Venturing into the Planet's Most Ghostly Grove: Contorted Trees, Flying Saucers and Eerie Tales in Romania's Legendary Region.

"Locals dub this spot a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," explains an experienced guide, his breath forming puffs of mist in the chilly night air. "Countless individuals have gone missing here, it's thought it's a portal to a parallel world." This expert is escorting a guest on a evening stroll through frequently labeled as the world's most haunted woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of primeval indigenous forest on the edges of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Reports of strange happenings here extend back centuries – this woodland is titled for a regional herder who is believed to have disappeared in the long ago, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu achieved international attention in 1968, when a defense worker named Emil Barnea captured on film what he reported as a UFO suspended above a circular clearing in the centre of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and failed to return. But no need to fear," he states, addressing the visitor with a smirk. "Our excursions have a 100% return rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has brought in meditation experts, traditional medicine people, extraterrestrial investigators and supernatural researchers from worldwide, eager to feel the strange energies reported to reverberate through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Despite being a top global destinations for lovers of the paranormal, the forest is at risk. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of more than 400,000 people, known as the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are advancing, and developers are pushing for approval to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Aside from a few hectares housing locally rare oak varieties, the forest is not officially protected, but the guide hopes that the initiative he helped establish – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, motivating the authorities to appreciate the forest's significance as a travel hotspot.

Chilling Events

As twigs and autumn leaves split and rustle beneath their shoes, Marius describes numerous traditional stories and alleged paranormal happenings here.

• A popular tale recounts a little girl disappearing during a family outing, then to reappear after five years with no memory of her experience, having not aged a single day, her attire lacking the smallest trace of dust.
• Frequent accounts describe smartphones and camera equipment mysteriously turning off on stepping into the forest.
• Reactions include absolute fear to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals report noticing bizarre skin irritations on their skin, perceiving disembodied whispers through the woodland, or feel fingers clutching them, despite being certain nobody is nearby.

Research Efforts

While many of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, there is much visibly present that is certainly unusual. All around are trees whose bases are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Multiple explanations have been proposed to account for the deformed trees: that hurricane winds could have shaped the young trees, or inherently elevated radiation levels in the earth explain their strange formation.

But scientific investigations have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's tours allow guests to participate in a modest investigation of their own. As we approach the opening in the trees where Barnea took his well-known UFO photographs, he hands the traveler an EMF meter which registers energy patterns.

"We're stepping into the most energetic area of the forest," he comments. "Discover what's here."

The vegetation abruptly end as they step into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the low vegetation beneath their shoes; it's clear that it's not maintained, and seems that this unusual opening is natural, not the creation of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

This part of Romania is a location which stirs the imagination, where the border is indistinct between fact and folklore. In countryside villages belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, appearance-altering vampires, who rise from their graves to haunt nearby villages.

Bram Stoker's well-known fictional vampire is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – an ancient structure located on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is keenly marketed as "the count's residence".

But even myth-shrouded Transylvania – actually, "the place beyond the forest" – feels tangible and comprehensible versus this spooky forest, which seem to be, for causes related to radiation, climatic or purely mythical, a center for human imaginative power.

"In Hoia-Baciu," Marius says, "the line between reality and imagination is very thin."