Exploring the World's Most Haunted Woodland: Gnarled Trees, Unidentified Flying Objects and Spooky Stories in Romania's Legendary Region.

"They call this spot the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states a local guide, the air from his lungs forming clouds of mist in the cold evening air. "So many people have gone missing here, some say it's a portal to another dimension." Marius is escorting a guest on a evening stroll through commonly known as the planet's most ghostly forest: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of old-growth local woods on the fringes of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Accounts of strange happenings here date back a long time – this woodland is titled for a area shepherd who is said to have vanished in the far-off times, accompanied by two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu came to international attention in 1968, when an army specialist named Emil Barnea photographed what he reported as a unidentified flying object floating above a circular clearing in the middle of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and never came out. But no need to fear," he states, addressing his guest with a grin. "Our guided walks have a perfect safety record."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yogis, traditional medicine people, extraterrestrial investigators and paranormal investigators from around the globe, curious to experience the mysterious powers reported to reverberate through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Although it is one of the world's premier destinations for lovers of the paranormal, the forest is facing danger. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of over 400,000 residents, called the innovation center of the region – are expanding, and real estate firms are campaigning for approval to cut down the woods to erect housing complexes.

Barring a limited section housing regionally uncommon oak varieties, the forest is without conservation status, but Marius believes that the initiative he was instrumental in creating – a local conservation effort – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the local administrators to recognise the forest's significance as a tourist attraction.

Eerie Encounters

When small sticks and seasonal debris break and crackle beneath their footwear, Marius recounts various traditional stories and reported ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account tells of a little girl going missing during a group gathering, later to return after five years with no memory of her experience, without aging a day, her clothes lacking the smallest trace of dust.
• Regular stories describe smartphones and photography gear unexpectedly failing on entering the woods.
• Emotional responses range from full-blown dread to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals state seeing bizarre skin irritations on their skin, detecting disembodied whispers through the forest, or sense fingers clutching them, despite being certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

Despite several of the stories may be hard to prove, there are many things visibly present that is certainly unusual. All around are vegetation whose stems are warped and gnarled into fantastical shapes.

Multiple explanations have been given to clarify the misshapen plants: strong gales could have altered the growth, or typically increased radioactivity in the ground account for their crooked growth.

But scientific investigations have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Legendary Opening

The guide's walks permit guests to take part in a little scientific inquiry of their own. When nearing the clearing in the trees where Barnea photographed his well-known UFO photographs, he hands the traveler an EMF meter which registers electromagnetic fields.

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

The trees suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the low vegetation beneath the ground; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and appears that this bizarre meadow is wild, not the result of people.

The Blurred Line

The broader region is a place which fuels fantasy, where the line is blurred between fact and folklore. In countryside villages belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, shapeshifting bloodsuckers, who emerge from tombs to terrorise nearby villages.

Bram Stoker's renowned fictional vampire is forever associated with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – an ancient structure perched on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite folklore-rich Transylvania – actually, "the land past the woods" – seems real and understandable compared to this spooky forest, which give the impression of being, for causes related to radiation, atmospheric or entirely legendary, a center for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," the guide comments, "the line between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."