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"They call this location the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states a tour guide, his exhalation creating wisps of vapor in the crisp evening air. "So many people have disappeared here, some say there's a gateway to another dimension." Marius is leading a visitor on a evening stroll through what is often described as the planet's most ghostly woodland: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval indigenous forest on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of unusual events here date back hundreds of years – this woodland is titled for a area shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the far-off times, along with 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu gained worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea photographed what he reported as a unidentified flying object suspended above a round opening in the heart of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and never came out. But no need to fear," he continues, turning to the visitor with a smirk. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has brought in meditation experts, shamans, ufologists and paranormal investigators from worldwide, eager to feel the strange energies reported to reverberate through the forest.

Current Risks

Despite being a top global pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, the grove is at risk. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of more than 400,000 people, described as the innovation center of the region – are encroaching, and developers are advocating for authorization to cut down the woods to build apartment blocks.

Except for a few hectares containing locally rare oak varieties, the forest is not officially protected, but Marius is confident that the initiative he helped establish – a local conservation effort – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the local administrators to acknowledge the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Chilling Events

As twigs and fall foliage break and crackle beneath their shoes, Marius tells various local legends and alleged paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account describes a little girl going missing during a group gathering, later to reappear five years later with no memory of her experience, without aging a single day, her clothes shy of the tiniest bit of dirt.
• More common reports explain mobile phones and photography gear inexplicably shutting down on entering the woods.
• Feelings range from full-blown dread to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals report noticing bizarre skin irritations on their skin, hearing disembodied whispers through the trees, or experience hands grabbing them, although certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

Despite several of the stories may be hard to prove, there is much visibly present that is undeniably strange. Everywhere you look are trees whose stems are curved and contorted into fantastical shapes.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to clarify the deformed trees: strong gales could have altered the growth, or typically increased radiation levels in the soil account for their strange formation.

But formal examinations have discovered insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's excursions enable visitors to participate in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the meadow in the forest where Barnea photographed his renowned UFO photographs, he gives the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which measures energy patterns.

"We're stepping into the most energetic section of the forest," he says. "Try to detect something."

The plants immediately cease as we emerge into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the low vegetation beneath the ground; it's obvious that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this unusual opening is natural, not the result of landscaping.

Fact Versus Fiction

This part of Romania is a place which inspires creativity, where the division is indistinct between reality and legend. In countryside villages faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, form-changing vampires, who return from burial sites to frighten local communities.

The novelist's renowned vampire Count Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a medieval building perched on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is actively advertised as "the count's residence".

But despite folklore-rich Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – seems tangible and comprehensible versus this spooky forest, which give the impression of being, for reasons related to radiation, atmospheric or entirely legendary, a center for fantasy projection.

"Inside these woods," the guide states, "the division between fact and fiction is remarkably blurred."