Exploring this World's Most Haunted Woodland: Contorted Trees, UFOs and Spooky Stories in Romania's Legendary Region.

"People refer to this spot the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, his exhalation forming wisps of vapor in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "Numerous visitors have gone missing here, many believe it's an entrance to a parallel world." This expert is leading a guest on a night walk through frequently labeled as the globe's spookiest woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient indigenous forest on the outskirts of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Stories of strange happenings here date back hundreds of years – the forest is called after a regional herder who is said to have vanished in the distant past, accompanied by 200 of his sheep. But Hoia-Baciu achieved international attention in 1968, when a defense worker named Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a unidentified flying object floating above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Numerous entered this place and never came out. But don't worry," he adds, addressing the visitor with a grin. "Our excursions have a 100% return rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yogis, traditional medicine people, UFO researchers and ghost hunters from around the globe, interested in encountering the mysterious powers believed to resonate through the forest.

Current Risks

Although it is among the planet's leading pilgrimage sites for paranormal enthusiasts, this woodland is at risk. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of more than 400,000 people, known as the innovation center of Eastern Europe – are expanding, and developers are pushing for approval to remove the forest to build apartment blocks.

Except for a small area containing locally rare specific tree species, the forest is without conservation status, but the guide believes that the initiative he co-founded – a dedicated preservation group – will help to change that, persuading the government officials to acknowledge the forest's significance as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

As twigs and seasonal debris break and crackle beneath their footwear, the guide describes some of the local legends and claimed supernatural events here.

• One famous story tells of a young child vanishing during a group gathering, then to reappear after five years with complete amnesia of what had happened, without aging a single day, her attire shy of the slightest speck of dirt.
• Regular stories describe smartphones and imaging devices unexpectedly failing on venturing inside.
• Feelings vary from complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals claim seeing unusual marks on their skin, hearing ghostly voices through the trees, or experience hands grabbing them, although convinced they're by themselves.

Study Attempts

While many of the stories may be unverifiable, there is much before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Everywhere you look are vegetation whose bases are curved and contorted into unusual forms.

Multiple explanations have been proposed to account for the abnormal growth: strong gales could have shaped the young trees, or typically increased radioactivity in the ground account for their unusual development.

But formal examinations have found no satisfactory evidence.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's tours permit visitors to participate in a little scientific inquiry of their own. As we approach the meadow in the forest where Barnea took his well-known UFO pictures, he hands his guest an EMF meter which detects energy patterns.

"We're venturing into the most powerful section of the forest," he comments. "See what you can find."

The trees immediately cease as they step into a perfect circle. The only greenery is the trimmed turf beneath their shoes; it's clear that it hasn't been mown, and seems that this bizarre meadow is organic, not the work of people.

Fact Versus Fiction

The broader region is a area which fuels fantasy, where the line is unclear between reality and legend. In traditional settlements superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering vampires, who return from burial sites to frighten regional populations.

Bram Stoker's renowned character Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a Saxon monolith perched on a cliff edge in the mountain range – is keenly marketed as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite myth-shrouded Transylvania – actually, "the land past the woods" – feels real and understandable versus these eerie woods, which seem to be, for causes related to radiation, environmental or purely mythical, a nexus for fantasy projection.

"Inside these woods," Marius says, "the division between truth and fantasy is very thin."