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"They call this place an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," remarks a local guide, the air from his lungs forming puffs of vapor in the crisp night air. "Countless visitors have vanished here, some say it's an entrance to another dimension." Marius is escorting a visitor on a nocturnal tour through frequently labeled as the world's most haunted woodland: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of ancient indigenous forest on the fringes of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of unusual events here go back centuries – this woodland is called after a area shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, accompanied by two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu came to global recognition in 1968, when an army specialist known as Emil Barnea took a picture of what he described as a flying saucer floating above a circular clearing in the middle of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and never came out. But no need to fear," he adds, addressing the traveler with a grin. "Our guided walks have a 100% return rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yogis, shamans, ufologists and supernatural researchers from worldwide, interested in encountering the unusual forces said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Although it is a top global pilgrimage sites for lovers of the paranormal, the forest is facing danger. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, described as the innovation center of eastern Europe – are expanding, and construction companies are advocating for permission to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Except for a limited section home to area-specific oak varieties, the forest is lacking legal protection, but the guide is confident that the organization he was instrumental in creating – a local conservation effort – will assist in altering this, encouraging the local administrators to acknowledge the forest's value as a visitor destination.

Spooky Experiences

When small sticks and autumn leaves split and rustle beneath their shoes, the guide describes some of the local legends and alleged ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account describes a five-year-old girl disappearing during a group gathering, then to reappear five years later with no memory of her experience, having not aged a single day, her garments shy of the tiniest bit of soil.
• More common reports explain cellphones and photography gear mysteriously turning off on venturing inside.
• Feelings vary from complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals claim seeing strange rashes on their skin, perceiving ghostly voices through the forest, or feel fingers clutching them, although sure they are alone.

Study Attempts

While many of the stories may be hard to prove, there is much visibly present that is certainly unusual. Everywhere you look are trees whose bases are warped and gnarled into bizarre configurations.

Various suggestions have been given to explain the misshapen plants: strong gales could have altered the growth, or typically increased radiation levels in the soil account for their strange formation.

But research studies have turned up inconclusive results.

The Famous Clearing

The guide's tours enable visitors to engage in a modest investigation of their own. When nearing the opening in the trees where Barnea took his well-known UFO images, he gives the traveler an ghost-hunting device which registers EMF readings.

"We're venturing into the most active section of the forest," he states. "Try to detect something."

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the low vegetation beneath their shoes; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and appears that this strange clearing is wild, not the work of human hands.

Fact Versus Fiction

Transylvania generally is a area which fuels fantasy, where the division is indistinct between fact and folklore. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, form-changing creatures, who return from burial sites to haunt nearby villages.

The novelist's famous character Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – an ancient structure perched on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "the vampire's home".

But despite legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the place beyond the forest" – feels real and understandable in contrast to these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for reasons nuclear, atmospheric or purely mythical, a hub for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide says, "the line between reality and imagination is extremely fine."