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"Locals dub this place a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," states a tour guide, his breath producing wisps of vapor in the crisp evening air. "So many visitors have vanished here, many believe it's an entrance to another dimension." This expert is leading a visitor on a night walk through commonly known as the globe's spookiest forest: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient indigenous forest on the edges of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here date back centuries – the grove is named after a local shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the far-off times, along with his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu came to worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician called Emil Barnea took a picture of what he claimed was a unidentified flying object suspended above a round opening in the middle of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But don't worry," he adds, facing the traveler with a smirk. "Our tours have a 100% return rate."

In the time after, Hoia-Baciu has attracted yoga practitioners, traditional medicine people, extraterrestrial investigators and supernatural researchers from across the world, curious to experience the strange energies reported to reverberate through the forest.

Modern Threats

It may be a top global destinations for supernatural fans, the grove is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of more than 400,000 people, described as the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe – are advancing, and developers are campaigning for permission to clear the trees to construct residential buildings.

Aside from a few hectares home to locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but Marius hopes that the initiative he was instrumental in creating – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will help to change that, persuading the government officials to appreciate the forest's importance as a travel hotspot.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and fall foliage break and crackle beneath their boots, the guide recounts numerous local legends and reported ghostly incidents here.

• A well-known account describes a little girl going missing during a family picnic, then to rematerialise five years later with no memory of the events, without aging a day, her clothes without the tiniest bit of soil.
• Regular stories detail mobile phones and imaging devices mysteriously turning off on stepping into the forest.
• Emotional responses include absolute fear to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals report seeing strange rashes on their bodies, hearing ghostly voices through the woodland, or feel palms pushing them, despite being convinced they're by themselves.

Study Attempts

While many of the tales may be hard to prove, there is much before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Throughout the area are vegetation whose trunks are curved and contorted into bizarre configurations.

Different theories have been suggested to clarify the deformed trees: powerful storms could have bent the saplings, or inherently elevated radiation levels in the earth explain their unusual development.

But research studies have found inconclusive results.

The Notorious Meadow

Marius's tours permit visitors to participate in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the opening in the trees where Barnea photographed his well-known UFO photographs, he hands the traveler an electromagnetic field detector which detects EMF readings.

"We're entering the most energetic part of the forest," he comments. "Discover what's here."

The trees suddenly stop dead as the group enters into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the trimmed turf beneath their shoes; it's clear that it's naturally occurring, and seems that this bizarre meadow is organic, not the creation of human hands.

The Blurred Line

Transylvania generally is a location which fuels fantasy, where the division is indistinct between reality and legend. In traditional settlements belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, shapeshifting creatures, who return from burial sites to terrorise local communities.

Bram Stoker's well-known vampire Count Dracula is always connected with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – an ancient structure situated on a rocky outcrop in the Carpathian Mountains – is actively advertised as "the count's residence".

But even legend-filled Transylvania – truly, "the territory after the grove" – appears solid and predictable in contrast to this spooky forest, which appear to be, for causes related to radiation, climatic or simply folkloric, a hub for human imaginative power.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide states, "the division between reality and imagination is remarkably blurred."