If your definition of heavy-duty moving equipment includes a decent block and tackle set-up, sure.
If tornados did it, there should be a few boulders not in trees. And I suspect the only place you’d be able to put a boulder you dropped from the sky to sit in a tree would be right in the crown.
Could a tornado lift a 400-pound rock and not demolish the tree beneath it? That strikes me as being exceedingly unlikely.
My WAG is that they were probably put there by people, but it’s hard to imagine why. These rocks are in a very, very, very remote location miles from any roads. (Read the article and note the directions that include compasses and GPS coordinates!) Why would somebody go thru all that trouble to set up something that only a handful of hunters and hard-core woodsmen will ever see?
According to the article, the rocks are indigenous to the area.
Branches may not move up a tree, but they certainly grow in width.
If a rock was wedged between two branches or trunks at ground level, as the branches grew wider the rock could be squeezed upwards between them. As time goes on the original tree or branches die off, or the rock shifts from their grasp, only to wedge between two other branches. And so it continues, getting higher with each turn.
Not very likely, I’d admit. But with millions of trees over millions of years practically anything is possible.
QED et al: “…A branch that is five feet from the ground will always be five feet from the ground…”
I think this is arguable a bit based upon what one’s definition of “tree” is, as this certainly doesn’t apply to all tree-like plants. Is there a botanical/taxonomical definition or boundary placed on the “tree” definition?
Palms and their ilk were already mentioned as an exception. From experience, asparagus continues to grow from the stalk long after it has branched, though whether it qualifies as a tree, I don’t know.
Cactuses are also another exception that can continue to grow from the stalk.
There are some african succulents that I believe also grow from the trunk/stalk that I think would also qualify as trees.
Once upon a time in the Mother Lode, a chamberpot appeared on top of a flagpole (upside down).
My father appeared to have knowledge of the method.
You take a 4’ stick (approx) and fasten it to the flag cord, parallel to the pole, putting the chamberpot on top. Up the pole; down the pole (pot hooks itself over the gilt knob at the top).
To remove: Take similar stick, fasten it as before but with somewhat more slack, so when it gets poked into said pot, the stick tilts enough so pot misses knob on the way back down. Alternatively, shoot at pot, but this doesn’t work for a brass chamberpot, only ceramic.
I vote for humans, as per mangetout’s post.
Do you think when the humans get space travel, that we will play silly pranks on the aliens?
You’re presuming that trees grow so close together that when one dies off, there will be another full-grown tree within a few feet of the original trunk to ‘catch’ it in a suitable crook, a few inches below? This doesn’t happen. Just look at trees sometime.
You may see the main trunks near each other close to the ground, but they soon diverge. Even that tends to be an unstable situation: their roots and leaves compete for nutients and sun. The younger tree would never get a main trunk up to 40 ft right next to the older tree. (Sometimes the stems of parasitic vines or shubs may grow so thick and woody that they resemble small tall tree trunks, but they couldn’t lift a heavy boulder. they are flimsy take the easiest route. They only thicken years after they have attained their height.)
Also, I’ve seen several cases in New England of metal objects ( on the order of 5-20 lbs) that were left in the forks of branches for decades or centuries. At best, they get embedded in the fork, which grows and thickens around them. Plants react to the forces exerted on them. The mechanism you describe might lift an object a foot or so, but I doubt a 400lb rock would be raised appreciably. More importantly, just because an object might be raised a few inches does not at all imply that the process can be repeated over and over, and certainly not that the rock would be transferred from tree to tree by some handwaving mechanism.
