🔗 Share this article

"People refer to this spot an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," explains a local guide, his breath creating clouds of vapor in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "Numerous individuals have gone missing here, many believe it's an entrance to a parallel world." Marius is guiding a traveler on a evening stroll through commonly known as the planet's most ghostly woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient local woods on the fringes of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Accounts of unusual events here go back hundreds of years – the grove is named after a local shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the distant past, accompanied by 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu came to international attention in 1968, when an army specialist called Emil Barnea took a picture of what he claimed was a unidentified flying object floating above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But don't worry," he continues, turning to his guest with a smile. "Our tours have a perfect safety record."

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

Modern Threats

Despite being a top global destinations for supernatural fans, the grove is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of a population exceeding 400,000, called the innovation center of eastern Europe – are advancing, and real estate firms are pushing for authorization to remove the forest to erect housing complexes.

Aside from a few hectares housing area-specific oak varieties, this woodland is without conservation status, but Marius hopes that the organization he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the government officials to recognise the forest's significance as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

As twigs and autumn leaves break and crackle beneath their footwear, the guide tells numerous folk tales and alleged ghostly incidents here.

• One famous story recounts a young child vanishing during a family outing, then to reappear after five years with no memory of her experience, without aging a single day, her clothes shy of the smallest trace of soil.
• More common reports describe cellphones and imaging devices unexpectedly failing on stepping into the forest.
• Emotional responses range from full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Various visitors claim noticing strange rashes on their arms, detecting disembodied whispers through the forest, or experience fingers clutching them, despite being sure they are alone.

Research Efforts

Although numerous of the accounts may be hard to prove, numerous elements before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Throughout the area are trees whose stems are bent and twisted into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been proposed to account for the deformed trees: that hurricane winds could have shaped the young trees, or typically increased electromagnetic fields in the ground explain their strange formation.

But scientific investigations have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's excursions enable guests to participate in a modest investigation of their own. When nearing the meadow in the woods where Barnea captured his renowned UFO images, he gives the visitor an EMF meter which measures EMF readings.

"We're venturing into the most powerful part of the forest," he states. "Discover what's here."

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as the group enters into a flawless round. The single plant life is the trimmed turf beneath our feet; it's clear that it's not maintained, and seems that this bizarre meadow is natural, not the work of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

This part of Romania is a location which fuels fantasy, where the border is unclear between fact and folklore. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, form-changing bloodsuckers, who rise from their graves to terrorise local communities.

The novelist's well-known fictional vampire is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – an ancient structure located on a cliff edge in the mountain range – is keenly marketed as "Dracula's Castle".

But even legend-filled Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – feels real and understandable versus the haunted grove, which appear to be, for reasons radioactive, climatic or simply folkloric, a nexus for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide comments, "the line between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."