The Strange Theory That Mountains Are Trees

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00:00There are over 3 trillion individual trees on Earth, some of which can live for thousands

00:06of years.

00:07At the same time, around 25% of Earth's land surface is made up of mountains.

00:13These two statistics would usually be thought of as unrelated, but for some, they're very

00:19much linked.

00:21What's your verdict on the theory that mountains are trees?

00:29By now, the Flat Earth Conspiracy Theory has arguably become the most widely recognized

00:34conspiracy theory of all, with certain celebrities and high-profile figures peddling its various

00:41eye-catching claims.

00:42What might be somewhat surprising, however, is that the theorists themselves can't wholly

00:48agree on the layout of the Flat Earth.

00:51For example, while some believe the Earth to be a disk that is walled in on all sides

00:57by massive ice sheets in Antarctica, which are guarded by none other than NASA, others

01:03think that really there's no edge to Flat Earth at all, and that the plane of Earth

01:09extends on and on.

01:12As strange a theory as Flat Earth in general is in our modern times, though, it has yet

01:18managed to give rise to an even stranger one.

01:22In 2016, a video appeared on a now-deleted YouTube account arguing for the certainly

01:28unusual No Forests on Flat Earth theory, and it gained some initial popularity.

01:36Since then, the ideas within it have become key to some Flat Earth beliefs.

01:41The astonishing theory argues that trees, normal, everyday trees, are actually only

01:47bushes and shrubbery, and shadows of their once much larger and greater former selves.

01:55Real trees of long ago, as per the theory, were massive structures that towered into

02:02the sky, miles and miles high.

02:05And the forests we have now aren't real forests, as the real forests no longer exist.

02:12That's the idea, anyway.

02:15So what's going on?

02:17The basic gist of the No Forests suggestion is seemingly that the Earth we know today

02:23is nowhere near as majestic or as massive as it once was.

02:29In some ways, this might be considered an understandable position to take.

02:34Scientists and researchers, even in the mainstream, do agree that Earth has at times been a much

02:41more abundant place than it is now.

02:44With wholly different and often bigger lifeforms, to the point that if we, today, were to somehow

02:50be transported back in time, we might mistake ancient Earth for some other unrecognisable

02:57alien planet.

02:59But if there were once giant trees in amongst all this, as the No Forests idea suggests,

03:06then where are they now?

03:09Here, the theory makes another surprising claim, that the visible remains of those massive

03:15trees from long ago can still be found today, all around us.

03:21We just call them mountains.

03:25According to the theory, which, importantly, is thoroughly unsupported by conventional

03:30science or research, mountains are evidence that trees used to be towering structures,

03:36as mountains are the remnants of those ancient trees.

03:41Mountains are like huge, sprawling, roughly cut and jagged tree stumps, so it's said.

03:47The old trees, the ones that no longer exist, were some 40 or 50 miles tall, with trunks

03:55multiple miles wide.

03:57Unsurprisingly, it's said that they totally dominated the landscape.

04:02Our mountains are, then, merely the corpses of these trees, the leftovers, with the No

04:09Forests theory claiming that there's evidence of this, if we look at mountains close enough.

04:15The original video, now removed from YouTube, showed various images of famous mountains

04:21and monuments, and compared them side by side with tree trunks.

04:27Uluru, in Australia, for example, is a large and somewhat flat island mountain that, the

04:33theory tells us, looks extraordinarily like a massive tree stump.

04:38Uluru was a tree, so the claim goes, but its destruction has turned it into what it is now.

04:46Elsewhere, Devil's Tower, a large, steep formation with almost vertical sides in Wyoming, USA,

04:53allegedly looks like a tree that was cut down before it could grow to full height.

04:59While the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, an iconic monument of basalt columns, is purported

05:05evidence toward a dramatically alternate history, too, with it claimed that the causeway's

05:11hexagonal pattern must be linked to organic life.

05:15Overall, the theory asks for quite a leap of faith, or foolishness, depending on your

05:21view, imploring that we look at these monuments and others not as we've come to know them,

05:27but as fallen trees.

05:30Long dead, but once magnificent, and giant fallen trees.

05:35An immediate realisation is perhaps the clear and obvious difference between the wood of

05:41the trees and the rock of our mountains, however.

05:45But here, too, the theory makes another astounding claim, because according to the No Forests

05:51point of view, rocks don't actually exist either.

05:57All the rocks we see in our day-to-day lives, from miniscule pebbles to massive cliff faces,

06:03are apparently nothing more than rubble left behind by the ancient trees.

06:09If you've ever held a rock in your hand, you've actually held part of the body of

06:14a long dead tree.

06:16Is the general idea.

06:18Understandably, and while this is by no means the only aspect of the theory that they've

06:24taken issue with, scientists, academics, researchers, most of everyone else can immediately see

06:32various and huge problems here.

06:35The inherent real-world differences between rocks and trees are, in reality, vast, but

06:42in this retelling of how the world works, they're one and the same thing.

06:47Again, if Plain Flat Earth theory wasn't strange enough already, then this extension

06:52of it certainly is.

06:54Finally, the last part of the No Forests theory attempts to explain what happened to the ancient

07:01trees which, if they did exist, must clearly have gone through a truly catastrophic deforestation

07:08event to bring Earth to be almost entirely rid of them now.

07:13It's said, by advocates, that there are a couple of different possibilities, including

07:19a great flood, or even that their destruction was the work of a race of long-lost giants.

07:26Another suggestion is that there was, at some time, a massive fire on Earth that ravaged

07:32a landscape and burned down the trees, leaving just the stumps, or mountains, we see today.

07:41Probably the most confusing answer offered, though, is that the trees were destroyed in

07:46nuclear warfare, waged during a time long before nuclear weapons were invented, as per

07:53the conventional history of humankind.

07:56More broadly, the idea that humanity is, or was, at fault in some way, even without nuclear

08:04weapons, is common.

08:06Perhaps these ancient, miles-high forests were cut down by humans for energy, during

08:12an episode or even a whole era that's otherwise been completely lost to history.

08:18And if not for energy, then maybe it was to prevent the trees from breaking through the

08:24heavenly dome, that some versions of Flat Earth theory insist is encasing the world

08:30we live in.

08:31There have been a number of possibilities floated as to what might have befallen the

08:36trees, but perhaps here, more so than at any other point, is where the theory falls on

08:42itself.

08:43Because, to recap the basics, the idea is that there are no forests on Earth, because

08:49real trees don't exist anymore.

08:52The trees we have today are tiny shrubs compared to their great ancestors, but all that's

08:58left of them, the ancestors, are our mountains, which are actually the remainder of massive

09:05tree trunks.

09:06Suffice to say, this isn't a claim that's in any way supported by conventional scientific

09:12research.

09:14And what's more, it has even caused some division in the Flat Earth movement itself,

09:19with many Flat Earthers distancing themselves from it.

09:23Perhaps the only shred of scientifically backed truth we can glean from the whole thing is

09:29that it's generally agreed that Earth was once a lot greener than it is now, with much

09:36of the world map hosting more than double the forest land than it does today, a change

09:42brought on by the urbanization of humankind.

09:46We live in cities now, towns and villages, with commuter links, air travel, and far fewer

09:53green spaces.

09:55Times have certainly changed, and, depending on the view you take, maybe for better or

10:01worse.

10:02But gigantic trees that reached miles into the sky, to the point that mountains, those

10:08immense natural structures, are mere leftovers of a time gone by?

10:13It's an entertaining idea, but it's not one that science takes all that seriously.

10:20Still, that's the strange theory that mountains are trees.

10:26What do you think?

10:27Is there anything we missed?

10:28Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you

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