We fuck a good viral whodunit here at IFLScience . And whether it ’s agravity - defying landscapeor abuzz - arre louse funeral , we ’re always willing to demystify the mystifying and explain the unexplained .
So when we consider a television being shared across the Internet of a forest “ breathing ” , we knew what we had to do .
Well , that ’s fairly terrific . But what ’s going on ? Have we stumbled upon a hiddenSnorlax ? recover the very - lifeTe Fiti ?
Some Twitter commenters offered their own theory .
Some were more scientific than others .
But mostly people had one rough-cut reaction .
Unfortunately – or , depending on how creepy-crawly you found the video , fortunately – the phenomenon is actually quite mundane . The footage , which reportedly comes from a forest in Sacre - Coeur , Quebec , is just showing us what happens when strong winds meet grease that ’s been loosened by a storm .
“ During a rain and windstorm event the ground becomes concentrated , ' loosen ' the soil ’s cohesion with the theme as the idle words is blow on a tree ’s crown , " certify arborist Mark Vanderwouw toldThe Weather internet .
" The wind is trying to ' advertise ' the trees over , and as the force is channel to the roots , the ground get down to ' heave ' . If the winds were strong enough and lasted long enough more root would pop out to break and eventually some of the tree would tip . ”
As recent events have shown inapocalyptic detail , the wind can be capable of somepretty scary poppycock . After a summer ofgigantic NSFW hurricanesable tofire beams of antimatter at usas theylurch threateningly towards erupt volcanos , a hyperventilating forest seems almost precious by comparability . And even fairly normal wind conditions can have seriously catastrophic consequences , as the occupier of Tacoma , Washington splendidly teach in 1940 when the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was iconically fetch down by winds of only 64 km per hour ( 40 miles per minute ) .
The phenomenon in the video , however , is not so striking – with the Weather internet saying they have “ received a few videos … over the eld ” from people wondering just what on Earth they ’re seeing .
finally , it turns out the “ lung of the planet ” is definitely still just a metaphor . flora may have “ brains ” and evenheartbeats , but any footage of a timber “ respiration ” is probably just the wind – or , just possibly , an earthquake .
