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"Locals dub this location an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," states a local guide, the air from his lungs producing clouds of vapor in the chilly night air. "So many people have disappeared here, many believe it's a portal to a different realm." This expert is escorting a traveler on a nocturnal tour through what is often described as the globe's spookiest forest: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of primeval local woods on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of strange happenings here go back a long time – this woodland is titled for a regional herder who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, accompanied by 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu achieved international attention in 1968, when a military technician called Emil Barnea captured on film what he claimed was a UFO hovering above a round opening in the heart of the forest.

Many came in here and never came out. But don't worry," he continues, facing the traveler with a smirk. "Our guided walks have a flawless completion rate."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yogis, traditional medicine people, ufologists and paranormal investigators from around the globe, interested in encountering the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Current Risks

It may be a top global hotspots for lovers of the paranormal, this woodland is facing danger. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, described as the innovation center of Eastern Europe – are encroaching, and construction companies are advocating for approval to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Aside from a few hectares housing locally rare oak varieties, the forest is not officially protected, but Marius hopes that the company he helped establish – a local conservation effort – will contribute to improving the situation, encouraging the government officials to appreciate the forest's importance as a travel hotspot.

Chilling Events

As twigs and autumn leaves break and crackle beneath their shoes, the guide tells various traditional stories and reported supernatural events here.

• A well-known account describes a five-year-old girl disappearing during a family outing, only to rematerialise five years later with no recollection of her experience, having not aged a day, her clothes without the tiniest bit of soil.
• Frequent accounts explain smartphones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on venturing inside.
• Feelings vary from full-blown dread to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals claim observing bizarre skin irritations on their arms, detecting ghostly voices through the woodland, or sense hands grabbing them, despite being certain nobody is nearby.

Research Efforts

Despite several of the tales may be unverifiable, numerous elements before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Everywhere you look are vegetation whose trunks are bent and twisted into unusual forms.

Different theories have been suggested to clarify the deformed trees: strong gales could have bent the saplings, or typically increased radiation levels in the soil cause their unusual development.

But research studies have discovered insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

The guide's tours enable visitors to engage in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the opening in the trees where Barnea captured his famous UFO photographs, he passes the visitor an EMF meter which detects energy patterns.

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

The vegetation immediately cease as the group enters into a flawless round. The single plant life is the short grass beneath the ground; it's apparent that it's not maintained, and seems that this unusual opening is wild, not the creation of human hands.

Between Reality and Imagination

The broader region is a area which stirs the imagination, where the border is blurred between reality and legend. In countryside villages faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, appearance-altering bloodsuckers, who emerge from tombs to terrorise nearby villages.

The novelist's famous vampire Count Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – an ancient structure located on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But even folklore-rich Transylvania – truly, "the land past the woods" – feels real and understandable versus these eerie woods, which give the impression of being, for factors radioactive, environmental or purely mythical, a nexus for creative energy.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide says, "the division between fact and fiction is very thin."