🔗 Share this article

"They call this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," remarks an experienced guide, the air from his lungs creating wisps of mist in the chilly night air. "So many individuals have vanished here, it's thought there's a gateway to another dimension." The guide is leading a visitor on a night walk through frequently labeled as the world's most haunted grove: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of primeval indigenous forest on the edges of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here date back centuries – the grove is called after a local shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the far-off times, accompanied by 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu came to international attention in 1968, when a defense worker known as Emil Barnea captured on film what he described as a unidentified flying object floating above a oval meadow in the middle of the forest.

Many came in here and never came out. But don't worry," he states, addressing the visitor with a smile. "Our tours have a flawless completion rate."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yoga practitioners, traditional medicine people, extraterrestrial investigators and paranormal investigators from across the world, curious to experience the mysterious powers said to echo through the forest.

Current Risks

Despite being a top global destinations for lovers of the paranormal, the grove is under threat. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of a population exceeding 400,000, described as the tech capital of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and real estate firms are advocating for approval to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Barring a limited section home to locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is without conservation status, but Marius is confident that the company he was instrumental in creating – a local conservation effort – will assist in altering this, motivating the government officials to acknowledge the forest's importance as a tourist attraction.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and autumn leaves split and rustle beneath their boots, the guide recounts numerous folk tales and claimed ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account describes a little girl going missing during a family picnic, then to reappear half a decade later with no recollection of the events, without aging a moment, her clothes lacking the smallest trace of dirt.
• More common reports detail smartphones and photography gear unexpectedly failing on stepping into the forest.
• Feelings include full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Certain individuals claim noticing strange rashes on their bodies, perceiving ghostly voices through the trees, or experience hands grabbing them, despite being convinced they're by themselves.

Scientific Investigations

While many of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, there are many things before my eyes that is certainly unusual. Everywhere you look are trees whose stems are bent and twisted into fantastical shapes.

Different theories have been given to explain the abnormal growth: that hurricane winds could have altered the growth, or naturally high radiation levels in the earth cause their unusual development.

But research studies have found insufficient proof.

The Notorious Meadow

The expert's tours enable visitors to participate in a small-scale research of their own. Upon reaching the clearing in the woods where Barnea took his well-known UFO photographs, he passes his guest an EMF meter which measures electromagnetic fields.

"We're entering the most energetic part of the forest," he says. "Try to detect something."

The trees suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a perfect circle. The sole vegetation is the short grass beneath our feet; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and appears that this unusual opening is wild, not the result of people.

Between Reality and Imagination

Transylvania generally is a location which inspires creativity, where the border is blurred between reality and legend. In rural Romanian communities superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering creatures, who return from burial sites to terrorise regional populations.

The novelist's well-known vampire Count Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a medieval building situated on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is keenly marketed as "the count's residence".

But despite legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the territory after the grove" – appears solid and predictable compared to the haunted grove, which appear to be, for factors radioactive, atmospheric or purely mythical, a center for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide comments, "the division between reality and imagination is extremely fine."