🔗 Share this article

"People refer to this spot the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states a tour guide, his exhalation creating clouds of mist in the chilly evening air. "Countless individuals have disappeared here, it's thought there's a gateway to another dimension." This expert is escorting a guest on a evening stroll through what is often described as the planet's most ghostly grove: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient local woods on the edges of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Reports of strange happenings here go back a long time – the grove is titled for a area shepherd who is said to have vanished in the far-off times, along with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu achieved global recognition in 1968, when a defense worker known as Emil Barnea captured on film what he claimed was a UFO suspended above a circular clearing in the centre of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But no need to fear," he adds, addressing the visitor with a smile. "Our guided walks have a perfect safety record."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, shamans, extraterrestrial investigators and supernatural researchers from across the world, interested in encountering the unusual forces reported to reverberate through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

It may be one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, the grove is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of over 400,000 residents, described as the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe – are expanding, and real estate firms are pushing for authorization to clear the trees to build apartment blocks.

Aside from a limited section home to area-specific oak varieties, the forest is not officially protected, but the guide believes that the initiative he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, motivating the local administrators to acknowledge the forest's importance as a travel hotspot.

Chilling Events

While branches and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their footwear, the guide recounts some of the traditional stories and claimed ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account describes a young child going missing during a family picnic, later to reappear after five years with complete amnesia of her experience, having not aged a moment, her attire lacking the slightest speck of dirt.
• Regular stories detail cellphones and camera equipment inexplicably shutting down on stepping into the forest.
• Feelings range from absolute fear to states of ecstasy.
• Certain individuals report noticing strange rashes on their bodies, detecting ghostly voices through the forest, or experience hands grabbing them, although convinced they're by themselves.

Research Efforts

Although numerous of the tales may be hard to prove, there is much before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Everywhere you look are plants whose bases are warped and gnarled into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been suggested to clarify the deformed trees: strong gales could have altered the growth, or typically increased electromagnetic fields in the soil explain their unusual development.

But scientific investigations have discovered inconclusive results.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's walks permit visitors to take part in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the clearing in the woods where Barnea captured his renowned UFO images, he passes the traveler an EMF meter which measures energy patterns.

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

The trees suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a perfect circle. The only greenery is the short grass beneath their shoes; it's clear that it's naturally occurring, and appears that this bizarre meadow is natural, not the work of landscaping.

Fact Versus Fiction

This part of Romania is a place which inspires creativity, where the border is indistinct between truth and myth. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, form-changing creatures, who emerge from tombs to frighten regional populations.

The novelist's well-known vampire Count Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a Saxon monolith perched on a cliff edge in the Transylvanian Alps – is keenly marketed as "Dracula's Castle".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – literally, "the land past the woods" – seems solid and predictable in contrast to this spooky forest, which appear to be, for causes radioactive, climatic or entirely legendary, a center for creative energy.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide says, "the boundary between truth and fantasy is very thin."