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"They call this location an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, his exhalation producing puffs of vapor in the crisp dusk atmosphere. "Numerous people have disappeared here, some say it's a portal to another dimension." Marius is leading a guest on a night walk through what is often described as the globe's spookiest grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval local woods on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Stories of bizarre occurrences here extend back a long time – the grove is titled for a local shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, together with 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu achieved worldwide fame in 1968, when an army specialist known as Emil Barnea photographed what he claimed was a unidentified flying object floating above a oval meadow in the centre of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and never came out. But no need to fear," he adds, turning to the traveler with a smirk. "Our excursions have a flawless completion rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, spiritual healers, UFO researchers and paranormal investigators from across the world, interested in encountering the mysterious powers reported to reverberate through the forest.

Current Risks

Although it is one of the world's premier destinations for lovers of the paranormal, the forest is facing danger. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of more than 400,000 people, known as the tech capital of Eastern Europe – are encroaching, and construction companies are advocating for approval to remove the forest to erect housing complexes.

Barring a few hectares housing regionally uncommon oak varieties, the forest is without conservation status, but the guide hopes that the company he was instrumental in creating – a dedicated preservation group – will assist in altering this, persuading the authorities to acknowledge the forest's value as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and fall foliage break and crackle beneath their boots, Marius describes numerous local legends and claimed supernatural events here.

• A well-known account tells of a little girl going missing during a group gathering, only to rematerialise after five years with no recollection of her experience, having not aged a single day, her clothes without the slightest speck of dust.
• Regular stories describe mobile phones and photography gear inexplicably shutting down on stepping into the forest.
• Emotional responses vary from complete terror to states of ecstasy.
• Various visitors state noticing bizarre skin irritations on their bodies, detecting ghostly voices through the trees, or sense palms pushing them, despite being convinced they're by themselves.

Research Efforts

Although numerous of the accounts may be hard to prove, there are many things before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Throughout the area are vegetation whose stems are warped and gnarled into unusual forms.

Multiple explanations have been proposed to explain the deformed trees: strong gales could have shaped the young trees, or typically increased radiation levels in the ground account for their crooked growth.

But research studies have found insufficient proof.

The Notorious Meadow

The guide's excursions allow visitors to take part in a small-scale research of their own. Upon reaching the meadow in the forest where Barnea captured his well-known UFO photographs, he gives the traveler an EMF meter which measures energy patterns.

"We're entering the most energetic section of the forest," he comments. "See what you can find."

The trees abruptly end as the group enters into a flawless round. The single plant life is the low vegetation beneath their shoes; it's obvious that it hasn't been mown, and seems that this strange clearing is organic, not the work of people.

Fact Versus Fiction

Transylvania generally is a area which fuels fantasy, where the line is unclear between truth and myth. In traditional settlements faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, shapeshifting bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to frighten local communities.

Bram Stoker's well-known vampire Count Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a medieval building perched on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite myth-shrouded Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – seems solid and predictable in contrast to these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for reasons nuclear, atmospheric or entirely legendary, a hub for creative energy.

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