Delving into this Planet's Most Ghostly Woodland: Gnarled Trees, Flying Saucers and Spooky Stories in Transylvania.

"They call this place an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, his exhalation forming puffs of mist in the cold dusk atmosphere. "Countless visitors have disappeared here, it's thought it's a portal to another dimension." Marius is escorting a guest on a night walk through frequently labeled as the planet's most ghostly woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient local woods on the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Stories of unusual events here go back hundreds of years – the grove is named after a regional herder who is said to have vanished in the long ago, together with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu gained worldwide fame in 1968, when a defense worker called Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a flying saucer floating above a round opening in the middle of the forest.

Many came in here and never came out. But don't worry," he adds, addressing his guest with a grin. "Our guided walks have a flawless completion rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has brought in yoga practitioners, shamans, ufologists and ghost hunters from around the globe, eager to feel the unusual forces believed to resonate through the forest.

Current Risks

Although it is among the planet's leading destinations for paranormal enthusiasts, this woodland is under threat. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of over 400,000 residents, called the innovation center of eastern Europe – are expanding, and construction companies are campaigning for authorization to cut down the woods to construct residential buildings.

Barring a limited section home to locally rare oak varieties, this woodland is not officially protected, but the guide believes that the organization he co-founded – a local conservation effort – will assist in altering this, encouraging the authorities to recognise the forest's significance as a travel hotspot.

Eerie Encounters

When small sticks and seasonal debris split and rustle beneath their boots, the guide recounts numerous traditional stories and alleged ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account recounts a little girl vanishing during a family picnic, later to rematerialise five years later with complete amnesia of her experience, showing no signs of aging a single day, her clothes lacking the slightest speck of soil.
• Regular stories detail mobile phones and photography gear mysteriously turning off on stepping into the forest.
• Reactions range from absolute fear to moments of euphoria.
• Certain individuals claim observing bizarre skin irritations on their arms, hearing ghostly voices through the forest, or sense fingers clutching them, although convinced they're by themselves.

Research Efforts

Although numerous of the accounts may be hard to prove, there is much clearly observable that is definitely bizarre. All around are plants whose bases are bent and twisted into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been suggested to clarify the misshapen plants: that hurricane winds could have bent the saplings, or typically increased radioactivity in the earth account for their unusual development.

But scientific investigations have discovered inconclusive results.

The Notorious Meadow

The guide's excursions allow participants to take part in a little scientific inquiry of their own. As we approach the clearing in the trees where Barnea captured his well-known UFO pictures, he gives the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which registers energy patterns.

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

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as they step into a perfect circle. The only greenery is the trimmed turf beneath our feet; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and appears that this bizarre meadow is wild, not the work of people.

The Blurred Line

This part of Romania is a place which fuels fantasy, where the line is indistinct between fact and folklore. In countryside villages superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, appearance-altering bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to frighten local communities.

Bram Stoker's renowned vampire Count Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith perched on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is actively advertised as "Dracula's Castle".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the land past the woods" – appears real and understandable in contrast to the haunted grove, which seem to be, for factors radioactive, environmental or entirely legendary, a nexus for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," Marius says, "the division between fact and fiction is extremely fine."