Featured Image Credit: X
Topics: Nature, Science, World News, Environment, Canada
Jess Hardiman
A bizarre viral video shows a forest floor appearing to ‘breathe’, leaving social media users completely baffled.
The clip, filmed in a forest in Quebec, Canada, shows the woodland moving up and down, making it look as if it's a living and breathing thing.
The ground surges upwards as if suddenly filled with air, before deflating and sinking back down. As it does so, the trees simultaneously lift dramatically and crash about into one another.
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The video originally surfaced online back in 2018, but has reappeared on X this week to freak out a whole new batch of users.
One person commented: “WTF?”
Someone else said: “This is insane I've never seen this in Canada before! Where?”
A third wrote: “This is really scary tbh, will leave me thinking a lot.”
A fourth added: “A bit scary but phenomenal to see.”
It turns out it’s all down to a strange natural phenomenon in which various elements have to come together just right to create the unsettling effect.
Mark Sirois of the Southern Quebec Severe Weather Network told TIME previously: “When you look at the trees in the background, it’s clear that the winds were very strong.
“The forest floor seems to be moss covered, which leaves a lot of the root system of younger trees lodged in a loose medium. As the wind sways the trees, you get the roots lifting the floor. This gives the appearance of ‘breathing.'”
Wild.
A similar clip – also filmed in Canada, this time in Nova Scotia – went viral in 2015 after walker Brian Nuttall spotted the same thing happening in Apple River, Cumberland County.
"As I entered a patch of trees spared from clear cutting, I noticed the ground moving," he said in a Facebook post.
"I believe the larger trees are doomed to blow down but are currently spared, the smaller trees around them help hold each other up, as the wind pushes the trees into one another.
"The punishing prevailing winds have taken their toll on the side hill, the roots have loosened and the mossy ground from the once shaded forest floor are giving way, soon to be toppled over."
Mind you, even though there's a scientific explanation, it's still hard to say we'll all remain level-headed next time we're out walking and suddenly see the ground literally moving beneath our feet...