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"They call this spot an enigmatic zone of Transylvania," remarks a local guide, his exhalation producing clouds of mist in the cold night air. "Countless people have disappeared here, it's thought it's an entrance to a parallel world." The guide is escorting a visitor on a night walk through commonly known as the planet's most ghostly woodland: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval indigenous forest on the edges of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca.

Centuries of Mystery

Accounts of bizarre occurrences here extend back hundreds of years – this woodland is named after a area shepherd who is believed to have disappeared in the far-off times, together with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu gained international attention in 1968, when a military technician named Emil Barnea captured on film what he described as a unidentified flying object suspended above a round opening in the centre of the forest.

Many came in here and failed to return. But rest assured," he states, facing the traveler with a smile. "Our tours have a 100% return rate."

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

Modern Threats

It may be a top global destinations for supernatural fans, the grove is at risk. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – an innovative digital cluster of a population exceeding 400,000, known as the Silicon Valley of eastern Europe – are encroaching, and construction companies are pushing for permission to cut down the woods to erect housing complexes.

Aside from a few hectares home to area-specific oak varieties, the grove is without conservation status, but the guide believes that the company he co-founded – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will assist in altering this, motivating the authorities to recognise the forest's value as a visitor destination.

Chilling Events

While branches and fall foliage snap and crunch beneath their footwear, Marius recounts various traditional stories and reported ghostly incidents here.

• A popular tale describes a little girl going missing during a family outing, only to reappear half a decade later with complete amnesia of what had happened, having not aged a day, her garments without the slightest speck of dust.
• Frequent accounts explain mobile phones and photography gear inexplicably shutting down on stepping into the forest.
• Feelings include full-blown dread to feelings of joy.
• Certain individuals claim observing strange rashes on their skin, hearing unseen murmurs through the forest, or experience hands grabbing them, although sure they are alone.

Scientific Investigations

Although numerous of the accounts may be unverifiable, there are many things before my eyes that is definitely bizarre. Everywhere you look are vegetation whose bases are curved and contorted into fantastical shapes.

Various suggestions have been proposed to explain the misshapen plants: powerful storms could have shaped the young trees, or inherently elevated radioactivity in the ground account for their unusual development.

But scientific investigations have turned up insufficient proof.

The Famous Clearing

Marius's walks enable visitors to participate in a little scientific inquiry of their own. When nearing the clearing in the woods where Barnea captured his renowned UFO pictures, he hands the visitor an EMF meter which measures electromagnetic fields.

"We're venturing into the most powerful area of the forest," he states. "Try to detect something."

The vegetation immediately cease as we emerge into a complete ring. The only greenery is the trimmed turf beneath their shoes; it's apparent that it hasn't been mown, and seems that this unusual opening is natural, not the work of landscaping.

Between Reality and Imagination

Transylvania generally is a place which inspires creativity, where the division is blurred between reality and legend. In countryside villages faith continues in strigoi ("screamers") – supernatural, appearance-altering creatures, who emerge from tombs to terrorise nearby villages.

The novelist's renowned vampire Count Dracula is permanently linked with Transylvania, and the legendary fortress – a Saxon monolith perched on a stone formation in the Transylvanian Alps – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite myth-shrouded Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – appears real and understandable compared to the haunted grove, which seem to be, for causes related to radiation, environmental or purely mythical, a hub for human imaginative power.

"Within this forest," Marius says, "the line between reality and imagination is very thin."