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"Locals dub this location an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," remarks a local guide, his breath producing wisps of vapor in the chilly night air. "So many visitors have gone missing here, it's thought there's a gateway to a parallel world." Marius is escorting a traveler on a nocturnal tour through what is often described as the world's most haunted woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of old-growth native woodland on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of strange happenings here date back hundreds of years – the forest is titled for a regional herder who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu achieved international attention in 1968, when a defense worker named Emil Barnea took a picture of what he described as a UFO suspended above a circular clearing in the middle of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and never came out. But don't worry," he adds, addressing the traveler with a smirk. "Our excursions have a 100% return rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yogis, shamans, ufologists and paranormal investigators from across the world, curious to experience the unusual forces reported to reverberate through the forest.

Modern Threats

Although it is among the planet's leading pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, the grove is at risk. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of a population exceeding 400,000, known as the innovation center of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and developers are advocating for permission to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Aside from a small area housing regionally uncommon Mediterranean oak trees, the grove is lacking legal protection, but the guide is confident that the company he was instrumental in creating – a dedicated preservation group – will assist in altering this, motivating the government officials to recognise the forest's significance as a visitor destination.

Chilling Events

As twigs and seasonal debris break and crackle beneath their boots, Marius describes numerous folk tales and reported ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account recounts a five-year-old girl vanishing during a group gathering, later to return half a decade later with complete amnesia of the events, without aging a day, her garments without the tiniest bit of soil.
• More common reports explain mobile phones and camera equipment mysteriously turning off on stepping into the forest.
• Emotional responses range from full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Certain individuals claim observing bizarre skin irritations on their bodies, detecting ghostly voices through the forest, or experience palms pushing them, although certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

While many of the accounts may be hard to prove, numerous elements before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. All around are trees whose bases are bent and twisted into unusual forms.

Different theories have been proposed to account for the abnormal growth: that hurricane winds could have altered the growth, or naturally high electromagnetic fields in the earth cause their strange formation.

But research studies have discovered no satisfactory evidence.

The Notorious Meadow

The expert's tours enable participants to take part in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the opening in the forest where Barnea captured his well-known UFO photographs, he hands the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which measures electromagnetic fields.

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

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a complete ring. The single plant life is the short grass beneath our feet; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and looks that this unusual opening is wild, not the result of landscaping.

Between Reality and Imagination

The broader region is a location which inspires creativity, where the border is unclear between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering creatures, who return from burial sites to frighten local communities.

The novelist's well-known character Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith perched on a rocky outcrop in the mountain range – is keenly marketed as "Dracula's Castle".

But including folklore-rich Transylvania – literally, "the land past the woods" – seems tangible and comprehensible versus this spooky forest, which give the impression of being, for reasons radioactive, environmental or purely mythical, a nexus for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide says, "the division between fact and fiction is remarkably blurred."