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"They call this place a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," remarks a tour guide, his breath creating wisps of mist in the chilly night air. "So many people have vanished here, some say there's a gateway to a different realm." The guide is escorting a traveler on a night walk through commonly known as the planet's most ghostly forest: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval indigenous forest on the outskirts of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Reports of unusual events here extend back a long time – the grove is named after a local shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, together with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu achieved global recognition in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a flying saucer floating above a round opening in the heart of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and never came out. But no need to fear," he states, facing his guest with a grin. "Our excursions have a 100% return rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yoga practitioners, shamans, ufologists and paranormal investigators from around the globe, eager to feel the mysterious powers reported to reverberate through the forest.

Modern Threats

It may be among the planet's leading pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, the grove is at risk. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of more than 400,000 people, called the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are expanding, and developers are pushing for permission to cut down the woods to construct residential buildings.

Except for a limited section containing locally rare oak varieties, the forest is lacking legal protection, but the guide is confident that the company he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, encouraging the local administrators to recognise the forest's importance as a travel hotspot.

Chilling Events

While branches and fall foliage snap and crunch beneath their boots, the guide tells some of the traditional stories and reported supernatural events here.

• One famous story tells of a young child vanishing during a family picnic, then to return half a decade later with no recollection of the events, having not aged a single day, her clothes without the slightest speck of dirt.
• Regular stories explain cellphones and imaging devices unexpectedly failing on entering the woods.
• Reactions include complete terror to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals report seeing strange rashes on their bodies, perceiving unseen murmurs through the forest, or experience fingers clutching them, even when convinced they're by themselves.

Research Efforts

Despite several of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, there are many things clearly observable that is definitely bizarre. Everywhere you look are plants whose bases are warped and gnarled into bizarre configurations.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to explain the deformed trees: strong gales could have altered the growth, or inherently elevated electromagnetic fields in the ground account for their crooked growth.

But formal examinations have found inconclusive results.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's excursions permit guests to engage in a modest investigation of their own. When nearing the clearing in the forest where Barnea took his renowned UFO pictures, he hands his guest an ghost-hunting device which registers energy patterns.

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

The vegetation abruptly end as the group enters into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the low vegetation beneath the ground; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this unusual opening is natural, not the result of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a area which stirs the imagination, where the border is blurred between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, appearance-altering vampires, who return from burial sites to frighten regional populations.

Bram Stoker's well-known fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a medieval building perched on a rocky outcrop in the Transylvanian Alps – is heavily promoted as "the count's residence".

But even legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the land past the woods" – appears solid and predictable in contrast to these eerie woods, which seem to be, for causes radioactive, climatic or simply folkloric, a hub for creative energy.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide states, "the division between fact and fiction is remarkably blurred."