Venturing into the World's Most Haunted Forest: Contorted Trees, Flying Saucers and Spooky Stories in Transylvania.

"Locals dub this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states an experienced guide, his breath forming puffs of mist in the chilly evening air. "Countless people have vanished here, some say there's a gateway to a parallel world." The guide is escorting a traveler on a nocturnal tour through commonly known as the globe's spookiest woodland: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval local woods on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Reports of strange happenings here go back a long time – this woodland is titled for a local shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the long ago, together with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu achieved worldwide fame in 1968, when an army specialist known as Emil Barnea photographed what he reported as a unidentified flying object suspended above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and never came out. But rest assured," he states, facing the traveler with a smile. "Our tours have a 100% return rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yogis, spiritual healers, ufologists and paranormal investigators from across the world, eager to feel the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Despite being one of the world's premier destinations for lovers of the paranormal, this woodland is facing danger. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of over 400,000 residents, called the innovation center of the region – are encroaching, and construction companies are advocating for approval to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Except for a few hectares containing regionally uncommon oak varieties, the forest is without conservation status, but the guide believes that the organization he was instrumental in creating – a dedicated preservation group – will help to change that, motivating the local administrators to appreciate the forest's value as a travel hotspot.

Chilling Events

As twigs and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their footwear, the guide describes numerous local legends and claimed paranormal happenings here.

• One famous story describes a little girl disappearing during a family picnic, then to return five years later with complete amnesia of what had happened, without aging a day, her clothes without the slightest speck of soil.
• More common reports detail smartphones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on entering the woods.
• Reactions vary from absolute fear to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals state seeing bizarre skin irritations on their skin, perceiving disembodied whispers through the trees, or feel hands grabbing them, despite being convinced they're by themselves.

Scientific Investigations

Despite several of the tales may be hard to prove, there are many things clearly observable that is undeniably strange. Throughout the area are trees whose bases are curved and contorted into fantastical shapes.

Multiple explanations have been given to explain the deformed trees: strong gales could have bent the saplings, or inherently elevated radiation levels in the earth cause their crooked growth.

But research studies have turned up no satisfactory evidence.

The Notorious Meadow

The expert's walks enable participants to engage in a modest investigation of their own. When nearing the clearing in the forest where Barnea took his renowned UFO photographs, he passes the visitor an ghost-hunting device which detects electromagnetic fields.

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

The plants abruptly end as the group enters into a complete ring. The single plant life is the short grass beneath their shoes; it's obvious that it hasn't been mown, and appears that this bizarre meadow is organic, not the result of landscaping.

Fact Versus Fiction

This part of Romania is a place which stirs the imagination, where the border is unclear between fact and folklore. In rural Romanian communities superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, appearance-altering vampires, who return from burial sites to haunt nearby villages.

Bram Stoker's famous fictional vampire is always connected with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a medieval building perched on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But including myth-shrouded Transylvania – actually, "the land past the woods" – feels tangible and comprehensible compared to this spooky forest, which seem to be, for reasons related to radiation, atmospheric or purely mythical, a hub for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," the guide says, "the division between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."