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"They call this location a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," remarks a local guide, his breath forming wisps of condensation in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "Countless visitors have gone missing here, many believe it's an entrance to another dimension." Marius is leading a traveler on a night walk through commonly known as the globe's spookiest grove: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of primeval native woodland on the fringes of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here extend back hundreds of years – the forest is called after a area shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the long ago, accompanied by two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained global recognition in 1968, when a defense worker named Emil Barnea captured on film what he reported as a UFO suspended above a circular clearing in the centre of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But don't worry," he states, addressing the traveler with a smirk. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, shamans, UFO researchers and paranormal investigators from across the world, curious to experience the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Modern Threats

It may be a top global hotspots for supernatural fans, this woodland is under threat. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of a population exceeding 400,000, described as the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and real estate firms are advocating for approval to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Except for a small area containing area-specific Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is without conservation status, but the guide is confident that the organization he helped establish – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will help to change that, encouraging the local administrators to appreciate the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their shoes, Marius tells some of the folk tales and reported paranormal happenings here.

• One famous story tells of a five-year-old girl vanishing during a group gathering, later to reappear half a decade later with complete amnesia of her experience, without aging a moment, her clothes lacking the smallest trace of dirt.
• Regular stories explain smartphones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on venturing inside.
• Feelings range from absolute fear to states of ecstasy.
• Various visitors claim seeing strange rashes on their arms, perceiving ghostly voices through the forest, or experience hands grabbing them, despite being sure they are alone.

Scientific Investigations

While many of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, there are many things visibly present that is undeniably strange. Throughout the area are plants whose bases are bent and twisted into unusual forms.

Various suggestions have been proposed to account for the deformed trees: strong gales could have shaped the young trees, or typically increased electromagnetic fields in the ground account for their strange formation.

But formal examinations have found inconclusive results.

The Legendary Opening

Marius's excursions enable guests to engage in a little scientific inquiry of their own. Upon reaching the clearing in the forest where Barnea took his famous UFO photographs, he passes his guest an EMF meter which detects EMF readings.

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

The trees abruptly end as the group enters into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the low vegetation beneath our feet; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and appears that this bizarre meadow is wild, not the creation of human hands.

The Blurred Line

The broader region is a area which fuels fantasy, where the border is unclear between truth and myth. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to terrorise nearby villages.

The novelist's well-known character Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a medieval building perched on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But including folklore-rich Transylvania – literally, "the land past the woods" – appears real and understandable versus the haunted grove, which seem to be, for factors radioactive, atmospheric or purely mythical, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"In Hoia-Baciu," Marius says, "the division between truth and fantasy is very thin."