Surrounded by hundreds of perfectly straight pines a 7 & 4 News viewer found dozens of twisted and curved pines. He wondered what could have caused dozens of these trees to bend so dramatically.

You seem them all over Northern Michigan. Row after row of perfectly planted, perfectly spaced, and usually perfectly straight pines. Such is the case along Esch Road in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. In fact a road sign with a squiggly line on it is about the only curve visible from the road. The asphalt is straight. The trees are straight. But if you wander a little further from all that "straight", like one our viewers did, you find nature's equivalent to a curve ball.

Surrounding by hundreds of perfectly straight pines, our viewer found dozens of twisted and curved pines. He wondered whatever could have caused dozens of these trees to bend so dramatically, while hundreds of surrounding ones grew straight to the sun? I went and checked it out, and then invited National Park Service biological science technician Ethan Scott to come take a look. Ethan's first reaction: "I would certainly say it's unusual just in the fact that you look around and there are a thousand trees standing perfectly straight and there is this nice little pocket of really bent trees."

So how did it happen? Ethan took one look around and concluded that topography certainly played a role. "All of these trees are at the base of this slope. As you get 20 to 30 feet away from the slope these trees have stopped bending so the slope has likely had an effect."

The slope behind the trees had an effect, but what really pushed the trees over?

Ethan explained "well there are a few different possibilities. One would be a micro burst which is basically a strong thunderstorm or cell coming overhead. If there is a big down draft when these trees are young enough, if some of these trees got knocked over the root ball received intact in the soil. They would be tilted at an angle then as they grow through the years they correct themselves to grow straight up and down to the sun."

So it may have been a burst of wind when the trees were just starting out that pushed them aside, but not completely out of the ground. It may have bent them over, the trees continued to grow, righting them but leaving the trace of their trauma in their trunks. If it wasn't a gust, it may have been a drift. According to Ethan "if the snow basically forms a large drift in the springtime the threes will start their growing season but if the snow is on top of them bending them over those trees slowly try to correct themselves again and grow straight up."

It may have just been one season of snow, or one day of storms when the trees were just starting out that impacted these trees for the rest of their lives. But even with such a dramatic transformation, the trees overcame. Ethan says "you look at them; a lot of them do appear to be a little bit smaller some stress put on them sure, but yeah definitely resilient."

So the answer to our viewer's questions is snow or wind mostly lead to the bent trees. But it's not exactly case closed. All of the trees were planted at the same time and dealt with the same weather conditions or snow drift, but Mother Nature left some trees in the middle of the curved ones straight. That left us scratching our heads. When I asked Ethan about it, he simply said "that's just the mystery."

So have you ever found anything seemingly unexplainable in nature? Let us know about it by posting a comment below.