🔗 Share this article

"People refer to this place an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, his breath forming puffs of vapor in the cold night air. "Countless people have disappeared here, some say it's an entrance to a parallel world." The guide is escorting a visitor on a night walk through what is often described as the planet's most ghostly forest: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval native woodland on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Reports of unusual events here date back hundreds of years – the grove is called after a local shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the distant past, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained international attention in 1968, when an army specialist known as Emil Barnea captured on film what he described as a flying saucer suspended above a round opening in the heart of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and failed to return. But rest assured," he adds, turning to the visitor with a grin. "Our guided walks have a perfect safety record."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, shamans, extraterrestrial investigators and paranormal investigators from across the world, curious to experience the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Modern Threats

Despite being a top global pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, the grove is at risk. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of more than 400,000 people, described as the tech capital of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and real estate firms are campaigning for approval to clear the trees to build apartment blocks.

Barring a small area containing area-specific specific tree species, this woodland is without conservation status, but the guide hopes that the organization he co-founded – a local conservation effort – will help to change that, persuading the authorities to recognise the forest's value as a tourist attraction.

Chilling Events

When small sticks and fall foliage split and rustle beneath their boots, the guide recounts numerous folk tales and reported ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account tells of a five-year-old girl disappearing during a family outing, then to reappear after five years with no memory of her experience, having not aged a single day, her garments shy of the slightest speck of dirt.
• Regular stories detail cellphones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on stepping into the forest.
• Feelings vary from complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Some people claim noticing bizarre skin irritations on their bodies, detecting unseen murmurs through the forest, or feel palms pushing them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Research Efforts

Although numerous of the tales may be impossible to confirm, there is much visibly present that is certainly unusual. Throughout the area are trees whose bases are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Different theories have been given to account for the misshapen plants: strong gales could have bent the saplings, or typically increased radiation levels in the earth cause their crooked growth.

But formal examinations have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's tours allow visitors 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 the visitor an EMF meter which measures EMF readings.

"We're entering the most energetic area of the forest," he states. "Discover what's here."

The trees abruptly end as we emerge into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the short grass beneath the ground; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and appears that this unusual opening is natural, not the creation of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a area which stirs the imagination, where the border is indistinct between truth and myth. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering creatures, who return from burial sites to haunt nearby villages.

Bram Stoker's famous vampire Count Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith situated on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is keenly marketed as "the vampire's home".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the land past the woods" – appears real and understandable compared to this spooky forest, which appear to be, for causes nuclear, environmental or purely mythical, a center for fantasy projection.

"Within this forest," the guide states, "the boundary between reality and imagination is extremely fine."