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"People refer to this place an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, his breath creating clouds of vapor in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "Countless visitors have gone missing here, some say it's a portal to another dimension." Marius is leading a traveler on a nocturnal tour through commonly known as the world's most haunted grove: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient local woods on the fringes of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here date back hundreds of years – this woodland is titled for a area shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the distant past, together with 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu came to international attention in 1968, when a defense worker known as Emil Barnea took a picture of what he claimed was a unidentified flying object floating above a circular clearing in the middle of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and failed to return. But rest assured," he adds, addressing the visitor with a grin. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has brought in yoga practitioners, spiritual healers, ufologists and supernatural researchers from across the world, curious to experience the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Current Risks

Although it is among the planet's leading pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, this woodland is facing danger. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, called the tech capital of eastern Europe – are advancing, and developers are advocating for approval to clear the trees to construct residential buildings.

Except for a limited section containing regionally uncommon oak varieties, this woodland is without conservation status, but Marius believes that the organization he co-founded – a dedicated preservation group – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the local administrators to appreciate the forest's importance as a travel hotspot.

Eerie Encounters

When small sticks and autumn leaves break and crackle beneath their boots, Marius tells some of the local legends and alleged paranormal happenings here.

• A popular tale describes a little girl disappearing during a family outing, later to rematerialise five years later with no memory of what had happened, showing no signs of aging a single day, her clothes shy of the tiniest bit of dust.
• Frequent accounts detail mobile phones and imaging devices unexpectedly failing on venturing inside.
• Feelings range from complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Various visitors report seeing strange rashes on their skin, detecting unseen murmurs through the trees, or experience palms pushing them, even when sure they are alone.

Research Efforts

Despite several of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, numerous elements visibly present that is certainly unusual. Throughout the area are vegetation whose bases are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Various suggestions have been proposed to explain the misshapen plants: that hurricane winds could have shaped the young trees, or naturally high electromagnetic fields in the ground explain their strange formation.

But research studies have found inconclusive results.

The Notorious Meadow

The expert's walks enable visitors to take part in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the opening in the woods where Barnea took his well-known UFO photographs, he hands the traveler an EMF meter which measures electromagnetic fields.

"We're venturing into the most active part of the forest," he states. "See what you can find."

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as they step into a perfect circle. The only greenery is the trimmed turf beneath the ground; it's clear that it hasn't been mown, and seems that this bizarre meadow is wild, not the creation of people.

Fact Versus Fiction

The broader region is a location which inspires creativity, where the division is indistinct between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, form-changing vampires, who rise from their graves to haunt local communities.

Bram Stoker's well-known fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a Saxon monolith perched on a cliff edge in the Transylvanian Alps – is keenly marketed as "Dracula's Castle".

But including myth-shrouded Transylvania – literally, "the territory after the grove" – seems tangible and comprehensible compared to this spooky forest, which seem to be, for causes radioactive, environmental or entirely legendary, a center for human imaginative power.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide comments, "the boundary between reality and imagination is extremely fine."