🔗 Share this article

"People refer to this spot a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," remarks a tour guide, his exhalation producing clouds of condensation in the chilly evening air. "Numerous people have gone missing here, some say it's a portal to another dimension." Marius is escorting a visitor on a night walk through what is often described as the planet's most ghostly grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval local woods on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Stories of unusual events here date back a long time – the forest is titled for a regional herder who is said to have vanished in the distant past, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu achieved international attention in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea captured on film what he claimed was a unidentified flying object hovering above a oval meadow in the centre of the forest.

Many came in here and never came out. But rest assured," he states, turning to his guest with a grin. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yogis, spiritual healers, extraterrestrial investigators and paranormal investigators from across the world, curious to experience the mysterious powers said to echo through the forest.

Current Risks

Despite being among the planet's leading destinations for supernatural fans, the grove is facing danger. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of over 400,000 residents, described as the tech capital of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and real estate firms are pushing for permission to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Except for a limited section home to regionally uncommon Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is not officially protected, but Marius is confident that the company he was instrumental in creating – a dedicated preservation group – will assist in altering this, encouraging the government officials to recognise the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Spooky Experiences

As twigs and autumn leaves break and crackle beneath their shoes, Marius recounts various folk tales and claimed supernatural events here.

• A popular tale recounts a little girl vanishing during a family outing, then to rematerialise half a decade later with no memory of what had happened, without aging a single day, her attire shy of the tiniest bit of soil.
• Regular stories detail smartphones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on entering the woods.
• Reactions vary from absolute fear to feelings of joy.
• Various visitors report observing strange rashes on their skin, detecting ghostly voices through the trees, or experience palms pushing them, despite being convinced they're by themselves.

Research Efforts

While many of the accounts may be hard to prove, numerous elements before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. All around are trees whose bases are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Different theories have been proposed to explain the abnormal growth: powerful storms could have altered the growth, or naturally high electromagnetic fields in the earth cause their unusual development.

But formal examinations have discovered insufficient proof.

The Legendary Opening

The guide's excursions permit visitors to take part in a modest investigation of their own. Upon reaching the clearing in the trees where Barnea took his famous UFO photographs, he passes his guest an electromagnetic field detector which detects energy patterns.

"We're entering the most energetic section of the forest," he says. "Try to detect something."

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a perfect circle. The only greenery is the trimmed turf beneath the ground; it's clear that it's not maintained, and seems that this strange clearing is organic, not the creation of landscaping.

Fact Versus Fiction

This part of Romania is a area which stirs the imagination, where the division is blurred between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, appearance-altering vampires, who rise from their graves to terrorise nearby villages.

The famous author's well-known fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – an ancient structure perched on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "the vampire's home".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the territory after the grove" – appears solid and predictable compared to this spooky forest, which seem to be, for factors related to radiation, atmospheric or purely mythical, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"Inside these woods," the guide states, "the line between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."