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"People refer to this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," explains a tour guide, his breath forming clouds of mist in the cold evening air. "So many visitors have disappeared here, it's thought there's a gateway to a parallel world." The guide is leading a visitor on a evening stroll through what is often described as the world's most haunted grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval native woodland on the fringes of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

A Long History of the Unexplained

Stories of unusual events here extend back hundreds of years – the forest is called after a local shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the distant past, accompanied by his entire flock. But Hoia-Baciu achieved global recognition in 1968, when a military technician known as Emil Barnea took a picture of what he described as a flying saucer floating above a circular clearing in the centre of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and vanished without trace. But rest assured," he adds, addressing the visitor with a smile. "Our tours have a 100% return rate."

In the decades since, Hoia-Baciu has brought in yogis, shamans, extraterrestrial investigators and ghost hunters from around the globe, eager to feel the unusual forces reported to reverberate through the forest.

Modern Threats

It may be one of the world's premier pilgrimage sites for lovers of the paranormal, this woodland is at risk. The outlying areas 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 advocating for permission to clear the trees to build apartment blocks.

Aside from a limited section home to locally rare Mediterranean oak trees, this woodland is without conservation status, but the guide believes that the company he helped establish – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, persuading the local administrators to appreciate the forest's value as a tourist attraction.

Chilling Events

As twigs and seasonal debris break and crackle beneath their footwear, the guide recounts numerous folk tales and alleged supernatural events here.

• A popular tale recounts a young child vanishing during a family outing, then to reappear after five years with complete amnesia of the events, without aging a day, her garments without the slightest speck of soil.
• Regular stories detail mobile phones and photography gear mysteriously turning off on entering the woods.
• Emotional responses include absolute fear to moments of euphoria.
• Some people claim seeing strange rashes on their bodies, detecting unseen murmurs through the trees, or sense palms pushing them, although certain nobody is nearby.

Study Attempts

Although numerous of the tales may be impossible to confirm, there is much visibly present that is definitely bizarre. Throughout the area are vegetation whose stems are curved and contorted into bizarre configurations.

Different theories have been proposed to account for the deformed trees: that hurricane winds could have shaped the young trees, or inherently elevated radiation levels in the soil account for their strange formation.

But formal examinations have turned up insufficient proof.

The Legendary Opening

Marius's excursions enable guests to take part in a modest investigation of their own. As we approach the meadow in the woods where Barnea took his renowned UFO images, he gives the visitor an ghost-hunting device which measures electromagnetic fields.

"We're venturing into the most powerful area of the forest," he states. "See what you can find."

The trees suddenly stop dead as we emerge into a complete ring. The single plant life is the short grass beneath their shoes; it's obvious that it's not maintained, and looks that this unusual opening is wild, not the work of human hands.

The Blurred Line

This part of Romania is a place which fuels fantasy, where the line is blurred between truth and myth. In traditional settlements superstition remains in strigoi ("screamers") – undead, shapeshifting bloodsuckers, who return from burial sites to haunt nearby villages.

The novelist's renowned character Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – an ancient structure perched on a rocky outcrop in the mountain range – is heavily promoted as "the count's residence".

But including legend-filled Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – appears solid and predictable compared to this spooky forest, which give the impression of being, for factors related to radiation, atmospheric or entirely legendary, a hub for human imaginative power.

"Inside these woods," Marius comments, "the division between truth and fantasy is very thin."