Delving into the World's Most Haunted Forest: Contorted Trees, UFOs and Chilling Accounts in Transylvania.

"Locals dub this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, his breath creating clouds of vapor in the cold dusk atmosphere. "So many people have gone missing here, it's thought it's a portal to a parallel world." The guide is guiding a visitor on a nocturnal tour through frequently labeled as the planet's most ghostly grove: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of primeval indigenous forest on the fringes of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Stories of bizarre occurrences here date back centuries – the grove is named after a regional herder who is believed to have disappeared in the far-off times, accompanied by his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu achieved international attention in 1968, when a defense worker called Emil Barnea captured on film what he reported as a unidentified flying object hovering above a oval meadow in the middle of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and never came out. But rest assured," he adds, turning to the visitor with a smirk. "Our tours have a 100% return rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has attracted meditation experts, traditional medicine people, ufologists and ghost hunters from across the world, curious to experience the mysterious powers said to echo through the forest.

Current Risks

Despite being one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, this woodland is under threat. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of a population exceeding 400,000, described as the tech capital of the region – are expanding, and construction companies are pushing for authorization to clear the trees to erect housing complexes.

Except for a few hectares housing regionally uncommon oak varieties, the forest is not officially protected, but the guide believes that the company he helped establish – a local conservation effort – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the local administrators to recognise the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their boots, the guide recounts various folk tales and claimed paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account recounts a little girl vanishing during a group gathering, then to return five years later with complete amnesia of the events, without aging a moment, her clothes without the tiniest bit of soil.
• More common reports explain cellphones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on stepping into the forest.
• Reactions vary from complete terror to moments of euphoria.
• Certain individuals claim observing bizarre skin irritations on their arms, perceiving ghostly voices through the forest, or experience palms pushing them, although convinced they're by themselves.

Scientific Investigations

Although numerous of the tales may be unverifiable, there are many things visibly present that is undeniably strange. Everywhere you look are plants whose stems are warped and gnarled into bizarre configurations.

Various suggestions have been proposed to clarify the deformed trees: powerful storms could have bent the saplings, or typically increased radiation levels in the soil explain their unusual development.

But scientific investigations have found no satisfactory evidence.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's walks allow visitors to engage in a small-scale research of their own. As we approach the clearing in the trees where Barnea captured his famous UFO images, he gives the traveler an electromagnetic field detector which registers energy patterns.

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

The plants immediately cease as the group enters into a complete ring. The single plant life is the short grass beneath our feet; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this bizarre meadow is wild, not the result of human hands.

Between Reality and Imagination

This part of Romania is a place which stirs the imagination, where the line is indistinct between truth and myth. In rural Romanian communities belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, form-changing bloodsuckers, who rise from their graves to terrorise local communities.

Bram Stoker's renowned vampire Count Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a Saxon monolith located on a stone formation in the Carpathian Mountains – is keenly marketed as "the vampire's home".

But even legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the land past the woods" – appears solid and predictable versus these eerie woods, which appear to be, for causes nuclear, environmental or purely mythical, a center for fantasy projection.

"Within this forest," the guide comments, "the line between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."