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"People refer to this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," remarks a tour guide, his breath producing wisps of condensation in the crisp dusk atmosphere. "Numerous people have disappeared here, many believe it's a portal to another dimension." The guide is escorting a guest on a evening stroll through what is often described as the planet's most ghostly forest: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of old-growth native woodland on the outskirts of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Accounts of unusual events here go back centuries – the grove is called after a area shepherd who is said to have vanished in the far-off times, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained global recognition in 1968, when a defense worker named Emil Barnea captured on film what he claimed was a flying saucer hovering above a oval meadow in the centre of the forest.

Many came in here and failed to return. But no need to fear," he continues, addressing the traveler with a smile. "Our guided walks have a 100% return rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, traditional medicine people, extraterrestrial investigators and paranormal investigators from around the globe, eager to feel the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Modern Threats

Despite being one of the world's premier hotspots for lovers of the paranormal, the grove is under threat. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, described as the tech capital of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and developers are campaigning for permission to clear the trees to build apartment blocks.

Aside from a few hectares home to locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, the forest is lacking legal protection, but the guide hopes that the company he helped establish – a dedicated preservation group – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the local administrators to acknowledge the forest's value as a visitor destination.

Spooky Experiences

While branches and seasonal debris snap and crunch beneath their boots, the guide tells some of the folk tales and reported ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account recounts a five-year-old girl vanishing during a family outing, later to reappear five years later with complete amnesia of what had happened, without aging a moment, her garments shy of the tiniest bit of dust.
• Regular stories detail cellphones and photography gear inexplicably shutting down on entering the woods.
• Emotional responses vary from full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Some people claim noticing unusual marks on their bodies, hearing disembodied whispers through the forest, or feel fingers clutching them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Research Efforts

While many of the tales may be impossible to confirm, numerous elements before my eyes that is certainly unusual. All around are trees whose stems are bent and twisted into bizarre configurations.

Various suggestions have been suggested to explain the misshapen plants: strong gales could have altered the growth, or naturally high radiation levels in the ground explain their crooked growth.

But formal examinations have discovered no satisfactory evidence.

The Legendary Opening

The expert's tours permit participants to take part in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the meadow in the trees where Barnea photographed his famous UFO photographs, he hands the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which detects energy patterns.

"We're venturing into the most energetic section of the forest," he comments. "See what you can find."

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as the group enters into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the low vegetation beneath the ground; it's clear that it's naturally occurring, and appears that this unusual opening is natural, not the creation of human hands.

The Blurred Line

The broader region is a location which fuels fantasy, where the division is indistinct between fact and folklore. In countryside villages faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, form-changing bloodsuckers, who emerge from tombs to terrorise nearby villages.

The novelist's well-known fictional vampire is forever associated with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith located on a stone formation in the mountain range – is actively advertised as "the vampire's home".

But even legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the territory after the grove" – feels tangible and comprehensible in contrast to this spooky forest, which seem to be, for reasons radioactive, environmental or purely mythical, a center for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide comments, "the boundary between truth and fantasy is remarkably blurred."