🔗 Share this article

"People refer to this location a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," states an experienced guide, the air from his lungs creating puffs of mist in the chilly evening air. "Countless visitors have gone missing here, many believe it's a portal to a parallel world." The guide is guiding a traveler on a night walk through commonly known as the world's most haunted woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of primeval native woodland on the fringes of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Reports of unusual events here extend back hundreds of years – the forest is called after a area shepherd who is said to have vanished in the far-off times, along with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu came to global recognition in 1968, when an army specialist known as Emil Barnea captured on film what he claimed was a UFO suspended above a round opening in the middle of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and failed to return. But don't worry," he continues, turning to the visitor with a smirk. "Our excursions have a flawless completion rate."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yogis, spiritual healers, extraterrestrial investigators and supernatural researchers from across the world, eager to feel the strange energies believed to resonate through the forest.

Current Risks

It may be a top global pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, the forest is at risk. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of a population exceeding 400,000, known as the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and construction companies are pushing for approval to remove the forest to erect housing complexes.

Except for a small area containing regionally uncommon oak varieties, the forest is without conservation status, but the guide believes that the initiative he co-founded – a local conservation effort – will assist in altering this, encouraging the authorities to appreciate the forest's importance as a travel hotspot.

Chilling Events

As twigs and seasonal debris snap and crunch beneath their boots, Marius tells numerous local legends and claimed paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account tells of a little girl going missing during a group gathering, then to rematerialise after five years with complete amnesia of what had happened, without aging a single day, her clothes lacking the smallest trace of dirt.
• Frequent accounts describe mobile phones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on entering the woods.
• Reactions vary from complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals claim seeing strange rashes on their arms, perceiving ghostly voices through the trees, or experience palms pushing them, although convinced they're by themselves.

Scientific Investigations

While many of the tales may be hard to prove, there is much visibly present that is certainly unusual. Throughout the area are vegetation whose trunks are bent and twisted into unusual forms.

Multiple explanations have been proposed to clarify the abnormal growth: powerful storms could have altered the growth, or typically increased electromagnetic fields in the soil explain their unusual development.

But scientific investigations have turned up insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's excursions enable visitors to take part in a modest investigation of their own. Upon reaching the meadow in the woods where Barnea captured his famous UFO images, he gives his guest an EMF meter which measures EMF readings.

"We're entering the most energetic area of the forest," he says. "Discover what's here."

The vegetation immediately cease as they step into a complete ring. The single plant life is the low vegetation beneath their shoes; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and seems that this strange clearing is natural, not the creation of landscaping.

The Blurred Line

The broader region is a location which stirs the imagination, where the division is unclear between reality and legend. In traditional settlements superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, form-changing bloodsuckers, who emerge from tombs to terrorise regional populations.

The famous author's famous vampire Count Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – an ancient structure situated on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is heavily promoted as "the vampire's home".

But despite legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the land past the woods" – seems solid and predictable compared to this spooky forest, which seem to be, for factors related to radiation, atmospheric or simply folkloric, a center for fantasy projection.

"Within this forest," Marius comments, "the boundary between truth and fantasy is remarkably blurred."