🔗 Share this article

"Locals dub this spot the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, the air from his lungs creating wisps of mist in the cold evening air. "Numerous individuals have gone missing here, some say it's a portal to a different realm." This expert is leading a traveler on a night walk through commonly known as the globe's spookiest forest: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of primeval native woodland on the edges of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Stories of bizarre occurrences here go back hundreds of years – the forest is titled for a area shepherd who is said to have vanished in the distant past, together with 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu achieved worldwide fame in 1968, when an army specialist called Emil Barnea captured on film what he claimed was a flying saucer hovering above a oval meadow in the heart of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and failed to return. But no need to fear," he adds, turning to the traveler with a smirk. "Our excursions have a 100% return rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yoga practitioners, spiritual healers, ufologists and supernatural researchers from across the world, interested in encountering the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Modern Threats

Although it is one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, this woodland is facing danger. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of over 400,000 residents, called the innovation center of Eastern Europe – are encroaching, and real estate firms are pushing for permission to cut down the woods to construct residential buildings.

Aside from a small area housing regionally uncommon Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but the guide hopes that the company he was instrumental in creating – a local conservation effort – will assist in altering this, persuading the local administrators to acknowledge the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Spooky Experiences

As twigs and seasonal debris split and rustle beneath their shoes, Marius recounts various folk tales and reported supernatural events here.

• A well-known account recounts a five-year-old girl vanishing during a family outing, then to return after five years with no memory of what had happened, without aging a single day, her clothes without the tiniest bit of dust.
• More common reports describe cellphones and camera equipment mysteriously turning off on entering the woods.
• Feelings range from absolute fear to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals report observing bizarre skin irritations on their arms, detecting unseen murmurs through the trees, or feel hands grabbing them, even when sure they are alone.

Study Attempts

Although numerous of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, there is much before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. All around are plants whose stems are warped and gnarled into unusual forms.

Various suggestions have been suggested to account for the deformed trees: that hurricane winds could have shaped the young trees, or inherently elevated radiation levels in the earth explain their crooked growth.

But formal examinations have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's excursions permit visitors to engage in a little scientific inquiry of their own. As we approach the opening in the forest where Barnea captured his well-known UFO images, he passes the visitor an EMF meter which registers energy patterns.

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

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as they step into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the low vegetation beneath our feet; it's clear that it's naturally occurring, and seems that this unusual opening is wild, not the work of human hands.

Fact Versus Fiction

The broader region is a location which inspires creativity, where the division is indistinct between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, appearance-altering bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to haunt regional populations.

The famous author's renowned character Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – an ancient structure perched on a stone formation in the Carpathian Mountains – is actively advertised as "the count's residence".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the place beyond the forest" – appears tangible and comprehensible versus this spooky forest, which seem to be, for reasons nuclear, climatic or purely mythical, a center for human imaginative power.

"In Hoia-Baciu," Marius comments, "the division between fact and fiction is extremely fine."