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"Locals dub this place a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," states a local guide, his exhalation forming clouds of condensation in the cold night air. "Numerous visitors have gone missing here, it's thought there's a gateway to a parallel world." The guide is leading a visitor on a nocturnal tour through what is often described as the world's most haunted grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval local woods on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Stories of unusual events here date back a long time – this woodland is called after a local shepherd who is said to have vanished in the far-off times, together with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu gained worldwide fame in 1968, when an army specialist known as Emil Barnea captured on film what he described as a unidentified flying object hovering above a round opening in the heart of the forest.

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

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yoga practitioners, traditional medicine people, UFO researchers and ghost hunters from around the globe, eager to feel the mysterious powers said to echo through the forest.

Modern Threats

Despite being one of the world's premier hotspots for supernatural fans, the forest is under threat. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of more than 400,000 people, described as the innovation center of the region – are advancing, and construction companies are pushing for permission to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Aside from a few hectares home to area-specific specific tree species, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but Marius believes that the organization he helped establish – the Hoia-Baciu Project – 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 snap and crunch beneath their shoes, the guide tells numerous traditional stories and alleged supernatural events here.

• A popular tale tells of a young child vanishing during a family outing, later to rematerialise five years later with complete amnesia of the events, without aging a day, her garments lacking the tiniest bit of dirt.
• More common reports detail smartphones and camera equipment inexplicably shutting down on stepping into the forest.
• Reactions vary from full-blown dread to states of ecstasy.
• Some people state seeing bizarre skin irritations on their arms, detecting unseen murmurs through the forest, or experience fingers clutching them, although certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

Although numerous of the stories may be hard to prove, there is much clearly observable that is certainly unusual. All around are plants whose stems are curved and contorted into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been suggested to explain the misshapen plants: powerful storms could have bent the saplings, or inherently elevated electromagnetic fields in the soil account for their strange formation.

But research studies have turned up insufficient proof.

The Notorious Meadow

The guide's walks allow visitors to take part in a little scientific inquiry of their own. When nearing the meadow in the forest where Barnea photographed his famous UFO pictures, he passes his guest an electromagnetic field detector which detects energy patterns.

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

The plants suddenly stop dead as the group enters into a flawless round. The single plant life is the low vegetation beneath the ground; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and looks that this strange clearing is natural, not the creation of people.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a area which fuels fantasy, where the line is indistinct between reality and legend. In rural Romanian communities superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, form-changing bloodsuckers, who emerge from tombs to terrorise nearby villages.

The novelist's famous vampire Count Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith perched on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "the count's residence".

But despite legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the place beyond the forest" – seems real and understandable in contrast to the haunted grove, which appear to be, for causes nuclear, atmospheric or purely mythical, a nexus for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide comments, "the line between truth and fantasy is very thin."