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"People refer to this location a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," states an experienced guide, the air from his lungs producing puffs of vapor in the crisp night air. "So many individuals have vanished here, it's thought it's an entrance to another dimension." Marius is guiding a visitor on a night walk through what is often described as the world's most haunted woodland: 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

Stories of unusual events here date back a long time – this woodland is named after a area shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the distant past, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a flying saucer suspended above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Many came in here and failed to return. But rest assured," he states, turning to his guest with a smile. "Our tours have a 100% return rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yogis, spiritual healers, ufologists and supernatural researchers from across the world, eager to feel the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Although it is among the planet's leading pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, the grove is under threat. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of a population exceeding 400,000, described as the tech capital of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and real estate firms are pushing for permission to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Barring a small area containing locally rare specific tree species, the forest is without conservation status, but Marius believes that the company he helped establish – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the government officials to acknowledge the forest's value as a visitor destination.

Chilling Events

While branches and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their footwear, the guide describes some of the folk tales and reported ghostly incidents here.

• A popular tale recounts a young child disappearing during a group gathering, only to return five years later with no memory of what had happened, without aging a single day, her garments lacking the tiniest bit of dirt.
• More common reports explain cellphones and imaging devices inexplicably shutting down on stepping into the forest.
• Reactions include full-blown dread to feelings of joy.
• Various visitors state noticing bizarre skin irritations on their skin, perceiving unseen murmurs through the forest, or sense fingers clutching them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Scientific Investigations

Despite several of the accounts may be unverifiable, there is much visibly present that is undeniably strange. Everywhere you look are plants whose trunks are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to clarify the misshapen plants: that hurricane winds could have bent the saplings, or typically increased electromagnetic fields in the earth account for their strange formation.

But scientific investigations have found inconclusive results.

The Notorious Meadow

The guide's excursions enable visitors to engage in a little scientific inquiry of their own. When nearing the meadow in the woods where Barnea captured his famous UFO pictures, he gives the traveler an electromagnetic field detector which measures energy patterns.

"We're venturing into the most active area of the forest," he comments. "See what you can find."

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as the group enters into a complete ring. The single plant life is the trimmed turf beneath our feet; it's clear that it's not maintained, and looks that this unusual opening is wild, not the result of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a location which stirs the imagination, where the line is indistinct between reality and legend. In traditional settlements superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, form-changing vampires, who rise from their graves to haunt regional populations.

The famous author's famous fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a medieval building situated on a cliff edge in the Transylvanian Alps – is actively advertised as "the count's residence".

But even myth-shrouded Transylvania – truly, "the territory after the grove" – seems tangible and comprehensible compared to these eerie woods, which appear to be, for causes nuclear, climatic or simply folkloric, a nexus for creative energy.

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