🔗 Share this article

"People refer to this location a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, the air from his lungs creating wisps of vapor in the chilly evening air. "Countless visitors have vanished here, it's thought there's a gateway to another dimension." Marius is escorting a visitor on a evening stroll through frequently labeled as the globe's spookiest grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval indigenous forest on the fringes of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of unusual events here date back hundreds of years – this woodland is called after a local shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the distant past, along with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu gained worldwide fame in 1968, when a defense worker called Emil Barnea captured on film what he claimed was a unidentified flying object floating above a oval meadow in the heart of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and failed to return. But don't worry," he states, addressing his guest with a grin. "Our guided walks have a flawless completion rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yogis, traditional medicine people, ufologists and ghost hunters from worldwide, eager to feel the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Although it is among the planet's leading destinations for supernatural fans, the forest is at risk. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of a population exceeding 400,000, known as the Silicon Valley of the region – are expanding, and construction companies are pushing for permission to cut down the woods to construct residential buildings.

Except for a limited section home to locally rare oak varieties, the forest is not officially protected, but the guide believes that the organization he helped establish – a local conservation effort – will help to change that, persuading the government officials to acknowledge the forest's value as a travel hotspot.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and fall foliage snap and crunch beneath their boots, the guide recounts numerous folk tales and alleged ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account recounts a young child going missing during a family outing, later to rematerialise after five years with no memory of her experience, showing no signs of aging a single day, her clothes without the tiniest bit of soil.
• More common reports detail mobile phones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on stepping into the forest.
• Feelings vary from absolute fear to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals claim observing unusual marks on their arms, perceiving unseen murmurs through the trees, or feel palms pushing them, despite being sure they are alone.

Scientific Investigations

While many of the tales may be hard to prove, numerous elements clearly observable that is undeniably strange. Throughout the area are trees whose stems are bent and twisted into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been suggested to account for the misshapen plants: that hurricane winds could have altered the growth, or inherently elevated radioactivity in the soil explain their strange formation.

But research studies have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Legendary Opening

The guide's walks permit visitors to take part in a little scientific inquiry of their own. As we approach the clearing in the woods where Barnea took his well-known UFO images, he passes the visitor an ghost-hunting device which measures energy patterns.

"We're entering the most powerful area of the forest," he comments. "Try to detect something."

The vegetation abruptly end as we emerge into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the trimmed turf beneath the ground; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and seems that this unusual opening is natural, not the result of people.

Between Reality and Imagination

This part of Romania is a location which inspires creativity, where the division is blurred between reality and legend. In countryside villages faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, form-changing bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to haunt nearby villages.

The novelist's renowned character Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a medieval building situated on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But even myth-shrouded Transylvania – actually, "the territory after the grove" – appears real and understandable compared to this spooky forest, which seem to be, for causes related to radiation, environmental or purely mythical, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," the guide comments, "the boundary between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."