🔗 Share this article

"They call this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," remarks a tour guide, his breath forming puffs of condensation in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "Countless individuals have gone missing here, many believe it's an entrance to another dimension." This expert is escorting a visitor on a night walk through frequently labeled as the planet's most ghostly forest: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of primeval native woodland on the fringes of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Accounts of unusual events here extend back a long time – this woodland is titled for a area shepherd who is said to have vanished in the distant past, together with 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu came to worldwide fame in 1968, when a defense worker called Emil Barnea captured on film what he described as a UFO hovering above a oval meadow in the centre of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But rest assured," he states, addressing his guest with a smirk. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has brought in yoga practitioners, shamans, ufologists and paranormal investigators from across the world, curious to experience the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Despite being one of the world's premier hotspots for lovers of the paranormal, the grove is facing danger. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, known as the tech capital of Eastern Europe – are advancing, and developers are pushing for approval to cut down the woods to build apartment blocks.

Barring a small area containing locally rare specific tree species, the grove is without conservation status, but the guide is confident that the organization he was instrumental in creating – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, motivating the government officials to appreciate the forest's importance as a tourist attraction.

Eerie Encounters

When small sticks and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their shoes, the guide describes some of the traditional stories and claimed paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account describes a young child disappearing during a family outing, only to return half a decade later with complete amnesia of her experience, having not aged a day, her attire shy of the tiniest bit of soil.
• Regular stories detail cellphones and imaging devices inexplicably shutting down on entering the woods.
• Feelings include absolute fear to feelings of joy.
• Various visitors state observing bizarre skin irritations on their arms, perceiving disembodied whispers through the forest, or experience fingers clutching them, despite being sure they are alone.

Study Attempts

Despite several of the tales may be hard to prove, numerous elements before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Everywhere you look are trees whose bases are warped and gnarled into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been suggested to clarify the deformed trees: strong gales could have bent the saplings, or typically increased electromagnetic fields in the earth explain their crooked growth.

But research studies have found insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's walks permit visitors to participate in a small-scale research of their own. Upon reaching the meadow in the forest where Barnea captured his well-known UFO photographs, he passes the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which measures EMF readings.

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

The trees suddenly stop dead as they step into a complete ring. The single plant life is the short grass beneath our feet; it's clear that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this unusual opening is organic, not the creation of people.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a location which inspires creativity, where the border is indistinct between reality and legend. In rural Romanian communities superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, form-changing creatures, who return from burial sites to frighten nearby villages.

The famous author's renowned vampire Count Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a Saxon monolith perched on a rocky outcrop in the Transylvanian Alps – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But even myth-shrouded Transylvania – actually, "the territory after the grove" – seems tangible and comprehensible versus these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for causes nuclear, climatic or entirely legendary, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," Marius comments, "the division between truth and fantasy is extremely fine."