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"They call this location the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, the air from his lungs creating puffs of mist in the chilly night air. "Numerous visitors have gone missing here, many believe it's an entrance to another dimension." Marius is guiding a traveler on a nocturnal tour through frequently labeled as the planet's most ghostly forest: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of ancient indigenous forest on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Accounts of unusual events here date back hundreds of years – the forest is called after a area shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, accompanied by 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu came to international attention in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea captured on film what he reported as a UFO floating above a round opening in the middle of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and never came out. But don't worry," he states, addressing the visitor with a grin. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has brought in meditation experts, traditional medicine people, ufologists and ghost hunters from worldwide, eager to feel the mysterious powers said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Despite being one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for lovers of the paranormal, this woodland is facing danger. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of over 400,000 residents, called the innovation center of eastern Europe – are expanding, and real estate firms are campaigning for approval to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Aside from a limited section housing locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, the forest is not officially protected, but the guide believes that the organization he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will help to change that, encouraging the authorities to acknowledge the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Spooky Experiences

While branches and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their shoes, Marius describes some of the traditional stories and reported supernatural events here.

• A well-known account recounts a young child going missing during a family outing, only to rematerialise half a decade later with no memory of the events, showing no signs of aging a day, her clothes without the smallest trace of soil.
• More common reports detail cellphones and imaging devices unexpectedly failing on stepping into the forest.
• Feelings range from absolute fear to moments of euphoria.
• Some people claim seeing bizarre skin irritations on their arms, perceiving disembodied whispers through the woodland, or feel fingers clutching them, despite being convinced they're by themselves.

Scientific Investigations

While many of the accounts may be unverifiable, numerous elements clearly observable that is certainly unusual. All around are trees whose stems are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to clarify the misshapen plants: powerful storms could have altered the growth, or inherently elevated electromagnetic fields in the ground cause their unusual development.

But research studies have turned up inconclusive results.

The Legendary Opening

The guide's tours enable visitors to participate in a modest investigation of their own. Upon reaching the clearing in the forest where Barnea photographed his renowned UFO photographs, he hands the visitor an ghost-hunting device which detects EMF readings.

"We're entering the most active part of the forest," he states. "See what you can find."

The vegetation immediately cease as the group enters into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the short grass beneath their shoes; it's apparent that it's not maintained, and looks that this strange clearing is wild, not the work of landscaping.

Between Reality and Imagination

The broader region is a place which stirs the imagination, where the border is unclear between reality and legend. In rural Romanian communities superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, shapeshifting bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to terrorise regional populations.

The novelist's well-known vampire Count Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – an ancient structure perched on a cliff edge in the mountain range – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite myth-shrouded Transylvania – truly, "the land past the woods" – appears tangible and comprehensible versus the haunted grove, which appear to be, for factors nuclear, environmental or purely mythical, a hub for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide comments, "the division between fact and fiction is extremely fine."