🔗 Share this article

"They call this place a mysterious vortex of Transylvania," states a tour guide, his breath producing puffs of condensation in the chilly evening air. "Numerous individuals have vanished here, some say it's an entrance to a different realm." This expert is escorting a traveler on a night walk through frequently labeled as the world's most haunted grove: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient native woodland on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here date back a long time – the grove is named after a area shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the distant past, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu achieved international attention in 1968, when a defense worker known as Emil Barnea took a picture of what he reported as a UFO suspended above a oval meadow in the middle of the forest.

Many came in here and vanished without trace. But don't worry," he adds, facing the visitor with a smirk. "Our tours have a perfect safety record."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has brought in yoga practitioners, traditional medicine people, UFO researchers and ghost hunters from worldwide, interested in encountering the mysterious powers said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Despite being one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for lovers of the paranormal, the grove is at risk. The outlying areas of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of more than 400,000 people, called the tech capital of Eastern Europe – are encroaching, and real estate firms are campaigning for approval to clear the trees to build apartment blocks.

Aside from a limited section home to regionally uncommon specific tree species, the forest is lacking legal protection, but Marius is confident that the organization he helped establish – a dedicated preservation group – will assist in altering this, motivating the authorities to acknowledge the forest's value as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

As twigs and seasonal debris break and crackle beneath their shoes, Marius tells some of the folk tales and reported ghostly incidents here.

• One famous story describes a young child vanishing during a group gathering, then to rematerialise after five years with no memory of what had happened, without aging a moment, her attire shy of the slightest speck of soil.
• More common reports describe cellphones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on venturing inside.
• Emotional responses range from complete terror to feelings of joy.
• Various visitors claim seeing unusual marks on their skin, perceiving disembodied whispers through the trees, or sense hands grabbing them, despite being certain nobody is nearby.

Research Efforts

While many of the tales may be unverifiable, there is much visibly present that is definitely bizarre. Throughout the area are plants whose trunks are warped and gnarled into fantastical shapes.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to clarify the misshapen plants: strong gales could have shaped the young trees, or inherently elevated radiation levels in the ground cause their crooked growth.

But formal examinations have discovered inconclusive results.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's tours permit participants to engage in a little scientific inquiry of their own. Upon reaching the meadow in the trees where Barnea took his famous UFO photographs, he gives the visitor an electromagnetic field detector which registers energy patterns.

"We're venturing into the most active section of the forest," he says. "Discover what's here."

The plants immediately cease as we emerge into a flawless round. The sole vegetation is the short grass beneath their shoes; it's clear that it hasn't been mown, and appears that this unusual opening is wild, not the creation of human hands.

Fact Versus Fiction

Transylvania generally is a location which fuels fantasy, where the division is indistinct between reality and legend. In traditional settlements faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, shapeshifting creatures, who rise from their graves to frighten local communities.

Bram Stoker's well-known vampire Count Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – a medieval building situated on a rocky outcrop in the mountain range – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But including myth-shrouded Transylvania – literally, "the territory after the grove" – feels real and understandable compared to these eerie woods, which seem to be, for causes nuclear, atmospheric or simply folkloric, a center for human imaginative power.

"Inside these woods," the guide comments, "the division between fact and fiction is extremely fine."