Exploring this World's Most Haunted Grove: Twisted Trees, Flying Saucers and Chilling Accounts in Transylvania.

"They call this location an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," explains an experienced guide, his exhalation creating clouds of vapor in the chilly dusk atmosphere. "Numerous people have vanished here, some say it's a portal to a different realm." This expert is guiding a guest on a night walk through what is often described as the world's most haunted woodland: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of ancient native woodland on the edges of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Stories of unusual events here go back centuries – the forest is called after a area shepherd who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu achieved worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician known as Emil Barnea photographed what he reported as a unidentified flying object floating above a oval meadow in the centre of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and vanished without trace. But rest assured," he states, addressing the traveler with a smile. "Our guided walks have a perfect safety record."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has brought in yogis, shamans, ufologists and paranormal investigators from around the globe, eager to feel the mysterious powers believed to resonate through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

It may be one of the world's premier destinations for paranormal enthusiasts, this woodland is under threat. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, called the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are expanding, and construction companies are advocating for authorization to cut down the woods to erect housing complexes.

Except for a few hectares home to area-specific specific tree species, this woodland is without conservation status, but Marius is confident that the initiative he was instrumental in creating – a local conservation effort – will assist in altering this, encouraging the local administrators to recognise the forest's significance as a tourist attraction.

Chilling Events

While branches and autumn leaves break and crackle beneath their boots, Marius tells numerous traditional stories and alleged ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account tells of a five-year-old girl disappearing during a family outing, later to reappear five years later with no memory of the events, without aging a day, her clothes lacking the tiniest bit of dust.
• Regular stories detail mobile phones and camera equipment mysteriously turning off on stepping into the forest.
• Reactions vary from absolute fear to feelings of joy.
• Various visitors claim noticing unusual marks on their bodies, hearing disembodied whispers through the woodland, or sense fingers clutching them, even when certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

While many of the stories may be unverifiable, there are many things before my eyes that is undeniably strange. Throughout the area are vegetation whose trunks are curved and contorted into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been proposed to account for the deformed trees: that hurricane winds could have bent the saplings, or naturally high electromagnetic fields in the ground explain their crooked growth.

But scientific investigations have found no satisfactory evidence.

The Famous Clearing

The expert's tours permit guests to take part in a little scientific inquiry of their own. When nearing the clearing in the forest where Barnea captured his renowned UFO images, he passes the visitor an EMF meter which measures energy patterns.

"We're stepping into the most active section of the forest," he comments. "Try to detect something."

The plants immediately cease as we emerge into a complete ring. The single plant life is the trimmed turf beneath our feet; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and looks that this unusual opening is natural, not the result of landscaping.

Between Reality and Imagination

The broader region is a area which fuels fantasy, where the line is blurred between truth and myth. In rural Romanian communities belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, shapeshifting vampires, who rise from their graves to haunt nearby villages.

Bram Stoker's well-known character Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a medieval building perched on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is actively advertised as "the count's residence".

But even myth-shrouded Transylvania – actually, "the land past the woods" – appears solid and predictable versus the haunted grove, which appear to be, for causes related to radiation, atmospheric or entirely legendary, a center for fantasy projection.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide comments, "the division between fact and fiction is extremely fine."