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"Locals dub this spot the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states a local guide, his breath producing clouds of mist in the crisp dusk atmosphere. "Numerous visitors have gone missing here, it's thought it's an entrance to another dimension." The guide is guiding a visitor on a nocturnal tour through what is often described as the globe's spookiest woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of primeval indigenous forest on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Accounts of unusual events here go back a long time – the forest is named after a area shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the distant past, together with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained international attention in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a unidentified flying object hovering above a oval meadow in the middle of the forest.

Many came in here and never came out. But rest assured," he adds, addressing the visitor with a smirk. "Our tours have a flawless completion rate."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has brought in meditation experts, spiritual healers, extraterrestrial investigators and supernatural researchers from worldwide, eager to feel the mysterious powers believed to resonate through the forest.

Current Risks

It may be one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for lovers of the paranormal, the grove is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of over 400,000 residents, described as the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are advancing, and developers are advocating for authorization to remove the forest to erect housing complexes.

Barring a small area containing area-specific specific tree species, the forest is without conservation status, but Marius hopes that the company he helped establish – a dedicated preservation group – will help to change that, persuading the authorities to acknowledge the forest's importance as a tourist attraction.

Eerie Encounters

As twigs and fall foliage split and rustle beneath their footwear, Marius describes some of the traditional stories and alleged supernatural events here.

• A well-known account describes a little girl vanishing during a family outing, later to return after five years with no memory of what had happened, having not aged a day, her clothes shy of the slightest speck of soil.
• More common reports detail mobile phones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on venturing inside.
• Feelings vary from full-blown dread to states of ecstasy.
• Some people claim noticing strange rashes on their skin, perceiving disembodied whispers through the woodland, or feel hands grabbing them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Scientific Investigations

Despite several of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, numerous elements before my eyes that is undeniably strange. Throughout the area are vegetation whose bases are bent and twisted into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been proposed to account for the abnormal growth: that hurricane winds could have shaped the young trees, or naturally high radiation levels in the ground explain their strange formation.

But research studies have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Notorious Meadow

The expert's walks enable visitors to participate in a modest investigation of their own. Upon reaching the clearing in the forest where Barnea captured his well-known UFO photographs, he passes the traveler an ghost-hunting device which registers electromagnetic fields.

"We're entering the most powerful section of the forest," he comments. "Try to detect something."

The plants abruptly end as we emerge into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the short grass beneath the ground; it's obvious that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this unusual opening is organic, not the result of human hands.

Between Reality and Imagination

This part of Romania is a area which fuels fantasy, where the line is indistinct between truth and myth. In rural Romanian communities faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, shapeshifting bloodsuckers, who emerge from tombs to frighten local communities.

The novelist's famous fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – an ancient structure located on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is actively advertised as "the vampire's home".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the territory after the grove" – appears solid and predictable versus the haunted grove, which give the impression of being, for causes nuclear, environmental or entirely legendary, a nexus for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," Marius says, "the boundary between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."