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"Locals dub this location an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," states a local guide, his exhalation forming puffs of vapor in the cold evening air. "Numerous individuals have vanished here, some say there's a gateway to another dimension." The guide is guiding a visitor on a night walk through commonly known as the planet's most ghostly grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of ancient indigenous forest on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Reports of bizarre occurrences here extend back hundreds of years – the grove is called after a regional herder who is said to have vanished in the far-off times, accompanied by his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu gained worldwide fame in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea photographed what he described as a UFO suspended above a round opening in the heart of the forest.

Many came in here and never came out. But don't worry," he adds, addressing the visitor with a smirk. "Our tours have a perfect safety record."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has drawn meditation experts, shamans, UFO researchers and ghost hunters from around the globe, curious to experience the strange energies said to echo through the forest.

Contemporary Dangers

Although it is one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for supernatural fans, the grove is under threat. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a modern tech hub of over 400,000 residents, called the innovation center of the region – are encroaching, and real estate firms are pushing for permission to remove the forest to construct residential buildings.

Except for a few hectares containing locally rare oak varieties, the forest is without conservation status, but Marius is confident that the company he co-founded – a dedicated preservation group – will contribute to improving the situation, persuading the government officials to appreciate the forest's value as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and fall foliage split and rustle beneath their footwear, the guide recounts some of the folk tales and claimed paranormal happenings here.

• A popular tale describes a little girl going missing during a family picnic, later to reappear half a decade later with no recollection of the events, having not aged a single day, her attire shy of the slightest speck of dirt.
• Regular stories describe mobile phones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on entering the woods.
• Reactions range from full-blown dread to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals claim seeing bizarre skin irritations on their bodies, perceiving disembodied whispers through the woodland, or feel fingers clutching them, despite being certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

Although numerous of the accounts may be hard to prove, there is much visibly present that is certainly unusual. Everywhere you look are vegetation whose stems are warped and gnarled into unusual forms.

Various suggestions have been proposed to explain the abnormal growth: that hurricane winds could have shaped the young trees, or inherently elevated electromagnetic fields in the ground account for their strange formation.

But research studies have discovered inconclusive results.

The Notorious Meadow

The expert's walks permit participants to participate in a small-scale research of their own. Upon reaching the meadow in the forest where Barnea captured his famous UFO pictures, he hands the visitor an EMF meter which registers energy patterns.

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

The vegetation suddenly stop dead as the group enters into a flawless round. The single plant life is the short grass beneath the ground; it's clear that it's not maintained, and appears that this unusual opening is natural, not the result of landscaping.

Fact Versus Fiction

This part of Romania is a area which fuels fantasy, where the line is unclear between fact and folklore. In countryside villages faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, form-changing bloodsuckers, who rise from their graves to terrorise local communities.

The novelist's well-known character Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the historic stronghold – an ancient structure situated on a cliff edge in the Carpathian Mountains – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite myth-shrouded Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – seems solid and predictable versus the haunted grove, which appear to be, for reasons radioactive, climatic or purely mythical, a hub for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," Marius states, "the line between fact and fiction is remarkably blurred."