🔗 Share this article Venturing into the World's Most Haunted Forest: Twisted Trees, UFOs and Spooky Stories in Transylvania. "They call this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states an experienced guide, his exhalation producing wisps of condensation in the cold dusk atmosphere. "So many individuals have disappeared here, some say it's a portal to a parallel world." This expert is guiding a traveler on a nocturnal tour through commonly known as the planet's most ghostly woodland: Hoia-Baciu, a section spanning 640 acres of ancient indigenous forest on the edges of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca. Centuries of Mystery Accounts of bizarre occurrences here go back a long time – the forest is named after a regional herder who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, together with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu came to worldwide fame in 1968, when an army specialist known as Emil Barnea photographed what he reported as a flying saucer suspended above a oval meadow in the centre of the forest. Numerous entered this place and never came out. But don't worry," he adds, facing the traveler with a smile. "Our guided walks have a perfect safety record." In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has attracted meditation experts, traditional medicine people, extraterrestrial investigators and supernatural researchers from around the globe, eager to feel the strange energies believed to resonate through the forest. Modern Threats It may be among the planet's leading hotspots for lovers of the paranormal, the forest is at risk. The western suburbs of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of a population exceeding 400,000, described as the Silicon Valley of the region – are encroaching, and construction companies are advocating for permission to remove the forest to erect housing complexes. Except for a limited section housing area-specific oak varieties, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but the guide believes that the initiative he was instrumental in creating – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, encouraging the local administrators to acknowledge the forest's significance as a visitor destination. Eerie Encounters As twigs and fall foliage split and rustle beneath their shoes, the guide describes numerous traditional stories and reported paranormal happenings here. A well-known account recounts a little girl vanishing during a family outing, later to rematerialise after five years with no recollection of her experience, having not aged a single day, her clothes lacking the tiniest bit of dirt. More common reports explain smartphones and camera equipment mysteriously turning off on stepping into the forest. Emotional responses include full-blown dread to moments of euphoria. Some people state observing strange rashes on their bodies, detecting disembodied whispers through the woodland, or sense palms pushing them, despite being certain nobody is nearby. Research Efforts Despite several of the stories may be hard to prove, numerous elements before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. All around are plants whose trunks are curved and contorted into bizarre configurations. Various suggestions have been proposed to explain the abnormal growth: that hurricane winds could have altered the growth, or inherently elevated electromagnetic fields in the earth account for their unusual development. But scientific investigations have turned up insufficient proof. The Notorious Meadow Marius's excursions enable participants to take part in a little scientific inquiry of their own. When nearing the meadow in the forest where Barnea captured his renowned UFO pictures, he passes his guest an EMF meter which measures electromagnetic fields. "We're stepping into the most energetic section of the forest," he comments. "See what you can find." The plants suddenly stop dead as they step into a complete ring. The sole vegetation is the trimmed turf beneath their shoes; it's clear that it's not maintained, and seems that this bizarre meadow is wild, not the result of human hands. The Blurred Line Transylvania generally is a area which stirs the imagination, where the line is unclear between fact and folklore. In traditional settlements belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, shapeshifting creatures, who return from burial sites to haunt regional populations. The famous author's well-known fictional vampire is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith located on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "the count's residence". But including legend-filled Transylvania – actually, "the place beyond the forest" – seems solid and predictable compared to this spooky forest, which give the impression of being, for causes related to radiation, climatic or entirely legendary, a nexus for human imaginative power. "Within this forest," the guide states, "the division between fact and fiction is extremely fine."