Exploring the Globe's Spookiest Grove: Twisted Trees, UFOs and Eerie Tales in Romania's Legendary Region.

"People refer to this place an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," remarks a local guide, the air from his lungs forming puffs of mist in the chilly night air. "Numerous people have gone missing here, many believe there's a gateway to a different realm." The guide is escorting a traveler on a night walk through what is often described as the globe's spookiest forest: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of primeval local woods on the fringes of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Stories of unusual events here extend back centuries – the grove is titled for a regional herder who is believed to have disappeared in the long ago, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu came to worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea took a picture of what he reported as a flying saucer suspended above a round opening in the middle of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and never came out. But don't worry," he states, turning to his guest with a smile. "Our guided walks have a perfect safety record."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yoga practitioners, traditional medicine people, ufologists and paranormal investigators from across the world, eager to feel the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Modern Threats

Although it is one of the world's premier destinations for lovers of the paranormal, the forest is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of over 400,000 residents, known as the innovation center of the region – are advancing, and real estate firms are advocating for authorization to cut down the woods to construct residential buildings.

Barring a small area home to locally rare specific tree species, the forest is without conservation status, but Marius is confident that the company he helped establish – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, encouraging the authorities to appreciate the forest's value as a travel hotspot.

Chilling Events

As twigs and fall foliage snap and crunch beneath their shoes, the guide recounts various folk tales and alleged ghostly incidents here.

• A popular tale recounts a young child disappearing during a family picnic, then to reappear after five years with no recollection of what had happened, showing no signs of aging a moment, her clothes without the tiniest bit of dirt.
• More common reports detail mobile phones and photography gear unexpectedly failing on venturing inside.
• Feelings vary from absolute fear to states of ecstasy.
• Various visitors report observing strange rashes on their arms, detecting ghostly voices through the trees, or experience palms pushing them, although certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

While many of the tales may be unverifiable, there are many things before my eyes that is certainly unusual. Throughout the area are trees whose stems are bent and twisted into unusual forms.

Various suggestions have been given to clarify the deformed trees: strong gales could have altered the growth, or inherently elevated electromagnetic fields in the earth explain their strange formation.

But scientific investigations have discovered no satisfactory evidence.

The Legendary Opening

The expert's walks permit visitors to participate in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the clearing in the trees where Barnea photographed his famous UFO images, he passes his guest an EMF meter which measures energy patterns.

"We're venturing into the most powerful part of the forest," he says. "See what you can find."

The vegetation immediately cease as they step into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the trimmed turf beneath the ground; it's obvious that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this unusual opening is natural, not the creation of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a place which inspires creativity, where the line is indistinct between fact and folklore. In countryside villages belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, shapeshifting bloodsuckers, who rise from their graves to haunt regional populations.

The novelist's famous fictional vampire is forever associated with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith perched on a cliff edge in the Transylvanian Alps – is actively advertised as "the vampire's home".

But including folklore-rich Transylvania – literally, "the land past the woods" – feels tangible and comprehensible compared to the haunted grove, which appear to be, for reasons related to radiation, climatic or simply folkloric, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"In Hoia-Baciu," Marius says, "the division between truth and fantasy is extremely fine."