Miramar`s Municipal Plant Nursery, Energetic Woodland

From the outside, it is only possible to see a leafy thick forest of conifers in dark green. Two old worn out wooden buildings, which during the summer are part of the craftsmen tour where gems and wood crafts are sold, are the entrance gate to a place that is far from enigmatic at simple sight.

However, the large amount of tourists announces that we are in the right spot. The yellow sign post of the entrance advises that no branches may be cut and that the place must be respected and taken care of.

As I hurry to enter the forest, an elderly lady, with a special face and attractive white hair tells me that the place is enchanted and that she and her husband have become part of the steady dwellers of the wood in the past years.

The story amazes me and, although I do not believe what I have just heard, I show myself immutable to see if I can obtain some more information about the place. Noticing that I am interested, the woman continues: “Curious people, artists, psychiatrists, local scientists and even people from the NASA have come here. Most of them come to try to understand about the branches and they all talk about magnetism, but in fact nobody really has a certain explanation for what happens here. I think that there are aliens here and I even believe that they park their spaceships behind those trees.”

After listening to the story, we resolve to enter the forest with the photo camera to record each one of the experiences. My escort cannot help smiling and, at times, I myself am an accomplice of his jokes. Yet, what we start to see totally surprises us and catches our attention.

As we advance, the place becomes totally dark and the sunlight cannot penetrate the forest, not even at midday, when the sun is up. Silence and darkness, wild smells, freshness and humidity are sovereigns of the environment, but what attracts us most is to see the trees. They grow towards one side, completely bent, and they intercross. Therefore, when you look up, the natural roof is riddled with branches that close one over the other. On the ground, on the other hand, a large circle is formed, bordered by these strange pines.

We do what all visitors to the forest do: we look for a small branch on the ground (it is full of them everywhere) and we drive it in the soil vertically in the center formed by the trees. Then, we take another one and place it horizontally over the first one, so as to form a “T” with the two of them. And before our incredulous eyes, the unexpected happens: the second branch stays on the first in balance and it does not fall. For several minutes, we repeat the act with branches of various sizes and shapes, and it is always the same way: they stay in balance.

Our rational hypothesis on the phenomenon is that a sort of magnetism takes hold of the situation and, as if they were two natural magnets, both sticks attract each other. Then we remember the last piece of advice given by the lady before we entered, which consisted in touching the trees to charge ourselves with energy and then approach our hands towards the “T” formed by the branches. As we do this, the stick in the horizontal position begins to oscillate and turns from one side to the other without falling from the stick that is supporting it.

Astonished, we take pictures of what happens and regret not having a video camera at hand. We walk for quite a while across a weird and, at the same time, attractive scenery which has its own sounds and also produces special sensations to the sight.

We do not see either dwarves, or elves, or luminous figures, as many brochures assert has happened to “people whose reliability is out of the question”. Neither do we turn on the radio inside the forest to test whether it is still working, nor do we hear terrifying noises. Our watches continue working as usual.

Later, we are told countless stories about the place. For instance, that in the year 1954 the international scientific community came to the forest, or that people having health problems have found their cure in the wood, or that there are those who assure to have had contact with beings from other planets.

The various hypotheses that have tried to explain the phenomenon of the sticks are many, from the presence of a buried meteor, to the existence of telluric flows, environmental ionization, quantic energy and even the existence of an Indian cemetery. The point is that the energetic forest does exist and “the issue of the sticks”, as this phenomenon is referred to here, is something real, provable with the eyes of any human being.

Physics scientists from all round the world, such as Lord Kelvin, Rutherford, Albert Einstein and Planck, have gone all through the forest and have not been able to unveil its secrets. The causes, beyond any logical deduction made by visitors, remains a real mystery. Maybe, this uncertainty is another reason to visit the mysterious wood. Even to do so at night is something that may become fascinating.