However, in this case, we’re noting three cases in a small radius, and essentially none reported elsewhere. There aren’t millions of trees in that radius. “Millions of years” is irrelevant, since few trees survive past 2 centuries (and not the 3 in question) Nothing that happened a million years ago
As a practical matter, if your mechanism was correct (and there’s no evidence for it) we should see some evidence of it in operation. It would take generations of trees to lift a boulder 5 ft (the boulder must fall slightly between generations), and **most boulders at any height would fall out of the tree without being caught by another, so for every boulder at 40 ft, we should see at least several at 35 ft (most of which would not make it to 40), dozens at 30 ft, hundreds at 25 ft… the woods would be alive with trees with boulders at 15 or 10 or 5 feet. ** Funny. I don’t believe any of those have been reported, and they should be everywhere
From the article:
A ravine used by… mischievous rock climbers, perhaps?
Why does everyone have a problem believe the tree itself lifted 400 pounds, or that a tornado lifted the rock? I am sure the weight of the tree above the rock weighs many times 400 lbs. Similarly, a tornado is capable of lifting vehicles that weigh several times 400 lbs. I am not saying these are likely, just that they are possible contrary to the suggestions otherwise.
African swallows.
Illegally imported of course, being non-migratory and all.
With enough string is there nothing these clever birds cannot do?
The way the rock is resting on the crotch of the tree makes it look like a good resting place (despite being 80 feet off the ground). Is it possible that hunters hoisted it up there for a hide? Granted, it would be a lot of work, but it’s not any goofier an idea than blaming it on UFOs.
Bolding mine.
As Q.E.D. has explained several times, it is not possible for a tree such as the ones involved in this story to lift anything through growth. Any individual part of the tree (section of the trunk, limb) stays in the same position and at the same level where it originated. Limbs grow out from their tips by the addition of new cells. The weight of the tree above the rock is there because it grew there, not because it was lifted there.
These rocks are within the lifting power of a tornado, but it’s difficult to see how the tornado left them there without destroying the forest. Perhaps a funnel could have somehow spit them out sideways into an area not directly affected by the tornado itself. However, since the odds are heavily against rocks falling exactly in such away as to become lodged in the treetops, one would expect many more rocks to be positioned on top of the ground at odd angles, and there should be evidence of damage to the trunks and branches of other trees caused by falling rocks that did not get stuck.
If such evidence is not apparent, the only alternative would seem to be human intervention.
I think you misunderstand. No one is saying that once a plant branched it ceases to grow from that stem/stalk. What we are saying is that once a branch is produced it will not ise by more than a few inches. That is true of asparagus and palms as it is of any other plant. If an asparagus plant branches at 3 inches off the ground the branch remains no more than 6 inches off the ground. Even if that stalk goes on to reach a height of 3 feet the branch remains below one foot.
This is correct. In elementary land surveying you learn that a nail in a tree makes an excellent elevation bench mark that stays at the same elevation as long as the tree lives.
Did you read the thread at all?
The Master speaks:
Will initials carved on the side of a tree always remain at the same height?
Density is the problem here. Tornados can only lift things by pressure differential. Despite what you have seen in the movies, cars are lifted only short distances. An average car might have a projected foot print of about 10,000 square inches and weigh 4000 pounds. Therefore, a pressure differential of less than 0.5 psi will lift it. On the other hand, a 2 foot diameter bolder will have a projected cross section of about 40 square inches and could weigh in the neighborhood of 500 lbs. A 10 psi pressure differential in a tornado is hard to believe.
My point was, that even though palms do change “branch” height, it is not really branches changing height, it’s their leaves that do. This is why i mentioned the Hyphaene, because they branch like other trees do, but like other trees, when they branch out, those branches always remain the same height, just as they always do with other trees. So, a Hyphaene thebaica with a branch 20 feet up will always have that same branch 20 feet up.
Besides, the tissue at the growth points of palms is very delicate soft tissue and would be unable to carry a 400lb rock upwards. You’d probably kill the tree by squishing the terminal bud.
When rocks are found in places you wouldn’t expect them, the answer is frequently that the glaciers left them there. 
I knew my dad was old, but I didn’r realize he was old enouigh for glaciers to travel up to his kidneys.
Why yes, I am a spring chicken myself, thank you. No wait, using the phrase ‘spring chicken’ pretty much invalidates that, doesn’t it?