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"People refer to this place a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," remarks an experienced guide, his breath producing clouds of mist in the crisp evening air. "Numerous visitors have vanished here, many believe it's an entrance to a different realm." Marius is escorting a traveler on a evening stroll through what is often described as the globe's spookiest woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of old-growth native woodland on the outskirts of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here extend back hundreds of years – the forest is called after a regional herder who is believed to have disappeared in the distant past, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu achieved worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea photographed what he reported as a unidentified flying object suspended above a oval meadow in the middle of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and failed to return. But don't worry," he states, addressing his guest with a grin. "Our excursions have a 100% return rate."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has attracted meditation experts, spiritual healers, UFO researchers and ghost hunters from across the world, curious to experience the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Despite being one of the world's premier hotspots for supernatural fans, the grove is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of a population exceeding 400,000, called the innovation center of eastern Europe – are expanding, and real estate firms are pushing for authorization to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Barring a limited section home to regionally uncommon Mediterranean oak trees, the grove is lacking legal protection, but the guide is confident that the organization he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the local administrators to recognise the forest's importance as a travel hotspot.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and fall foliage split and rustle beneath their boots, the guide describes various folk tales and alleged ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account tells of a five-year-old girl disappearing during a family picnic, later to return half a decade later with no memory of her experience, having not aged a day, her clothes lacking the tiniest bit of dirt.
• Frequent accounts detail smartphones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on stepping into the forest.
• Feelings range from complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals claim observing strange rashes on their skin, perceiving disembodied whispers through the woodland, or experience hands grabbing them, although certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

While many of the accounts may be unverifiable, numerous elements clearly observable that is certainly unusual. Throughout the area are plants whose trunks are warped and gnarled into unusual forms.

Different theories have been proposed to clarify the misshapen plants: strong gales could have bent the saplings, or typically increased radioactivity in the earth explain their unusual development.

But scientific investigations have turned up insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's tours enable participants to take part in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the meadow in the forest where Barnea captured his renowned UFO pictures, he hands his guest an EMF meter which registers energy patterns.

"We're stepping into the most energetic part of the forest," he says. "See what you can find."

The trees suddenly stop dead as they step into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the short grass beneath our feet; it's apparent that it's not maintained, and appears that this unusual opening is organic, not the result of human hands.

The Blurred Line

This part of Romania is a place which inspires creativity, where the line is blurred between fact and folklore. In countryside villages faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, shapeshifting creatures, who rise from their graves to haunt regional populations.

The novelist's well-known vampire Count Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith located on a rocky outcrop in the mountain range – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite folklore-rich Transylvania – truly, "the place beyond the forest" – seems real and understandable versus these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for causes related to radiation, environmental or purely mythical, a center for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide comments, "the division between truth and fantasy is remarkably blurred."