Delving into this Globe's Spookiest Woodland: Twisted Trees, UFOs and Eerie Tales in Transylvania.

"They call this location the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania," states a tour guide, his exhalation producing clouds of condensation in the crisp dusk atmosphere. "Numerous visitors have vanished here, it's thought there's a gateway to a parallel world." The guide is guiding a guest on a nocturnal tour through what is often described as the planet's most ghostly grove: Hoia-Baciu, an area covering one square mile of primeval indigenous forest on the outskirts of the metropolis of Cluj-Napoca.

Hundreds of Years of Enigma

Reports of strange happenings here date back centuries – the grove is named after a regional herder who is reportedly went missing in the long ago, along with two hundred animals. But Hoia-Baciu achieved worldwide fame in 1968, when an army specialist named Emil Barnea took a picture of what he reported as a flying saucer suspended above a circular clearing in the heart of the forest.

Countless ventured inside and vanished without trace. But don't worry," he continues, turning to the traveler with a smile. "Our excursions have a 100% return rate."

In the years that followed, Hoia-Baciu has drawn yoga practitioners, traditional medicine people, UFO researchers and ghost hunters from around the globe, curious to experience the mysterious powers believed to resonate through the forest.

Modern Threats

It may be one of the world's premier destinations for lovers of the paranormal, this woodland is facing danger. The western districts of Cluj-Napoca – a contemporary technology center of more than 400,000 people, called the tech capital of the region – are expanding, and developers are pushing for authorization to cut down the woods to construct residential buildings.

Except for a limited section home to area-specific oak varieties, this woodland is lacking legal protection, but Marius is confident that the initiative he helped establish – the Hoia-Baciu Project – will contribute to improving the situation, persuading the government officials to appreciate the forest's significance as a visitor destination.

Eerie Encounters

While branches and autumn leaves snap and crunch beneath their shoes, the guide tells numerous local legends and claimed supernatural events here.

• One famous story tells of a little girl disappearing during a family picnic, only to rematerialise after five years with complete amnesia of her experience, without aging a moment, her attire without the tiniest bit of dirt.
• Regular stories describe mobile phones and camera equipment unexpectedly failing on venturing inside.
• Reactions vary from full-blown dread to moments of euphoria.
• Certain individuals state noticing unusual marks on their skin, detecting ghostly voices through the trees, or experience fingers clutching them, despite being sure they are alone.

Scientific Investigations

While many of the tales may be unverifiable, there is much clearly observable that is certainly unusual. All around are vegetation whose stems are curved and contorted into bizarre configurations.

Multiple explanations have been suggested to explain the abnormal growth: powerful storms could have shaped the young trees, or inherently elevated radiation levels in the soil cause their strange formation.

But formal examinations have found no satisfactory evidence.

The Notorious Meadow

The expert's tours permit participants to engage in a small-scale research of their own. When nearing the meadow in the trees where Barnea captured his well-known UFO pictures, he passes his guest an ghost-hunting device which registers EMF readings.

"We're entering the most active section of the forest," he comments. "Try to detect something."

The trees abruptly end as they step into a perfect circle. The single plant life is the trimmed turf beneath the ground; it's obvious that it's naturally occurring, and appears that this unusual opening is natural, not the result of human hands.

The Blurred Line

The broader region is a location which fuels fantasy, where the division is indistinct between reality and legend. In countryside villages belief persists in strigoi ("screamers") – otherworldly, appearance-altering vampires, who emerge from tombs to terrorise nearby villages.

The famous author's well-known vampire Count Dracula is forever associated with Transylvania, and Bran Castle – a medieval building perched on a cliff edge in the Transylvanian Alps – is heavily promoted as "Dracula's Castle".

But despite myth-shrouded Transylvania – literally, "the place beyond the forest" – appears solid and predictable versus these eerie woods, which appear to be, for causes related to radiation, environmental or simply folkloric, a hub for human imaginative power.

"In Hoia-Baciu," the guide states, "the boundary between fact and fiction is extremely fine."