🔗 Share this article Venturing into this Globe's Spookiest Grove: Twisted Trees, Unidentified Flying Objects and Spooky Stories in Transylvania. "They call this spot an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," remarks an experienced guide, his exhalation producing wisps of condensation in the cold evening air. "Numerous people have disappeared here, many believe it's an entrance to a parallel world." This expert is escorting a guest on a night walk through what is often described as the planet's most ghostly grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of ancient native woodland on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca. Centuries of Mystery Accounts of bizarre occurrences here go back a long time – the grove is called after a local shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the long ago, accompanied by 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu achieved international attention in 1968, when an army specialist known as Emil Barnea captured on film what he reported as a unidentified flying object hovering above a circular clearing in the centre of the forest. Countless ventured inside and never came out. But rest assured," he states, facing the visitor with a smile. "Our guided walks have a flawless completion rate." In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yoga practitioners, shamans, extraterrestrial investigators and paranormal investigators from across the world, curious to experience the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest. Contemporary Dangers It may be one of the world's premier destinations for lovers of the paranormal, the forest is facing danger. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, described as the innovation center of Eastern Europe – are expanding, and developers are campaigning for authorization to clear the trees to erect housing complexes. Except for a small area housing locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but the guide believes that the initiative he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, persuading the government officials to appreciate the forest's significance as a visitor destination. Spooky Experiences While branches and fall foliage snap and crunch beneath their footwear, the guide recounts numerous traditional stories and claimed paranormal happenings here. A well-known account describes a young child going missing during a group gathering, only to reappear after five years with no memory of the events, without aging a single day, her garments without the tiniest bit of dust. More common reports detail smartphones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on stepping into the forest. Reactions range from absolute fear to states of ecstasy. Various visitors claim noticing strange rashes on their arms, hearing unseen murmurs through the trees, or experience fingers clutching them, although certain nobody is nearby. Scientific Investigations While many of the accounts may be impossible to confirm, there are many things before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. All around are vegetation whose trunks are warped and gnarled into unusual forms. Different theories have been proposed to clarify the abnormal growth: that hurricane winds could have shaped the young trees, or typically increased radiation levels in the soil cause their unusual development. But formal examinations have found no satisfactory evidence. The Notorious Meadow Marius's tours enable guests to engage in a modest investigation of their own. When nearing the meadow in the forest where Barnea captured his well-known UFO images, he gives the traveler an ghost-hunting device which registers electromagnetic fields. "We're venturing into the most powerful section of the forest," he states. "See what you can find." The trees immediately cease as the group enters into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the low vegetation beneath the ground; it's obvious that it hasn't been mown, and looks that this bizarre meadow is wild, not the work of landscaping. Fact Versus Fiction The broader region is a place which stirs the imagination, where the line is blurred between reality and legend. In rural Romanian communities superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, form-changing vampires, who emerge from tombs to haunt local communities. The novelist's renowned fictional vampire is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a Saxon monolith located on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle". But including legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the land past the woods" – feels real and understandable in contrast to the haunted grove, which give the impression of being, for reasons related to radiation, atmospheric or purely mythical, a center for human imaginative power. "Within this forest," the guide comments, "the division between truth and fantasy is remarkably blurred."