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"People refer to this location the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states a tour guide, the air from his lungs creating puffs of condensation in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "Countless people have vanished here, many believe it's a portal to a parallel world." This expert is leading a traveler on a evening stroll through frequently labeled as the planet's most ghostly forest: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of old-growth indigenous forest on the fringes of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Stories of unusual events here extend back hundreds of years – the grove is named after a regional herder who is said to have vanished in the far-off times, along with 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu came to global recognition in 1968, when a military technician known as Emil Barnea took a picture of what he described as a flying saucer floating above a round opening in the middle of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But no need to fear," he continues, turning to the visitor with a smirk. "Our tours have a flawless completion rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has brought in meditation experts, traditional medicine people, ufologists and supernatural researchers from across the world, eager to feel the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

It may be a top global hotspots for supernatural fans, the grove is facing danger. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of more than 400,000 people, known as the innovation center of eastern Europe – are expanding, and construction companies are campaigning for approval to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Barring a limited section housing locally rare oak varieties, the forest is without conservation status, but the guide hopes that the organization he helped establish – a dedicated preservation group – will assist in altering this, encouraging the government officials to recognise the forest's importance as a tourist attraction.

Spooky Experiences

While branches and seasonal debris split and rustle beneath their boots, Marius describes various folk tales and alleged paranormal happenings here.

• A popular tale describes a young child vanishing during a group gathering, later to reappear half a decade later with complete amnesia of what had happened, showing no signs of aging a day, her clothes shy of the slightest speck of dust.
• Frequent accounts detail smartphones and camera equipment inexplicably shutting down on venturing inside.
• Reactions include absolute fear to feelings of joy.
• Some people report seeing strange rashes on their skin, hearing ghostly voices through the woodland, or feel palms pushing them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Scientific Investigations

While many of the tales may be unverifiable, there is much before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Throughout the area are plants whose trunks are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Various suggestions have been proposed to account for the deformed trees: that hurricane winds could have altered the growth, or naturally high electromagnetic fields in the ground account for their unusual development.

But scientific investigations have found no satisfactory evidence.

The Notorious Meadow

The guide's walks enable participants to engage in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the clearing in the trees where Barnea took his famous UFO photographs, he gives the traveler an electromagnetic field detector which measures energy patterns.

"We're stepping into the most powerful part of the forest," he comments. "Try to detect something."

The trees suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the short grass beneath their shoes; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and appears that this strange clearing is natural, not the work of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

This part of Romania is a place which fuels fantasy, where the division is unclear between reality and legend. In traditional settlements belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, shapeshifting vampires, who return from burial sites to haunt local communities.

The famous author's well-known fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a medieval building located on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is keenly marketed as "the count's residence".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the land past the woods" – seems tangible and comprehensible versus these eerie woods, which seem to be, for reasons radioactive, environmental or purely mythical, a hub for human imaginative power.

"Inside these woods," Marius says, "the boundary between fact and fiction is very thin."