🔗 Share this article

"They call this location the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states a tour guide, his exhalation producing puffs of mist in the cold dusk atmosphere. "Countless people have disappeared here, many believe it's an entrance to another dimension." Marius is guiding a traveler on a nocturnal tour through what is often described as the planet's most ghostly grove: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient indigenous forest on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Stories of unusual events here extend back hundreds of years – the forest is called after a regional herder who is believed to have disappeared in the distant past, together with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu achieved worldwide fame in 1968, when an army specialist named Emil Barnea photographed what he reported as a flying saucer floating above a oval meadow in the heart of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But don't worry," he adds, turning to the visitor with a smile. "Our excursions have a perfect safety record."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yogis, traditional medicine people, UFO researchers and paranormal investigators from worldwide, interested in encountering the strange energies reported to reverberate through the forest.

Modern Threats

It may be among the planet's leading pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, the forest is facing danger. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of a population exceeding 400,000, described as the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe – are advancing, and real estate firms are campaigning for authorization to cut down the woods to erect housing complexes.

Except for a limited section containing locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, the forest is not officially protected, but the guide believes that the company he was instrumental in creating – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, encouraging the government officials to acknowledge the forest's importance as a visitor destination.

Chilling Events

As twigs and fall foliage break and crackle beneath their boots, Marius tells some of the traditional stories and claimed ghostly incidents here.

• A popular tale recounts a little girl disappearing during a group gathering, later to rematerialise after five years with no memory of her experience, without aging a day, her attire shy of the tiniest bit of dirt.
• Frequent accounts explain cellphones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on entering the woods.
• Feelings include full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Various visitors state seeing unusual marks on their arms, perceiving ghostly voices through the woodland, or sense fingers clutching them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Scientific Investigations

Despite several of the tales may be impossible to confirm, there is much visibly present that is certainly unusual. Everywhere you look are trees whose stems are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Various suggestions have been proposed to account for the misshapen plants: that hurricane winds could have altered the growth, or typically increased electromagnetic fields in the soil explain their unusual development.

But formal examinations have found inconclusive results.

The Legendary Opening

The guide's tours allow visitors to engage in a small-scale research of their own. Upon reaching the meadow in the trees where Barnea captured his renowned UFO photographs, he hands his guest an ghost-hunting device which detects electromagnetic fields.

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

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as the group enters into a complete ring. The single plant life is the short grass beneath our feet; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and seems that this strange clearing is wild, not the creation of landscaping.

Between Reality and Imagination

The broader region is a location which inspires creativity, where the division is blurred between fact and folklore. In traditional settlements superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, form-changing bloodsuckers, who rise from their graves to frighten local communities.

The novelist's well-known vampire Count Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith located on a rocky outcrop in the mountain range – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But including folklore-rich Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – feels solid and predictable versus these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for factors related to radiation, climatic or simply folkloric, a hub for human imaginative power.

"Inside these woods," the guide comments, "the line between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."