Exploring the World's Most Haunted Forest: Gnarled Trees, Unidentified Flying Objects and Eerie Tales in Transylvania.

"Locals dub this spot a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," remarks a tour guide, his exhalation forming clouds of condensation in the crisp dusk atmosphere. "Numerous individuals have gone missing here, many believe there's a gateway to a different realm." Marius is escorting a guest on a nocturnal tour through commonly known as the globe's spookiest grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of old-growth indigenous forest on the fringes of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here go back a long time – this woodland is named after a area shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the far-off times, accompanied by his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu achieved global recognition in 1968, when an army specialist named Emil Barnea photographed what he reported as a unidentified flying object hovering above a oval meadow in the middle of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But rest assured," he continues, facing his guest with a smile. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has brought in meditation experts, shamans, UFO researchers and supernatural researchers from worldwide, interested in encountering the mysterious powers reported to reverberate through the forest.

Modern Threats

Despite being a top global destinations for lovers of the paranormal, the forest is under threat. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, described as the tech capital of Eastern Europe – are expanding, and developers are campaigning for approval to clear the trees to build apartment blocks.

Aside from a small area containing area-specific oak varieties, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but Marius hopes that the initiative he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, persuading the authorities to recognise the forest's significance as a tourist attraction.

Spooky Experiences

When small sticks and autumn leaves split and rustle beneath their footwear, Marius recounts various local legends and alleged paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account describes a little girl vanishing during a family picnic, later to return after five years with complete amnesia of what had happened, without aging a moment, her clothes lacking the tiniest bit of dirt.
• Regular stories explain cellphones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on venturing inside.
• Emotional responses range from complete terror to states of ecstasy.
• Some people claim seeing strange rashes on their skin, hearing disembodied whispers through the trees, or experience fingers clutching them, even when convinced they're by themselves.

Research Efforts

Despite several of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, there is much clearly observable that is undeniably strange. Everywhere you look are vegetation whose stems are warped and gnarled into unusual forms.

Different theories have been given to explain the misshapen plants: powerful storms could have bent the saplings, or inherently elevated electromagnetic fields in the soil cause their unusual development.

But scientific investigations have found insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's excursions permit guests to participate in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the meadow in the trees where Barnea captured his well-known UFO images, he gives his guest an ghost-hunting device which registers electromagnetic fields.

"We're entering the most energetic part of the forest," he comments. "Try to detect something."

The plants suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the short grass beneath their shoes; it's apparent that it's naturally occurring, and looks that this strange clearing is organic, not the creation of human hands.

Between Reality and Imagination

Transylvania generally is a place which fuels fantasy, where the division is indistinct between reality and legend. In traditional settlements superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, appearance-altering creatures, who emerge from tombs to terrorise local communities.

Bram Stoker's famous character Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a Saxon monolith perched on a rocky outcrop in the Transylvanian Alps – is keenly marketed as "the vampire's home".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the territory after the grove" – appears real and understandable versus these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for causes related to radiation, climatic or purely mythical, a center for fantasy projection.

"Within this forest," Marius says, "the division between fact and fiction is very thin."