🔗 Share this article

"They call this location an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," explains a local guide, the air from his lungs producing wisps of mist in the cold dusk atmosphere. "So many individuals have disappeared here, many believe it's an entrance to another dimension." Marius is leading a traveler on a night walk through commonly known as the planet's most ghostly grove: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of ancient native woodland on the fringes of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Reports of bizarre occurrences here go back hundreds of years – the forest is titled for a area shepherd who is said to have vanished in the distant past, together with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu achieved worldwide fame in 1968, when an army specialist named Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a flying saucer suspended above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and vanished without trace. But no need to fear," he states, addressing his guest with a grin. "Our excursions have a 100% return rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has attracted meditation experts, shamans, ufologists and paranormal investigators from worldwide, interested in encountering the mysterious powers said to echo through the forest.

Modern Threats

Despite being among the planet's leading pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, the grove is at risk. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, described as the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are expanding, and developers are campaigning for permission to remove the forest to erect housing complexes.

Aside from a limited section housing locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, the forest is not officially protected, but Marius hopes that the company he helped establish – a dedicated preservation group – will assist in altering this, encouraging the authorities to recognise the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Spooky Experiences

When small sticks and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their shoes, Marius tells some of the local legends and alleged paranormal happenings here.

• One famous story describes a little girl going missing during a family outing, only to return after five years with no recollection of the events, without aging a day, her attire shy of the slightest speck of dust.
• Frequent accounts describe mobile phones and camera equipment mysteriously turning off on entering the woods.
• Emotional responses include complete terror to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals claim observing strange rashes on their bodies, hearing unseen murmurs through the woodland, or experience hands grabbing them, even when convinced they're by themselves.

Study Attempts

Despite several of the tales may be unverifiable, there are many things before my eyes that is certainly unusual. All around are trees whose stems are curved and contorted into bizarre configurations.

Different theories have been proposed to clarify the deformed trees: that hurricane winds could have bent the saplings, or naturally high radiation levels in the soil cause their strange formation.

But research studies have discovered no satisfactory evidence.

The Legendary Opening

Marius's tours enable participants to engage in a small-scale research of their own. Upon reaching the opening in the woods where Barnea photographed his well-known UFO photographs, he hands the traveler an EMF meter which detects energy patterns.

"We're entering the most active part of the forest," he states. "Try to detect something."

The vegetation abruptly end as the group enters into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the low vegetation beneath our feet; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this bizarre meadow is natural, not the work of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a place which fuels fantasy, where the line is blurred between truth and myth. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, form-changing creatures, who return from burial sites to frighten regional populations.

The famous author's famous character Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a Saxon monolith situated on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is keenly marketed as "the vampire's home".

But despite legend-filled Transylvania – literally, "the territory after the grove" – appears real and understandable in contrast to this spooky forest, which give the impression of being, for causes radioactive, atmospheric or purely mythical, a hub for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," the guide says, "the boundary between truth and fantasy is very thin."