Venturing into this World's Most Haunted Forest: Contorted Trees, Unidentified Flying Objects and Eerie Tales in Romania's Legendary Region.

"People refer to this spot a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," remarks a tour guide, the air from his lungs producing wisps of vapor in the chilly evening air. "So many visitors have disappeared here, many believe it's an entrance to a different realm." Marius is guiding a traveler on a night walk through commonly known as the world's most haunted forest: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of ancient indigenous forest on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Accounts of strange happenings here go back hundreds of years – the forest is titled for a area shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the far-off times, along with 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu achieved global recognition in 1968, when an army specialist called Emil Barnea took a picture of what he reported as a unidentified flying object floating above a round opening in the middle of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and failed to return. But rest assured," he states, turning to the visitor with a smirk. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yoga practitioners, traditional medicine people, extraterrestrial investigators and paranormal investigators from worldwide, interested in encountering the unusual forces said to echo through the forest.

Modern Threats

Despite being one of the world's premier hotspots for paranormal enthusiasts, the grove is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of over 400,000 residents, called the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are expanding, and real estate firms are pushing for approval to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Aside from a limited section home to locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, the grove is without conservation status, but Marius is confident that the organization he helped establish – a dedicated preservation group – will contribute to improving the situation, persuading the local administrators to acknowledge the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Spooky Experiences

While branches and autumn leaves split and rustle beneath their footwear, the guide recounts some of the local legends and reported paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account recounts a five-year-old girl vanishing during a family picnic, later to return five years later with complete amnesia of the events, showing no signs of aging a moment, her garments shy of the slightest speck of soil.
• Frequent accounts describe cellphones and camera equipment inexplicably shutting down on stepping into the forest.
• Feelings include complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals claim seeing bizarre skin irritations on their arms, detecting disembodied whispers through the woodland, or sense palms pushing them, although sure they are alone.

Research Efforts

Despite several of the accounts may be hard to prove, there are many things visibly present that is undeniably strange. All around are vegetation whose stems are bent and twisted into unusual forms.

Different theories have been suggested to account for the abnormal growth: powerful storms could have bent the saplings, or inherently elevated radioactivity in the ground cause their crooked growth.

But formal examinations have discovered insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

The guide's tours allow guests to participate in a modest investigation of their own. When nearing the meadow in the forest where Barnea captured his renowned UFO pictures, he hands the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which detects electromagnetic fields.

"We're venturing into the most energetic area of the forest," he comments. "Discover what's here."

The plants abruptly end as the group enters into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the trimmed turf beneath the ground; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this bizarre meadow is natural, not the result of human hands.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a area which inspires creativity, where the line is unclear between fact and folklore. In countryside villages belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering vampires, who return from burial sites to frighten regional populations.

Bram Stoker's renowned fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a Saxon monolith situated on a rocky outcrop in the Transylvanian Alps – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But even folklore-rich Transylvania – truly, "the place beyond the forest" – appears real and understandable versus the haunted grove, which give the impression of being, for causes nuclear, environmental or simply folkloric, a nexus for creative energy.

"Within this forest," the guide says, "the boundary between reality and imagination is extremely fine."