The Unknown Mysteries of Pokaini Forest

Stock Image of a kinda creepy forest.

Pokaini Forest & its History

Pokaini forest is a forest (obviously) located in Latvia, near a small town named Dobele. This forest has been shrouded in legends and mysteries for many years and is a place that many consider being a strong anomalous zone to the point where even NASA satellites discovered inexplicable radiating energy. An anomalous area is one in which strange and unexplainable occurrences, usually perceived to be paranormal occur often or even regularly. In the case of Pokaini Forest, there are a few reports of strange things happening as far back as the 1930s but nothing was really solid or documented up until the 1990s when the forest was investigated by a researcher which then lead to many more people going to the forest as well as discovering strange occurrences.

The forest was allegedly first studied in 1996 by Ivar Viks who was a researcher from Riga. He was supposedly intrigued by the forest and the various stories of bizarre and unexplainable occurrences taking place there. He witnessed many strange things in the forest such as rocks emitting electromagnetic energy but I'll be going into these in detail later. Strangely, soon after Ivar began his research into the forest he fell ill with an unknown disease that took his life leading many people to believe this was linked to him investigating the forest. 

After the demise of Ivar Viks, the research was continued by a Russian physicist named Yevgeny Sidorov. He spent a large amount of time investigating the forest and learned that Pokaini Forest was often visited by people who sought healing powers from the ancient rocks. He also found evidence of strange phenomena such as rising temperatures and strange rocks but there were no solid facts that could prove the forest wasn't just coincidentally strange. While these 2 men didn't find anything conclusive, their work led to an increase in the popularity of the forest and the mystery as a whole. 

Strange Occurences/Anomalies

1. Strange Rocks with Powers-

The most prominent oddity about the Pokaini Forest is that there are large and very heavy boulders that are uniformly assembled across the forest but nobody knows how they got there. Many locals are against moving the rocks away from the forest as it is considered bad luck. The rocks are considered to have divided powers of sorts as in some sare able to heal people and some cause harm. People claim that the healing rocks have healed many illnesses while some rocks are said to cause illness and death like in the case of the researcher Ivar Viks. There are even cases of tourists taking rocks away from the forest and then being inflicted with mysterious diseases although this may still just be a coincidence. Other than all this, these rocks are said to emit radiation and some sort of palpable energy but this source of this hasn't been ascertained.

As to the source of the rocks themselves, many archeologists and historians have investigated this forest but haven't been able to reach a conclusion on it.  The theories range from the rocks being brought for a burial site to being the foundation of a castle but none have enough solid proof to be considered true. The most popular legend has it that in ancient times, pilgrims came from all over Europe to the forest and brought the stones along with them. They left the stones there as a symbol of liberation or overcoming from sin. Some people go on to say that some druids and/or priests were able to control the weather and had supernatural powers sourced from this forest.

2. Unknown Temperature Difference-

Another strange fact about this forest is that the temperature in this ancient forest is always higher than that of the environment. People claim that the heat of the forest directly emanates through their body and can keep them warm even if it is very cold or snowing in the surrounding areas. This phenomenon is seen across the forest but is most noticeable and prominent in a meadow under a specific pine tree. people who stand there claim that they can feel a strange warmth stirring from within their bodies.

3. Paranormal Occurrences-

According to an American professor Jim Hurtok, who visited this region in the 1970s, NASA satellites recorded a strange light emanating from the area. He claimed that it was observed in a large circular area of greater than 50,000 kilometres, and it was focused in the Pokaini forest. People claim that they have been able to communicate with each other at the hilltops within the forest even though they are great distances away. Due to this, the forest has gained a supernatural aspect to its mystery and many people believe there may be some invisible gateway connecting to parallel worlds. Adding to this, many pieces of equipment such as watches and compasses don't work properly even though there is no magnetic field that can be detected in the overall area. In a specific valley of the forest, strange orbs of light have been seen in photographs, but never by anyone in real life. Scientists from a nearby Latvian research center gave the unknown orbs the name "GOUG" which means, "globous objects of unknown genesis."

Conclusion

This is quite a strange mystery as the occurrences themselves are split between some that are scientifically explainable somehow such as the temperature difference and on the other hand, some that are a total mystery like the people who communicated across great distances easily. In my personal opinion, I don't think that there is anything supernatural going on in the forest but just several strange coincidental occurrences that give it the appearance of being a ghost forest. The story of people bringing in the rocks years ago seems fair enough to explain their origin to me and scientists have suggested that the radiation from the rocks is caused by magnetic ore deposits. As for the temperature being higher in the forest, one explanation that I found to fit quite well is that there could be underground gas emissions and seismic activity which would increase the temperature of the area as a whole and some hotspots such as the pine tree could just be more active and closer to the surface. The paranormal things like the "GOUGs" seem to be concocted by human imagination and added on to the scientifically explainable mysteries but that's just my opinion on it so far. Even if there is nothing directly paranormal about this forest, the number of unknown phenomenon happening there is still quite strange.

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