🔗 Share this article

"People refer to this spot the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," remarks a local guide, his breath producing puffs of vapor in the crisp dusk atmosphere. "So many people have disappeared here, some say there's a gateway to another dimension." Marius is guiding a guest on a evening stroll through commonly known as the world's most haunted forest: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of old-growth local woods on the outskirts of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Accounts of strange happenings here extend back hundreds of years – this woodland is called after a area shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, together with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu came to worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician called Emil Barnea took a picture of what he described as a unidentified flying object suspended above a circular clearing in the middle of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and vanished without trace. But no need to fear," he states, facing the traveler with a smirk. "Our guided walks have a 100% return rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, spiritual healers, ufologists and supernatural researchers from worldwide, curious to experience the strange energies believed to resonate through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

It may be a top global pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, the forest is at risk. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of over 400,000 residents, called the innovation center of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and construction companies are advocating for approval to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Barring a few hectares containing locally rare specific tree species, the forest is lacking legal protection, but Marius hopes that the initiative he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, persuading the authorities to recognise the forest's significance as a tourist attraction.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and fall foliage break and crackle beneath their footwear, the guide describes various local legends and claimed supernatural events here.

• One famous story recounts a little girl going missing during a group gathering, only to return five years later with complete amnesia of the events, without aging a single day, her clothes shy of the smallest trace of dust.
• More common reports describe mobile phones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on entering the woods.
• Feelings range from complete terror to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals report observing unusual marks on their skin, detecting unseen murmurs through the woodland, or sense palms pushing them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Research Efforts

Despite several of the accounts may be hard to prove, there are many things visibly present that is undeniably strange. All around are vegetation whose bases are bent and twisted into bizarre configurations.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to clarify the abnormal growth: powerful storms could have altered the growth, or naturally high electromagnetic fields in the earth cause their unusual development.

But research studies have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Notorious Meadow

Marius's walks permit guests to take part in a modest investigation of their own. As we approach the meadow in the forest where Barnea took his renowned UFO pictures, he hands his guest an ghost-hunting device which detects EMF readings.

"We're stepping into the most active section of the forest," he states. "Discover what's here."

The trees suddenly stop dead as they step into a complete ring. The single plant life is the short grass beneath the ground; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and seems that this bizarre meadow is organic, not the result of landscaping.

Fact Versus Fiction

This part of Romania is a area which inspires creativity, where the border is blurred between truth and myth. In countryside villages belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, form-changing bloodsuckers, who rise from their graves to haunt regional populations.

Bram Stoker's famous character Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith perched on a stone formation in the mountain range – is keenly marketed as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite myth-shrouded Transylvania – truly, "the land past the woods" – seems real and understandable compared to this spooky forest, which appear to be, for causes related to radiation, environmental or purely mythical, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," Marius comments, "the line between fact and fiction is extremely fine."