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"Locals dub this location the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, the air from his lungs producing wisps of vapor in the chilly evening air. "So many individuals have gone missing here, some say it's an entrance to another dimension." This expert is escorting a visitor on a nocturnal tour through frequently labeled as the globe's spookiest woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of old-growth local woods on the outskirts of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Reports of unusual events here go back a long time – this woodland is called after a local shepherd who is said to have vanished in the distant past, accompanied by two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained international attention in 1968, when a defense worker known as Emil Barnea captured on film what he reported as a unidentified flying object floating above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and never came out. But rest assured," he states, facing his guest with a grin. "Our tours have a 100% return rate."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yogis, shamans, ufologists and ghost hunters from across the world, curious to experience the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Despite being among the planet's leading destinations for supernatural fans, the forest is under threat. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of more than 400,000 people, called the tech capital of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and real estate firms are advocating for authorization to cut down the woods to build apartment blocks.

Except for a limited section containing locally rare specific tree species, the grove is without conservation status, but the guide hopes that the initiative he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will help to change that, motivating the local administrators to appreciate the forest's value as a travel hotspot.

Eerie Encounters

As twigs and autumn leaves break and crackle beneath their boots, Marius tells numerous traditional stories and reported paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account recounts a five-year-old girl disappearing during a group gathering, only to reappear half a decade later with no recollection of what had happened, having not aged a moment, her clothes lacking the smallest trace of dust.
• More common reports describe mobile phones and photography gear mysteriously turning off on stepping into the forest.
• Emotional responses include complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Various visitors claim seeing bizarre skin irritations on their bodies, detecting ghostly voices through the forest, or sense hands grabbing them, despite being convinced they're by themselves.

Study Attempts

Although numerous of the stories may be impossible to confirm, there are many things clearly observable that is certainly unusual. All around are plants whose stems are warped and gnarled into bizarre configurations.

Various suggestions have been given to account for the misshapen plants: that hurricane winds could have altered the growth, or inherently elevated electromagnetic fields in the ground account for their strange formation.

But scientific investigations have found insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's tours enable guests to engage in a modest investigation of their own. When nearing the clearing in the woods where Barnea took his famous UFO photographs, he hands the traveler an ghost-hunting device which measures electromagnetic fields.

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

The vegetation abruptly end as we emerge into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the trimmed turf beneath the ground; it's clear that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this unusual opening is organic, not the work of people.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a location which inspires creativity, where the line is blurred between truth and myth. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, shapeshifting vampires, who return from burial sites to terrorise regional populations.

The novelist's famous fictional vampire is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a medieval building perched on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite legend-filled Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – feels solid and predictable in contrast to these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for factors related to radiation, atmospheric or entirely legendary, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," the guide says, "the line between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."