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"They call this place a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," remarks an experienced guide, the air from his lungs creating puffs of vapor in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "Countless individuals have disappeared here, it's thought there's a gateway to a different realm." Marius is guiding a visitor on a evening stroll through what is often described as the globe's spookiest forest: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of old-growth native woodland on the edges of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Reports of unusual events here date back hundreds of years – the forest is named after a regional herder who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, accompanied by his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu gained international attention in 1968, when a defense worker called Emil Barnea took a picture of what he described as a flying saucer suspended above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and failed to return. But rest assured," he states, turning to his guest with a smile. "Our guided walks have a flawless completion rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yoga practitioners, shamans, ufologists and ghost hunters from across the world, curious to experience the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Current Risks

Although it is one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, the forest is under threat. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of a population exceeding 400,000, called the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe – are expanding, and real estate firms are pushing for authorization to remove the forest to erect housing complexes.

Except for a few hectares home to area-specific Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but the guide believes that the company he was instrumental in creating – a local conservation effort – will help to change that, encouraging the government officials to recognise the forest's importance as a tourist attraction.

Eerie Encounters

When small sticks and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their footwear, Marius recounts some of the local legends and alleged supernatural events here.

• A well-known account recounts a young child going missing during a family picnic, only to return after five years with complete amnesia of the events, without aging a day, her garments without the smallest trace of soil.
• Regular stories describe mobile phones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on venturing inside.
• Emotional responses vary from complete terror to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals claim observing strange rashes on their arms, perceiving ghostly voices through the forest, or experience palms pushing them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

Despite several of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, numerous elements before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Everywhere you look are vegetation whose bases are bent and twisted into unusual forms.

Various suggestions have been proposed to clarify the abnormal growth: strong gales could have bent the saplings, or typically increased radiation levels in the soil explain their crooked growth.

But scientific investigations have found insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

The guide's excursions enable guests to engage in a small-scale research of their own. As we approach the opening in the trees where Barnea captured his renowned UFO photographs, he gives the traveler an electromagnetic field detector which detects electromagnetic fields.

"We're venturing into the most active area of the forest," he states. "Try to detect something."

The plants abruptly end as we emerge into a flawless round. The single plant life is the low vegetation beneath their shoes; it's clear that it's not maintained, and appears that this unusual opening is natural, not the creation of people.

Between Reality and Imagination

The broader region is a location which fuels fantasy, where the division is indistinct between reality and legend. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering bloodsuckers, who emerge from tombs to terrorise local communities.

The famous author's well-known character Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a medieval building located on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "the count's residence".

But including folklore-rich Transylvania – actually, "the territory after the grove" – feels tangible and comprehensible compared to these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for causes radioactive, atmospheric or simply folkloric, a center for creative energy.

"Inside these woods," Marius says, "the line between fact and fiction is remarkably blurred."