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"They call this spot a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," remarks a tour guide, his exhalation forming puffs of mist in the crisp dusk atmosphere. "Countless visitors have gone missing here, it's thought it's an entrance to a different realm." This expert is leading a visitor on a evening stroll through frequently labeled as the world's most haunted forest: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient native woodland on the edges of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of strange happenings here extend back hundreds of years – the forest is called after a local shepherd who is said to have vanished in the long ago, accompanied by his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu came to international attention in 1968, when a military technician known as Emil Barnea took a picture of 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 no need to fear," he continues, facing the visitor with a smirk. "Our guided walks have a perfect safety record."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, traditional medicine people, extraterrestrial investigators and ghost hunters from worldwide, eager to feel the unusual forces said to echo through the forest.

Modern Threats

Despite being a top global pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, the grove is at risk. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, described as the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are advancing, and construction companies are campaigning for authorization to remove the forest to erect housing complexes.

Except for a small area housing area-specific Mediterranean oak trees, the grove is lacking legal protection, but Marius is confident that the organization he co-founded – a dedicated preservation group – will help to change that, persuading the local administrators to recognise the forest's value as a tourist attraction.

Eerie Encounters

When small sticks and autumn leaves split and rustle beneath their footwear, Marius describes various traditional stories and reported supernatural events here.

• One famous story recounts a five-year-old girl vanishing during a group gathering, only to return five years later with complete amnesia of what had happened, having not aged a single day, her attire without the smallest trace of dirt.
• Frequent accounts describe cellphones and camera equipment mysteriously turning off on entering the woods.
• Emotional responses vary from complete terror to moments of euphoria.
• Some people state noticing unusual marks on their bodies, hearing disembodied whispers through the woodland, or feel palms pushing them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Research Efforts

Despite several of the tales may be unverifiable, there is much before my eyes that is certainly unusual. All around are trees whose trunks are bent and twisted into bizarre configurations.

Various suggestions have been proposed to explain the abnormal growth: strong gales could have bent the saplings, or typically increased radioactivity in the earth explain their unusual development.

But formal examinations have turned up inconclusive results.

The Notorious Meadow

Marius's walks permit visitors to participate in a little scientific inquiry of their own. As we approach the opening in the forest where Barnea captured his famous UFO photographs, he hands the visitor an EMF meter which measures energy patterns.

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

The plants abruptly end as we emerge into a flawless round. The only greenery is the trimmed turf beneath our feet; it's obvious that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this bizarre meadow is organic, not the result of people.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a area which stirs the imagination, where the division is blurred between truth and myth. In rural Romanian communities belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, appearance-altering vampires, who return from burial sites to haunt local communities.

The famous author's renowned vampire Count Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – an ancient structure located on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is keenly marketed as "the vampire's home".

But despite legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the territory after the grove" – feels solid and predictable versus these eerie woods, which appear to be, for factors related to radiation, climatic or simply folkloric, a center for creative energy.

"Within this forest," Marius says, "the line between truth and fantasy is remarkably blurred."