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"They call this location a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," states a tour guide, his exhalation creating puffs of condensation in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "So many people have disappeared here, it's thought it's a portal to a parallel world." The guide is leading a visitor on a nocturnal tour through commonly known as the globe's spookiest forest: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of primeval native woodland on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here go back a long time – the grove is named after a regional herder who is reportedly went missing in the distant past, accompanied by his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu gained global recognition in 1968, when a military technician called Emil Barnea took a picture of what he claimed was a flying saucer suspended above a circular clearing in the centre of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and vanished without trace. But rest assured," he continues, addressing the visitor with a smirk. "Our excursions have a flawless completion rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yoga practitioners, traditional medicine people, UFO researchers and paranormal investigators from around the globe, interested in encountering the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Current Risks

Despite being one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, this woodland is at risk. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of a population exceeding 400,000, called the tech capital of Eastern Europe – are expanding, and construction companies are advocating for permission to remove the forest to erect housing complexes.

Except for a small area home to locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is without conservation status, but Marius hopes that the initiative he helped establish – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, persuading the local administrators to appreciate the forest's significance as a travel hotspot.

Spooky Experiences

While branches and autumn leaves break and crackle beneath their footwear, the guide recounts various traditional stories and reported paranormal happenings here.

• A well-known account recounts a young child going missing during a group gathering, then to rematerialise five years later with no recollection of what had happened, having not aged a single day, her garments lacking the smallest trace of dust.
• Frequent accounts explain smartphones and imaging devices unexpectedly failing on venturing inside.
• Feelings include full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Various visitors claim seeing bizarre skin irritations on their skin, perceiving ghostly voices through the trees, or sense hands grabbing them, even when sure they are alone.

Study Attempts

Although numerous of the stories may be hard to prove, there is much before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. All around are trees whose stems are bent and twisted into fantastical shapes.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to account for the deformed trees: strong gales could have shaped the young trees, or typically increased radioactivity in the soil explain their strange formation.

But formal examinations have found insufficient proof.

The Notorious Meadow

The expert's tours permit guests to engage in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the clearing in the woods where Barnea photographed his famous UFO photographs, he gives the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which detects EMF readings.

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

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the low vegetation beneath the ground; it's clear that it's not maintained, and looks that this unusual opening is organic, not the creation of people.

Between Reality and Imagination

Transylvania generally is a place which fuels fantasy, where the division is unclear between reality and legend. In traditional settlements faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, shapeshifting bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to haunt nearby villages.

The famous author's famous vampire Count Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a Saxon monolith perched on a stone formation in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But even legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the territory after the grove" – appears real and understandable compared to this spooky forest, which give the impression of being, for factors related to radiation, environmental or entirely legendary, a center for fantasy projection.

"Within this forest," the guide comments, "the boundary between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."