time to be left alone in. Also very unsettling in other ways.
