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"People refer to this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," remarks a tour guide, his breath creating wisps of vapor in the cold dusk atmosphere. "Countless people have vanished here, it's thought there's a gateway to a parallel world." The guide is escorting a guest on a night walk through frequently labeled as the world's most haunted forest: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval native woodland on the fringes of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Accounts of strange happenings here go back centuries – this woodland is titled for a local shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the distant past, accompanied by his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu gained worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a unidentified flying object floating above a round opening in the heart of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and vanished without trace. But don't worry," he states, addressing the traveler with a smile. "Our tours have a perfect safety record."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yogis, shamans, ufologists and ghost hunters from worldwide, interested in encountering the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Current Risks

Although it is among the planet's leading hotspots for supernatural fans, the grove is under threat. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of a population exceeding 400,000, called the Silicon Valley of the region – are expanding, and construction companies are pushing for authorization to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Barring a small area containing area-specific oak varieties, the grove is lacking legal protection, but the guide is confident that the initiative he co-founded – a local conservation effort – will assist in altering this, encouraging the local administrators to appreciate the forest's significance as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and seasonal debris break and crackle beneath their boots, the guide describes numerous folk tales and reported supernatural events here.

• A popular tale describes a five-year-old girl going missing during a family picnic, later to return five years later with no recollection of what had happened, having not aged a day, her garments shy of the slightest speck of dirt.
• More common reports explain cellphones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on entering the woods.
• Feelings include full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Various visitors report noticing bizarre skin irritations on their bodies, perceiving disembodied whispers through the trees, or experience hands grabbing them, although convinced they're by themselves.

Research Efforts

Despite several of the accounts may be hard to prove, there is much before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Everywhere you look are vegetation whose stems are bent and twisted into bizarre configurations.

Multiple explanations have been proposed to account for the misshapen plants: strong gales could have shaped the young trees, or naturally high electromagnetic fields in the soil account for their strange formation.

But formal examinations have found no satisfactory evidence.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's tours enable participants to engage in a little scientific inquiry of their own. As we approach the meadow in the woods where Barnea photographed his famous UFO pictures, he passes the traveler an electromagnetic field detector which detects electromagnetic fields.

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

The vegetation immediately cease as we emerge into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the trimmed turf beneath our feet; it's clear that it's not maintained, and seems that this bizarre meadow is organic, not the creation of human hands.

The Blurred Line

The broader region is a location which fuels fantasy, where the border is indistinct between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, appearance-altering creatures, who emerge from tombs to haunt regional populations.

Bram Stoker's famous character Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a Saxon monolith located on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "the count's residence".

But even folklore-rich Transylvania – truly, "the territory after the grove" – appears tangible and comprehensible versus the haunted grove, which seem to be, for reasons related to radiation, climatic or simply folkloric, a center for creative energy.

"Inside these woods," Marius states, "the line between reality and imagination is very thin."