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"They call this location the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," remarks a local guide, his breath creating clouds of mist in the chilly evening air. "So many visitors have gone missing here, it's thought there's a gateway to another dimension." The guide is leading a guest on a nocturnal tour through frequently labeled as the globe's spookiest woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient local woods on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here extend back a long time – this woodland is called after a regional herder who is said to have vanished in the far-off times, together with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained international attention in 1968, when a military technician called Emil Barnea took a picture of what he described as a unidentified flying object floating above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Many came in here and failed to return. But don't worry," he adds, facing the traveler with a grin. "Our tours have a perfect safety record."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, traditional medicine people, ufologists and paranormal investigators from around the globe, eager to feel the strange energies reported to reverberate through the forest.

Modern Threats

Although it is one of the world's premier hotspots for supernatural fans, the grove is at risk. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of a population exceeding 400,000, called the tech capital of the region – are expanding, and construction companies are advocating for authorization to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Except for a small area containing locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but Marius believes that the company he was instrumental in creating – a dedicated preservation group – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the authorities to appreciate the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Chilling Events

When small sticks and seasonal debris break and crackle beneath their shoes, Marius tells numerous folk tales and alleged paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account describes a five-year-old girl vanishing during a family outing, later to return after five years with no recollection of the events, showing no signs of aging a day, her garments lacking the smallest trace of dirt.
• More common reports detail cellphones and photography gear unexpectedly failing on venturing inside.
• Emotional responses include absolute fear to feelings of joy.
• Various visitors report observing strange rashes on their skin, hearing ghostly voices through the trees, or sense hands grabbing them, despite being convinced they're by themselves.

Scientific Investigations

Despite several of the tales may be hard to prove, there are many things visibly present that is certainly unusual. All around are trees whose stems are warped and gnarled into fantastical shapes.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to explain the deformed trees: that hurricane winds could have bent the saplings, or typically increased radioactivity in the ground explain their strange formation.

But scientific investigations have found insufficient proof.

The Notorious Meadow

Marius's tours permit participants to engage in a little scientific inquiry of their own. Upon reaching the clearing in the trees where Barnea took his well-known UFO pictures, he gives the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which detects energy patterns.

"We're venturing into the most powerful section of the forest," he states. "Discover what's here."

The plants abruptly end as we emerge into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the short grass beneath the ground; it's apparent that it's not maintained, and appears that this bizarre meadow is organic, not the creation of people.

The Blurred Line

The broader region is a place which stirs the imagination, where the line is blurred between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to haunt regional populations.

Bram Stoker's renowned vampire Count Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a medieval building situated on a rocky outcrop in the Transylvanian Alps – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But even folklore-rich Transylvania – actually, "the territory after the grove" – feels solid and predictable in contrast to this spooky forest, which appear to be, for causes related to radiation, climatic or simply folkloric, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"Inside these woods," Marius states, "the boundary between fact and fiction is very thin."